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Her Inner Brezhnev
NRO ^ | 15 Nov 2018 | Andrew Stuttaford

Posted on 12/21/2018 7:58:45 AM PST by Rummyfan

Why Angela Merkel is like the former Soviet leader

There was a time when Angela Merkel, like many young East Germans, would don a special shirt (blue rather than brown; different dictatorship) and parade for the Party, sometimes (not everything had changed) by torchlight. On occasion, she and her Free German Youth comrades would have marched behind banners carrying the portrait of Leonid Brezhnev, the Soviet leader whose extended (1964–82) rule has more than longevity in common with her own.

No, no, Merkel is not a Communist. Nor does she order the invasion of other countries; she merely bullies them. She may have participated in the overthrow of Italy’s unruly and unacceptably euroskeptic Silvio Berlusconi, but no tanks were deployed, just “suggestions” made menacing by Italian fears of what the bond-market vigilantes might do.

Look deeper, however, and unsettling similarities come into view. That Brezhnev was no democrat is hardly a surprise. That Merkel, the bien-pensant “leader of the free world,” has repeatedly demonstrated her disdain for democratic propriety is, by contrast, disappointing. Perhaps it is a legacy of her East German upbringing, but, whatever the cause, it has poisoned both the politics of the country she leads and those of the EU, the misbegotten union that Germany dominates with a mixture of passive aggression, money, and size.

(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...


TOPICS: Germany; News/Current Events; Russia; United Kingdom
KEYWORDS: andrewstuttaford; angelamerkel; brexit; emmanuelmacron; europeanunion; fake; fakenews; france; germany; leonidbrezhnev; macron; nationalreview; nato; russia; stupidity; t; theresamay; unitedkingdom

1 posted on 12/21/2018 7:58:45 AM PST by Rummyfan
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To: Rummyfan

2 posted on 12/21/2018 8:06:20 AM PST by Liz (Our side has 8 trillion bullets; the other side doesn't know which bathroom to use.)
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To: Rummyfan
No, no, Merkel is not a Communist.

Technically, the Soviets were not Communists either. They both, however, are Socialists.

3 posted on 12/21/2018 8:07:50 AM PST by rjsimmon (The Tree of Liberty Thirsts)
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To: rjsimmon

You touch on an interesting point. Were any of the Warsaw pact countries truly communist? Were China, Cuba, North Korea, ever really communist? Or have they all been various totalitarian governments, mixed in with cults of personality to revere the likes of Fidel and chairman Mao and the Kims of North Korea?


4 posted on 12/21/2018 8:12:21 AM PST by Dilbert San Diego
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To: Rummyfan
Can't decide whether former East Germans should be lifetime-banned from elected positions or whether they, having suffered through Communism, should actually be coveted.

Maybe it depends on whether they were part of the elite under Communism or under the boot. Those who were of the elite might be deficient in hatred for collectivism and wish to continue to enjoy the benefits besides, while someone beat down by it will be the most fervent, rabid anti-communist that you could hope to find.

5 posted on 12/21/2018 8:12:46 AM PST by Still Thinking (Freedom is NOT a loophole!)
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To: Still Thinking
I believe she was born in West Germany. Her parents decided to move to East Germany.

Who in their right mind would move from the west to the east? Other than a committed socialist / communist.

6 posted on 12/21/2018 8:19:14 AM PST by Rummyfan (In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel.)
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To: Dilbert San Diego

Communism demands no central government. Marx even stated that the eventual culmination of Socialism would be the dissolution of government in favor of the collective and each collective would self-govern.

There have been no Communist countries. By definition, none could exist as a country must have a government.


7 posted on 12/21/2018 8:19:17 AM PST by rjsimmon (The Tree of Liberty Thirsts)
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To: Rummyfan

This writer is channeling Hitchens and Steyn

Interesting


8 posted on 12/21/2018 8:20:44 AM PST by wardaddy (I don’t care that you’re not a racist......when the shooting starts it won’t matter what yo)
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To: Liz

Yep, says it all.

This globalism idea, they thought they could manage ... stupid, in the real sense of the word.

Trump is right, MAGA and all will follow, rather than as jackals moving in for scraps when the Lion is dead.


