I can't even think how to comment on this! So, some of the people voted for the AfD which leans to the right, some of the others voted for the CDU which leans in the middle but facing right and others voted for Left parties which lean, obviously, to the left. Only the AfD got more votes than the others but not a majority so everyone needed to find partners in order to govern. But absolutely every other party thinks the AfD is Literally Hitler so they won't partner with them. So they have to partner with former communists and Stasi officers who, you could argue, are so far left as to almost meet Literally HItler round the other side! And the dumb thing seems to be that the AfD don't actually seem particularly right-wing, fascist, totalitarian, nazi, mad, dangerous, ideological. They seem pretty old fashioned conservative. Or have I misunderstood the complicated German system?
I'm laughing at all of this, but I do feel bad for y'all over there. Hopefully some Germans get as much amusement from the flailing and posturing of American politicians in fair exchange, though. 🤣
Yes. We laugh at this. And feel bad for all them'all over there. I also remember laughing at the borders Angela Merkel flung open for invaders from the Middle East and Africa in the early-mid 2010's, as young women were assaulted, raped in the streets of once-safe cities by them during NYE celebrations, where mayors and governors (equivalent) blamed the women for dressing scantily. Those crazy, dumb Germans putting up with that and reelecting leaders who hated them. Then the Biden administration happened. And I look at America's borders and once-safe cities flooded with criminal gangs from all over the world.
Not laughing now. Yes, they allowed Trump to prevail in November. But the question remains will they allow the Trump agenda to prevail? How much will be dog and pony shows? How much will courts, reluctant to intervene as Biden trashed constitutional norms, jump in with immediate orders shutting down the Trump agenda? And will Trump honor those orders? Or act as Biden did, blatantly ignoring court decisions that administration didn't like? Should Trump ignore court orders will the GOP-led House move to impeach him, when they couldn't be bothered to move to impeach Biden or any of his officials who used court orders for toilet paper?
Germany and the EU has proven to be a preview of coming attractions. A wise nation would see what is coming and prepare for it to prevent the same thing happening to them. The US isn't exactly a wise nation.
I know rape is about power and not as much about sex, but nobody has the right to tempt people. If a person cannot drink, it’s wrong for someone to hold a glass of alcohol to them and say oh look at this! Same thing with diet and food. It certainly wouldn’t be nice to bring the food around and say oh you can’t have this but here it is.
Why should women distract men by having their boobs out? I say this as a woman who is very fit and not jealous. No young woman has the right to be very enticing and naked when men get distracted by it and can’t do anything about it. Come on let’s be fair to men for once!!!
The government made sure certain things were said over and over again in the public so that the public will start repeating it, and everyone will take it as a truth. Even something ridiculous like women need to work immediately after having a baby. Try taking the young of another species, mom. Just like myself they wouldn’t tolerate it.
The country is collapsing economically and all that entails.
How many more complacent individuals need to realise that the government has failed them completely and destroyed their lives for unobtainable lunatic ideology?
I don't think there has ever been a political 'spectrum'; that's a psychological trap invented by bought politicians to explain selling out as moderation.
It's really just two clusters-- call them left-right or blue-red, whatever-- that exist to oppose each other. People adhere to one of them because they fear and abhor the other, and want to find arguments and allies against them.
Totalitarianism isn't generally a political viewpoint. It's how ruthless someone is willing to be to enforce their demands.
I worked in a very large corporation for years, which in many ways is akin to a state (with the crucial differences that it can eventually change, because a company has to make money).
I see the different parties as just different divisions of the organization. TO a certain level they compete, and dislike each other. But in the end they all part of the same organization, and work hand in hand for the same end: growing the corporation, making money by milking the "customer" (the citizens)
They only really hate those who challenge the organization itself.
In America whatever we are going out of Centrist - read political hacks who will do anything for office- Centrist Totalitarianism that fortunately is either totally senile, totally inane, or totally insane. I refer to the present Democratic Administration that is gone in 34 days.
I saw a great video explaining horseshoe theory recently, but I can't find it again. Horseshoe theory is on Wikipedia and pretty much is what you describe.
