The Left Party says "there shouldn't be any billionaires." With Germany gearing up for an election, the far-left force has launched a new tax plan — though it will most likely never get a chance to implement it.
DW is the german government’s international broadcast. It’s the only actually state-owned and tax-funded media outlet left in Germany.
Critical voices have risen since the current director general, Peter Limbourg took over. Employees went to The Guardian in 2020 to open up about antisemitic, racist and sexist power structures and cultures of bullying, abuse of power and oppression.
In 2019, the editor-in-chief advertised for Ursula von der Leyen for the EU elections.
Incidentally, Die Linke criticized a new direction of the programs in 2014 right after Limbourg took over in 2013.
I was posting this because, as was the case with FDR in the US, the burgeois press in Germany deeply despises “die Linke” for the very same reason: they are a threat to the power of organized money.
FDR certainly wasn’t a communist but it seems kinda odd to me how you’d miss the main point of my post, especially given the context of my reply.
“Die Linke” is somewhere in between social-democracy and socialism in terms of economic policy, with party co-leader Jan van Aken going as far as repeatedly expressing his desire to expropriate billionaires. Certainly a breath of fresh air compared to the neoliberal controlled opposition party SPD.
Just to add to this. There is a bit of a buffer between DW and the government. That is supervisory board with appointees from the government, the chambers of the parliament and 10 German organizations representing the German public. So it is not like they just follow the orders of the German government. In fact two of the three highest position in DW have been appointed when Merkels conservative government was in power. That explains them being as willing as they are to attack the current German government, which is not necessarily a bad thing.
What makes DW different is that it is directly financed by the German government.
And how would being nominated by Merkel make them in any way tend to be fair and honest when it comes to reporting about the Die Linke?
I’ve seen this kind of “independent” board of State-funded broadcasters with political appointments in a couple of countries and they just tend to have a pro-Establishment slant: For example, the much vaunted “2 sides” take on everything by the BBC is almost always just the reducing of social and political subjects to the views of the two main political parties - the Tories and New Labour - to quite an extreme level excluding non-mainstream voices unless they’re pro-Capital (so, the Greenparty is barelly visible even though they represent millions of voters but UKIP and UK Reform were a lot more visible even before getting a parliamentary presence).
I’m not saying they’re not independent (I am not German, only live in Germany for a few months, barelly speak the language and don’t follow German news in German media), just pointing out that plenty of places have such mechanisms to provide the appearence of independence whilst constraining their “independence” to just balancing reporting between the viewpoints of the two main parties whilst under-reporting the rest and using the same kind of slant in reporting as we see in the reporting of the Israeli-Genocide when it comes to sources other than the two main parties (i.e. when sources on one side say “something happenned” it’s reported as “something happenned”, when the source is the other side it’s reported as “side says something happenned”).
There is a difference between pro establishment and pro government though. In this case Die Linke would probably get away better, if DW would have been pro government, as the only way the current government can remain in power is realisticly to gain more votes and add Die Linke to the governing coalition. Otherwise one of the two governing parties SPD or Greens is likely to be kicked out, as they would govern with the Union.
German public broadcasting is modelled mostly after the BBC, but has quite a lot of impact from the state level, rather then just the federal level.
Also Linke has been in state level government before and have achieved very little. They are not as much out of the establishment as the UK Greens are, despite being of a similar party size.
I wonder if DW and its friends are scared :P
PS. The initiative has been around for a while, is independent to any party: https://www.tax-the-rich.eu/
DW is the german government’s international broadcast. It’s the only actually state-owned and tax-funded media outlet left in Germany.
Critical voices have risen since the current director general, Peter Limbourg took over. Employees went to The Guardian in 2020 to open up about antisemitic, racist and sexist power structures and cultures of bullying, abuse of power and oppression.
In 2019, the editor-in-chief advertised for Ursula von der Leyen for the EU elections.
Incidentally, Die Linke criticized a new direction of the programs in 2014 right after Limbourg took over in 2013.
So, yeah, DW might not like Die Linke very much.
That’s a fantastic quote. This is how you can still run campaigns today!
anti communist much?
I was posting this because, as was the case with FDR in the US, the burgeois press in Germany deeply despises “die Linke” for the very same reason: they are a threat to the power of organized money.
FDR certainly wasn’t a communist but it seems kinda odd to me how you’d miss the main point of my post, especially given the context of my reply.
“Die Linke” is somewhere in between social-democracy and socialism in terms of economic policy, with party co-leader Jan van Aken going as far as repeatedly expressing his desire to expropriate billionaires. Certainly a breath of fresh air compared to the neoliberal controlled opposition party SPD.
i was talking about the quote rather than you yourself.
Just to add to this. There is a bit of a buffer between DW and the government. That is supervisory board with appointees from the government, the chambers of the parliament and 10 German organizations representing the German public. So it is not like they just follow the orders of the German government. In fact two of the three highest position in DW have been appointed when Merkels conservative government was in power. That explains them being as willing as they are to attack the current German government, which is not necessarily a bad thing.
What makes DW different is that it is directly financed by the German government.
And how would being nominated by Merkel make them in any way tend to be fair and honest when it comes to reporting about the Die Linke?
I’ve seen this kind of “independent” board of State-funded broadcasters with political appointments in a couple of countries and they just tend to have a pro-Establishment slant: For example, the much vaunted “2 sides” take on everything by the BBC is almost always just the reducing of social and political subjects to the views of the two main political parties - the Tories and New Labour - to quite an extreme level excluding non-mainstream voices unless they’re pro-Capital (so, the Greenparty is barelly visible even though they represent millions of voters but UKIP and UK Reform were a lot more visible even before getting a parliamentary presence).
I’m not saying they’re not independent (I am not German, only live in Germany for a few months, barelly speak the language and don’t follow German news in German media), just pointing out that plenty of places have such mechanisms to provide the appearence of independence whilst constraining their “independence” to just balancing reporting between the viewpoints of the two main parties whilst under-reporting the rest and using the same kind of slant in reporting as we see in the reporting of the Israeli-Genocide when it comes to sources other than the two main parties (i.e. when sources on one side say “something happenned” it’s reported as “something happenned”, when the source is the other side it’s reported as “side says something happenned”).
There is a difference between pro establishment and pro government though. In this case Die Linke would probably get away better, if DW would have been pro government, as the only way the current government can remain in power is realisticly to gain more votes and add Die Linke to the governing coalition. Otherwise one of the two governing parties SPD or Greens is likely to be kicked out, as they would govern with the Union.
German public broadcasting is modelled mostly after the BBC, but has quite a lot of impact from the state level, rather then just the federal level.
Also Linke has been in state level government before and have achieved very little. They are not as much out of the establishment as the UK Greens are, despite being of a similar party size.