9 posted on 12/21/2018 8:21:09 AM PST by Hostage (Article V (Proud Member of the Deranged Q Fringe))
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To: Rummyfan
I believe she was born in West Germany. Her parents decided to move to East Germany.

OMG, she's straight out, then. Her entire genetic line should probably be eliminated just to be safe.

10 posted on 12/21/2018 8:21:32 AM PST by Still Thinking (Freedom is NOT a loophole!)
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To: Still Thinking

Her father was a Lutheran pastor who moved east to revive Christianity. Oh, the irony!


11 posted on 12/21/2018 8:26:32 AM PST by jjotto (Next week, BOOM!, for sure!)
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To: Rummyfan

Murky Merkel, Manny Moron, and TMay - varying degrees of maniacal megalomaniacs.


12 posted on 12/21/2018 8:30:52 AM PST by PGalt
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To: Still Thinking
Can't decide whether former East Germans should be lifetime-banned from elected positions

The vast majority of former E. Germans, and their offspring that visit my little airplane museum in the Florida Keys are very nice folks, pro-America, disdain their former life, and understand what we did for them in 1948-49 with the Berlin Airlift. Even the high-school kids have studied the Airlift.

13 posted on 12/21/2018 8:46:50 AM PST by Ace's Dad
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To: Rummyfan

"Who in their right mind would move from the west to the east? "

14 posted on 12/21/2018 8:51:59 AM PST by fishtank (The denial of original sin is the root of liberalism.)
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To: rjsimmon

During the cold war, we used the term Global Socialism to describe the Soviet Union.

The term now fits the European Union leadership as a whole.

It is not surprising in any way that NRO would attempt to obscure the connection. May this neocon rag follow The Weakly Standard off into the boneyard of forgotten wastes of paper.


15 posted on 12/21/2018 8:58:32 AM PST by MrEdd (Caveat Emptor)
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To: Rummyfan

In Germany, Merkel is considered pro-American, and it may be American globalists pulling her strings. She’s a German Paul Ryan.


16 posted on 12/21/2018 9:07:37 AM PST by jjotto (Next week, BOOM!, for sure!)
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To: Rummyfan

Like moving to Mordor.


17 posted on 12/21/2018 10:17:40 AM PST by 91B40
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To: AdmSmith; AnonymousConservative; Arthur Wildfire! March; Berosus; Bockscar; cardinal4; ColdOne; ...
Merkel is not a Communist. Nor does she order the invasion of other countries; she merely bullies them. She may have participated in the overthrow of Italy’s unruly and unacceptably euroskeptic Silvio Berlusconi, but no tanks were deployed, just “suggestions” made menacing by Italian fears of what the bond-market vigilantes might do... That Merkel, the bien-pensant “leader of the free world,” has repeatedly demonstrated her disdain for democratic propriety is, by contrast, disappointing. Perhaps it is a legacy of her East German upbringing, but, whatever the cause, it has poisoned both the politics of the country she leads and those of the EU, the misbegotten union that Germany dominates with a mixture of passive aggression, money, and size.
Thanks Rummyfan.

18 posted on 12/21/2018 12:17:21 PM PST by SunkenCiv (and btw -- https://www.gofundme.com/for-rotator-cuff-repair-surgery)
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To: Rummyfan
Angela Merkel: Staatspräsident und Vorsitzender des Staatsrats, as she would have been called in her dear Deutsche Demokratische Republik.

Per Wikipedia, she was born in Hamburg, West Germany, and moved to East Germany as an infant. Her father was a West German Lutheran Pastor, who moved to East Germany, at the suggestion of his youth pastor. In a Wikipedia article about the father, it says that he did not oppose the church governance or the policies of the Socialist party.

Her Wikipedia article states that Frau Merkel joined the Freie Deutsche Jugend, an East German communist youth organization when she was 14. Though she denies it, former colleagues claim that she openly propagated Marxism as the secretary for "Agitation and Propaganda". It is no wonder that Frau Merkel is performing as she does.

How many failed countries, at the hands of communists, yet they STILL believe that if they can get one more chance, THEY can make it work. Blind ideologues, all!

19 posted on 12/21/2018 1:32:13 PM PST by A Formerly Proud Canadian (I once was blind but now I see...)
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