Neo-Nazis join quiet march to poll victory (Eastern Germany)

[deadparrot]

THERE was not a skinhead to be seen in this Baltic town at the heart of Germany’s neoNazi revival. No thugs with steel-tipped paratroop boots, no ranting xenophobes.

Yet the signs are clear: the far Right is on the march in Eastern Germany.

The neo-Nazis, picking up an astonishing level of support on the home turf of Angela Merkel, the Chancellor, look set to win a big chunk of seats in regional elections on Sunday. And to make sure that middleclass voters do not panic ahead of the ballot, they have donned camouflage.

“What did you expect,” asked Michael Andrejewski, the new face of the extreme Right. “That I would beat your brains out with a baseball bat?” Blinking from behind gold-framed glasses, Herr Andrejewski looked as threatening as a maths teacher — unlike the five young men who formed a protective semicircle around their leader. “You’ll be wanting to move along,” said one of them with menacing politeness. One quickly got the point. The slogan on his T-shirt read: “Granddad was right”.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2358390,00.html

[movonne]

1. Maybe Israel should do something about this...it sounds serious...

This crap seems to be going on all over...

[AlienGirl]

7. What does this have to do with Israel?

What could Israel do about it, anyway?

Tucker

[muntrv]

11. It's not just leaders of Muslim countries who are anti-Semitic.

[geek tragedy]

12. I don't think any pro-Israel activist would disagree. eom

[wickerwoman]

22. Do what?

Bomb the shit out of Germany until everyone agrees with them? That strategy is working a treat in Iraq.

[dionysus]

23. BWAAA!

like what, nuke Germany?

that aside, this is very troubling!

[Lindacooks]

2. If these people only realized what losers they are.

I mean, come on - white men unable to make it in this world? The deck is stacked in your favor, guys, and you still can't make it? So you have to blame your failures on another group. Gee. What 'men' you are.

NOT.

[Blue_Tires]

3. this could be a harbinger of things to come

[number6]

4. George and Dick and Karl are in East Germany ??

:evilgrin: :smoke:

those nazis are every where

[muntrv]

5. Hey Pro-Israel Lobby!! Look!!

[geek tragedy]

6. What the hell does this have to do with Israel? eom

[muntrv]

8. See post #1.

[geek tragedy]

10. Post #1 doesn't make sense to me either. eom

[UncleSepp]

13. Nor to me. n/t

[Jim Sagle]

24. Your sense of humor blows chunks.

[UncleSepp]

9. What the hell's with the "Hey Israel" comments on this thread?

I have visions of the Kool-Aid Man with peyos busting through a wall. "Hey Israel..."

Seriously. WTF is that supposed to mean?

[geek tragedy]

14. "Oh no!"

[AlienGirl]

18. OH YEEEEEAH!

[Kellanved]

15. that's true and untrue at the same time.

The simple fact is: we are having elections with a very poor turnout. Especially in the east and especially due to the grand coalition on the federal level. This improves the share of nazi parties without them actually getting more votes.
Considering that we saw elections with 10-16% Nazis in the 90s; the feared 3-7% could be considered a vast improvement.

The "It will be the second region, after Saxony, to have neo-Nazi members of parliament" is pure BS - very poor fact checking. Out of my head I remember at least three other instances -probably there are more. One of those was in Bavaria. (Brandenburg and Saxony Anhalt being the other ones). Even today there are nazis in the state parliaments of Saxony and Brandenburg.

The "camouflage" also is BS - the Nazis are more obvious and more violent than ever. We had a fellow campaigner beaten up last week, he barely made it out alive. Skinheads disturbing information events of democratic parties are very common this election season.


The described "economic power" is there, but not in the "20% unemployment" regions. The money comes from the 3% unemployment regions in the west.

The Christian Democrats are the predominant barricade in doing something about the Nazi problem. They block any act only addressing nazis; they demand equal measure against leftists. Problem: leftists cause about a tenth of the "political extremism" group of problems; even fewer in the "violent crimes" department. No wonder, considering that actually several prominent CDU politicians have ties to Nazi groups. Not close ties and certainly not the same mindset, but ties nonetheless.


