FIRST PART
our translation from STERN Magazin no. 42/2007, p. 52 , Oct. 1o.
Our Heart So White, Unser Herz so weiss
The CDU ( Christian Democratic Union party) has lost its politico-economic competence, now the CDU holds out its hand for the extension of the unemployment pay. A never delivered speech by Merkel???s critic Friedrich Merz reveals the unrest among the Blacks.
Heckler???s Shout from Berlin by HANS-ULRICH JOERGES
Dear Friends, I???m happy to see all of you again after such a long time, although the occasion is extremely unpleasant. Our circle is small, very small, and we are meeting under practically secret circumstances; nowadays, however, meeting under different circumstances is practically no longer possible in our party without exposing the participants to a high risk for their political career. Volker Kauder and Norbert Roettgen have requested to be excused from attending. As you know all too well, both of them have decided to serve the Lady from the East, which requires total dedication. It makes me all the much happier, though, to see that Josef Schlarmann and Michael Fuchs, the last upright members of our middle class, have shown up. I had to promise these friends, however, to remain silent about their attendance. Everybody knows what will happen to them if word goes around. (Grumbling, reluctant applause.)
Dear Friends, we have gotten right to the subject. Our CDU has no more politico-economic heads. And it has lost its competence with respect to political order. That is a dramatic process, although is has not really been noticed yet by the public. The CDU has lost its programmatic heart. This heart???s former place is now white! (Lively applause.)
I have realized this earlier than others, and have drawn the necessary conclusions. I did not want to burn myself in an hopeless fight with the Lady. The friends who stayed have surrendered, or they were subjugated. Volker Kauder and Norbert Roettgen I have mentioned already. Mattthias Wissmann has fled to the automobile industry. Roland Koch plays the Lady???s game. And whatever Guenther Oettinger did not do to himself by delivering his unfortunate speech, the Lady finished up without hesitation. Nowadays, he is no longer a person of weight. (Babble, calls: We have abandoned him!)
These days, I am being urged to take a public stand against the removal of the politico-economic core of the CDU. Once more, some are advising me to establish a new party. However, I will not become the Oscar Lafontaine of my party, although any more, I am hardly able to recognize it as such. Furthermore, I do not want to spare the cowards the moment of disgrace, when they consent to the extension of the unemployment pay out of plain populism, arm in arm with Kurt Beck???s SPD which has turned to the left.
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Calculating to A Fault
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Privatization and deregulation have virtually stopped, which economists say makes it all but certain Merkel will not reach her goal of raising Germany's long-term growth. Come the next slump in growth, "it will be back to the German disease" of underperforming and overspending, says Otto Fricke, chairman of the Bundestag's budget committee, who also says both major parties have returned to their pre-Schr?der tax-and-spend reflexes.
The most fascinating question is where Merkel herself stands on all this. Her one attempt to push through a major reform, deregulation of public health insurance, ended in squabbling and failure. Since then, she's avoided risky positions. She has declared climate change as the driving issue for the remainder of her chancellorship, an easy topic for winning approval. She talks about abstract notions of fairness and justice, and also about making Germany fit for globalization—and lets her associates battle over specifics. "The basis of her popularity is that she doesn't get involved in policy," says G?llner.
What does she really want? Some consider her an opportunist who shed her reform persona the minute it was no longer expedient for keeping her in power. Others speculate she is a brilliant tactician who, given the straitjacket imposed by her coalition, is using her new green and left-of-center politics to expand support among middle-of-the-road voters in order to crush the Social Democrats in the 2009 election. The risk of Merkel's standing still is that the next economic downturn will show how skin-deep the country's first dose of reforms has been. But then, at least, we will know where she truly stands.
© 2007
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