Today we deal with many struggles: the new protests of the "Fridays-for-Future" movement and coal opponents, the week of sexism from FDP to Tichy and the struggle for US democracy.
Fight Climate Change
Do you remember the "Fridays for Future" protests (FFF)?
Now, in the middle of the corona crisis, they look like a long time ago.
In fact, the global re-issue should come from this Friday.
For the first time since the beginning of the pandemic, climate activists are taking to the streets around the world.
It is said that more than 3,000 protests have been registered all over the world, of which around 400 are in Germany alone. One of them today in Berlin at the Brandenburg Gate, a sit-in in compliance with the anti-corona hygiene rules.
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Climate activists protest against the Garzweiler II opencast mine
Photo: INA FASSBENDER / AFP
No comparison, of course, with the previous year, when more than 100,000 people protested in the city in September.
To make matters worse, rain has now been announced.
Corona and the bad weather - the number of participants would certainly not be that impressive, "but after months of rest out of reason, the strike should show that FFF have unchanged strength", says my colleague Jonas Schaible, who will report to you today about the protests: "The findings from the day will be very important for the development of the movement over the next few months."
And even more protests in the west: In the Rhenish lignite district, demonstrations against the opencast mine.
Because the much-invoked Hambach Forest may have been saved, but despite the coal phase-out law from the summer, the Garzweiler II open-cast mine is being expanded as planned.
I was impressed by this report by my colleague Till Uebelacker about the fight for the last houses on the verge of the demolition.
Rhenish lignite mining area: You are fighting for the last houses
Fight sexism
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Christian Lindner
Photo: Bernd von Jutrczenka / dpa
This week we have seen two somewhat opposing developments in sexism.
There was FDP leader Christian Lindner and the sexist humiliation of General Secretary Linda Teuteberg, whom he had previously killed: "I like to think about, Linda, that in the past 15 months we started about 300 times the day together."
And so on.
It was as if a curtain had opened and there she stood again in the spotlight on the stage: the old Federal Republic with its uptight old man's joke.
Lindner apologized, the curtain closed, the joke hid again.
A few in the FDP are now a little outraged, as you can read here.
Will something change behind the curtain?
Rather not.
But then the second development of the week.
A sexist attack on the SPD politician Sawsan Chebli - malicious, lousy, in no way to be placed on the same level as Lindner's attempted joke - appeared in the right wing paper of the former business journalist Roland Tichy.
What followed was a prime example of solidarity, or better: women's solidarity across party lines.
With consequences for Tichy, who has been able to adorn himself for years (why actually?) With the bourgeois title of chairman of the Ludwig Erhard Foundation.
Chebli turned the social media spotlight on the attack.
An hour later, the CSU State Minister in the Chancellery, Dorothee Bär, retweeted and commented: "This is disgusting dirt! Where is this garbage?"
It wasn't long before she found out.
A day later Chebli tweeted: "Thank you @DoroBaer for your clear stance!"
In the meantime, Bär had given up her membership in the Erhard Foundation in protest, causing the CSU politician to trigger a wave, and the next day Tichy announced his retirement from the chairmanship.
Sexism is not a problem for the attacked, but one of society as a whole.
Perhaps the solidarity of women can be an exemplary start.
Criticism of party leader Lindner from FDP politicians: "The man's joke has no place in politics"
Fight for democracy
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Mitch McConnell
Photo: JOSHUA ROBERTS / REUTERS
It is indicative of the state of this world, what a matter of course one can look forward to as a supporter of democracy.
Then the majority leader in the US Senate, the Republican Mitch McConnell, announced that the winner of the US election in November would also become president.
Well
What sounds so self-evident is no longer a matter of course since US President Donald Trump does not want to guarantee this peaceful transfer of government power.
So it's good that the inconspicuous McConnell speaks a power word.
Or?
Let's put it this way: his track record does not speak for the 78-year-old.
McConnell is not a doer, but a destroyer.
During the Obama years he obstructed the business of government where he could and undermined the compromised US system where he could.
He surrendered his party to the tea party movement and ultimately to Trumpism.
At the beginning of his career he was called a feminist, fought for the right to abortion, and was involved in the civil rights movement.
In the 1964 photos of President Johnson signing the Civil Rights Act, not only Martin Luther King is in the picture.
Young McConnell is also there.
Then, under President Reagan, he fought the right to abortion and tried to impede voter registration.
And so on.
Always the flag in the wind.
And now this man without characteristics guarantees the peaceful transfer of power.
Irritating Trump statements: Republican McConnell promises orderly process after the presidential election
Loser of the day ...
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Christof Gramm
Photo:
Wolfgang Kumm / dpa
... is
Christof Gramm
, the President of the Military Counter-Intelligence Service (MAD), the smallest of the German secret services, who was dismissed by Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer (CDU).
AKK probably no longer trusted him to properly set up the MAD for the efficient search for right-wing extremist soldiers in the Bundeswehr.
The latest news from the night
FBI contradicts Trump's constant warnings about election fraud:
President Trump has been claiming for weeks that the November election will be manipulated.
The head of the federal police now makes it clear: Such an attempt at electoral fraud has not yet been noticed
Navalny's assets apparently frozen by the Moscow court:
A Russian court has blocked the bank accounts of the poisoned opposition activist Alexei Navalny.
That reports his spokeswoman.
Navalny himself is therefore considering returning to his homeland
Pregnant woman saves husband after shark attack:
The family was on a snorkeling trip in the Florida Keys.
When a three meter long shark attacked her husband, Margot Dukes-Eddy did not hesitate long
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I don't laugh!
Say what is.
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I wish you a good start to the day.
Your Sebastian Fischer