Carnival of Anarchy: German "Anarchists" Promise Free Beer

For anyone old enough to remember the joke candidates and parties of the 1960s and 70s the following should bring back a few memories. This group is situated in Germany. My, how things have changed. Don't you think their parteifuhrer and future Reichskanzler looks a little fried? But I like the idea of theme parks for nuts and nazis. Well, I know they still sound like prisons. Oh, yes the new liberal Germany.... but folks its still better than the good ol' days.

The Anarchistic Pogo Party of Germany (German: Anarchistische Pogo-Partei Deutschlands, or 'APPD') is the self-declared party of the Pöbel (mob) and "social parasites". It was created in 1981 by two punks in Hannover and took part in the 1998 election to the Bundestag with the promise to pay the voters with free beer. The official communication organ is the paper Armes Deutschland ("Poor Germany") (former Asige Rundschau ("Asocial News")).

The party took part in the German federal election with their chancellor candidate Wolfgang Wendland, who is also the lead singer of the German punk-band "Die Kassierer" ("The Cashiers").

Aims

Right to unemployment with full salary
Youth pension instead of retirement pension
Abolishment of compulsory education
Creation of centers for physical love, so-called Mitfickzentralen (literally "fuckpooling centers")
Abolition of police
Legalization of all drugs
Abolition of the right to demonstrate with prior announcement (abolition of distinction between permitted and not permitted)
Totale Rückverdummung ("total restupidification") and balkanisation of Germany
Reconstitute the German borders from 1237 (a satire on the aim of some german extreme-right parties to restore the German borders during the time of Nazism an WWII)

History

The party was founded in 1981 by two 17-year-olds with the nicknames "Zewa" (a leading facial tissue brand) and "Kotze" (vomit). In the following years it was joined by many punks and organized many demonstrations, which were sometimes ended by the police, often leading to arrests. The party was dissolved in 1986, but was recreated in 1994 and soon chose to participate in elections. In the 1997 Hamburg city elections the APPD received a stunning 5.3% of the votes in St. Pauli and thus became the fourth-strongest party in that district. In 1998 the APPD ran in the Bundestag election with Karl Nagel as its candidate for the chancellorship, and using slogans like "Labour sucks" ("Arbeit ist Scheiße") and "Drinking, drinking, every day just drinking" ("Saufen! Saufen! Jeden Tag nur saufen"). The APPD failed, however, to gain the 0.5% of the votes needed to pay to the voters in the form of a promised large party with free beer. With approximately 35,000, or 0.1%, of the votes, the APPD outperformed Lyndon LaRouche's "BüSo" and also the German Communist Party DKP. Finally the party was dissolved in 1999. In December 2000 the APPD was reestablished in Munich, but did not participate in the Bundestag election of 2002. A sufficient number of signatures were collected for participation in the European election 2004, however these did not arrive because the German Postal Service declined to forward them to party chairman Christoph Grossmann. In the following year, the APPD took place in the Bundestag election of 2005 with little success. As a result, the party split into two parties in 2006 - the APPD and the Pogo-Partei. Both parties plan to run in the next elections for the Bundestag and European Parliament in 2009.

Theory of Pogo-Anarchism

The concept of Balkanisation is introduced to split up the country into different parts:

"Asoziale Parasiten-Zonen" (APZ, asocial parasite zone) for pogo-anarchists and other asocials, who prefer not to work and rather drink, do drugs and have sex.
"Sichere Beschäftigungs-Zonen" (SBZ, safe occupation zone) for strait-laced workaholics who will finance the good life of the people in the APZ. This is a pun, since the SBZ in West-German use (used till late into the Willy Brandt-era by the conservative press) meant the Sowjetisch besetzte Zone (Soviet Occupied Zone) or Sowjetische Besatzungszone (Soviet Occupation Zone), the predecessor of the GDR.
"Gewalt-Erlebnis-Parks" (GEP, violence theme parks) for incurable violent offenders, cops and Nazis with special areas set aside as ethnic theme parks for cultural minorities (such as lederhosen-wearing Bavarians), to avoid too close contact between these pogo races lest the pursuit of what each considers necessary for happiness suffers. These parks will be surrounded by very high walls and are located in former East Germany.

The APPD propagated the idea of a "youth pension", to replace the existing old-age pension. The idea was that people should enjoy life first, and work later.