Everything is a political weapon since Trump’s re-election, says Germany’s ex-economy minister (www.theguardian.com)
from HellsBelle@sh.itjust.works to world@lemmy.world on 13 Mar 11:45
https://sh.itjust.works/post/56729410

The weaponisation of energy when Russia invaded Ukraine has given way to “weaponising everything” since Donald Trump returned to the White House, Germany’s former economy minister has said.

Robert Habeck, the Green politician responsible for keeping the lights on during the last energy crisis, said the belief gas “would never be a political weapon” led successive German governments blindly into Putin’s trap by building the Nord Stream pipelines and selling strategic reserves to Gazprom, which Russia emptied before the invasion.

But the re-election of Donald Trump led to a second security shock with “dramatic, drastic … and far-reaching” consequences which include using tariffs and technology as weapons, he told the Guardian.

“From weaponising energy – bad enough – to weaponising everything, this is the lesson I hope everyone has learned,” said Habeck, vice-chancellor of the last German coalition government.

#world

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IAmYouButYouDontKnowYet@reddthat.com on 13 Mar 11:50 next collapse

America is evil. It’s not even just because trump and Republicans. Something insidious is deeply engrained in this country. Pushing 40, it’s like I’ve seen Americans turn to thoughtless zombies over the years. It’s like a sober fentynal epidemic and the drug is materialism and consumerism, and it keeps people on a submissive path that’s easily led in whatever direction profits the “drug dealers”. It’s like people here are effectively useless on the level of the human species as a whole, and they give up all their power as humans to the people that abuse them and severely limit their natural human experience and authentic universe given freedoms. All while celebrating that their humanity is crippled on purpose by the people that control them.

It’s sick, and I don’t understand how people are still going along with it.

watson387@sopuli.xyz on 13 Mar 13:35 collapse

Smartphones have been the downfall of the US…

IAmYouButYouDontKnowYet@reddthat.com on 13 Mar 13:42 collapse

The down fall seems to get kicked in gear in the 1930s when modern psychological marketing started imo. Smartphones and social media amplified the bullshit by 1000 though.

Algorithms and ai do so much work now…it’s evil.

Tyrq@lemmy.dbzer0.com on 13 Mar 16:03 collapse

Some say it was this guy that kicked it off

IAmYouButYouDontKnowYet@reddthat.com on 13 Mar 16:38 collapse

Yeah… Century of self is great documentary about that.

Here’s another good one about war journalism. youtu.be/5mDuxFnn2RY

Edit: here is century of self youtu.be/EoMi95tfgP4

DivineDev@piefed.social on 13 Mar 12:17 next collapse

Habeck is easily the best politician Germany has had in the last couple decades, not perfect but fuck all I want is him as Chancellor for 16 years :(

I guess his problem might be that he tries to argue and discuss issues in a rational way, which is not the style in this time.

comrade_twisty@feddit.org on 13 Mar 16:54 collapse

Habeck is too smart for dumb people. They don’t want to listen to him, it makes them feel inferior.

Jesus_666@lemmy.world on 13 Mar 18:24 collapse

Also, according to certain “news” publications and an army of totally legitimate people on the internet, he’s as incompetent as he’s evil and he’s singlehandedly responsible for every single problem anyone in Germany has had for the last 20 years.

panda_abyss@lemmy.ca on 13 Mar 13:04 collapse

It’s incredibly frustrating all these government act on assumptions that goodwill would last forever and therefor there’s no need to change.

My government is also guilty.

TrickDacy@lemmy.world on 13 Mar 15:58 collapse

Agreed. It feels like the US constitution was never finished as intended and the amendment process was supposed to finish it over time. But given that amendments basically cannot happen now, the whole fucking thing has been running many decades on the idea that someone exactly like trump wouldn’t gain power. Seriously this motherfucker is precisely the opposite of what a leader always was imagined to be. Someone inept, stubborn, and selfish to an alarming degree. A literal criminal. A known pedophile and rapist. A known con artist and fraudster. Every other fuckig president at least cared how people saw them so they tried to limit negative coverage. Trump seems to thrive on it, and it’s revealed what a piece of shit our system is. The checks and balances were only traditional and not required. The president can literally commit heinous crimes and nothing but talk. In most any other government he probably would’ve been in prison the rest of his life for inciting an insurrection, bare minimum. In this pathetic system we can impeach him and then people either shrug their shoulders about how you “can’t prove it” or argue that he did nothing wrong when EVERYONE KNOWS HE ABSOLUTELY DID. What he did was like yelling fire in 100 crowded theaters at once, except in addition to trampling deaths we nearly lost what shred of democracy was left.

I think any government not making major changes every 30-50 years is doomed to fail. It’s so obvious that the system is broken, yet anyone trying to talk about it is screaming into the void and (basically) nothing changes.