Love, Peace and Harmony in Meseberg

The new unit expresses itself with a photo motif and the announcement of a “huge” third relief package, winter aid for the less well-off in the country. If you want something specific, you have to file a missing persons report. But it is now – all Love, Peace and Harmony – discussed an “inflation premium”, a tax-free one-off payment to low and normal earners of 800 to 1500 euros. Also in the drum: a one-off special payment for pensioners, students, parents with children and Hartz IV recipients.

In addition, the housing allowance is to be increased by a “heating component” and, thanks to Transport Minister Volker Wissing (FDP), there should also be a solution to succeed the nine-euro ticket (the states only have to pay for it). A little direction note for the makers of the Meseberg show: You could play a popular song as background music, such as “You’ll never walk alone”.

Hans-Christian Ströbele was not only a lawyer, Green member of the Bundestag, rebel and opinion leader, but also an entrepreneur. After all, he helped found the daily newspaper “taz” in Berlin and later saved it with a cooperative model. The co-founder of the Greens was as pugnacious as he was independent and obstinate – even back in the 1970s when he was defending RAF terrorists. He later traded as the “King of Kreuzberg” because the “Fundi” in a party controlled by “Realos” managed to be elected directly to the Bundestag four times in a row in the Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg-Prenzlauer Berg Ost constituency.

It wasn’t his father, once a staunch Nazi, that shaped him, but his anthroposophical mother and uncle Herbert Zimmermann, a fun-loving reporter. In 1954 he commented on the radio about the final of the soccer World Cup in Bern: “Rahn should be shooting from the background…”. Ströbele, the indomitable, died in Berlin on Monday at the age of 83.

A new era begins at Volkswagen today, Thursday. Herbert Diess and his management by Rumpelstilzchen are history. His successor makes it clear right from the overture that the boss is here and that the buzz saw can start. True to the motto that there was power in the beginning, Oliver Blume reduced the central board from twelve to ten people: Hildegard Wortmann (sales) and Murat Aksel (purchasing) left the board after a short time and concentrated on tasks at the Audi brands and respectively Volkswagen.

And because new brooms are said to sweep well, VW also conceded the ambitious goal of the old master Diess, according to which at least 60 percent of the software for their own car operating system was to be developed in-house, for example with the colossus Cariad. Now, in addition to Bosch, Continental is also helping with the tricky task of quickly emulating Tesla, Amazon, Apple, BYD and all the other pioneers of modern times.

The Wolfsburg-based company delivers amazing results in an ongoing court case against an organic farmer in Detmold. With the help of Greenpeace, he is suing VW because combustion engines increase droughts and heat waves and thus damage his property. According to SWR, the court documents show that VW denies fundamental responsibility for damage caused by climate change. “Look at the drivers!” is the message. 99 percent of the CO2 emissions attributed to VW are “due to the responsible and self-interested use of the vehicles by the users”.

One could almost forget that VW – typical of the industry – relies on more profitable, eco-hostile SUVs and sedans. The VW group generously concedes that the government and parliament are “democratically legitimate (…) to make normative decisions” – and lets lobbyists work against it. Incidentally, for Greenpeace, VW reaches “deep into the poison cupboard of climate change denial”.

Anyone who cares for loved ones in nursing homes will soon be confronted with an avalanche of costs. This is due to a law hastily cobbled together by the old grand coalition just before the 2021 federal elections, according to which nursing staff are to be paid a standard wage or a “customary local fee” from today, Thursday.

The praiseworthy project suffers from the fact that the nursing homes have not yet finally negotiated the assumption of costs with the nursing care insurance funds and social welfare offices. The regulation can mean that in the future you will have to pay around 3200 euros per month instead of 2200 euros. The Union and SPD had apparently forgotten to take care of the financing when promoting higher nursing wages.

And then there’s the ARD, a consortium of nine individual institutions that just can’t get any rest. The felt affair at Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg, which still has no new top management, seems to have been just the beginning. Editor-in-chief Norbert Lorentzen and political chief Julia Stein are now giving up their offices in the Schleswig-Holstein state radio station of Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR) – all with reference to the presumption of innocence.

It is about alleged consideration of the Kiel state politics, which those affected strictly reject. The “Stern” had previously reported with reference to an email that Stein wanted to prevent three NDR employees from researching a case of abuse at the German Red Cross (DRK) in October 2020. They were instructed to ask “more specifically or leaner”.

Stein was apparently worried: “Otherwise it always has an interrogation character and I don’t think that helps us here.” A few weeks later, the three journalists were even completely withdrawn from the topic. And then suddenly some people noticed that State Secretary Anette Langner (SPD) was in charge of the DRK and her partner the NDR Broadcasting Council.

Incidentally, Johann Gottfried Herder had a clear idea of ​​who the “two greatest tyrants on earth” were: time and chance.
I wish you a productive day with enough downtime and a lucky coincidence.

It greets you cordially
Her
Hans Jürgen Jakobs
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