That makes sense! They may not meet, but at the far end of both is the same thing. Kind of like the color "spectrum," with red on one end and indigo and violet at the other. Combine red and indigo and you get...violet.
I think you'll find the biggest difference between the middle of this proverbial horseshoe and its ends is those in the middle have a crayons-drawing understanding of politics and history. Their entire conception of politics is about what liberalism isn't. They are fish who do not understand they swim in water. They are the most extreme defenders of the status quo and its hypocrisy which they are convinced is to be blamed on one of these nebulous ends of the horseshoe.
I think you'll find the biggest difference between the middle of this proverbial horseshoe and its ends is those in the middle have a crayons-drawing understanding of politics and history. They are the most ardent defenders of the status quo with all its hypocrisy and totalitarianism, which they are easily fooled into blaming on the nebulous ends of a so-called horseshoe.
That's not correct. The "centrist" neoliberal/neocons are much more totalitarian than "far right" regimes like Victorian England. In fact, "centrists" are probably the most totalitarian of all.
The AfD is a nationalist party and all the others are either un-nationalist or outright anti-nationalist. That’s all you need to know. Distinctions between “left” and “right” and variations and gradations thereof are meaningless in that context.
In Sweden it has been the same with the Sweden Democrats, who are actually socialists but want to stop immigration and a few other common sense things. A few years ago the social dems were in power partly because the "right" would not ally with the SD. At one point the government was dependent on the single vote of a woman who had been excluded from the communist party because she was too extreme! She demanded all sorts of concessions like sending money to kurdish terrorists. Yes, she was a former kurdish terrorist who had moved to Sweden. Erdogan was not pleased when Sweden wanted to join NATO...........
Don't forget, the Socialist Democrats bought her support (don't remember if Löfven had left at that point) by paying 50 000 000:- in "foreign aid" to representatives of her clan in Kurdistan.
SD as socialists is a bit harsh, given the history of the SAP and V. 1980s Palme-era SAP rather, don't you think? When Palme noticed what happened when you let southerners move in, he basically shut down migration unless thoroughly vetted, something the Bildt-coalition immediately lifted when they came to power in 1991: it was one of Bengt Westerberg's non-negotiable demands to agree to form a government. The alternative had been to kick Folkpartiet to the curb and allow Karlsson/Wachtmeister of Ny Demokrati to join in, and that wasn't happening, as they were nationalists, not globalists as the Moderates, Folkparti, Center and Christian Democrats were and remain to this day.
I forgot about Ny Demokrati. They totally imploded and I forget why. I think it was some sort of scandal involving one of the leaders. But the party had a better platform with common sense and free market principles. SD lacks the latter. Migration was not as big an issue or problem back then. But ND were like SD today and AfD in Germany: they had to be ignored and isolated. The interesting thing in Sweden is that the "bourgeois" parties have relented a bit on the isolation of SD. But SD was still not allowed to have cabinet positions in the new government. Germany is still at an early stage but the country has unfortunately some really bad instincts if you look back the Thrid Reich and more recently the DDR, so they might be able to eliminate the populist right party.
Not quite correct. The AfD in east Germany has absolutely radical right-wing factions (which is a good thing.) Björn Höcke is part of the circles of the Institut für Staatspolitik which IMO is undoubtedly a radical right-wing think tank. These people would never agree to a characterization of their politics as "90's CDU". Maybe 50's CDU.
Höcke is doing as much to soften up the masochistic understanding of newer German history as possible without going to prison and the establishment can sense that he would have more to say if it were allowed.
All of this is good and will bear fruit in time. It's simply not "just" regular right-leaning politics in woke times.
I am also not without connections to the circles of the former IfS (since dissolved and reorganised/renamed), and I have a somewhat different view of this. I wouldn't call their politics radical at all, with one qualification: What counts as "radical right" in the establishment view is any form of positive, affirmative (rather than rejectionist of the left: i.e. relative) political thought "on the right." In this contentious sense, I would reluctantly agree with the characterisation. Otherwise, I'd insist that the things published by Antaios and in Sezession represent pretty ordinary political positions – positions that have been totally normal for most of the political history of the West.
