People at Bonn protesting against Nazi cunts singing Ode to Joy
Damn. Wish the rest of Europe would do it this big.
the french are already doing it quite well, wherever you live would definetely benefit from a protest of this scale.
The French right wing party “Front National” nearly won the presidential election. I think France should do a lot better!!
When? Where? Last time I remember this in France was 19 years ago. :-(
In Germany millions are protesting against our fascist party AfD, after they unveiled their mass deportation plans.
Look great.
Now I am expeting the same millions of people protesting the things that let afd to grow.
Remember, afd is a consequence not a cause.
Yeah, but destroying the consequence is sometimes needed to eliminate the cause.
Only if you just want to hide the causes in the short term.
But let’s assume that you destroy afd, do you really think that all the people that vote for them will change their mind while having the same problems ? You basically only said to them to shut up, do you really think it will work well ? Maybe for the next electoral deadline, but then ?
You mean Russian Money and Disinformation Propaganda?
Whatever are the causes, if you just remove the consequences you don’t solve the problem.
Let’s assume that afd grow only becasue Russian money and disinformation (which I personlly don’t belive like I don’t belive that Fratelli d’Italia won because suddently 30% if the italian population is fascist), do you really think that destroying afd will stop the flow of money and disinformation ? They simply will choose (or build) another group to give the money to making better choices.
And you will end up in a situation where the far right group will be able to paint you as the bad guy because you oppose things that basically will be the same things afd is proposing now but with a much nicer dress so that they look acceptable.
No but they will loose all their existing structures money and the personnel involved is “burned”. They can’t just found a new party. So it buys a few years to tackle the problems in other ways.
I would not be that optimist about the “few years”, expecially because I don’t see the will to fix the problems which leaded to the afd (and far right in general) grow.
To me this just seems something like “hide the dirt under the rug and hope that it will go away”. And it is a stupid path to follow
Let’s just appreciate for a moment how great of a choice Ode to Joy is for the European Anthem. It’s a very memorable tune which honestly kind of slaps in a way that few anthems do.
Still not as great as La Marseillaise (which is not even a song, but a war chant meant to be hollered), but one of the best anthems out there nonetheless.
The Pete Seeger version that I’ve often heard sometimes called Ode to Joy/Russian Song has fantastic lyrics. Not speaking German, I’m wondering if these folks are singing the same translation?
I was confused after reading the post and got worried thinking it was the Nazis using Ode to Joy as their own.
This is great news. However, I can’t help but fear that people went back to their private lives afterwards thinking “well done, we defended democracy”. Where to go from here? How to keep people engaged in fighting the right? What are realistic next steps for those of us wanting to do more than voting and the occasional demonstration, other than violence? On another note, how might one approach minorities concerned by the indicated policies to join the movement?
Trump is going to win, AfD is going to win, it’s going to be hilarious, and the minorities are coming with us. You should enjoy the ride.
I fail to see the “hilarious“ part
It’s hilarious because the left can’t admit any of their own mistakes. For example, the mass migration into western nations. People said this would cause crime to increase, homelessness, economic turmoil, etc and were simply branded racist for their valid concerns. Now all those things are happening and the left still can’t admit to any of it being true. They just bury their heads in the sand and keep yelling “racist!” and “fascist!” if people don’t want millions of foreigners shipped into their home town and supported by their tax money. Oddly they themselves are the ones promoting racists and fascists if those are the only people who are willing to listen to their legitimate concerns. The left is completely delusional on an individual level and even when you point this out to them, support it with facts, they never admit fault or reconsider their positions. Right now the left media is sensationalizing “fascists” but not covering the crisis caused by their own policies. What do they expect that to result in?
Again, the left brought in tons of “migrants” who wouldn’t even be coming if western nations hadn’t blown up their countries, people said wait a minute, why are we letting people come here from the very countries we are supposedly fighting a “war on terror” against and blowing up all their stuff, won’t they be upset with us, aren’t they incompatible with western values, won’t they compete with us for jobs, won’t we have to spend our taxes supporting them? All of these things and sure enough there are a ton of problems now as a result of the actions of the left and when a political party rises in power to stop them the left starts yelling “facists!” Do they really not understand that people would rather vote for fascists than have their countries destroyed and overrun with people who literally hate them and their way of life?
