Germany: Mass protests after far-right AfD helps CDU/CSU

[maeve@kbin.earth]

Pay attention to how Europeans protest.

[zqps@sh.itjust.works]

We have both actually, that's why we get two votes. It's still fptp but with a hotfix applied.

[disgruntled@lemmy.ca]

Third time’s a charm.

[zqps@sh.itjust.works]

I wish I had that kind of faith in our society. A lot of people are still conservative. The majority lacks any kind of class consciousness, and would really prefer the global western hegemony to keep trucking on for a few more generations.

The progressive movement is real and has great people in it. I love the conversations I've been having with people for the past decade. But it's a bubble that includes maybe 5-8% of the population. Enough to build solidarity at least around population centers, not enough to sweep an election.

[saleh@feddit.org]

Still have voter apathy, rising fascism and a bunch of supposedly progressive parties that have moved strongly to the right, with truly left/progressive parties being almost irrelevant.

[saleh@feddit.org]

Germany is on the best way to repeat 1933, putting fascism into power with the help of the "conservatives" and a bystanding/complicit center

[vividspecter@lemm.ee]

They had that during the Weimar republic too but err...

[isomorph@feddit.org]

He did. It's the same picture here. Even with all the protests we have people like Melloni and Schoof. AfD is polling at an all time high. I'm not saying stop protesting. But it's obviously not enough to keep fascim at bay. People have to get a lot more militant.

[annoflo@lemmy.world]

A bit of additional context: The "legislation" passed on Wednesday was only a non-binding recommendation to the government. Basically a list of "the parliament would like you to do that". So Merz threw away his "Brandmauer" (wall of fire against the AfD) for something that doesn't even matter.

But, it gets better. It'll repeat today, but this time with actual legislation. The CDU/CSU is trying to blackmail the other democratic parties into voting for it, because else the AFD will get stronger again. But they aren't having it, so odds are high that we'll get a repeat today. Just even worse because this time the outcome actually means something besides symbolism.

Keep in mind - that guy is currently in Position number 1 to become the next Chancellor, he's always lying and backtracking on promises he made. Such as the promise that, after our government fell in November: "We'll only pass things that can find support with the democratic forces."
Or a much earlier promise of:"Anyone who cooperates with the AfD will face a party-removal." Even Merkel cut him down to size a bit yesterday by saying that she thinks it's wrong - and Merkel basically never comes out of the woodwork to give her opinion on stuff in such a way.

[barsoap@lemm.ee]

“Brandmauer” (wall of fire against the AfD)

Firewall. As in a wall designed to hold back fire so that it doesn't spread. Specifically a masonry wall, "Brandwand" is the more generic term.

[annoflo@lemmy.world]

True, thank you - I am at work and was typing that in a hurry before the next meeting, so that was indeed a bit off.

[raef@lemmy.world]

What are you seeing in EU protests that BLM didn't have?

[fundmecfsresearch@lemmy.blahaj.zone]

Didn’t do much?. BLM freaked the fuck out of the conservative elite. They sent the fucking closest thing to the military to the protests and brutalised protesters.

People decided to back down at that point. But they didn’t have too.

[aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com]

I think that the reaction of most mainstream German politicians to the Israeli-Genocide has made it painfully obvious that they're deeply Racist when they justified unwavering support for a regime commiting a Genocide along ethnic lines - were amongst, other things they murdered tens of thousands of children because of their ethnicity - by saying that they "unwavering" support the ethnicity that said genocidal regime claims to represent: it doesn't get much more Racist than justifying sending weapons to guys mass murdering children along ethnic lines based on the ethnicity of the murderers.

Not only is the moral distance from "We support Genocidal mass murderers because of their race" to supporting the quasi-Nazi AfD miniscule compared to what it would be if the starting point had instead been "No kind of oppression can be justified by the race of the oppressors", but even the AfD ideology itself of "The German people should be able to do whatever they want to other ethnicities and nationalities" is morally not that distant from the "A very specific race should be able to do whatever they want to other ethnicities and nationalities".

In summary, what the SPD and CDU/CSU have been defending "for the Jewish People" is an even more violent version of what the AfD have been defending "for the German people".

Clearly the German Political class never strayed far from the way of thinking that underpinned NAZISM (they mostly moved a specific ethnicity from the "untermenschen" to the "ubermenschen" column) and hence the distance to get back to the old "principles" was always much shorter than their performative anti-Nazis led most people to believe.

[aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com]

Kinda makes me think when I, as an immigrant over there, was a member of the Green Party in Britain before the Leave Referendum: great forward thinking people who were genuinelly good persons who wanted a better world for everybody, all the while the rest of British Society turned out to be mainly composed of dumb racists.

Still today I use the lessons I learned in British politics, since IMHO they were maybe a decade ahead of the rest of Europe in the shift to the Far Right (their version is just posher).

[cybersin@lemm.ee]

we already did the protest thing

No, you really didn't.

we're tired now

Fuck off, libs really are just going to let Nazis march through the streets.

[giddygap@lemm.ee]

Difference is that in the US, people are armed to the teeth and a peaceful protect will quickly turn deadly.

[sunshine@lemmy.ca]

There are more democratic reforms needed and a lot of how politics functions is based on the culture and current attitude.

[samus12345@lemm.ee]

Protesting is a lot easier when your country is 28 times smaller than the US.

[maeve@kbin.earth]

Oh well, nothing to be done but stay in the house and accept whatever comes, and MAYBE the politicians will suddenly have an attack of conscience!