What I do find quite radical, is the present establishment politics of the Federal Republic, particularly since the Wende.
After reading that article, I am now convinced that the CDU would partner with the actual Nazi party (if it still existed) in order to save democracy from German voters.
it's only ironic if you believe that the communism and fascism are far apart in political ideas. In reality there is very little difference in all the important matters. Totalitarianism by two different names.
It hasn‘t been about politics for quite some time in Germany. It is about an established system of power that guarantees every player a share and a new player putting the decades old system in danger.
All the established players have only marginal differences in their aims anyway. The only party with a meaningfully different agenda is AfD, that’s why they are all ganging up on them.
This confuses the nature of a political order which is the status quo with those which wished to displace the status quo. As much as I am sympathetic to the AfD, they will not amount to anything if those who support them stay in this frame which amounts to "politics bad" "conflict bad" "power bad". The force which the current order is bringing to bear on the AfD is just politics. It's not extreme, it's not "far left", it's not the talmudic rendition of Hitler, it's just politics.
Don't be a tool by criticizing it on its inability to conform to some fiction the regime made up for itself, some standard it wants you to hold it to. Criticize it's very existence by denying it even this. Deny it the validity of holding power under any condition.
I don't think that the 'elites' have yet figured out that their stupid little rhetorical games are coming to an end. Stand in the way of what the people want, and we'll dump you, too.
Ahhh. Don't have your hopes up. As soon afd can take power they will consolidate because it is not viable to govern as they promised. It happened here already... The system is a joke.
Piss of a large part of the population that voted for a change of direction. Those in power idiots will soon find out how that ends. Take up a collection and send history books to them, perhaps that will give them an idea how it will end for them. We just had a good example of that here in the US.
Eugyppius, is Merkel still involved at all in the background in these shenanigans, like Obama is? Or is it that this entire machine against populism is just so strongly entrenched in all the political parties right now? It just seems she would be willing to work with the Stasi. Ex-Stasi is just insane. I can’t help but think of the movie The Lives of Others.
no, Merkel is not involved any longer, even behind the scenes. Merkel hollowed out the party, and now it's just stuck on a stupid post-Merkel autopilot trajectory and there's is nobody with any vision to fix it.
The West is ruled by a dead German maniac named Hitler, he is the sun our world revolves around.
Anyone who speaks positively of their country and its history and culture, anyone who defends the nation state, anyone who prefers their own people to another people—esp politicians—is blasted with a thunderbolt from above: Nationalism is Nazism ergo you are a Nazi Hitler and must be denounced and destroyed.
The entire purpose of the modern West is to be as anti-Hitler as possible, which means first and foremost erasing the nation-state and its borders, and ensuring that no people or person is preferred over any other for any reason (that's "discrimination"!)
Maybe in 2045 when he'll be dead a century some of his omnipotence will fade, but probably not.
It still seemed useful to the Dems, who made it the main theme of the last month of this year's election. (it was only 2 months ago that Trump @ MSG was painted as Hitlerian.)
I don't think it will be retired until someone new becomes common shorthand for political evil...Hitler is eternal also because most people don't know that many other historical figures.
Also, xenophilia is the shared sacred faith of Western liberals, so they will be calling all their enemies Nazi Hitlers even if its power gets drained, it's a weapon they'll never stop wielding.
Yeah, on a number of issues, but especially nationalism, when you clear out all the other political underbrush, Nazi/Hitler/Fascist is what is left standing.
To the professional political class, and its captive media, voters are the true enemy of democracy. Nothing, nothing on God's green earth, is worse than accountability for one's performance or one's actions.
"Here in Germany, we are defending democracy at levels that have never been thought possible before."
You people are doing God's work.
This sounds like the sort of thing that would motivate a majority of the people to vote for the only remaining alternative, AfD. Maybe someday. If it's not too late.
“…all to save Thuringian democracy from the preferences of Thuringian voters.”
And even more egregious, all so they can maintain and keep making policy and laws which these voters obviously hate and want to change.
It is really an extraordinary phenomenon that these politicians have so completely gone off the reservation, dismissing, yay, even detesting their own constituents, and feel absolutely no responsibility toward them whatsoever.
