Christine Anderson, March 20, 2024, Democracy Promotion Act

EU Parliament, Written Question to EU Commission E-000861/2024. 

Germany is in the process of bringing in a ‘Democracy Promotion Act’ designed to establish additional tools for promoting democracy. There are considerable concerns, however, as regards the act’s constitutionality and whether or not it runs counter to the EU’s core values. The criticism centres around potential government overreach and the creation of structures that threaten to curtail the freedom and independence of civil society in breach of the principles of freedom, democracy and the rule of law enshrined in Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU). 

1. What is the Commission’s assessment of the compatibility of Germany’s Democracy Promotion Act with the EU Treaties, particularly in view of the reservations raised by the Bundestag’s parliamentary research service concerning its potential unconstitutionality and violations of the EU’s core values laid down in Article 2 TEU? 

2. Does it consider there to be a risk that the Democracy Promotion Act would quieten or silence opposition voices and critical civil society representatives? How does this square with the principles of freedom of expression and democratic pluralism enshrined in the EU Treaties? 

Beatrix von Storch, March 21, 2024, Internet Censorship

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/160, pp. 20448-20449. 

Frau President. Ladies and gentlemen. 

The DDG [Digital-Dienste-Gestez] implements the EU’s Digital Services Act: EU-wide internet censorship. The Ampel has decided that for this censorship the Federal Network Agency is responsible and coordinates it. No joke: The officials, who hitherto have regulated the transmission and competition in the gas and electricity network, are also responsible for on-line censorship, 

            Tabea Rössner (Greens): A lie! Impudent! 

instead of, for example, the Federal Justice Ministry. 

At the top stands Klaus Müller, former Green minister from Schleswig-Holstein, exactly so as his Green chief, Robert Habeck. Green clique! Yet before the law is at all in effect, Herr Müller openly threatened in January 2024 – cite: 

“When I catch anyone the second or third time…then I need to say with all distinctness: The Digital Services Act then has very sharp teeth.” 

            Britta Haßelmann (Green): That’s right!

The threat is not a fabrication. Herr Müller or the coordinating office at the Federal Network Agency can impose penalty payments against on-line platforms which do not sufficiently censure. 

            Britta Haßelmann (Green): Are you nervous on that account?

Six percent of the worldwide daily revenue, millions of U.S. dollars in penalties – without being imposed by a court. Ergo: The platforms will censor, and the Green coordinating office will therein no doubt give rise to what is to be censured. 

             Tabea Rössner (Greens): Such idiocy I’ve never heard!

For a brutal deletion practice by the platforms suffices this danger of penalties in the millions. 

Yet the coordinating office may do much more than what a judiciary or police in a state of law may do: Conduct investigations, gather evidence, hear witnesses, examine witnesses, inspect places of business without a court order, seize property up to three days without court authorization. And for support, the coordinating office is allowed to name civil law organizations for so-called trustworthy whistle-blowers [Hinweisgebern] whose indications of censorship [Zensurhinweise] are to be preferably implemented. We all know who that is. Stasi Kahane for laughing no longer sleeps. This army of leftist on-line denouncers shall cull and report disliked opinions, and the data of people of wrong opinion will then be passed on to the BKA [Federal Criminal Office]. 

            Britta Haßelmann (Green): So that you cannot thereby spread all your hatred!

This law paves the way to a digital police state. 

            Detlef Müller (SPD-Chemnitz): No smaller does it get now!

For that, the Ampel now massively arms the BKA. Money is there, but not for the fight against organized criminality, clans or terrorism, but so as to persecute expressions of opinion on the internet. The number of officials in the reporting office shall be increased more than ten times from today’s 39 to 430. And the BKA states on page 64 of the proposal, Herr colleague Mordhorst, 

            Maximilian Mordhorst (FDP): Preamble, Frau von Storch! That is not the text                        of the law! 

that the test cases [Prüffälle] will increase by more than a hundred times, from 6,000 to around 720,000. The overwhelming majority of test cases will affect blameless citizens who have been denounced by the left-green on-line Stasi. 

Who on Facebook insults Habeck’s heat pump is – Schwupp – a test case for the BKA. Hundreds of BKA officials need to occupy themselves with that. 

You use this proposal from Brussels for your ideological fight against all and anyone who is not left. The more its backing in the population dwindles, the more the Ampel employs surveillance, intimidation and repression – see the Democracy Promotion Act. 

            Renate Künst (Greens): You need to pay attention that the features do not slip!

