this post was submitted on 01 Mar 2025
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Norwegian fuel company Haltbakk Bunkers has announced it will cease supplying fuel to U.S. military forces in Norway and American ships docking in Norwegian ports, citing dissatisfaction with recent U.S. policy towards Ukraine.

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[–] gusgalarnyk 9 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Then don't do what we did, vote for progressives not Conservatives. Conservatives are a plague on society.

Coming from an American who moved to Germany, Merz will pave the road to Germany's Trump.

[–] Gammelfisch 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Incorrect. former Chancellor Merkel came from the same CDU Party as future Chancellor Merz. Merkel made 3 big mistakes, not controlling immigration, which gave the neo-Nazis more political power, entering the Afghanistan War and placing to much trust in Vlad Putin. However, she was skeptical of Orange Krasnov. Merz knows he cannot rely on the AmeriKans and they are in bed with Moscow giving each other golden showers. I usually vote for the SPD and sometimes CDU.

[–] gusgalarnyk 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Idk what you're saying is incorrect here. Conservatives are by and large Anti-Labor which means they are anti-80-90% of the population. Merkel began decommissioning nuclear plants and put more money towards oil, now we have an energy "crisis" that could have been entirely avoided. But conservatives are pro-oil when everyone in the world would benefit from being pro-green energy including nuclear power.

Conservatives are by and large pro privatizing public functions. The German train network has the issues it has today partially because it's not publicly owned and operated. Conservatives are anti-infrastructural spending and they tend to be budget conscious only when it benefits the Uber wealthy.

Merz wants to complain about the fiscal budget but then wants to cut taxes for corporations. The CDU wants to fund that, last I checked, by cutting spending on welfare and social security nets. Conservatives want to take money from the sick, poor, and elderly and give it to big businesses and the only argument they have for why that could be a good thing is it could make the "economy better" and some of that money will trickle down.

We are in the mess we are today because of conservative policies. Voting for the CDU is voting for the declination of society based on all the data I've seen. I'd love to see what an SPD government looks like when it's not being sabotaged by the FDP but I worry, like in America, they're still too centralist to be massively effective at reversing decline.

Immigrants aren't the problem. Germany needs more immigrants to stay functional in the coming decades, just like most developed countries.

[–] Gammelfisch 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

+1 for you. However, how do you control the immigration so the AfD does not smell the blood? Same with the fucked up MAGA in AmeriKa. The German rail network should be Deutsche Bundesbahn, the federal government ran it better than the privatized DB AG BS.

[–] gusgalarnyk 4 points 1 day ago

I don't know if controlling immigration is the problem or solution, right? It's a scapegoat.

I think the problem is perception. What should happen is when any media org talks about violent immigrants or violent crime they should be forced to display a graph of violent crime for the past 5 decades or something. Germany is in one of the top 3 or 5 safest years it has had in the last like 50 years.

I've had German citizens warn me about the ghettos of Mannheim. These are stores without bars over their windows, plenty of people walking around at most hours of night, music and walk-in restaurants. This is no ghetto like in America. But natives see it as scary because humans are creatures of relativity.

If anything Germany needs to provide a simple, clear path forward to permanent residence (at least) and ideally full citizenship. This tells people who are open to joining Germany that they have a path to starting a life here. Germany also need to provide a security net for those people if they run into problems on their journey to permanent residence (at least) so they know that this massive risk of moving abroad has a minimum amount of safety (cause a work force that feels trapped at their job is not a well compensated work force and everyone wants good paying jobs for themselves and their neighbors). I think Germany does a great job at both of these things already, the scary part is AFD wanting to differentiate between blood-line citizens and naturalized citizens. The scary part is CDU conservatives wanting to reduce the social safety net. The CDU winning hurts the influx of highly skilled or specialized immigrants because now they know the move just got more risky if conservatives get their way.

As far as protecting their border or slowing the rate of immigrants in total or from certain areas... Idk honestly. I don't know if that's a real problem, I don't think it is, and I don't know how Germany could fix that. I have no doubt very smart people have several great solutions that are human-centric policies that improve the lives of everyone on both side of the fictional line - but I'm positive it's not the policy conservatives will be pursuing. Because again, I don't think it's a real problem.

Real problems are housing for everyone, higher wages for everyone, infrastructural improvement, improving education, better medicine and access to healthcare, etc etc. Germany and most developed countries are wealthy enough to handle their current level of immigration without issue - if the money is spent well instead of funneled into the parasitic 1%'ers pockets. Cultures and integration happen naturally over time, that isn't a fear for me either.

MAGA won because the economic decline outpaces the societal progress for too many decades, and the perceived solution was not based in reality. Germany has far more run way in the economic and societal race, but the influence on perception is both at a high in terms of strength and a low in terms of being attached to reality.