Anyway: the clear commitment to the defense of Israel and its right to exist as a nation is very, very mainstream.

[Zorra]

16. And their US brethren and sistren, the fascist neocons, are ecstatic

no doubt.

I thought Roosevelt, Churchill, and De Gaulle exterminated these filthy fascist vermin, and their eggs, back in the day.

How long do cockroach eggs remain viable? 100 years?

[UncleSepp]

20. If snark could kill, this problem would be solved by such posts.

How do you do over on Stormfront with that? Give it a shot, maybe you'll take the wind out of their sails, or the spring out of their keyboards or something. Take 'em on, send us all screen captures of how it goes. I'll pop the popcorn!

[Endangered Specie]

17. Some old habits are hard to break...

extremism on both the far right and left seems to be on the rise in Germany.

[UncleSepp]

19. Seems to be, but what may be happening is the center falling out

Like Kellanved explained above, there may be an effect from the center not turning out the vote, increasing the percentage of votes for extreme opinions without actually increasing the percentage of Germans having those extreme opinions. What usually happens next is that the center gets off its duff and votes in the next election in order to maintain balance. In abnormal times, the center will split to the right to oppose the left and to the left to oppose the right.

This happens every once in a while, and isn't usually indicative of any kind of real trend. IMO, of all the places in the world to worry about such a split to the extremes, Germany's one of the last on the list. Russia has more neo-nazis, neofascists, and virulent nationalists in absolute numbers, percentages, votes, and representation, and the trend there is upward and expansive. I think people might do well not to be distracted by the spooky factor of neo-nazis in Germany, and focus instead on the general resurgence of the kind of broken thinking that allowed the Nazis to come to power in the first place.

/goes back to reading Golf for Dogs

[geek tragedy]

21. Don't forget about Le Pen in France. eom

[UncleSepp]

25. While we're at it, don't forget about Poland ;-)

Seriously (somewhat), there's more danger in Poland from Nazi-like thinking than in France. Le Pen won't go away, but he's not going much of anywhere either. He kind of reminds me of Lyndon LaRouche in that way.

I feel like I'm having some kind of deja vu here. In the early 90s, I got very excited about everything from the National Front to the Vlaams Blok, and finally about the Russian parties. The Russian parties are still making gains, but really, if the western European extremists haven't gone anywhere in fifteen years, they're not likely to suddenly take over and establish a Fourth Reich anytime soon.

[geek tragedy]

27. I agree that Le Pen isn't going anywhere, but for him to get

15-20% in a country like France is really alarming.

[rayofreason]

28. Wait...he'll get more...

...right after the next set of riots.

If the center will not act against what many perceive as existential threats, then the door is open to Le Pen and his ilk. And they will be there, hiding the ugly goals behind well-oiled hairstyles and fine suits. No skinheads, no street fights, just oleaginous, soothing noises with just enough bits of common sense thrown in to deceive those who have lost hope in traditional elites.

The problem is that political correctness has squeezed down the possibility space of action for true democrats and people of good will, who, nonetheless, are willing to confront the major issue facing Europe today - Islam in its midst. In the name of tolerance we must tolerate intolerance.

In far to many European cities there exists another city - one in which Sharia rules, where honor killings have non-negligible support, and where xenophobia, tribalism, and ghetto multiculturalism are breeding a deadly stew. If the center does not confront this issue it will open the door to the neo-nazis. Forget the socialist left - they have decided to throw in with islamists against the greater enemy - bourgeois capitalism and its leading light, America. It is up to the center and center-left to find its voice, stop apologizing for societies based on individual freedom and choice, and give confidence to average Europeans that they, their children, and their grandchildren have a viable future.

[UncleSepp]

30. True - IMO it is an existential cry

There are voices which are not being heard. People feel as if they are lost in a sea of change, as if they do not matter in the grand scheme of things. Individualism has become inconvenient in modern life. A few glamorous and wealthy people, and a few outrageous criminals, get to be individuals. Everyone else gets to be a demographic, a group of consumers, a representative of some larger identity.

