Hmm
"Stasi secret police in Communist East Germany and by the Gestapo"
Too far left or too far right you still end up in the same place.
Germany has reportedly pulled the plug on cooperation with the NSA following controversy over the role of its BND secret service assisting with US spying ops targeted at European politicians and firms, including Airbus. BND's listening station in Bad Aibling has reportedly stopped passing on intelligence harvested from local …
"gestapo were right wing as was the Nazis...." Well, the term "Nazi" comes from Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP - the National Socialist German Workers' Party. The Nazis stood on many populist themes common to other socialist groups (and even to the Communists they so vehemently opposed) then and now. Indeed, the father of fascism, Mussolini, developed his political arguments whilst leading an Italian socialist party and working as a widely-published socialist author (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benito_Mussolini#Political_journalist_and_socialist). Whilst the Left likes to pretend there was and is a big sea of difference between themselves and the "hateful" Nazis the truth is they are a lot closer than they want to acknowledge.
gestapo were right wing as was the Nazis
The Secret State Police (aka. Geheime Staatspolizei) was a typical Omnipotent Government outfit - no wingery here, just action - and these have to be eliminated with extreme prejudice, and I mean literally by cracking heads including those of the suave politicians that propose them, and in the early days of their making. Alas, this never happens, because "terrorists" are those that act or refuse to obey.
As for the left-wing/right-wing thing (ultimately a sterile exercise as one has to look at the actions, real or proposed, through the smokescreen of politically vapid promised of "better times" instead of using tired old labels arranged on a 1-dimensional strip by the masters of thought control) we read in War Revisionism, Fascism, and the CIA:
As you will recall from history, both Germany and Italy respectively became unified nations in the latter part of the 19th century. The ideas of Marx and communism constituted an international movement advocating violence and force to eliminate private property and capitalism. Another international movement was socialism which also attacked property and individualism yet many socialists stated that socialism could be established through democracy rather than force by expanding the number of eligible voters. After World War I, communism became a severe threat to take over Italy. Mussolini was a dedicated socialist and journalist who supported fascism as a national rather than an international movement to fight international communism and socialism. He advocated force and war as the method to combat the violence of communism. There was no racism connected to fascism in Italy. (....)
One of the 20th century’s most astute intellectuals in political theory was Erik von Kuehenelt-Leddihn who agrees completely with me and Jonah Goldberg on placing fascism on the left. He covers this in his book entitled Leftism Revisited. In chapter four of that book entitled “Right and Left”, he points out that in Germany after World War I the National Socialist (or Nazis) were, seated on the far right of the Reichstag or Assembly because on the left side of the assembly were the internationalists who were the communists and the socialists. The conservatives and monarchists were national movements and were seated on the right. Since Nazism or fascism was a national movement in Germany rather than international, they were seated on the right with the conservatives. He explains this is how fascism became to be placed on the right rather than the left in political dialogue.
"....having "socialist" in the name does not mean they actually are socialist...." Ah, the old only-the-socialists-I-want-to-acknowledge-as-socialists-are-allowed-to-be-called-socialists mantra. And 1984 (and, more pointedly, Animal Farm) were written by Orwell after his firsthand experience of the "good socialists" massacring the "bad socialists" during the Spanish Civil War.
@Your alien overlord - fear me,
You are the one that has fallen for the propaganda of the left with their greatest triumph of painting the National Socialtist party as a party of the far right.
Maybe you should do a little reading http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danielhannan/100260720/whenever-you-mention-fascisms-socialist-roots-left-wingers-become-incandescent-why/ or talk to those that lived through that period or just after.
This is why http://politcalcompass.org/ is worth a look.
It doesn't just rely on a "Left/ Right" scale, but also "Authoritarian/ Libertarian" (that's Libertarianism which supports rights and liberties, not the American version which means "I should be allowed to have as many guns as I like!")
Both the East Germans and the Nazis score high on the Authoritarian scale despite whatever other factors they may differ on.
"not the American version which means "I should be allowed to have as many guns as I like!")
I thought 'libertarian' in american meant 'anybody I blame for the country not being how 'I' think it should be", I've heard too many americans I would view as being liberal (my definition of 'liberal') throw it around like 'commie' several decades ago. Quite the Disturbing Vicar.
