Germany: Mass protests after far-right AfD helps CDU/CSU
Germany: Mass protests after far-right AfD helps CDU/CSU
A non-binding motion to restrict immigration has sparked outrage after citizens said the conservative CDU/CSU broke a promise not to work with the far-right AfD. Protesters in Berlin gathered outside CDU headquarters.
Summary
Thousands of Germans protested the CDU/CSU party for collaborating with the far-right AfD to pass anti-immigration legislation.
The move, seen as a breach of a post-war taboo against extremist parties, sparked outrage and accusations of making AfD extremism socially acceptable.
The CDU/CSU argues the legislation is necessary due to concerns about immigration and recent attacks by individuals who should have been deported.
Are you paying attention, USA? TAKE NOTES.
So, the problem, as I see it, is that we already did the protest thing under the first Trump administration. It didn't do much then and we're tired now. It's been about a decade of hearing about awful shit from Trump and realizing that our family members, coworkers and neighbors are actually awful people.
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.
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.
The USA used to be badass when we thought our leadership were underhanded charlatans.
Bosses used to respect their labor because otherwise "collective bargaining" could potentially mean your employees dragging you out your front door and beating you in the yard until you agreed to a cost-of-living increase...if you didn't take the hint when monkey-wrenches kept ending up wedged in the machinery.
Now look at us: The people waving guns around and screeching about "liberty and freedom" are the same people simping for their masters and bragging about how many hours they put in when they keep getting pay cuts. Belching out "wE tHe PeOpLe" while blaming immigrants and foreigners for everything, their fascist puppet-masters hands wedged firmly up them.
Lefties and socialists sold out and became spineless utopian yuppies and forgot what fighting for your rights actually entails.
Unions have to be "approved" and "recognized" by their oppressors to be considered valid. Corporations make us sign away our rights to a fair trial if they wrong us.
This whole thing used to seem like it worked because once upon a time both sides had a certain social contract and agreed to play by rules and pretend we lived in a civilized society.
But now we're back to some monstrous autocrat saying "Who cares? Winning. Lol." , and we're all stuck wondering why nobody's listening to us.
Now we're on the verge of being labeled "terrorists" if we so much as lift a finger against their regime. The people need to claim their fire back if we're going to see these dark times through.
Unions have to be "approved" and "recognized" by their oppressors to be considered valid. Corporations make us sign away our rights to a fair trial if they wrong us.
We're repeating history. The Pullman Car Company, for example, pulled this exact same move. Not particularly fond of Churchill, but yes, we forgot, we're repeating.
Peaceful protests are the fascists favourites, easiest to ignore.
Yeah, we need soccer style riots every day or however often the uberglut orange too is able to move the pen.
"General strike"
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.
“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.
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.
Feel like it's less about the masonry and more about how Brandwand sounds quite silly
Good thing Germany has actual proportional representation, and not gerrymandered districts under FPTP that causes voter apathy, as with some ahem other country... 👀
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.
We have both actually, that's why we get two votes. It's still fptp but with a hotfix for proportionality applied.
They had that during the Weimar republic too but err...
There are more democratic reforms needed and a lot of how politics functions is based on the culture and current attitude.
Important update: the right wing / conservative migration plan lost its vote in the parliament.
Gotta admit this is some great popcorn stuff. If it wasn’t so serious.
Lets face it we all still live way to comfortable, to have the resolve for anything but peacefull protest.
Germany can lead the way. They can become the new leaders of the free world.
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 unchanged 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.
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).
Lead the way... By electing the most right wing government since the war?
Third time’s a charm.
I think that the reaction of most mainstream German politicians to the Israeli-Genocide has made it painfully obvious that they're deeply Racist, since 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 "unwaveringly" 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 because the ethnicity of the murderers is one specific ethnicity rather than a different ethnicity.
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 "This specific race should be able to do whatever they want to other ethnicities and nationalities".
In summary, the actions that the SPD and CDU/CSU (and even the Greens, for their eternal shame) have been unwaveringly supporting "for the Jewish People" are even more violent than those the AfD have been supporting "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-Nazism led most people to believe.
Unbelievable. There is an article about how Germans take to the streets to protest our biggest threat to Democracy and the potential next Nazis-Party and the only thing you say is one of the most racist things I have ever read on here. Shame on you.
What he said was the opposite of racism.
In the Racist mind the criticism of how their judgement standards and choices of supporting or not a person or State are different depending on the target person's race, always ends up interpreted as "an attack on a Race" because Racists cannot even begin to conceive the idea that "All humans and their actions should be judged independently of their Race".
When a Racist voices criticism of an instance of double-standards depending on Race being used, they are motivated by a desire to attack the Race which benefits from such double standards, so in their minds that must be the reason why other would attack such Race-related double standards and in their Racist minds it's inconceivable that the criticism could be against any such double standards no matter who benefits and against the entire mental architecture of seeing and judging people as Race-members rather than as human beings,
In the minds of Racists everything everybody says or does about other people is determined by Race, so criticism of Racism itself is invariably seen as an "attack on a Race" in the mind of the Racist.
(Aside from this poster's response to my post, other examples of what I mean can easily be found in how Trump supporters respond to criticism of their Racist actions - their responses often follow exactly the same pattern as the poster above)
Obviously thanks to their circular logic that "any criticism of Race-based double standards can only be explained as Racism against the Race which benefits from it", Racists feel no shame about their own Racism, since it justifies itself as a reaction to what they interpret (following said circular logic) as the Racism of critics.
I weep for Germany and all the Germans who are Humanists rather than Racists: it must be hard living surrounded by so many people whose views on their fellow human beings fit the very same architecture of thinking of people as "first and foremost members of Races", as the Nazi ideology.
Those fucks should just stop voting for CDU, why are they behaving like CDU is the only party to vote for?
There are a lot of old people who vote CDU because "that's what we have always done". Many people don't bother to read what the parties actually stand for. If they are told, they often don't believe it. Same with protest voters choosing the fascist AfD "to show those corrupt politicians on top". Meanwhile AfD is the most corrupt party of all, by far.
This is like a wife who is beaten by her husband. Instead of leaving, they tell themselves "I can change him"