They are nothing more than smug, arrogant tyrants, living in their rarefied air ivory towers, where they alone know what’s best and to hell with the peasantry.
What’s that proverb? “Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.”
That fall can’t come quick enough for these rubes.
I'm a zero fan of suffering of any kind but it's really only one's awful mistakes that teach you anything--if you have been fortunate enough to survive them with most of one's faculties and moving parts still functional.
Political parties only exist to get, keep and expand power. If they manage to do something useful for the people of the community, the region, the nation over which they exercise control, that's an unexpected bonus.
This is most nakedly shown in the US right now. "How can we craft a better message?" the Democrats ask. It's only that, selling a brand, and nothing else. It was the same when the idiot Republicans first crafted their Southern Strategy and extincted normal reasonable healthy moderate Republicans from having any sway anywhere.
It's not the past or the future that any nation must look at, and Santayana wasn't so clever as he seemed because all of life is a cycle that nobody can wrench the world out of. We've only got to worry about now, where we are, and make now livable and as decent as can be managed.
"How can we craft a better message?" the Democrats ask. It's only that, selling a brand, and nothing else.
Well, it *is* marginally better than "Why are you voters so stupid that you keep refusing to do what's good for you" which is what they were going with in October.
if you're judging Santayana by that one quote about History and being doomed to repeat it etc, it was one line wrenched out of context in a much larger ouvre.
Santayana is a great writer and thinker worth reading—he wasn't clever, he was wise.
For me, reading the very best of my favorite fiction authors provides sufficient examination of the complexities of human nature. I was startled, some years ago, to discover that some of them are what is called "moral philosophers" which is highly ironic considering what shits I discovered a couple of them to be, too.
Further than that I have zero interest, zero, in reading any more of them philosophical types. Everything I learned of value of that nature came from getting through my own life. If one can hang onto one's wits and avoid as much as possible excess deterioration of one's physical capacities, it's a pretty good thing to get older.
Sorry, as you can tell, I'm a big fan of his, he was not any kind of arrogant theorist or systematizer, he was maybe one of the last great 19th century European prose stylists and a conservative in the literal sense.
Either way, the man and writer was much larger than one popularized quote.
I am not very interested in prose stylists. I am interested in people who can tell a good story using the words that tell it best.
And in my own life experience, the very best authors, who've touched on profound truths with stunning accuracy and the most moving framing, are those whose books were aimed at children--though suitable for people of any age.
And it's further my own feeling that though great wisdom and a useful and meaningful life can be and often is achieved by people who have never had children, there is a dimension of self-understanding and capacity that can only be reached via the process of being a parent and if that gift is properly valued it will inform everything necessary to understand about life and human beings.
I can't even think how to comment on this! So, some of the people voted for the AfD which leans to the right, some of the others voted for the CDU which leans in the middle but facing right and others voted for Left parties which lean, obviously, to the left. Only the AfD got more votes than the others but not a majority so everyone needed to find partners in order to govern. But absolutely every other party thinks the AfD is Literally Hitler so they won't partner with them. So they have to partner with former communists and Stasi officers who, you could argue, are so far left as to almost meet Literally HItler round the other side! And the dumb thing seems to be that the AfD don't actually seem particularly right-wing, fascist, totalitarian, nazi, mad, dangerous, ideological. They seem pretty old fashioned conservative. Or have I misunderstood the complicated German system?
nope, all of that is totally right
I'm laughing at all of this, but I do feel bad for y'all over there. Hopefully some Germans get as much amusement from the flailing and posturing of American politicians in fair exchange, though. 🤣
Yes. We laugh at this. And feel bad for all them'all over there. I also remember laughing at the borders Angela Merkel flung open for invaders from the Middle East and Africa in the early-mid 2010's, as young women were assaulted, raped in the streets of once-safe cities by them during NYE celebrations, where mayors and governors (equivalent) blamed the women for dressing scantily. Those crazy, dumb Germans putting up with that and reelecting leaders who hated them. Then the Biden administration happened. And I look at America's borders and once-safe cities flooded with criminal gangs from all over the world.
