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    Germany's on the edge

    Germany could be facing a huge political crisis, placing the future of the coalition and even Europe in jeopardy. Interior minister Horst Seehofer of the right-wing CSU (which is an an election campaign in Bavaria) is pushing to institute border controls to intercept "undesirables". He is threatening to push ahead over the objections of Merkel -- which could create a constitutional crisis, since the chancellor explicitly directs government policy.

    It also places at risk the grand coalition. The SPD has reminded the CDU/CSU that it, not the CSU, is the coalition partner, and that this kind of thing requires negotiation and consensus. The party has issued no threats to pull out of the coalition yet, but if Merkel loses this battle, I can't see how the SPD can remain. The CDU would then need to form a minority government -- which Merkel refuses to do -- or ask the president to call new elections. In any case, if Seehofer wins this, Merkel's got to go anyway.

    Border control would limit free movement within the EU. So this is also a European issue. If Germany limits that free movement, other countries will follow. It would be a chink in the EU's armour.

    All because the CSU wants to appeal to people who have no problem voting for Nazis.

    #2
    As comedian Henning Wehn says "Fuck not that Bavarian twat again". Throw the cunt in the See, hoofer

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      #3
      Seehofer is a self-serving, spiteful, misogynistic, racist cunt of the highest order.

      I've been in Germany for nearly 19 years now and, by and large, it's been a great place to work and live. But the atmosphere here has been changing over the last couple of years. Slowly at first, but much more noticeably now.

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        #4
        Definitely an excellent idea for the Noskes to get back in bed with this fucking crew. I assume that new elections would be expected to bring an increased vote for the AfD? And who knows, maybe they can go into coalition with a Merkel-less CDU

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          #5
          I can't imagine the CDU entering into a coalition with the AfD. But the Nazis are rising in the polls, so there'll possibly be an age of minority governments.

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            #6
            We need to talk about Chemnitz.

            As rightwing extremists planned a third demonstration later on Tuesday, scenes in Chemnitz – in which mobs hunted foreigners through the city streets – were described as reminiscent of civil war and Nazi pogroms.

            The premier of the state of Saxony, Michael Kretschmer, said it was “tasteless and upsetting” to see how the far right had capitalised on the murder of a Chemnitz man who was allegedly stabbed by two foreign men. He called on Chemnitzers to “stand by our foreign fellow citizens”.

            The interior minister for Saxony, Roland Wöller, described the violence as having “a new dimension of escalation”.

            Security experts said there was evidence the rioters had been mobilised from different groups around the country, and probably elsewhere in Europe.

            The Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party appeared to be revelling in the sense of panic and xenophobia triggered by the stabbing. In a tweet, one leading AfD MP encouraged people to defend themselves on the streets.
            More (auf Englisch) from Der Spiegel

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              #7
              Yes, we do need to talk about it - but it's just monumentally depressing. That comment quoted above, that 'the AfD appeared to be revelling in the sense of panic and xenophobia triggered by the stabbing' is absolutely spot on. That's what they did in Kandel (teenage girl stabbed to death by her ex-boyfriend, a refugee), that's what they're doing in Chemnitz, and of course that's what they do, full stop. Seems to be an effective tactic, but I am still amazed at how easily and willingly so many people have chosen/allowed themselves (I'm still not sure which is more accurate) to be swept along with all this poisonous, xenophobic shite.

              The former East Germany (I don't like making the distinction nearly 30 years after reunification but the fact of the matter is, German society and policymakers still do: wages, taxes, contributions all differ between the 'old' and the 'new' federal states and what has long been an invisible divide through the centre of Germany is becoming more and more noticeable) clearly has much more difficulty dealing with anything that is foreign/different/new. Is that a consequence of decades of isolation? Difficult to pin that one down, I think, especially as the generation born in the immediate aftermath of the Mauerfall has reached adulthood, studied, enjoys freedom of movement, pays taxes and is aware of a world beyond the borders in Eisenach and Frankfurt/Oder. It seems to be pure fear: 'they' are coming to take our jobs and rape our women, and all that. And the AfD plays on that, fans the flames and now actively encourages people to take the law into their own hands. All that said, it's not restricted to Saxony: I was in Bavaria, near the Czech border, a while back: several of the locals in the bar on the Friday evening were proudly sporting their 'Bürgerwehr' knitted jumpers. Mentally, the barricades are up and these people consider themselves to be fighting to protect a vision of Germany unity and purity that doesn't exist in those terms. It's sad, it's worrying, and I don't know right now if Germany will find the answer any time soon.

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                #8
                Central/Eastern European politics in general seem to be profoundly depressing right now. For a bit I thought the Czechs were holding out against the bullshit in Hungary and Poland, but look at them now.

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                  #9
                  I'd be interested in G-Man's take on this (and anyone else's for that matter)

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                    #10
                    Quite frankly, it's a lot of bollocks. There are a lot of problems with eastern Germany, but they're not to do with some kind of innate eastern susceptibility to fascism. It speaks from the perspective of the kind of know-it-all westerners who have been complaining for years that all their money has been going into a bottomless pit for the ungrateful Ossis, and who are precisely the sort of people who approve of the AfD.

                    A lot of money was put into the east, but mainly on roads and infrastructure, and not on jobs. After unification, a huge part of the working population went west and many areas have never recovered. That leaves a population which is elderly or lacking prospects. At the same time, fascist parties moved in and made hay - as it turns out now, largely unmolested and even abetted by the authorities.