This state has lost every measure, writes the NZZ [Neue Zürcher Zeitung]. With this coordinating  office, it creates a Green species of directed censor officials; and proudly writes, they are completely independent. That means, they are without any democratic control. This censorship monster belongs in no democracy. On that account, all democrats will today reject this attack on our free democratic basic order. 

Many thanks. 

            Irene Mihalic (Greens): What do you want then?

 

[trans: tem]

 

Gunnar Beck, March 11, 2024, Climate Excommunication

European Parliament, Strasbourg, P9 CRE-PROV(2024)03-11(1-242-0000). 

In 1633, the Inquisition excommunicated Galileo for helio-centrism – that is to say, for his renunciation of a Church dogma that the Sun circles around the Earth. Last month, ECB director Elderson threatened all co-workers with discharge who – cite – “deny the reality of solely man-made climate change, or that the climate change endangers the price stability.” 

Now, as a conservative, I rejoice over anyone who believes that earlier was much better. However, the ECB should preferably exchange its climate inquisitors for good economic historians, who know that not the climate change but the expansion of the money supply accelerates the inflation, just as Hans de Witte and Wallenstein managed it without limit in Galileo’s time. For its climate dogma and monetary policy are the greatest hocus-pocus in Europe since the geo-centric world view. 

 

[trans: tem]

 

Martin Hess, March 15, 2024, Leftist Terror and Free Opinion

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/158, pp. 20296-20297. 

Frau President. Ladies and gentlemen. 

In our country, leftist extremism has long since developed into leftist terrorism, and the Federal Interior Minister not only inactively looks on at this development, so dangerous for all our security, 

            Johannes Fechner (SPD): Such an idiocy!

no, as a result of her ideologically conditioned, utterly unavailing focus on the fight against rightists, she herself has become the fire accelerator of this development. That is unacceptable and can no longer be borne. 

            Johannes Fechner (SPD): Such an idiocy! 

That we in our country urgently require a course correction in regards the terror and extremism struggle has not for the last time been indicated by the cases of an arrested RAF terrorist and the attack of the leftist-extremist “Vulkangruppe” on the critical infrastructure in our country. 

The RAF terrorist Klette, sought by arrest warrant, was not discovered as is to be expected in a state of law by police authorities, but by journalists who simply researched in publicly accessible sources and thereby came upon the track of this serious criminal. 

            Rasha Nasr (SPD): For once is free journalism desired! For once that is good! 

This enemy of the state by no means lived underground. She has, utterly unabashed, taken part in normal social life, given tutoring and was a dance teacher. And despite this, she was not to be found by our security authorities. 

            Rasha Nasr (SPD): What is it then with your co-workers?

And the Interior Minister has the audacity in all seriousness to then ascribe this success to her own ostensibly so successful security policy. Frau Faeser, – who unfortunately is again not here – how stupid do you actually deem the citizens of our country? 

The truth is this proceeding is an evidence of incapacity for our security organs 

            Dorothee Martin (SPD): No! You are an evidence of incapacity for Germany!

and shows the entire dysfunctionality of our state in this central security area. That must finally have an end. That is also evidenced by the state actions in relation to the leftist-terrorist “Vulkangruppe” which lately in Brandenburg committed an arson attack on an electricity pylon which, as a result of a widespread electricity blackout thereby produced, caused not only hundreds of millions of euros of damages in the Tesla works there, but before all also lead to a danger to the lives and health of patients in the clinics and doctors’ offices affected by the blackout. For days, supermarkets could not be supplied. 

Yet this was not the first attack of these violent criminals. Since 2011, these terrorists commit such attacks on our critical infrastructure. The last sitting of the Interior Committee clearly and distinctly showed that to this day not a single one of these perpetrators has been identified, to say nothing then of arrested. This is a security policy scandal. More blind in the left eye a state cannot be. 

Johannes Fechner (SPD): So, now for once on the rightist-extremists in your own ranks, your delegation co-workers! Say something on that!

It is all the more serious when it needs to be acknowledged that this state in a fight against rightists opposes all that is not of the left, and thereby no longer knows any red lines. That a school director in Germany removes a 16 year old student from a class in session and, without notification of the parents, has a warning talk conducted by the police 

            Götz Frömming (AfD): Madness!

because she shared a Schlumpf video on social media, and defended the opinion that Germany for her is more than a place on a map, Germany for her is a Heimat, 

Lamya Kaddor (Greens): For you, that would be totally appropriate in regards an Islamist video! That is your double morality!

