From: weberwu@inf.fu-berlin.de (Debora Weber-Wulff)
Subject: Re: Wahlen in Norddeutschland
Reply-To: dww@inf.fu-berlin.de
Organization: Free University of Berlin
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1992 18:19:37 GMT

poser@vxcrna.cern.ch (Till Poser   ZEUS Offline) writes:

>In article <XQ21GGI@math.fu-berlin.de>, weberwu@inf.fu-berlin.de
>(Debora Weber-Wulff) writes in soc.culture.german: 
>|>The election results. They are not a pretty sight.

>No quibble here. I'd like to intersperse a couple of reality checks
>here, however.

No problem, except they are not all reality checks but just
your opinion, to which you are of course entitled. 

>Reality check No. 1:
>Your usage of quotes and choice of words might lead people to suppose
>that the elections were "fixed". This is neither fair nor true, and You
>can be quite sure that the Greens will be the first do demand and get a
>recount of votes.
The "computer error" turned out to be a rounding error. The Greens will
not only need to demand a recount, but all invalid votes will need to be
checked as well. How do you know that the exections aren't in any way
fixed? This was the first election to not use envelopes for sealing the
ballots (to save money and trees, a noble cause). I'm not accusing
anyone of ballot stuffing, but it was made rather easy this time.

The Greens also have themselves to blame. Not only their campaign, but
they hired a "professional" advertising group to do the placards.
The placards were rather boring, and they put the ones for
Oldenburg in Holstein up in Oldenburg in Oldenburg! I bet the
Oldenburgers in Oldenburg were puzzled by that!

>Reality check No. 2
>Albeit it is quite an alarming symptom,[30s all over again]
> there are some facts which do
>argue against Your highly alarmist view:
>1) The voters seem, for now, not to be wedded to the extremist parties
>   they voted for. It was clearly a tactical protest vote to spite or to
>   goad the big parties they used to vote for.
No, I don't think so. I think there has always existed an extreme-right
wing potential in Germany, but it just wasn't 'salon-faehig', only
the extreme extremists dared air their views in public. In Germany ther
is now the feeling that it is okay to say you voted for the Reps.

>2) The concerned parties are antagonistic to each other. Frey has been
>   around for a long time, and so has Schoenhuber. Both have come and
>   gone and returned again, but there is little coherent development in
>   their parties. For now.
But does it matter if they have development? When Frey holds his speeches
the masses come to listen enthralled. What a party! No demands on your
time to do political work, just put an x in the box and Frey will do
the work for you. I've forgotten who said that the DVU is not a party,
it's a reader's club (for readers of the National Zeitung, that can be 
purchased at every kiosk in Schleswig Holstein - the Newspaper
Grossist in S-H apparently won't deliver any newspapers unless the NZ is
taken as well - and at many kiosks around the country.

[rats, I just erased your exact words by mistake. Sorry. You
were saying that the parties reacted immediately]

But taday there's nothing in the paper about it, after all it's been
3 whole days. There's just a little note that the DVU will
have the job of President of the parliament (Alterspraesidentin)
by age: Karin Voss (DVU) is 69 years old.

*** News update *** On the news tonight, both parties said that
they will surely look for solutions, but first they're going on
(fasting) holidays for Easter.
Typical wait-and-see attitude.

>   interesting and gratifying to notice during this election that
>   _noone_ ever contested the notion that the erstwhile much maligned
>   Greens belonged to the democratic spectrum.
Yes, isn't that funny?

>4) The concerned parties are highly unstable with a very thin verneer of
>   qualified personell, politically. If isolated, and the problems which
>   agitated the voters acted upon in some way, they will have no
>   platform. Yet.
Didn't people say that about the Greens 10-15 years ago? 

>If one attempts a factual analysis, this election was a vote for a
>solution of the highly hysterically treated asylum problem and the fears
>about the reunification business. It was definitely not a show of
>feistiness, but a demonstration of a highly worried component of the
>population, who are sick and tired of being wordmouthed at.
It's that, but it's more. Many people are out of work (just like
the 30s), they have a lot of problems that they don't want to admit
is their own doing and are looking for a scapegoat (just like the
30s). In Hoyerswerda they saw the government bend and move the  
asylumseekers out. This is not a passing fancy, and it will not
be easy to solve.

>This
>double standard is par for the course for all types of racists and
>racisms all over the world, not only for the Germans.
Does that make it right, then?

>|>And still, I keep my foreigner's passport. I would like to be a
>|>German so that I could vote, but at the moment I want nothing much to
>|>do with this folk.

>Reality check No. 4

>While I certainly am less than an avid and enthusiastic German, I feel
>somewhat included in the last phrase. While I can understand Your
>feelings, it is somewhat early to dismiss all Germans as incurable
>mindless fascists. 
But I didn't say that! There is a difference between the German volk
and individual Germans. I live and work with Germans, but I am in
the ivory tower of academia. There are only a few extreme rightists
here, but out in the "real" world there are many. And if I thought
they were incurable, I wouldn't waste my breath!

Sorry about the length of thish
-- 
Debora Weber-Wulff                       dww@inf.fu-berlin.de
Institut fuer Informatik                 +49 30 89691 124
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