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Germany Looks to Stop the Far Right From Assuming Power
(www.nytimes.com)
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this post was submitted on 16 Mar 2024
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In reality, far from stopping the far right, Germany is implementing a far right agenda. Increase police authority? Check. Scapegoat immigrants and other marginalized groups? Check. Build up the military? Check. Suppress protests and dissenters? Check. Impose austerity, providing the fertile ground for fascists? Check.
By the time the AfD comes to power, they won't have to do anything. The liberals (including socdems and greens) will already have created a fascist society.
The same is happening to France. As you said, they'll have a field day when (at this point it's not if, it's when) they get to power.
Gotta love neoliberalism...
The Netherlands will very likely have a right wing government and will be heading down the same path. Same with Italy, Sweden, Denmark.
With the next European election this year the right wing parties in the European Parliament will gain a lot of traction.
We could be heading down the American path and lose a lot or the progress we made over the last 2 decades.
I will be a father in a couple or hours. Between the right taking to power and accelerating climate change i am just so fucking worried in what kind of world my kids will grow up.
Fascists won the Cold War; it just wasn't the nazis. This was unfortunately always an inevitable consequence of that.
Fahsism is not a very well defined term. Can you expand why you see America (whom I assume you are reversing to?) as a fashist regime?
Would be more accurate to say capitalists I suppose, who inevitably give way to fascism.
The US is a bourgeois/capitalist dictatorship built on the genocide of millions of native Americans. I think most socialists would say it's not quite a fascist regime just yet, but it has a history of supporting such regimes and is currently supporting a fascist colony committing a genocide in Palestine.
Fascism is well defined, it is capitalism in decay, it is a desperate lashing out of the parasite class when they become incapable of forestalling the TRPF. Fascism is simply capitalism with the mask off. It is only "not a very well defined term" within the capitalist superstructure because they don't want people oppose capitalism, so the definition deliberately muddied. There are many things that are not poorly understood, but must be made to be poorly understood.
Congrats on fatherhood!
Thanks a lot :-). Will be another couple of days max.
rip your back if you have to sleep on the "husband couch" in the hospital room.
The rise of right wing parties might be a consequence of the left wings failure to govern.
In Norway the Labour Party was the biggest party for decades. Now the party is infested with politicians using it for career paths to NGO's or international organisations like UN and EU. The same party made for the labourers implements tax policies making it really hard to start industries.
Money are being spent on the most incredible projects bearing no fruit for future generations.
At a point people get fed up, and in desperation they have to vote further to the right. If you want less government spending on stupid projects you also have to get some fascism.
The problem is not the right wing parties or stupid people. The problem is worthless left wing politicians not contributing positive to the nation.
It saddens me.
The problem isn't a person. It's class society itself and the capitalist mode of production.
Both Fascism and Socialism solve the problem of capitalism being in crisis; it always eventually will be, and it currently is in Europe. Fascism "solves" it by fully cementing capitalist rule and removing the veil of bourgeois "democracy", while Socialism solves it by overthrowing capitalism entirely and establishing proletarian rule.
The far-right rising again in Europe was always the inevitable consequence of capitalists winning the Cold War and ruthlessly suppressing the Left since. The only other "solution" to the crisis is Fascism.
I am not very well read in political theory, but I would agree with the idea that capitalism HAS to end in crisis because exponancial groth just can't be sustained.
I would further point out that, to my limited knowledge, capitalism is a (or even the) root cause of the current climate crisis (altough things like humans inability to solve long term problems, as well as other factors come into play too. After all, things like the ozon hole have been solved even under a capitalist system).
A great example of how this class operates. Our foreign minister from the Labour party had to step down due to suspicions of providing her husband with inside information on government contracts to public traded companies. The husband bought stocks and they made some cash.
The reward for this corruption is a new position as our ambassador to the US. She officially got the job two days ago.
We have seen this upper class of politicians never having to stand responsible for their actions for some years now. On both sides.
There's no wonder people get desperate. The only solution they get provided is using their vote. And when they do use it they get called out for using it the "wrong" way.
Either the current politicians fix their shit, or the people will topple them. It's fairly predictable.
I don't know about other nations. In Germany we have had the Conservative Party ruling for 16 years as a right leaning Party, 4 years of a left party that implemented right wing neo fashist ideas, followed by another 16 years of conservative rule with more centeristic than right wing rule (the political void in the right was filled by the AFD, which has become a true fashist party in the last 10 years). The only "left" government we ever had in the last 36 years has been in the last 2, and they are heavily restricted by beeing in a coalition with a neo liberal right wing party.
So, at least for Germany, this just doesn't hold true.
Yes. Pretty much everywhere has had capitalists ranging from moderate to hard-line in lead. Now they're just seeing that they can form coalitions with open fascists. Leftists don't even have the opportunity to try to achieve change... Maybe Uruguay or such are the exception
They're all neoliberals. They wouldn't be doing anything substantially different if the FDP didn't exist.