                    That's why the current rightward drift is taking its most violent form in the east, but there are just as many in the west who tacitly go along with it.
                    Last edited by Alderman Barnes; 29-08-2018, 09:54.

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                      #11
                      Genau.

                      This "left behind" syndrome in which the electorate in particular regions loses its most dynamic and open-minded members to emigration (internal or external) is for me an under-examined element of the current "rise of populism".

                      In other news, more disturbing evidence of links between the police and the far right in Sachsen.

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                        #12
                        Don't forget the Treuhand and how that put Ossis on the dole line whether their company was profitable for not, and sent the leftover capital westwards to Bonn.

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                          #13
                          In case anyone thought this was some 'Eastern' problem: the DFLA - Democratic (sic) Football Lads' Alliance- is having a national demo in Sunderland on 15th Sept to 'defend our women' against 'muslim' grooming/rape 'gangs'.

                          This has been dragging on for a year or two unopposed and this time we have got the antiracist left in the N. East to take it seriously and we will have a counterdemo.

                          I'm one of the calling signatories of it, as Branch Sec of one of Sunderland's few substantial workplace union branches and have already received hate mail for it. Ms Felicity is extremely worried about me potentially speaking at the demo.

                          Note these are changed days- we had BNP election candidates targetting Sunderland for years but were always confident of isolating them- I have never previously been made to feel that 'we' were not a huge majority. I'm confident we still are, but their national mobilisation may be large and we'd certainly welcome anyone on here able to get along to stop racist attempts to try and divide people over sexual violence.

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                            #14
                            This is an interesting article, though perhaps rather too generalising about Saxons:

                            https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...ern-stronghold

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                              #15
                              I was going to to raise James Hawes even before seeing that he wrote that article.

                              So Hawes (who used to be a novelist, writing the quite good White Merc With Fins and the rancid Rancid Aluminium) has just produced a book entitled A Short History of Germany which is basically an elongated thesis that Germany west of the Elbe and Germany east of the Elbe are culturally and historically distinct and have been since Roman times. It was interesting, though I don't know enough about German history to analyse it effectively.

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                                #16
                                See above.

                                It's a massive, offensive generalisation by someone with a book to sell who's ever so pleased with himself for pulling a neat theory out of his arse after looking at some old maps, while completely ignoring more recent history.

                                For reasons I outlined above, the east might be the place where fascists feel they can get away with running riot, but the bastards come from all over the place to do it.

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                                  #17
                                  Sorry, I missed that it had been discussed before. But although I think the theory could have holes in it, I think "completely ignoring more recent history" is overstating it. He might have be mistaken about it, but it's not been ignored.

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                                    #18
                                    Maybe not ignored, but he's certainly bashing a lot of things out of shape to fit into his weird theory and it all smacks of "we'd be fine if it wasn't for that lot over there".

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                                      #19
                                      Originally posted by Etienne View Post
                                      Hawes (who used to be a novelist, writing the quite good White Merc With Fins and the rancid Rancid Aluminium)
                                      That's strange seeing him mentioned. I saw Rhys Ifans in a play yesterday which got me musing on the barrel scrapings of the '90s Cool Britannia thing, and the film of Rancid Aluminium was generally agreed to be the barrel scrapings' barrel scraping.

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                                        #20
                                        I'm not sure that "ignore" is that fair off target.

                                        Among the things he doesn't mention at all are the nature of the "West's" spending, the significant migration of talented young Saxons to the West, the cultural importance of Dresden and Leipzig (including as centres for trade and multicultural exchange) for centuries before "Germany", the fact that Berlin and a number of Hanseatic cities lie east of his purported line and the fact the AfD and it's predecessors also have support in the "West".

                                        It's rather crap as an advert for a book

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                                          #21
                                          Not to mention that Dresden is on the Elbe and Chemnitz is south-west of it.

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                                            #22
                                            If you're looking for historical reasons as to why East Germany might be a bit messed up politically, compared to the west, is 45 years of the fucking stasi probably more than wiped out any previous traditions. I'm not sure how you're supposed to create a cohesive society when one quarter of the people have lived with that. TBH dealing with the legacy of that should probably have trumped other considerations when figuring out how much money and care the west needed to lavish on the east.

                                            But this isn't about anything rational. Things are actively good in Sweden and Denmark, pretty much better than they've ever been ever, for anyone, anywhere, and they're losing their fucking minds over muslims. It just seems that if you fix every problem, people get bored and decide to invent reasons to become cunts. There are simply a lot of people out there who are one event of personal disappointment away from turning into cunts.

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                                              #23
                                              Exactly. There are cunts lurking everywhere. It's purely a matter of historical and political chance and consequences as to where they get the upper hand. This theory of Hawes is playing precisely from their hymn sheet.

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                                                #24
                                                Yeah but Hawes isn't a moron. He points out that the Nazis were much more popular in the East in 1933. It's not unusual for countries to have substantial differences in attitudes linked with geography. Indeed it's more unusual for their not to be.

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                                                  #25
                                                  Well, well. Rural backwaters close to the borders with no history of organised labour ended up supporting right-wing parties. Now that's never happened before or since.



                                                  Funnily enough, industrial Saxony was relatively low down the list.

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