            Florian Müller (CDU/CSU): It doesn’t go for both! 

shows every convinced democrat that this fight against rightists has nothing but simply nothing to do with the defense of our democracy, but wants to bring about exactly the opposite, 

            Johannes Fechner (SPD): Such rubbish!

namely, the entire exclusion of every non-left opinion from the democratic discourse. 

            Johannes Fechner (SPD): Nonsense!

These left-green-red political commissars are thereby politically active as gravediggers of our democracy, Herr Hartmann. And that they now attack even our children [sogar an unseren Kinder vergreifen], 

            Lamya Kaddor (Greens): Please?

we may and will never let pass. 

In this country must cease that legitimate expressions of opinion are persecuted under the covering of an ostensible, constitution-relevant delegitimization of the state. 

            Sebastian Hartmann (SPD): Aha!

We require finally again a correct freedom of opinion. 

            Dorothee Martin (SPD): We have freedom of opinion! Yet it doesn’t suit you.

Our security organs need instead to finally concern themselves with factual security dangers and to that belongs primarily the so far neglected criminal leftist extremism and terrorism. This needs finally to be fought with all severity and consistency. 

And when the AfD is responsible for the government, 

            Rasha Nasr (SPD): Never!

then we will implement precisely that. 

            Rasha Nasr (SPD): Never again! 

            Johannes Fechner (SPD): Then you can stop now! That will never happen!

The security of our citizens before all forms of extremism has highest priority for us. 

            Johannes Fechner (SPD): But not in your own ranks!           

            Sebastian Hartmann (SPD): Start with yourself! 

            Rasha Nasr (SPD): Never again fascism!

And in contrast to the Interior Minister, that is no hollow phrase for us, but an obligation for active conduct. We will implement a clear zero-tolerance strategy with maximum robustness. 

            Johannes Fechner (SPD): But not for your own people!

We ban the leftist-extremist Rote Hilfe and the Antifa. We conclusively disconnect the leftist-extremist platform indymedia.org. We take care that all leftist-extremist occupied buildings in Germany be finally evacuated, 

            Rasha Nasr (SPD): And you call yourselves democrats! Impudence!

and we forbid the financing of leftist-extremists and terrorists. Thus need all enemies of the state be dealt with if one wants to create security in Germany.           

            Johannes Fechner (SPD): And your own people?

The clear message of an AfD government to all leftist-extremists and terrorists goes: The times in which you could romp nearly without limit in our society are over. 

            Johannes Fechner (SPD): Done for by acts of government!

This state strikes back immediately. We no longer let ourselves be terrorized by you. 

 

[trans: tem]

 

 

 

 

Mariana Harder-Kühnel, March 20, 2024, Gender Speech

AfD Kompakt, March 20, 2024. 

Speech as a fundamental pillar of our society needs to be free of ideological ballast. The decision against the gender speech underlines Bavaria’s acknowledgement of these values. The AfD expressly welcomes this step, since it fulfills our demand of many years for a renunciation of a kind of language spoliation. 

We nevertheless may not stop here. The ruling in Bavaria needs to serve as a model which conforms to that of other Federal States. For that, the AfD is committed to that the clarity and comprehensibility of the German language are placed above ideological experiments. We demand of the Federal government to follow the Bavarian example and, in common with the other Federal States, to issue a nationwide, State-inclusive ban of gender speech. 

The AfD stands for a policy which places at mid-point the citizen and the conservation of our cultural identity. Bavaria’s decision is a step in the right direction, yet may be only the beginning. 

 

[trans: tem]

Alice Weidel, March 20, 2024, War and Peace

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/159, pp. 20331-20332. 

Right honorable Frau President. Right honorable Herr Chancellor. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen. 

The omens under which you set out for this European Council are dark. The Ukraine war is already in a third year. Serious efforts to end the fateful bloodletting in the midst of Europe are  not in sight. Warmongering and war rhetoric determine the tone in Brussels as well as in Berlin. 

            Friedrich Merz (CDU/CSU): Not in Moscow?

Michel, the President of the European Council, demands: Europe needs to prepare itself for war and change over to a war economy. 

            Friedrich Merz (CDU/CSU): In which world do you live, actually?

The French state President Macron speaks of the mission of NATO troops in the Ukraine theater  of war, and boasts that France would be in the position for that. 

            Friedrich Merz (CDU/CSU): What you say, Putin could not say better!

In the ranks of the Union, in a remarkable historical amnesia, –  Herr Merz, because you the entire time interrupt – 

            Till Steffen (Greens): That’s in your manuscript, but he didn’t do that!

one dreams of carrying the war to Russia. The Union stands for that. In lock-step with the FDP armaments lobbyist Strack-Zimmermann forms a black-green coalition of warmongers which flatters itself with martial rhetoric – even you, Herr Chancellor; a shame that you are not here – and accuses others of defeatism. 

