The Free Fall of the Green Nazis !

As I have often warned....the far Left is actually closely related to the far Right. Both believe in sacrificing individuals to the collective. One example I've mentioned a couple of times, one as early as three years ago (Hitler was a Green Guru Too (He's Back!) 30 December, 2010).

The Nazis drew heavily on a romantic, anti-science, nature worshipping, communal and anti-capitalist movement that tied German identity to German forests. In fact, Professor Raymond Dominck notes in his book, The Environmental Movement in Germany, two-thirds of the members of Germany's main nature clubs joined the Nazi Party by 1939, compared with just 10% of all men. The Nazis also absorbed the German Youth Movement, the Wandervogel, which talked of our mystical relationship with Mother Earth.

It was for the Wandervogel that the philosopher, mystic and poet Ludwig Klages ( right ) wrote his influential biocentric essay Man and Earth in 1913. In it, Klages warned of the growing extinction of species, the destruction of forests. the disruption of the ecosystem and subsequent food shortages and starvation. People were losing their relationship with nature, he warned. Heard all that recently? This essay by this notorious anti-Semite was republished in 1980 to mark the birth of the German Greens -- the party that inspired the creation of Australia's own Greens party. Its message is much as Hitler's own Mein Kampf : ''When people attempt to rebel against the iron logic of nature...their actions against nature will lead to their own downfall.''

After WWII, the Greens Party traces its origins to the student protest movement of the 1960s, the environmental movement in the 1970s and grew in stature and strength formalize their union in 1980. The basis was on Germany's pre-war relationship with the nature movement which then the focus was on the environmental protest to nuclear power, and the movement was also directed especially at German labour, business and politicians. They first won representation at the national level in 1983. With the unification of East Germany, they merged with the East German environmentalists, known as the Alliance 90 Party.  and from 1998 to 2005 it formed a coalition government with the Social Democratic Party (SPD). After the Fukushima disaster, as they made up 18.5% of the government, they convinced Angela Merkel to shutdown 8 of Germany's 16 nuclear power plants.

Before the recent mid-September elections the Greens ham-fistedly championed a ''vegetarian policy'' that resulted in the once-mighty German Greens in freefall. This dramatic fall in the polls has been blamed squarely on their ludicrous Veggie Day proposal, in which canteens would be obliged to offer only vegetarian food once a week, with Germans (among the most enthusiastic carnivores in Europe) encouraged to follow suit at home. ''Verruckt!" (crazy) was the comment in many newspapers. In an election campaign that was often described as dull and detached, critics seized on Veggie Day, making it one of the most talked about proposals from any party. It received almost as much airtime in pre-election debates as Syria and the Eurozone crisis combined. Opponents in the liberal Free Democratic party fired up barbeques in protest.

The election finished with the Greens only acquiring 8.4% of the vote, a staggering 10 points drop. The numbers make Green prospects of becoming the third strongest party in the next Bundestag less likely, causing hopes to fade on the left of a Green-Social Democrat coalition. The Greens' mistake? Manfred Gullner, one of Germany's foremost pollsters, put it down primarily to their decision to shift focus away from their core issues - the environment, woman's equality and peace - and to start dictating terms concerning social justice. ''That was a strategic mistake, because it doesn't belong to their founding ideas,'' he said. ''It's a topic that remains the preserve of the SPD .'' And Veggie Day? ''Just another foolish mistake among several,'' he told the foreign press.

Sigmar Gabriel (L) welcomes Merkel & Ronald Pofalla  (R)

The Greens have not been helped by the fact that they were instrumental shutting down nuclear power plants and allowing electricity bills to rise and the use of power becoming a luxury as a consequence. It has also fought an image problem over its tolerance of paedophilia, a 1980's shadow hanging over the party and their push for same-sex marriages. Also their reckless push for subsidies for wind and solar power before the other 8 nuclear plants get shut down and burdening the German people with a renewables-related surcharge of 20%.

The Way I See It.....within the Greens Party itself criticism is rife that the once-towering force of the ecological movement in Europe has failed to connect with the voters. Ruth Kastner, head of the Greens in the state of Schleswig-Holstein, has accused the party's leading candidates, Jurgn Trittin and Katrin Goring-Eckardt, of poor communication, bemoaning the fact that Veggie Day, more than any other Green policy, has left the party open to accusations of pushing for an ''ecological dictatorship.'' The Watermelon image comes to mind: GREEN on the outside, but oh so RED on the inside!

Fortunately German Chancellor Angela Merkel won the lection and is reinstated as the leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). The conservative bloc, made up of the CDU and their Bavarian allies, the Christian Social Union (CSU), emerged as the strongest force in the September election but is still short of enough seats to rule alone. Leader of the SPD, Sigmar Gabriel, made it clear that his party may not come to ''the party'' to make a ''grand coalition''.  He said to a meeting of his party's Berlin branch, ''If we have good reasons, we can ultimately say no and accept new elections.'' The two sides want to wrap up negotiations by November 26, after which the SPD plans to allow its 472,000 members to vote on the deal. The result of the full-party vote is due December 15. If the deal goes through, the government could start work the next week.  Nobody will be missing the Greens.