".....It doesn't just rely on a "Left/ Right" scale, but also "Authoritarian/ Libertarian"....." Meh, I prefer to remove the political blather and use the old AD&D lawful-chaotic-neutral-good-evil matrix, I find it surprisingly accurate (once you remove the true neutral, which I think is impossible given that everyone I've ever met has some form of bias). It's also quite good for explaining how some sane and normal foreign people do what we Westerners consider evil yet claim they are doing good, and vice versa.
> It's also quite good for explaining how some sane and normal foreign people do what we Westerners consider evil yet claim they are doing good
And can it also explain how some allegedly sane people do blatantly evil acts that we DO NOT want them to do, whilst claming to "represent" us?
As amusing a joke as it was (why I gave an upvote, edit: except on second reading realize you are being serious and regret the upvote) you seem to be showing your blind spot to good or evil being able to be decided clearly irrespective of the speaker or one's point of view.
"...they "say" that they have halted it." Oh, I expect they will have stopped this bit of co-operation, but I also expect there are other routes by which the German data could still end up in the NSA's paws. After all, if the political request is carefully worded by Angela - "Stop sending that data directly to the NSA if they do not justify each and every request!" - does not exclude the action of "But keep sending the data if the unqualified request now comes via the GCHQ under the guise of European anti-terror policing." The BND obeys orders when it stops sending the data directly to the NSA, Angela can claim she has quashed the issue and plead ignorance of any circumvention, and the data keeps flowing.
And, of course, the NSA only has to "justify" each request, so you may wonder how much actual legal examination is given if the NSA say sends a request as "Spy on this guy at Airbus because we think he's making spares for an intermediary in Venezuela who is then selling them to Iran to keep their Boeing 707 tankers airborne" - does the BND ask to see the actual proof of that or just go "Jawhol"?
".....says more about us Brits than the Germans....." All it says is the Brits have get-out clauses in their laws for secret squirrel work that the German's don't (yet) have. As you may have noted, the Fwench have recently revised their own spying laws to gain similar leeway (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-32587377), and I'm sure the German politicians would love to have got a similar fix in place before this little fuss was broached. And it's not just Europe, the Canucks are playing catchup with Australia (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-32619046, http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/new-law-will-give-australian-spy-agencies-the-power-to-watch-and-act-against-homegrown-terrorists/story-fni0cx12-1226964322921). I'm pretty sure that after the current fuss dies down there will be a discreet move to introduce similar freedoms for the BND.
@ msknight
You're assuming that cooperation between the German government and the NSA has ACTUALLY stopped, vs. stopping for a cosmetic period to demonstrate faux outrage before starting up again. Or vs. stopping until Germany's security services start shrieking that they have lost visibility to key national security feeds, and can we please restart things with the NSA. Or vs. Germany wanting all this economic espionage continued for their own export-lead economic reasons, and quietly re-establishing the relationship with the NSA in return for more access to German intel....
"UK gets caught colluding with NSA and nothing much happens.
Germany gets caught and the outrage causes cease of collusion.
Hmmmmm........ says more about us Brits than the Germans, I think..."
Well, to be honest, GCHQ has long said to be a subsidary of NSA. It has been largely confirmed by Snowden documents also.
So no-one should be surprised by the fact GCHQ is running hand in hand with NSA.
German BND, at contrary, is another thing. Never was it allegated they were a sub of NSA ...
Quite a shame on them, actually ...
Disappointed.
I'd have liked to think Germany would be the last to 'forget' Warnings from history, having lived first hand under regimes that operated with impunity.
You can maybe understand the arrogant 'it'll never happen here' attitudes of the ex-allied nations, still feeling the warm afterglow of victory and spent indignation.
Nope, I give it another 20 years, tops, before the free nations are no longer recognisable to those who fought for freedom last century.
"Read NSA's charter and come back here when you have a clue." Oh dear, someone missed the joke! The implication is that the NSA can't be spying on the German automotive industry due to the fact Yank cars are so poor in comparison. Obviously, looking at Hersheys, the European chocolate industry is also safe!
Merkel is a money girl. I don't think there is much commitment to democracy and even though Germany is a founder of the EU it really doesn't give a hoot about the lives of people outside of Germany. There has been no effort whatsoever to ensure that low income groups in Greece even have basic food. They simply don't care.
Welcome to the future.
The NSA/ USA has pretty much told everyone they're never going to stop spying.
So , it's time to divest ourselves from all USA electronics.
Orange Juice.
That's just about all that is safe to buy from the usa.
Everything else, you're going to find your secret toy you've been spending years working on already copyrighted in the USA in the morning papers.