The left wants people to peacefully accept the destruction of their society. They refuse to look at any of the damage their policies have caused. Honestly my only conclusion is that this is simply the powers that be setting people up to implement fascism.
The most entertaining part is now they’re talking about banning the party that is offering to counter these policies. As if the party came out of a vacuum and simply wants to get rid of all immigrants. The left is incapable of seeing it’s own role in things. Now they want to ban a political party, censor it, spy on it, etc while calling them fascists as they themselves pull out every authoritarian trick in the book crushing the will of the people as they bray about protecting democracy.
See Trudeau violating the constitution, stealing people’s money and locking them out of banking, just because people successfully protested against him and his COVID nonsense. The left IS the fascist authoritarian state they keep claiming people should be scared about if the right wins.
They want mass deportations of German Citizens with the wrong skin colour and People who don’t think like them That’s textbook fascism. Also either they compete for Jobs with us (Good, we have a shortage of workers as Germany is overaging), or they siphon of tax money. You need to decide which scapegoat you use
It doesn’t matter if it is fascism. That’s the whole point. The left is refusing to admit that their policies are having a negative impact on people and they’re embracing fascism because at least those people are agreeing that it is a problem.
Western nations are playing the “we have no workers” game after decades of stagnant birth rates because people have no money. Not because people just suddenly decided they don’t want a family. Parroting this is just more of the same lies that people are sick of hearing.
The government can use policies to boost birth rates domestically and it should be doing so sooner rather than later if they are sincere. Instead, they are keeping the youth impoverished, and telling them the solution to their problems is immigrants. Not only that but then they try to play on their sympathies saying they’re “asylum seekers” when those SAME governments are the ones making them refugees by destroying their countries. How does it make sense to blow up Syria, try to topple the government, and then welcome in their “refugees”? That is extremely paradoxical and I don’t think you’ll find any historical precedent for welcoming in the very people you’re dropping bombs on. It’s obvious those people are extremely resentful and have no interest in assimilating and that is exactly what the evidence supports. Using Germany as an example it would be like welcoming in Russian immigrants while at the same time you’re doing all you can to kill Russians and destroy their infrastructure. Where are all the Russian asylum seekers and refugees being ferried into Germany by international organizations? Why is it just hand picked countries this is being done in? Because it’s all a sham and the left refuses to admit what is obvious.
Immigrants can both take work AND siphon tax money. It is propaganda, which is used often, to try to say “they’re saying X but Y so which is it? They can’t both be true!” Actually, yes, they can both be true. Bringing in foreigners to work for dirt cheap and live in subsidized housing is exactly that and it’s the kind of thing people are sick of seeing. Meanwhile, where are the politicians working on raising western birth rates?
Have any politicians proposed sweeping reforms to child tax credits? Are they working hard to fix the housing situation for young people so they can have the actual space to house a family? No. They aren’t. They’re working as hard as they can to blow up other countries, bring those populations in, pay them nothing, use tax money to support the corporations, and tell everyone that if anyone resists them it’s because they’re racist fascists.
So, people are deciding, well I guess I’m a racist fascist because that is the only avenue I’m being given. Certainly the left isn’t interested in addressing any of the problems they’re creating they just call you a racist if you talk about the out of control rape and other issues.
There WILL be a fascist take over and dumb people ignoring legitimate concerns of the general populace and labeling them fascist will be the cause of it. You’re building those fascist parties up every day when you keep parroting propaganda and ignoring what is obvious to the average person. They will flock to whoever will promise a solution even if it’s ethnic cleansing. To me it seems entirely manufactured and that this is the desired conclusion.
Western populations are so exploited they won’t even reproduce anymore due to lack of resources. Their own government is telling them not to worry that they have no chance of having a family. Don’t worry because there are some other people who have been horribly exploited in places like Africa and the Middle East who we can bring it to replace you. If you think this is a problem it’s because you’re racist.