            Till Steffen (Greens): I believe that was a failure of translation from the Russian.

The bellicose over-bidding competition rings the more absurd against the background of the desolate state of our own armed forces. The Bundeswehr has at its disposal, as before, not one, single mission-ready army brigade. Nevertheless, the debate revolves steadfastly around new weapons deliveries and financial aid in the billions to Kiev, while the reconstruction of our own army and the recovery of capability for our own national defense is here obviously of no priority. It was right, Herr Chancellor, that you spoke against the delivery of the Taurus cruise missile to the Ukraine. 

Dorothee Bär (CDU/CSU): Yes, praise from the AfD! That is super for the SPD! Madness!

It would not be in the German security interest to strip our armed forces of an additional important weapons system. In that regard, the Bundeswehr does not even have at its disposal a sufficient number of these cruise missiles so as to fulfill its obligations vis-à-vis NATO. The delivery of this system, which as an offensive weapon may have effect far into Russia and can even reach the Kremlin, would be a quite clear participation in the war. The commitment of German soldiers for servicing would necessarily follow after it and thereby dramatically increase the potential of escalation. 

And even you, Herr Scholz, have ever again fallen down and have let yourself be forced into escalation. First should German armored howitzers bring the war’s turning point, then German defensive panzers and finally German combat panzers. None of that fulfilled the ratcheted-up expectations. Now the escalationists extol the Taurus as a game-changer or wonder weapon. Even with the Taurus, the Ukraine has not the faintest breath of a chance to achieve its war aims. The truth is needed for that. 

Even if this time you remain steadfast, the Nein to Taurus does not suffice. Germany is acting de facto as a war party. Germany participates by means of the sanctions in an economic war against Russia. Germany delivers weapons to the Ukraine. Germany gives to considerable extent financial assistance, 

            Christoph Meyer (FDP): Has the Kremlin written down all of that for you?

and Europe expropriates capital income on Russian reserve deposits – from my viewpoint, that is forbidden. 

Friedrich Merz (CDU/CSU): Russia Today speaks! Here is the latest news from Russia Today!

Instead of driving forward the escalation with warmongering and weapons deliveries, the German policy needs to call to mind its strengths. That means: It needs to venture all to step forward as a mediator and get negotiations underway. To that, we are besides also obligated by the peace precept in the German Basic Law. 

Without question is Russia’s war in the Ukraine an attack contrary to international law. 

            Friedrich Merz (CDU/CSU): Ach ja? 

            Christian Dürr (FDP): Ah!

Just so without question has the Ukraine the right to self defense. 

            Friedrich Merz (CDU/CSU): Aha!

The decision in that regard to support it does not however release us from the obligation to rational policy in the well understood interests of our own country and our own people. 

German interests are represented and defined in Berlin, not by chance in Kiev or in Washington. Even in the U.S.A. are there long since signs of an exit [Ausstieg]. To believe the Europeans could alone continue to conduct the U.S.A.’s proxy war against Russia would be folly and hubris in one. 

            Kordula Schulz-Asche (Greens): Proxy war?

The Ukraine war has long since run aground. It devours month by month billions in money and material and countless soldiers’ lives. The talk of victory and endurance from Kiev is unrealistic. This war must not be frozen in, it must be ended. 

            Katja Mast (SPD): Putin can pull out!

A Ukraine as a theater of war, de-populated and devastated for years, helplessly dependent on foreign payments and under the continual danger of the escalation to a Third World War, is neither in the German nor European interest. It can also ultimately not be in the interest of the Ukrainian nation. 

Germany’s interest is peace in Europe, the normalization of economic relations with all countries, Russia also, and the ending of the sanctions war which most harms us alone. The way there leads through negotiations. You cannot execute this charge, in that you glorify one of the war’s opponents and demonize the other. Realistic foreign policy has the duty, in the propaganda thunder of the war parties which we here everyday hear, 

            Patrick Schnieder (CDU/CSU): Just from you!

to find the contact points for a durable exchange of interests. Certainly, when the weapons speak, diplomacy is not allowed to be silent. 

            Vice-president Katrin Göring-Eckardt: Your time is expired, Frau Weidel.

Act for the best of one’s own people and the peoples of Europe. Seek the way to peace 

Vice-president Katrin Göring-Eckardt: Frau Weidel. 

so as to prevent a major European war.

 

[trans: tem]