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Tens of thousands protest in Germany against the rise of the far right

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Re: Tens of thousands protest in Germany against the rise of the far right

#181
post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fascism is a product of capitalism's crisis. It's the final breath of capitalism when the system is not working for the masses, it's counter revolutionary, it's a doubling down of the status quo into a more violent form. Wages stagnated, inflation is eating up the last pennies of a more impoverished worker class, populism will always rise up from these conditions, and right wing populism will eventually lead to fasci…

Fascism and Communism. Two sides of the same coin. In fact, they are so similar even in their base, they ended up as mortal enemy of each other.

Can you expand on this point?

It seems you are equating them just by virtue of authoritarianism, to me that's just one trait they share (and from which only Fascism has it necessarily in any instance it happens). I'd like to know what else you consider them to be so similar at to call "two sides of the same coin".

Re: Tens of thousands protest in Germany against the rise of the far right

#182
post #72
post #10

Meanwhile the AfD is looking to at least double their share of the votes perhaps to almost 25% of the electorate: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_G...

As an immigrant here in Germany I wonder if I should perhaps start to think about an exit strategy if this trend continues.

I am German without an immigration background and wonder about this, too.

Re: Tens of thousands protest in Germany against the rise of the far right

#183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ideology that tries to make wired and pathological behavior and ideas a normal thing and try shame others for not adopting it will never be accepted by majority. We have democracy, not dictatorship.

> Ideology that tries to make wired and pathological behavior and ideas a normal thing What are you referring to? Read some history on being "woke", what part is problematic?

Define "being woke".

Re: Tens of thousands protest in Germany against the rise of the far right

#184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ideology that tries to make wired and pathological behavior and ideas a normal thing What are you referring to? Read some history on being "woke", what part is problematic?

Define "being woke".

From Wikipedia:

> Woke is an adjective derived from African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) meaning "alert to racial prejudice and discrimination".

Re: Tens of thousands protest in Germany against the rise of the far right

#186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a democracy, the people have a right to control immigration. Uncontrolled immigration has been very anti democratic and has angered people literally all over the world (you can find many examples). I’m tired of people thinking that just because they have some reflective empathy doesn’t make their policy choices better or morally superior. There are real negatives when it comes to it that many in the left pretend d…

Yeah, that's the theory, but in practice, pretty much across all EU countries, for about 35+ years there was no party which you could vote for which both had a chance of being able to form a government and had an anti-immigration policy. For all intents and purposes immigration policy was not (and remains not) somthing that was under democratic influence. That's why so many conspiracy theories have sprung up around t…

In France, constraining immigration is equaled to racism for many people. If you include it in your program, you will be compared to the far right, and a lot of voters will ignore you without checking anything you have to say.

Re: Tens of thousands protest in Germany against the rise of the far right

#187
When I moved to Canada, on a work visa that is not guaranteed to be permanent, and with a job already lined up, they still had me do an extensive medical exam beforehand to make sure I won't be a burden on the free healthcare. Productive member of society, not healthy enough? GTFO. Healthy enough? You're welcome, and the work visa rules, for example, are much more friendly than the US ones.

That attitude (not this particular law, in general) is why the only far-right person I talked to in BC (accidentally in a bar) told me that "Pakistanis are still better than Quebecois" :)

I think the immigration debate in the west has the biggest amount of stupid, averaged between two sides... it's possible to have a massive yet reasonable immigration system that is productive and does not alienate the local. Most of the west has two sides passionately arguing if throwing baby out with the bathwater is best done onto tile, or cement... Before complaining about other side's stupid, look at your own.

Re: Tens of thousands protest in Germany against the rise of the far right

#188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFD is not the only opposition party in Germany. The opposition in the German Bundestag is quite large. Of a total 736 seats there are 319 opposition seats. 78 of those are occupied by AFD politicians. The largest oppostion party is in fact the CDU/CSU with 197 members. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundestag

Yet curiously, all those parties share the same politics in the relevant topics, and all work together to prevent the afd to take part in any (federal or local) government. Even where they have massive votes. That is not how the party system is supposed to work.

