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this post was submitted on 04 Mar 2024
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chapotraphouse
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Minor correction that is not meant to excuse the islamophobic racism, imperial chauvinism and antisemitic equation of Israel and Jewishness that completely dominates German politics now: The reactionary CDU is the leading party in Berlin and governs the city in a coalition with the SPD class traitors. That the SPD is the leading party and the CDU is the opposition applies on the federal level, which is irrelevant to public schools that are always ran by the state government.
At this point in time, what would you say are the material differences between the CDU and the SPD?
The CDU is less hesitant and more gung-ho in its imperialism, although i'm very sure the CIA made sure to curb any ambitions in the SPD to repeat Schröder's no to the Iraq War. The SPD may also favor slightly different sectors of the bourgeoisie in their politics, they're still closely tied to many unions, are traditionally a party of class collaboration and will therefore support the interests of industries that have a high degree of organization among its workers (coal and steel are the prime examples). The CDU also asks for much higher bribes, and is much less actively hated by corporate media when it is in power.
These differences are very minor, though, both parties are neoliberal, reactionary and routinely mistaken to be "middle of the road" by the boomer demographic that forms the core of their electorate. Basically, the SPD is who you vote for when you're deeply in denial about being an ultra fucking racist labor aristocrat and the CDU is who you vote for when you're a temporarily inconvenienced millionaire who has done Hitler salutes "ironically" in the past.
banger line
Thanks, i'm also quite happy with how true it turned out to be.
One would think SPD might have torpedoed its relationships with industrial unions over its shenanigans w russia (gas/markets for cars), but apparently not. (also weren't greens involved with no to iraq and subsequent "my opa was defending freedoms"-ification?)
SPD was traditionally more cooperative towards Russia, they were the ones who signed the deal to biuld Nordstream2. Germany's national bourgeoisie had very clear material incentives to be less hostile towards Russia than the US, and the SPD was a main driver of a cheap gas policy that formed the backbone for that. This is obviously no longer allowed by the US as of now. And yes, the Greens were in coalition with the SPD during the Iraq war and both parties opposed that war - although both also participated in bombing Kosovo and invading Afghanistan. Iraq was a very one-off thing that was probably motivated by the upcoming election back then, nobody in Germany believed in the WMD thing back then, it was widely called out as a hoax in the German press etc.
The Greens used to be deeply rooted in pacifist, nuclear disarm movements during the 1980s when they formed. These were huge in Germany (maybe unsurprising for a Cold War frontline state that had started and lost two world wars). As soon as they came into power on the federal level, the party leadership pivoted to being a warmongering imperialist party that was part of the first German government to send combat troops abroad since 1945. Western Germany was obviously deeply entrenched in the NATO structures ever since its foundation, but mostly as a staging ground, logistics hub, donor etc., citing the country's fascist and militarist past as the reason to not engage in wars with boots on the ground. It was the "red-green" coalition with the Greens under Joshka Fischer and the SPD under Gerhardt Schröder that changed that, at first under massive protest from the party base especially among the Greens. The anti-war crowd is now completely neutralized, today's Greens are by far the most imperialist party in Germany and are the loudest Slava Ukraini stans in the current federal government consisting of the SPD, the Greens and the libertarian FDP. You can imagine the Green stance among the lines of an aggressive V*ushite radlib homonationalism.
I was more interested in the who unions support, my understanding was industrial unions were kinda softish mainly spd/cdu voters. Despite afd rise, i don't think they've lost the unions, and that makes me wonder what will make the unions go "fuck all of this"
Your understanding is mostly correct for a lot of the industrial unions. There are some attempts by the AfD to get reactionaries into Betriebsrat positions (basically labor representatives in a businesses' management, idk the English term), but they are usually pushed back and unions in Germany tend to have a fairly solid anti-fascist positioning. There are union members who are understandably disillusioned with the SPD, but there are little electoralist alternatives with the Left party currently being busy with a patsoc faction finally splitting off after years and years of infighting, pointless struggle sessions etc. It's kinda dire, honestly. Germany just doesn't have a strong left opposition atm.