Are you living in a different Germany than me? There are sadly things going on to make immigration harder. But other than that, things are okay.
Make immigration harder??? Nice euphemism for this fascist shit. They're throwing human rights out of the window. They're literally putting migrants into concentration camps, if they're don't drown first thanks to Frontex pushbacks. Greens defended this so-called compromise to their base while fascist Meloni was giving victory speeches.
"Endlich im großen Stil abschieben" (Scholz). I can't tell the difference an NPD slogan and the SPD chancellor.
And for the other shit, there's some extra police authority or surveillance law proposed every other month or so. Pro-palestine protests are criminalized and they're threatening Muslims with deportation for not being loyal enough to Israel. All the parties are discussing what sort of services they can cut so they have more money for the military. Real wages are shrinking. You can't open a newspaper without reading about how Germany needs to prepare for war. Things are not okay.
These are a lot of statements without sources. Also most people would disagree with the statement that a government that includes social democrats and greens is implementing a "far right agenda".
Fucking Scholz said he wanted to "finally deport in a big way" ("endlich im großen Stil abschieben"). This is (well used to be) a far right agenda. They're sending weapons to Israeli fascists while they commit genocide, and defend them at every opportunity. These people support fascists and fascist policies.
What exactly do you even dispute is untrue about what I said?
Scholz was talking about around 50000 people who came seeking asylum but we're found to have no right to asylum. It's not very humane but it's the current law. The actual fascists of the far right are talking millions.
SPD is a relatively conservative party but it's absolutely insane to call them fascists.
They changed the law so they can deport more people!
They are absolutely going far right with this one especially and their rhetoric around it. These used to be totally unacceptable far right slogans and policies, but here we are. Basic human rights suspended. Just because the AfD is worse does not mean the SPD has not shifted into what not long ago was far right territory. But oh no, calling out racism and how the SPD is effectively enabling a shift towards fascism is too far for you! That's exactly how this rightward shift can happen, because people like you are making excuses for this shit.
Sorry, statement rejected - no source provided (hypocrite)
Any source on that? We do not have a military right now. Wouldn't be bad if we wanted to defend ourselves against Putin.
Putin is going to come and finish the job for Stalin any day now. Just wait and see, tomorrow the Bolchevik hordes might be flooding into Germany, to eat your Dachshunds and turning the Oktoberfest into a vodka and balalaika festival.
Why would Putin do that? Simply because he is evil.
The only sensible response is to cut every social program to fund the construction of a German death star.
jesus christ liberals are insufferable
Death to America
My guy, have you heard phrases like “100 Mrd. € Sondervermögen für die Bundeswehr”, “Wiedereinführung der Wehrpflicht” , shit like this? Or have you heard anything people like Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann have said in the past two years? Also, hasn’t the Russian army been struggling to overpower Ukraine for the past two years now? The poorest country in Europe with basically no functioning infrastructure to begin with that also is decidedly not a member of NATO? Wouldn’t the Russian Army have to cross the Baltic states and Poland to even reach Germany, triggering a response from all of NATO? Could it be they all the rhetoric about the Russkys expanding westwards is full of shit and nothing more but a fig leaf to sell austerity and a military buildup to the German populace?
Those are not sources, those are only talks and rumors. I've not seen any result of the 100Mrd. yet. And yes, the NATO would be triggered if they invaded Poland, but shouldn't Germany as a member of NATO be able to help then?
This is the same fearful and paranoid mentality which caused Putin to invade Ukraine. If everyone continues with this catastrophic thinking, we will have world war in no time.
Living in fear of a Russian invasion of Europe is completely delusional.
Alright then, let Putin do his thing.
I know there are many communists on Lemmy, but I didn't know they are pro Putin.
Actual NPC dialog tree
Ok, NPC.
"No u"
Yeah yeah, I remember all that shit from back in the day. Die Russen kommen! Die Russen kommen! Oldest trick in the book.
Also, I love that you want a source for something that was a top news story for months. You somehow heard, dass die Russen kommen!!! but not the Sondervermögen? You're just fucking with me, aren't you?
If it helps, I’m a (terrified) immigrant in Germany and it’s really confusing. I don’t know why there’s so much certainty in media reports about things that aren’t certain. It could be a language barrier, but I assume mild shade whenever Konjunktiv I comes up, so I’m probably interpreting that as unfairly noncommittal.
Examples: Scholz wanted to disallow immigrants from working, then make them work to be eligible for citizenship, whatever is happening with marijuana, I read about Wagenknechts new party more than a year before she actually formed it.
Yeah I barely pay attention to Europe on news and I knew they were talking about rebuilding the military. Made for some good meme's.