Not laughing now. Yes, they allowed Trump to prevail in November. But the question remains will they allow the Trump agenda to prevail? How much will be dog and pony shows? How much will courts, reluctant to intervene as Biden trashed constitutional norms, jump in with immediate orders shutting down the Trump agenda? And will Trump honor those orders? Or act as Biden did, blatantly ignoring court decisions that administration didn't like? Should Trump ignore court orders will the GOP-led House move to impeach him, when they couldn't be bothered to move to impeach Biden or any of his officials who used court orders for toilet paper?
Germany and the EU has proven to be a preview of coming attractions. A wise nation would see what is coming and prepare for it to prevent the same thing happening to them. The US isn't exactly a wise nation.
I know rape is about power and not as much about sex, but nobody has the right to tempt people. If a person cannot drink, it’s wrong for someone to hold a glass of alcohol to them and say oh look at this! Same thing with diet and food. It certainly wouldn’t be nice to bring the food around and say oh you can’t have this but here it is.
Why should women distract men by having their boobs out? I say this as a woman who is very fit and not jealous. No young woman has the right to be very enticing and naked when men get distracted by it and can’t do anything about it. Come on let’s be fair to men for once!!!
The government made sure certain things were said over and over again in the public so that the public will start repeating it, and everyone will take it as a truth. Even something ridiculous like women need to work immediately after having a baby. Try taking the young of another species, mom. Just like myself they wouldn’t tolerate it.
When the elections are over.
Is this demented farce going to continue?
The country is collapsing economically and all that entails.
How many more complacent individuals need to realise that the government has failed them completely and destroyed their lives for unobtainable lunatic ideology?
Correct. Totalitarianism is where the Far Left meets the Far Right. It is not a political spectrum; it is a circle.
I don't think there has ever been a political 'spectrum'; that's a psychological trap invented by bought politicians to explain selling out as moderation.
It's really just two clusters-- call them left-right or blue-red, whatever-- that exist to oppose each other. People adhere to one of them because they fear and abhor the other, and want to find arguments and allies against them.
Totalitarianism isn't generally a political viewpoint. It's how ruthless someone is willing to be to enforce their demands.
I worked in a very large corporation for years, which in many ways is akin to a state (with the crucial differences that it can eventually change, because a company has to make money).
I see the different parties as just different divisions of the organization. TO a certain level they compete, and dislike each other. But in the end they all part of the same organization, and work hand in hand for the same end: growing the corporation, making money by milking the "customer" (the citizens)
They only really hate those who challenge the organization itself.
Thus the hate of Trump.
They see this challenger in the AfD.
In America whatever we are going out of Centrist - read political hacks who will do anything for office- Centrist Totalitarianism that fortunately is either totally senile, totally inane, or totally insane. I refer to the present Democratic Administration that is gone in 34 days.
Unless they blow up the world, they’re trying…
I saw a great video explaining horseshoe theory recently, but I can't find it again. Horseshoe theory is on Wikipedia and pretty much is what you describe.
That makes sense! They may not meet, but at the far end of both is the same thing. Kind of like the color "spectrum," with red on one end and indigo and violet at the other. Combine red and indigo and you get...violet.
Candace Owen’s meets or almost the Squad?
I think you'll find the biggest difference between the middle of this proverbial horseshoe and its ends is those in the middle have a crayons-drawing understanding of politics and history. Their entire conception of politics is about what liberalism isn't. They are fish who do not understand they swim in water. They are the most extreme defenders of the status quo and its hypocrisy which they are convinced is to be blamed on one of these nebulous ends of the horseshoe.
Found the video https://youtu.be/vcXTHjyT71A
"Totalitarianism is where the Far Left meets the Far Right"
Except this is not how the word is defined..
In this case it's the lunatic left meeting the left..with the right floating around.
There is no "far" right in this discussion.
So even within your wrong definition, you have contradicted yourself..
Found that video I mentioned. https://youtu.be/vcXTHjyT71A
I think you'll find the biggest difference between the middle of this proverbial horseshoe and its ends is those in the middle have a crayons-drawing understanding of politics and history. They are the most ardent defenders of the status quo with all its hypocrisy and totalitarianism, which they are easily fooled into blaming on the nebulous ends of a so-called horseshoe.
exactly right. If you get a chance read "The Vampire Economy" about the economic system under the Nazis.
