Portside

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 ...

New Year's Fireworks: While the statistics prove that the immigrants, their labor, their taxes and their children are actually a boon to the economy, those on the right only increase their ranting about the “continuing misuse of European travel freedom for poverty migration”, helped by all those in the media who stoke fears of “free loaders and criminals”.

And yet by now most critical SPD voices, though unhappy, have been won over, partly with threats, but often due to fear of the alternatives. Attempts at a coalition of the CDU with the Greens foundered. A combination of SPD, the Greens and the LEFT party, which would have a very slim majority, is still taboo, leaving nothing but new elections, which could simply repeat the results of the September vote - or be even worse for the SPD. So, say the SPD bosses, vote Yes!