The left is literally the dumbest most propagandized people I’ve ever seen that they go along with this. You have to either be incredibly stupid or incredibly evil to keep parroting stuff like “we need more people” in response to the government fucking everyone, literally everyone on the whole planet, for the sake of further concentration of power and wealth. Imagine seeing this and going along with it while pretending you’re fighting fascism.
Hope you got your kool-aid folks, there’s going to be a national shortage caused by this one.
Reminds me of Oswald Mosley (leader of the British fascist party c. 1930s) saying that it didn’t matter if they won tomorrow or after a hundred years. Thankfully he was wrong about winning… but truly these fascist fuckers will always pop up somewhere.
We know it’s a bad idea, we know it’s a dangerous idea, we know it’s a deadly idea, and a complete failure in practice. Sign me up! /s
Die Partei: Nazis töten. You love to see it
I’m glad to see people up in arms about this. We need more of this. Across the world.
Wait what, I didn’t know Ode to joy had lyrics.
Ode to Joy is Beethoven’s 9th symphony, and has lyrics. The anthem of the EU is the same but without lyrics.
One step further: it’s Schiller’s poem. Beethoven turned it into a symphony.
It’s beautiful. Many of the comments here demonstrate that Lemmy still needs to learn how to not feed the trolls, and I wonder if it’s something similar that’s needed in real life politics.
I think the difference is posting on lemmy isn’t quite the same as having an entire society’s fate in your hands.
I can ignore despicable politicians, but that doesn’t prevent them getting elected and targetting people like me.
Fuck AfD!!!
I wholly recommend Slavoj Zizek’s take on the 1st part of the 9th and its appropriation by different dictatorships and ideologies.
There are better songs if you want to bash fashs.
I voted afd
Okay but like when are you going to act on it instead of this meaningless shit?
Fascism needs to driven out through violence and force not holding hands and singing kumbaya.
This is the action. It pushes back against fascist talking points in the public discourse and makes it harder for fascist to make themselves seem publicly accepted.
They’re already in your politics, taking votes and planning “deportations”. This is feel-good lib theatre.
And you want to give the state the power to get rid of any group it deems undesirable? Or do you want to break the law to get rid of them yourself? This protest is the sign that the majority will not go along with fascist talking points, it makes clear that those talking points have no space in public discourse. This is how democracy is supposed to work.
And you want to give the state the power to get rid of any group it deems undesirable?
The state already has the power to get rid of any group that seeks to destabilize our democratic system. This is a very central part of our constitution (see article 9, 18, 20 or 21). It’s basically a way to deal with the paradox of tolerance, if you’re not familiar with that concept here’s the wikipedia definition:
The paradox of tolerance states that if a society’s practice of tolerance is inclusive of the intolerant, intolerance will ultimately dominate, eliminating the tolerant and the practice of tolerance with them.
Ultimately, it is within the law to personally get rid of a group that wants to destroy our free and democratic system:
Article 20 […] (4) All Germans shall have the right to resist any person seeking to abolish this constitutional order if no other remedy is available.
This is usually interpreted as including physical violence.
Or do you want to break the law to get rid of them yourself?
That one.
If they get power, they’ll make it legal to do it to you. There won’t be any protests like this going on.
Good luck achieving nothing then.
A dead nazi achieves a lot more than a living one.
I understand your longing for immediate action and I share the emotional need to cut off the snake’s head sooner than later. Those who break the social contract of tolerance for each other should not be protected by it. Unfortunately it is a matter of fact that violence will always spiral out of control. First you just want to get rid of the fascists. Assume you succeed and don’t get reprimanded by law. Then you know how to get rid of someone and can act on it. What stops you to get to your rivals that want to strip you from your new found power? Chances are real you drift off into dictator mannerisms yourself.
The only way to not become what you try to eliminate is not to use excessive violence to begin with. Use the law. Use intimidating mass demonstrations. Use social pressure by making their views unspeakable again. Be better, stand for your values, organize with like minded folk and don’t play into the stereotype of left groups always splittering into incapable small groups that cannot cooperate and coordinate
So how many nazis have you killed? Why so few?
What a perfectly fascist way of thinking.
You mean a martyr for other Nazis to get motivated over?