That's not correct. The "centrist" neoliberal/neocons are much more totalitarian than "far right" regimes like Victorian England. In fact, "centrists" are probably the most totalitarian of all.
Exactly.
The AfD is a nationalist party and all the others are either un-nationalist or outright anti-nationalist. That’s all you need to know. Distinctions between “left” and “right” and variations and gradations thereof are meaningless in that context.
like, (my button hasn't worked for months)
In Sweden it has been the same with the Sweden Democrats, who are actually socialists but want to stop immigration and a few other common sense things. A few years ago the social dems were in power partly because the "right" would not ally with the SD. At one point the government was dependent on the single vote of a woman who had been excluded from the communist party because she was too extreme! She demanded all sorts of concessions like sending money to kurdish terrorists. Yes, she was a former kurdish terrorist who had moved to Sweden. Erdogan was not pleased when Sweden wanted to join NATO...........
Don't forget, the Socialist Democrats bought her support (don't remember if Löfven had left at that point) by paying 50 000 000:- in "foreign aid" to representatives of her clan in Kurdistan.
SD as socialists is a bit harsh, given the history of the SAP and V. 1980s Palme-era SAP rather, don't you think? When Palme noticed what happened when you let southerners move in, he basically shut down migration unless thoroughly vetted, something the Bildt-coalition immediately lifted when they came to power in 1991: it was one of Bengt Westerberg's non-negotiable demands to agree to form a government. The alternative had been to kick Folkpartiet to the curb and allow Karlsson/Wachtmeister of Ny Demokrati to join in, and that wasn't happening, as they were nationalists, not globalists as the Moderates, Folkparti, Center and Christian Democrats were and remain to this day.
I forgot about Ny Demokrati. They totally imploded and I forget why. I think it was some sort of scandal involving one of the leaders. But the party had a better platform with common sense and free market principles. SD lacks the latter. Migration was not as big an issue or problem back then. But ND were like SD today and AfD in Germany: they had to be ignored and isolated. The interesting thing in Sweden is that the "bourgeois" parties have relented a bit on the isolation of SD. But SD was still not allowed to have cabinet positions in the new government. Germany is still at an early stage but the country has unfortunately some really bad instincts if you look back the Thrid Reich and more recently the DDR, so they might be able to eliminate the populist right party.
Hah~ Well done!
Not quite correct. The AfD in east Germany has absolutely radical right-wing factions (which is a good thing.) Björn Höcke is part of the circles of the Institut für Staatspolitik which IMO is undoubtedly a radical right-wing think tank. These people would never agree to a characterization of their politics as "90's CDU". Maybe 50's CDU.
Höcke is doing as much to soften up the masochistic understanding of newer German history as possible without going to prison and the establishment can sense that he would have more to say if it were allowed.
All of this is good and will bear fruit in time. It's simply not "just" regular right-leaning politics in woke times.
I am also not without connections to the circles of the former IfS (since dissolved and reorganised/renamed), and I have a somewhat different view of this. I wouldn't call their politics radical at all, with one qualification: What counts as "radical right" in the establishment view is any form of positive, affirmative (rather than rejectionist of the left: i.e. relative) political thought "on the right." In this contentious sense, I would reluctantly agree with the characterisation. Otherwise, I'd insist that the things published by Antaios and in Sezession represent pretty ordinary political positions – positions that have been totally normal for most of the political history of the West.
What I do find quite radical, is the present establishment politics of the Federal Republic, particularly since the Wende.
After reading that article, I am now convinced that the CDU would partner with the actual Nazi party (if it still existed) in order to save democracy from German voters.
it's only ironic if you believe that the communism and fascism are far apart in political ideas. In reality there is very little difference in all the important matters. Totalitarianism by two different names.
It hasn‘t been about politics for quite some time in Germany. It is about an established system of power that guarantees every player a share and a new player putting the decades old system in danger.
