The indecent media washing of the former single party of a communist dictatorship

@ElentirENG ES 9·02·2019 · 6:34 0

On the occasion of the regional elections held this Sunday in the German states of Saxony and Brandenburg, many media have reapplied a brazen double measuring rod.

From tyrants to social democrats: costumes of the communism in the old Marxist Europe
The more than 100 million deaths that communism caused, divided by countries

The main political parties in Germany today

For those who do not know the German political map, the main parties of the country are the following:

• The CDU (Christlich Demokratische Union, Christian Democratic Union): is the party of Angela Merkel. For many years it has been the most voted party in Germany, but it is losing strength. It is theoretically Christian democratic, but in practice it acts as a centrist party in the style of the Spanish Popular Party (in fact, both are partners of the European People's Party). Its brand in Bavaria is the CSU (Christlich-Soziale Union, Christian Social Union).
• The SPD (Sozialdemokratische Partei, Social Democratic Party): is the German franchise of the Socialist International, to which the PSOE also belongs. It is a very old party (it was founded in 1863) and it dominated the country during the Weimar Republic, until the rise of the National Socialist Party. Since 2013 he governs in coalition in Germany with the CDU.
• Die Grünen (Los Verdes): is a left-wing environmentalist party, a German partner of the European Free Alliance, to which two Spanish far-left parties belong: Catalunya en Comú and ERC. The big difference with Spanish environmental groups is that in Die Grünen there is an anti-communist sector.
• The AfD (Alternative für Deutschland, Alternative for Germany): founded in 2013, is a conservative Vox-style party. It has shown its sympathy for Trump and for Israel. It is a pro-life and pro-family party and very critical of gender ideology.
• The FDP (Freie Demokratische Partei, Free Democratic Party): is the German partner of Ciudadanos, and like the Albert Rivera party, it could be classified as a liberal-progressive party.
• Die Linke (The Left): I already told you about this match here. When the Communist dictatorship of East Germany fell, its single party, the Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands (SED, Unified Socialist Party of Germany), changed its name to Partei des Demokratischen Sozialismus (PDS, Party of Democratic Socialism) on November 16, 1989. In 2005 the PDS changed its name to Die Linkspartei (Left Party), and in 2007 it released its current brand, Die Linke. It remains a far-left party and retains the former official SED newspaper, Neues Deutschland, with the same communist editorial line. Its website is full of nostalgic news of the communist dictatorship established by Stalin in East Germany and that turned its territory into a huge prison, in which many died for the mere fact of trying to flee.

Spanish media call AfD 'far right' but don't qualify Die Linke

Reviewing the Spanish media, this is what one finds when reading the news about yesterday's regional elections in Germany:

• Televisión Española: The public channel that all Spaniards pay calls AfD "ultras" and "far right", but does not qualify Die Linke, which he says is a "formation that in the years following the reunification capitalized the so-called protest vote". Not a word about its past as the only party of a dictatorship.
• El País: the Grupo PRISA's leftist newspaper calls AfD "far right", but does not add any qualification to Die Linke.
• El Mundo: this newspaper, ideologically close to Ciudadanos, calls AfD "far right" and "radical", but about Die Linke says it is a "formation that in the last decades capitalized on the so-called protest vote." Of its totalitarian past and its nostalgia for a dictatorship, not a word.
• Europa Press: skipping the objectivity that one would expect from a news agency, it calls AfD "far rightist" but does not give qualifications to Die Linke.
• La Vanguardia: this Catalan nationalist newspaper calls AfD "far rightist" but qualifies Die Linke as "leftist".
• Eldiario.es: the far-left newspaper directed by Ignacio Escolar calls AfD "far right" but calls Die Linke "leftist". Apparently, in the world view of Escolar and his colleagues there is the far right but not the far left.
• Ok Diario: the newspaper directed by Eduardo Inda calls AfD "far right" but does not qualify Die Linke.
• El Confidencial: this newspaper does the same thing as El País: it calls AfD "far right" but does not give qualifications to Die Linke.
• La Razón: the Popular Party -related newspaper calls AfD "ultras", "ultranationalists" and "far right", but calls "left" to Die Linke. It is seen that Francisco Marhuenda is making efforts to pat his friends of La Sexta.
• Cadena SER: the leftist broadcaster copies the news of the Efe agency and calls AfD "ultras" and "far right", but does not qualify Die Linke.
• Cadena COPE: the radio station of the Episcopal Conference uses the same news of the Efe agency as the Cadena SER, calling AfD "far right", but cuts it in the second paragraph, so that it even omits any reference to Die Linke. Unlike the SER, COPE puts as an image of the news an AfD logo covered by a leftist sticker that says "No Nazis." And this to talk about a conservative, pro-life and pro-family party.

None of the media mentioned talks about the origin of Die Linke as a single party of a dictatorship. Nor is there a word about its compliments to Fidel Castro and Hugo Chávez and its support for the dictatorships of Cuba and Venezuela. It is the umpteenth example of a double yardstick in the media: a very tough one against right-wing democratic parties such as Vox or AfD, and a very soft one for far left parties that support dictators. It is curious to see that this concealment is no longer only made by the left, but also by the right, perhaps because many of the just copy and paste what comes to them from the agencies, without even questioning a terminology as biased as the one they have used For these elections.

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Photo: Die Linke. This image appears on the welcome page of the German far left party's website. It was taken in June 2017 and shows communists from several countries, with flags with the hammer and sickle.