Great /s
Ah, I see. On the one hand here’s a green light and all you need to do is point it out to people. On the other there’s a green light and you’re saying “fuck the system, let’s go 200m down the road where the light is red and cross there”.
No need to break the law, it’s in the German constitution:
Article 20 […] (4) All Germans shall have the right to resist any person seeking to abolish this constitutional order if no other remedy is available.
Mobilization is the first step. You will not get people to start beating up fascists, who for the past 20 years haven’t been to a single demonstration. Also having millions on the street for a cause puts pressure behind politics to take the more activist protests serious and respond to their demands. Also with the right wing media and propaganda machine it is crucial to have so many people out, that are considered otherwise apolitical or non radical, because the narrative of the right was that they represent the silent majority and that everyone against them is a leftist radical. Now they are struggling with absurd photoshops that the masses were fake.
Punching fascists is a moral obligation, but widespread protests against them usually also forces them back into their basement.
Mass protests are nice, because these fuckers get too comfortable otherwise. They often think because they are racist fucks, everyone else is too.
It’s important because it takes away the right’s talking point about speaking for the silent majority. This is the majority, and it’s not silent anymore. You can tell that the AfD is already in crisis mode over this. Hopefully we can keep it up until the general election.
I agree that ultimately, force is needed to get rid of fascism. But that doesn’t have to be physical violence, a somewhat functioning democratic system usually also has legislative force that can be used first. The German constitution was written up immediately after the horrors of the nazi regime and WWII. And it offers a lot of tools to fight fascism without physical violence. Political parties can be made illegal for example and individuals can lose their constitutional rights if they use them to destabilize the state. Of course, this won’t get rid of fascists but it may weaken them enough to not be a threat anymore.
People are protesting, among other things, for these tools to be used right now, before it’s too late and before physical violence is the only way out.
It’s funny how Germany should have those protections and yet the AfD is getting bigger and more popular.
Because the protections that are in place for a very good reason, are not being implemented by those in power. I don’t know why.
One needs to distinguish between three types of people here: AfD functionaries who draw up deportation plans, definitely fascist, core voters, generally inherited from the NPD, who vote for the AfD because of those deportation plans, definitely fascist, and then protest voters who vote for the AfD despite those plans. Also despite the rest of their programme.
Long story short in Germany the left parties have been captured by (at best) labour aristocracy and neoliberals at worst, their policies led to a severe lack of social housing, an explosion of precarious employment, and it’s not like the labour aristocracy is above agitating against “freeloaders not pulling their weight”. We have a gigantic precariat, many more are afraid of landing there, and a significant portion of that precariat is pissed enough at the establishment to vote AfD because it’s the only party that hasn’t betrayed them so far, or they want to show a middle finger to the other parties, or both, take your pick.
What’s crucial now is that this protest moment is used to actually address those very legitimate grievances of the precariat. To invest in all that good stuff – housing (now with great insulation), public transport so people don’t need to buy expensive electric cars, district heating so people don’t need to buy expensive heat pumps. No land in large cities to build housing on? Expropriate it, doesn’t even need a change to the constitution. Pay for it all with wealth taxes which somehow have been completely cancelled when was it 90s? Suddenly all that anger that the AfD tries to redirect at immigrants will be gone, protest voters can stop voting for Nazis and clean their consciousness, and we’ll all be happy (for the moment).
How many fascists have you attacked? Or are you just a basement-dwelling keyboard warrior that hasn’t done even the slightest gesture, not even joined a protest like this, against nazis? STFU.
A few.
Beating your meat does not count.
Hah, funny.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-12/who-was-behind-bendigos-anti-mosque-protests/6848468
When they came to our town, we fought back. You should try it next time, it’s pretty cathartic.
While I share your sentiment regarding dealing with fascists with violence, there were no fascists to fight at these protests. The protests are in response to fascists growing political power and backroom planning that became public and not against fascists showing up in person. When that happens people do fight them (or try to, the cops protect them).
When they came to our town, we fought back. You should try it next time, it’s pretty cathartic.
Nothing about it in the article you linked. Maybe you miss clicked or something, try using your right hand.