All the established players have only marginal differences in their aims anyway. The only party with a meaningfully different agenda is AfD, that’s why they are all ganging up on them.
This confuses the nature of a political order which is the status quo with those which wished to displace the status quo. As much as I am sympathetic to the AfD, they will not amount to anything if those who support them stay in this frame which amounts to "politics bad" "conflict bad" "power bad". The force which the current order is bringing to bear on the AfD is just politics. It's not extreme, it's not "far left", it's not the talmudic rendition of Hitler, it's just politics.
Don't be a tool by criticizing it on its inability to conform to some fiction the regime made up for itself, some standard it wants you to hold it to. Criticize it's very existence by denying it even this. Deny it the validity of holding power under any condition.
Whoever named it 'blackberry coalition' lacked imagination. It should be called 'gangrene coalition' instead.
Or maybe the "No officer my husband doesn't beat me I got this black eye falling off the porch" coalition.
Sounds more like a haemorrhoid
😝
I don't think that the 'elites' have yet figured out that their stupid little rhetorical games are coming to an end. Stand in the way of what the people want, and we'll dump you, too.
Ahhh. Don't have your hopes up. As soon afd can take power they will consolidate because it is not viable to govern as they promised. It happened here already... The system is a joke.
These people are evil. The only saving grace here is that they are also colossally stupid.
This Kummer guy must be a perfect choice for defending democracy. After all, he has a lot of experience from the German *Democratic* Republic.
Who better than the Stasi to know the best ways to defend against "fascism". Clearly, they need more walls.
"Distinctly rodentine Mario Voigt".
Brilliant description...
And his appointment is "Revenge of the Rodentine".
Everything about European politics is repulsive.
Piss of a large part of the population that voted for a change of direction. Those in power idiots will soon find out how that ends. Take up a collection and send history books to them, perhaps that will give them an idea how it will end for them. We just had a good example of that here in the US.
We 🇺🇸 may not be done yet.
Eugyppius, is Merkel still involved at all in the background in these shenanigans, like Obama is? Or is it that this entire machine against populism is just so strongly entrenched in all the political parties right now? It just seems she would be willing to work with the Stasi. Ex-Stasi is just insane. I can’t help but think of the movie The Lives of Others.
no, Merkel is not involved any longer, even behind the scenes. Merkel hollowed out the party, and now it's just stuck on a stupid post-Merkel autopilot trajectory and there's is nobody with any vision to fix it.
Damn, that is bleak. Let’s go AfD and lets break through the wall with more votes and power!
sounds like one of those driverless cars
Thomas Frank has written about the demonization of populism in the US, so I figure it's a western civilization thing.
The West is ruled by a dead German maniac named Hitler, he is the sun our world revolves around.
Anyone who speaks positively of their country and its history and culture, anyone who defends the nation state, anyone who prefers their own people to another people—esp politicians—is blasted with a thunderbolt from above: Nationalism is Nazism ergo you are a Nazi Hitler and must be denounced and destroyed.
The entire purpose of the modern West is to be as anti-Hitler as possible, which means first and foremost erasing the nation-state and its borders, and ensuring that no people or person is preferred over any other for any reason (that's "discrimination"!)
Maybe in 2045 when he'll be dead a century some of his omnipotence will fade, but probably not.
Yes, the fear of Nazism seems to have outlived its usefulness.
It still seemed useful to the Dems, who made it the main theme of the last month of this year's election. (it was only 2 months ago that Trump @ MSG was painted as Hitlerian.)
I don't think it will be retired until someone new becomes common shorthand for political evil...Hitler is eternal also because most people don't know that many other historical figures.
Also, xenophilia is the shared sacred faith of Western liberals, so they will be calling all their enemies Nazi Hitlers even if its power gets drained, it's a weapon they'll never stop wielding.
'It still seemed useful to the Dems, who made it the main theme of the last month of this year's election.'
Not useful enough, as it turned out.
Yeah, on a number of issues, but especially nationalism, when you clear out all the other political underbrush, Nazi/Hitler/Fascist is what is left standing.
Not certain, but I *think* you missed the point, or took it opposite.