Even the parties in power hardly share the same politics on most topics.

Re: Tens of thousands protest in Germany against the rise of the far right

#189
post #179
post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, there was an official court case about it, with the result that Höcke indeed may be called a faschist, due to many things he said, that were often literal Nazi quotes. And he was a history teacher, so he knows what he was referencing. (and yes, I oversimplify a bit by conflating nazis with faschists, but a) I see no fundamental difference b) it is pretty much common nowdays And the AfD in its whole is not a Naz…

Was there a court case? I can only find reference to an accusation that he might have said in a speech "Everything for our homeland, everything for Saxony-Anhalt, everything for Germany", which apparently everyone should know shares the last three words with an SS slogan and that therefore saying it is indisputable signs of wanting to conquer Poland. Also Höcke claimed he didn't know this but, according to his critic…

"Was there a court case?"

There were actually many:

https://www.hessenschau.de/politik/demonstranten-duerfen-afd...

"Die Staatsanwaltschaft Frankfurt hat ein Verfahren gegen einen Demonstranten eingestellt, der bei Anti-AfD-Protesten Björn Höcke als "Nazi" bezeichnete. Es handle sich hier nicht um eine strafbare Beleidigung, sondern um ein "an Tatsachen anknüpfendes Werturteil", so die Ermittler."

So to be clear, the court did not declare him a Nazi. But close enough, that people may call him that.

And if you read a bit in his biographie in wikipedia, you should find more than enough:

https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bj%C3%B6rn_H%C3%B6cke

"In einem Leserbrief von 2006 behauptete Höcke im Anschluss an den Geschichtsfälscher David Irving, anders als die deutschen Luftangriffe auf Coventry 1940 seien die britischen Luftangriffe auf Dresden 1945 eine völkerrechtswidrige, geplante Massentötung an ostdeutschen Flüchtlingen in einer unverteidigten überfüllten Stadt gewesen."

"Beim Gedenken an den 13. Februar 1945 in Dresden im Jahr 2010 demonstrierte er zusammen mit Neonazis."

"Höcke ist seit etwa 2008 mit dem NPD-Vertreter Thorsten Heise bekannt oder befreundet, der sechs Kilometer von Bornhagen entfernt wohnt."

"lobte die Ideen der NPD, verherrlichte das NS-Regime, behauptete, auf den „Fleiß“ und die „Formbestimmtheit“ der Deutschen neidische fremde Mächte hätten Deutschland in beiden Weltkriegen überfallen"

"In seinem Gutachten zur AfD vom 15. Januar 2019 urteilte das Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz (BfV) mit Bezug auf Kempers Belege, Höckes Identität mit „Landolf Ladig“ sei „nahezu unbestreitbar“ und „angesichts der plausibilisierten Faktendichte nahezu mit Gewissheit anzunehmen"

So to me this is 100% Neonazi ideology and this is where he came from. Now of course he hides it wherever he can, but at least to me it is obvious, that he still believes all of it. Would you really be comfortable with such a guy as chancellor?

Re: Tens of thousands protest in Germany against the rise of the far right

#190

As someone who doesn't live in Europe and never set foot in Europe, it seems like the #1 issue is immigration - both legal and refugees. Am I correct?

Whatever it is, immigration is impossible to stop in a humane way if we want to keep our current standard of living. Of course you wish everyone the live we have, but it is not sustainable to have that in Europe - but because of the inherent polution and the space in the cities.

So, you need to distuigish between refugees that can’t return home safely because they are political activist, gay, or thousands of other reasons - and regufees who are, as the populists like to say “gold diggers” and are here to get a better way of living, regardless how they achieve that.

To distuigish that, you need to investigate each individual refugee, and that takes time and money by itself. Because you can’t keep them in a single building for months or even years at a time, you allow them to roam free. This however causes other issues, because there are bad apples in the bunch who then steal from the local population, or even commit atrocities against fellow refugees. However, the view of part of the public is that there isn’t sufficiently acted by the police or politics on this. And even sending them back costs money, in the form of airplanes and such.

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