Talk:Ecological Democratic Party

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Germany Portal
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Germany, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to articles related to Germany on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please join the project and help with our open tasks.
Start This article has been rated as Start-Class on the quality scale.
(If you rated the article please give a short summary at comments to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses.)


It's sort of cumbersome here to have to list the points in which Green positions and ÖDP positions differ, when the same differentiation is made in the Green party article. The problem arises when the point is made that the ÖDP positions in some areas are similar to the Green party positions (which is true), but that neither party is *really* more left or right. The reader is left wondering why the parties just don't merge. Some kind of reason has to be given, then. Is the ÖDP particularly interested in issues like V-Leute, Rasterfahndung, etc? Are they equally prominent advocates of multiculturalism and the integration of immigrants into German society? If we just present the ÖDP on its own terms, without referring to the Green party, that might be one solution, but it leaves such questions unanswered. The other solution would be to point out these differences, which I think could be summed up nicely under the category of "civil rights", but that got edited out of the last version I wrote. Bhuck 15:54, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I wouldn't agreee that neither party is really more left or right. Maybe I'm biased because I'm a member of the Green party, but I'd say Greens are clearly more left-wing than the ÖDP is, especially if one looks at the history of both parties. Even if it isn't such a big distinction in regard to the classic left-right axis of economy, it's really clear in the field of civil rights. So I think it would be a good idea to use this axis for distinction. -- till we ☼☽ | Talk 17:19, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)

"Civil rights" is way too broad (and biased) as a way to describe the differences. That's why they are listed individually.

As for the "left-right" axis, see the discussion on the Green Party page. An important thing to remember is that Wikipedia is written for a world, not German, audience. From this point of view, there is something unusual and noteworthy about the ÖDP's combination of issues which are usually at home in disparate parties. --Erauch 03:12, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I still disagree. Even a quick google search shows some interesting findings:
Ecological Democratic Party (ODP):
The ODP calls itself a "party with values for the political centre". One of its mottos is "Less is more". It believes in "respect for life and responsibility for the future of our children".
The party, which scored 0.2% in 1998, points out how it differs from the Greens. It says it is against legalizing marijuana, takes no donations from big business, and wants to stop the tax breaks its says nuclear energy producers enjoy in Germany.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/not_in_website/syndication/monitoring/media_reports/2268231.stm
They describe Herbert Gruhl as a 'conservative' politician, whereas the term eco-fascist would be more appropriate. Gruhl was one of the founders of Die Grünen but left the party in 1982 (which Capra and Spretnak seem to regret and blame the 'marxists' for) to found the Ökologisch Demokratische Partei (Ecological Democratic Party). When this party decided in 1989 to distance itself from the extreme Right political party Die Republikaner against the will of Gruhl, he withdrew and founded the Unabhängige Ökologen Deutschlands.
http://communalism.org/Archive/3/dspe.html ((Comment by TillWe: I disagree with the eco-fascist label given here, but I thing this indicates that putting the ÖDP as centre-right party and the Greens as centre-left party would be something many agree))
Gruhl, on the losing end, concluded that the Greens had given up their "concern for ecology in favor of a leftist ideology of emancipation" and walked out of the party. He continued his fight for his conception of ecology outside the Greens, however; with his fellow ultra-rightist Baldur Springmann, he founded the Ecological Democratic Party (ÖDP) in 1982 and wrote most of its programmatic literature, orienting ecology toward fascism and endowing racism and population policy with an 'ecological' legitimation. In 1989, when an ÖDP party congress dared to pass a resolution formally distancing the party from the NPD and the Republicans, this 'leftist victory' was too much for Gruhl, and he left to form yet another group. Since the mid-1980s, Gruhl has appeared as a guest speaker at various neo-Nazi and Holocaust-denial events and continues to publish books on 'ecology.'
http://www.alphalink.com.au/~radnat/theories-right/theory4.html
I would summarize this as: at the time of it's foundation, the ÖDP was clearly a right-wing party, founded primarly by people who in the 1980s saw the Greens as to left-wing. Right-wing means conservativism, putting the state before civil society and civil liberties, holding up "family values" and holding down progressive-liberal values. Since 1989, the ÖDP changed a bit, and it positioned itself left of the far-right parties like NPD and Republicans. In the same time, the Greens moved from a clearly leftist party more to the centre, and could be seen today as left-liberal party. So, today Bündnis 90/Die Grünen are a party that stands left of the middle (but not far-left, whatever the CSU would say), and the ÖDP is a party that stands somewhere between the middle and the right wing of the political spectrum. The differences were much bigger in the 1980s, but they still show. Leaving the ecological orientation that is common to both parties aside, I'm pretty sure that the average weighting of political values for ÖDP members would be something like Environment - Family values - Economy - Liberal values/civil rights, the average for Green members would be more like Enivronment - Liberal values/civil rights - Economy - Family values. This difference should be visible in the article. -- till we ☼☽ | Talk 13:43, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)
P.S.: Two German-language sources for the discussion about ÖDP and its position on the left-right-axis: [1], [2].

Again, you are coming at this from a specifically German point of view. The point of the article is to explan the ÖDP to someone who is not as familiar with German politics as a German would be. Outside of Germany, its stances on environmental issues would be considered very "left". And the combination of issues represented by this party is very unusual. I have been able to find no other examples in other countries, despite looking very thoroughly.

But even from a specifically German perspective, your claim that the party is "right of the middle" is untenable, given that on the party's most important issue (the one mentioned in its name), it is clearly to the "left" of the SPD.

You are defining the party's identity based on issues it considers relatively unimportant, such as marijuana legalization.

Thus, I hold to my assertion that the party is a fusion of strong advocacy of issues traditionally considered "left" and "right", rather than a party of the middle.

I'm pretty sure that the average weighting of political values for ÖDP members would be something like Environment - Family values - Economy - Liberal values/civil rights, the average for Green members would be more like Enivronment - Liberal values/civil rights - Economy - Family values.

This I do not dispute. The article mentions the difference in emphasis. --Erauch 15:32, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The problem with this is that ecology isn't a topic on the left-right-axis, in Germany or outside. Ask any political scientist. So you can't say that the ÖDP is a left party (or left of the SPD) because it is an ecological or environmental party. That issue isn't an issue of left or right -- that most green parties are at the same time rather left-wing parties is a coincidence (or can be explained by roots in social movements with diverse topics), but if the one thing you now about a party that is ecological orientated, you cannot follow that it is left-wing. -- till we ☼☽ | Talk 16:00, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)
The problem with this is that ecology isn't a topic on the left-right-axis, in Germany or outside.

This statement most definitely doesn't hold here in the United States, and many other places as well. You have a different view of this axis than is usual, at least in those places. If we have a real national difference here, perhaps the article needs to reflect that - I have made an attempt. --Erauch 00:38, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:L-oedp.gif

Image:L-oedp.gif is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to ensure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 22:39, 13 February 2008 (UTC)