Basic HTML Version
_PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, MARCH
11, 1983
PAGE
11
he makes "crystal clear" statements on "unconditional renuncia
tion" of cruise and Pershing 2 missiles if the arms talks fail-
no matter whose fault.
The Greens have promised hunger and tax strikes to keep u.s.
missiles away. Terrorists could easily make the 60 attacks last
year on U.S. bases and soldiers look like child's play. And Mr.
Vogel has made it clear the SPD in opposition will stay no more
than half a step to the right of the Greens.•••
There seems to be a generation of young Germans with whom the old
arguments that appeal to Mr. Kohl's supporters aren't working
•••• Pollsters here constantly remind the parties that there is a
growing bloc of voters under the age of 35 without whom the
Greens couldn't have been elected to parliament. Mr. Kohl knows
that this passing of generations isn't£!! his side-:-7••�
The young leftists in the Greens who were elected to parliament
aren't Berkeley-style hippies, but a mixed bag of pacifists, com
munists and anarchists who share little but a vague sense of be
ing the inheritors of a sort of German romanticism and the hope
for a new nationalist spirit. They talk of forests and trees, of
reunifying the two Germanies as a prelude to what they refer to
as "true German greatness".•.•
It's not surprising that a party like the Greens in Germany and
their fellow travelers elsewhere in western Europe are so appeal
ing to the young. Such groups thrive on the political relativism
that detente taught, equating the U.S.�it"Flthe U.S.S.R. at every
nail opportun1 ty. Even Erhard Eppler, a leading member of the
SPD, argues that there's no difference between the Soviet inva
sion of Afghanistan and the U.S. war in Vietnam, that the Soviet
role in propping up the military regime in Poland is the same as
U.S. support for Central American countries••••
If Mr. Kohl wants to start a debate about the failures of detente
generally, he might begin to remind young Germans about what's
happening in Afghanistan and Poland. He might even raise the
issue of what evidence of chemical warfare in Southeast Asia says
about the nuclear arms agreement the SPD and Greens want even at
the high cost of refusing U.S. arms.
Thus, as "D (for deployment)-day" approaches, we can expect an unprece
dented flurry of anti-nuclear activity throughout Western Europe, and espe
cially the Federal Republic.
--Gene H. Hogberg, News Bureau
P.S. Pursuant to last week's report dealing with Australia, Labor Party
candidate Bob Hawke emerged with an impressive victory over Prime Minister
Malcolm Fraser in the March 5 elections. One of Hawke's first acts as Prime
Minister was to devalue the Australian dollar by 10 percent, down to U.S.
$.855. (When the dollar became Australia's currency a few years back, I
believe it was worth U.S. $1.14.) Mr. Hawke claimed the country was in an
even worse economic mess than he had thought.
(It's all the other guy's
fault, of course.)
--G.H.H.