To the professional political class, and its captive media, voters are the true enemy of democracy. Nothing, nothing on God's green earth, is worse than accountability for one's performance or one's actions.
Eug, you still living in Germany reminds me of me still living in California.
. . . without the sunshine.
"Here in Germany, we are defending democracy at levels that have never been thought possible before."
You people are doing God's work.
This sounds like the sort of thing that would motivate a majority of the people to vote for the only remaining alternative, AfD. Maybe someday. If it's not too late.
How utterly depressing this is.
'distinctly rodentine Mario Voigt'
At the risk of indulging in ad homenism, he looks more amphibioid to me.
There is a frog-ish countenance to him.
Exactly. Or salamandery.
"Kummer’s promotion marks the first time in the history of the Federal Republic that a former Stasi officer has been named to a cabinet post."
This is astounding, and worthy of being condemned roundly and loudly by the "international community."
He will be held up as a "paragon of virtue" by the MSM, after all he was in a "real democracy" when he was in the DDR.
see if it is even mentioned in the fake press!
“…all to save Thuringian democracy from the preferences of Thuringian voters.”
And even more egregious, all so they can maintain and keep making policy and laws which these voters obviously hate and want to change.
It is really an extraordinary phenomenon that these politicians have so completely gone off the reservation, dismissing, yay, even detesting their own constituents, and feel absolutely no responsibility toward them whatsoever.
They are nothing more than smug, arrogant tyrants, living in their rarefied air ivory towers, where they alone know what’s best and to hell with the peasantry.
What’s that proverb? “Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.”
That fall can’t come quick enough for these rubes.
I'm a zero fan of suffering of any kind but it's really only one's awful mistakes that teach you anything--if you have been fortunate enough to survive them with most of one's faculties and moving parts still functional.
Political parties only exist to get, keep and expand power. If they manage to do something useful for the people of the community, the region, the nation over which they exercise control, that's an unexpected bonus.
This is most nakedly shown in the US right now. "How can we craft a better message?" the Democrats ask. It's only that, selling a brand, and nothing else. It was the same when the idiot Republicans first crafted their Southern Strategy and extincted normal reasonable healthy moderate Republicans from having any sway anywhere.
It's not the past or the future that any nation must look at, and Santayana wasn't so clever as he seemed because all of life is a cycle that nobody can wrench the world out of. We've only got to worry about now, where we are, and make now livable and as decent as can be managed.
"How can we craft a better message?" the Democrats ask. It's only that, selling a brand, and nothing else.
Well, it *is* marginally better than "Why are you voters so stupid that you keep refusing to do what's good for you" which is what they were going with in October.
if you're judging Santayana by that one quote about History and being doomed to repeat it etc, it was one line wrenched out of context in a much larger ouvre.
Santayana is a great writer and thinker worth reading—he wasn't clever, he was wise.
For me, reading the very best of my favorite fiction authors provides sufficient examination of the complexities of human nature. I was startled, some years ago, to discover that some of them are what is called "moral philosophers" which is highly ironic considering what shits I discovered a couple of them to be, too.
Further than that I have zero interest, zero, in reading any more of them philosophical types. Everything I learned of value of that nature came from getting through my own life. If one can hang onto one's wits and avoid as much as possible excess deterioration of one's physical capacities, it's a pretty good thing to get older.
Speaking of fiction, Santayana has one novel, which is worth reading:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Puritan
This also is beautifully written:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/48429
Sorry, as you can tell, I'm a big fan of his, he was not any kind of arrogant theorist or systematizer, he was maybe one of the last great 19th century European prose stylists and a conservative in the literal sense.
Either way, the man and writer was much larger than one popularized quote.
I am not very interested in prose stylists. I am interested in people who can tell a good story using the words that tell it best.
And in my own life experience, the very best authors, who've touched on profound truths with stunning accuracy and the most moving framing, are those whose books were aimed at children--though suitable for people of any age.
And it's further my own feeling that though great wisdom and a useful and meaningful life can be and often is achieved by people who have never had children, there is a dimension of self-understanding and capacity that can only be reached via the process of being a parent and if that gift is properly valued it will inform everything necessary to understand about life and human beings.