Oh sorry, I originally had another link but changed it to a more reputable source without checking.
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/fights-break-out-at-bendigo-mosque-protest/62dqgo9v3
And here’s the link I wanted to avoid using but it does offer the better insight despite being a shit company
About 300 people opposed to the mosque broke through police barricades and started punching anti-racism protesters on the steps of the Bendigo Town Hall on Saturday afternoon.
Seems like the Nazis were the one doing the punching. But than again we also have militant antifa in Germany (love those guys) - that’s just not a very effective way of fighting an ideology. People don’t change their believe after getting punched in the face - go figure.
There is something to be said for shouting them down with song.
No sure if you proof the right point here…
I don’t remember singing to be the key of freeing France from Nazi-Germany
No ofcourse not. But Germany isn’t a nazi regime today like it was back then. It’s “just” one party that has grown the past years. Those protests show that the silent majority won’t let them assume power and that we have learned from history.
Germany has a very strong democratic system and there are a lot of democratic ways of getting rid of such a party in a democratic way. For example it is likely that their funding is beeing stopped, so they have to finance themselves. Additionally it’s highly likely that part of their party is being forbidden. And Germany even talks about forbidding the whole party. That’s something the court has to decide.
If we omit all the steps which aren’t key, we likely fail at key steps. Some steps are important support.
Giving the people a way to show themselves what their spirit is is important to encourage further steps.
In that sense, I do think keeping up morale was important in freeing France.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://www.piped.video/watch?v=kOO9GsiMb1g
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
I love the fascist-punching enthusiasm, but a good movement will need diversity of action to get things done. Support the antifascist who beats nazis in brawls, and the antifascist who plans rallies that sing songs and march. Both are valid, and both are important.
You become what you fight, very easily, if you are not careful.
Yeah that’s one of those platitudes that sounds nice but is not actually backed up by any science.
Kind of obvious how it works isn’t it? You become hateful as you fight evil, and you become more and more accepting of cruelty as long as it’s to the enemy. Happens in wars all the time.
Like I said it sounds plausible and logical, but that doesn’t actually translate to being true.
Actually, it does. Since the AFD had more voters in the eastern states of Germany (that was DDR in the past) bigotry against people from eastern Germany have increased again. It was never completely gone, but now you find people openly speculating people from eastern Germany are less intelligent, “inbreds”, etc. And that comes a lot from supposedly anti-fascist leftists.
A lot of people just want violence or don’t like people in general or have something else wrong with them and believe slapping an “anti-fascist” label on their violence somehow makes it good violence. Other ways do work and they are a better choice. Insulting, being cruel and being violent against people should never be your go-to idea and you certainly shouldn’t be trying to shame people into being violent.
Many AFD voters can be turned in better ways, instead of making them fear violence and insults.
Philosophy ain’t really a science bud.
Cool so let’s not take it as fact and repeat it like it’s true.
It literally is though.
So give me the science to back it up.
You can’t really be this silly. You can’t ethically study this shit, it would need two groups, a control group that doesn’t get desensitized by the horrible things the other group does to people. But you can personally observe the changes in people of places of authority and stress over time. There’s maybe a few studies in the past, like the Stanford one, Milgram I think, that ethicists discourage.
I’m an enthusiastic supporter of punching Nazis in the face. One punch and Richard Spencer ceased to be a threat in my country. We always need Nazi punchers. Just violent enough to pierce the veil of invulnerability fascists need but not violent enough to create martyrs for their movement.
“Righteous Violence” is at the core of fascism, but the rest of it is in propaganda techniques. There are many “nice” fascist ambassadors politely wheedling their way into every formal and informal organization of people. They would be much more successful if there was not already a widespread revulsion of fascism throughout almost all countries exposed to it. That revulsion isn’t just passed down, it has to be taught. Gigantic public demonstrations like this are the opposite of moments like this which have been happening in my country since 2016. Huge anti-fascist demonstrations are very important to resist fascism, since they are trying to peddle their ideology as natural and something all people believe and only a few are brave enough to claim. They have to be proven wrong for the kids they otherwise would appeal to.
