Portside

The organizers counted 250,000, a quarter of a million. Of course the police scaled that down - to 150,000. But who's counting - it was definitely the biggest since 2003 against the Iraq War. It was a protest against the "Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership", TTIP, and its equally spurned Canadian sister, CETA. Some speakers, and some signs proclaimed: Take TTIP and shove it - and Capitalism with it!

German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s welcoming response to the refugee crisis won her accolades as Europe’s most humane leader. But with few European Union countries agreeing to accept even small numbers of refugees, Merkel performed an about-face, re-imposing border controls and further exacerbating the crisis. And still neither Merkel nor any other European head of state acknowledges the refugee crisis is the result of wars started and supported by “western democracies.”

The giant NSA apparatus of the USA has been spying on its European pals for years, not only in that endlessly lightless tunnel, the “fight against terrorism,” but for plain, down-to-earth business secrets as well. And the question of drones is gaining attention in a different - if related - way. People are learning that the base of Ramstein in southwest Germany, the largest US military base on foreign soil, is the focal point for Barrack Obama’s entire drone program.

I cannot help thinking that there are far more too many very bloody, extremely wealthy criminals at large in the world, whose actions are rarely reported on, unless marital or extra-marital. Action based on a true belief in press freedom can be mercilessly punished, as it was learned by Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden - or Mumia Abu-Jamal!

The “red-red-green” coalition has taken office in Thuringia, German -- having squeezed through to victory by one single wavering vote.

Victor Grossman, an American who has lived in Berlin for more than sixty years, gives his reflections on the German Democratic Republic (GDR), responding to two recent posts by Portside.

For the very first time, the Left Party may lead a coalition -- by the narrowest of margins -- with the Social Democrats and Greens that governs a German state. But forming that coalition would require difficult compromise and reversals on the part of all the coalition partners.

In Germany heads fall - Lenin's head still needs to be kept buried, and Berlin's once-popular gay mayor bows out. Another head featured in the press belongs to a man who is certainly not gay nor a Lenin. Sadly, current references to Vladimir Putin, evoke all too sharply recollections of German language used against every Russian leader since the start of World War I a hundred years ago.

Might Thuringia, the land of Weimar and Jena and long the home of Goethe and Schiller, become the very first Left-led state in all Germany? This is a possibility; five years ago the Social Democrats rejected just such a solution - but later came to regret it.

In June Europe had to digest results of the European Parliament elections-and choke down some pretty nasty clumps. Far-right groups took alarming leads in France and Britain, came in stronger than ever in Austria, Denmark, Belgium, always building on hatred against immigrants, mostly Muslim immigrants. In Greece and Hungary outright pro-Nazi parties shot upward in votes and influence. Left-wing parties registered big gains in Portugal, Spain and Greece and in Germany ...