The recent German elections were frustrating to many, but as I see it there were three wonderful results. 1) The "grand alliance" of Christian and Social Democrats ensures continuity and places limits on radical change, 2) Germany at last has a female head of state, and 3) most delightful of all, the Greens were marginalized.
Nothing symbolizes the collapse of "green power" more than the retirement of enfant terrible, Joschka Fischer. Sight and Sign publishes a farewell interview with the ageing icon. My favorite quote:
The Greens are no Fischer party, even if I've influenced them significantly. We had already managed to break out of the generational jail in 2002. But now a new chapter begins. The red-green chapter, which was written by my generation, is irrevocably over. The new chapter must be written by the younger ones, those under 40. The notion that I have something to offer them is absurd. I'm bound to my own history and my own being.The alliance of the Greens with the socialist left has always been their fatal flaw. If significant envionmental reform is to take place it will originate within, rather than in opposition to, capitalist institutions. The left's strategy of infiltrating and taking control of legitimate movements has had the ultimate effect of marginalizing them.
Read the interview here.
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