Among those demographic groups, some are more 'individual' than others. The dominant cultural group anywhere confers the weakest sense of identity. Being white in a majority white society has its advantages, but from a standpoint of establishing identity, it's like being cultural tofu. Everybody else provides the color and the spice, and the white folk are nothing but the default setting. Pretty boring. Minorities have their minority status as an identifying feature, and the majority is left to define itself by its differences from the minorities. This leads to the majority putting others down to build itself up, turning observations of differences into value judgments. It also leads to minorities becoming increasingly vocal and isolated.

The same phenomenon that produces gay pride parades produces neo-Nazis. It is the same acknowledgment of value of the claimed group identity that either seeks. Among nationalists, the acceptance is of the ordinary man in the dominant culture, a blessing for the boring that says "what you are is good, and how you live is important". A Le Pen vote in France is a shout saying "I am here, I exist, I have a culture and a way of life and I have the right and the duty to preserve it".

In my opinion, the problem is not specifically nationalism, but identity politics of all kinds. An individual is himself first, with attributes that may come from his culture, his race, his gender, or his sexuality, but an individual is not the sum of his labels. When an individual has a strong sense of self, he does not need to see himself reflected back in those around him. His neighbor being gay doesn't make him less straight, his boss being black doesn't make him less white, his coworker being an atheist doesn't make him less of a Christian, and so on.

Unfortunately, it's much easier to stifle individuality than it is to nurture it. I don't know how one would go about working toward such a goal of strengthening individual identity without using a greater group identity in which the smaller identities of sexuality, religion, and race dissolve. Such a solution could easily turn into an uebernationalism of a kind, which could very well be more dangerous than the original problem.

[AlienGirl]

31. Maybe by asking people to figure out who they really are?

I have been kicking around this idea for a while, that it is important to come up with a concept of "self" that would be immutable, no matter what kind of body or culture a person was in. For my ownself, I have come to a minimum possible description that I am "what seeks to connect with Otherness." From that definition, much about me can be inferred: that I will seek novelty and change, that I will be intrigued by minds that are unlike mine, and even that I will enjoy the company of animals. These are characteristics so basic to my core identity that they would be the same no matter what kind of upbringing I had or what kind of body I was in.

I think that trying to define oneself in terms of basic traits like that would be more useful than defining oneself as belonging to a particular set of identity-groups. It also allows for an acceptance of differences in people: though I am "what seeks to connect with Otherness" there is no way my identity can be threatened by someone else being "what avoids novelty." Instead, having those distinctions between self and non-self becomes a useful way of finding one's own boundaries.

Tucker

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

29. See Kellanved's post #15. It's hardly symmetric. -nt

[tabasco]

26. Yeah, let's support the ideas that totally destroyed our country.

Not exactly Einsteins these nazi fucks.

[stepnw1f]

32. Great... the Dick Heads on the March

"Blame a minority, it's easier that way." - weak

[everythingsxen]

33. Germany was having trouble, what a sad, sad story

Needed a new leader to restore its former glory
Where, Oh where was he? Where could that man be?
We looked around and then we found
The man for you and me.
And now it's..

Springtime for Hitler and Germany
Deutschland is happy and gay
We're marching to a faster pace
Look out, here comes the master race

Springtime for Hitler and Germany
Winter for Poland and France
Springtime for Hitler and Germany
Come on, Germans, go into your dance

I was born in Dusseldorf, and that is why they call me Rolf
Don't be stupid, be a smarty, come and join the Nazi party

Springtime for Hitler and Germany
Goosestep's the new step today
bombs falling from the skies again
Deutschland is on the rise again

Springtime for Hitler and Germany
U-boats are sailing once more

Springtime for Hitler and Germany
Means that soon we'll be going
We've got to be going
You know we'll be going to WAR!

http://www.singulartists.com/artist_m/mel_brooks_lyrics/springtime_for_hitler_movie_version_lyrics.html