• gnuhaut@lemmy.ml
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    8 months ago

    In reality, far from stopping the far right, Germany is implementing a far right agenda. Increase police authority? Check. Scapegoat immigrants and other marginalized groups? Check. Build up the military? Check. Suppress protests and dissenters? Check. Impose austerity, providing the fertile ground for fascists? Check.

    By the time the AfD comes to power, they won’t have to do anything. The liberals (including socdems and greens) will already have created a fascist society.

    • BestBouclettes@jlai.lu
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      8 months ago

      The same is happening to France. As you said, they’ll have a field day when (at this point it’s not if, it’s when) they get to power.
      Gotta love neoliberalism…

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        8 months ago

        The Netherlands will very likely have a right wing government and will be heading down the same path. Same with Italy, Sweden, Denmark.

        With the next European election this year the right wing parties in the European Parliament will gain a lot of traction.

        We could be heading down the American path and lose a lot or the progress we made over the last 2 decades.

        I will be a father in a couple or hours. Between the right taking to power and accelerating climate change i am just so fucking worried in what kind of world my kids will grow up.

          • Gloomy@mander.xyz
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            8 months ago

            Fahsism is not a very well defined term. Can you expand why you see America (whom I assume you are reversing to?) as a fashist regime?

            • Aquilae [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.net
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              Would be more accurate to say capitalists I suppose, who inevitably give way to fascism.

              The US is a bourgeois/capitalist dictatorship built on the genocide of millions of native Americans. I think most socialists would say it’s not quite a fascist regime just yet, but it has a history of supporting such regimes and is currently supporting a fascist colony committing a genocide in Palestine.

            • BlueMagaChud [any]@hexbear.net
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              8 months ago

              Fascism is well defined, it is capitalism in decay, it is a desperate lashing out of the parasite class when they become incapable of forestalling the TRPF. Fascism is simply capitalism with the mask off. It is only “not a very well defined term” within the capitalist superstructure because they don’t want people oppose capitalism, so the definition deliberately muddied. There are many things that are not poorly understood, but must be made to be poorly understood.

        • Crampon@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          The rise of right wing parties might be a consequence of the left wings failure to govern.

          In Norway the Labour Party was the biggest party for decades. Now the party is infested with politicians using it for career paths to NGO’s or international organisations like UN and EU. The same party made for the labourers implements tax policies making it really hard to start industries.

          Money are being spent on the most incredible projects bearing no fruit for future generations.

          At a point people get fed up, and in desperation they have to vote further to the right. If you want less government spending on stupid projects you also have to get some fascism.

          The problem is not the right wing parties or stupid people. The problem is worthless left wing politicians not contributing positive to the nation.

          It saddens me.

          • Alsephina@lemmy.ml
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            8 months ago

            The problem is worthless left wing politicians not contributing positive to the nation.

            The problem isn’t a person. It’s class society itself and the capitalist mode of production.

            Both Fascism and Socialism solve the problem of capitalism being in crisis; it always eventually will be, and it currently is in Europe. Fascism “solves” it by fully cementing capitalist rule and removing the veil of bourgeois “democracy”, while Socialism solves it by overthrowing capitalism entirely and establishing proletarian rule.

            The far-right rising again in Europe was always the inevitable consequence of capitalists winning the Cold War and ruthlessly suppressing the Left since. The only other “solution” to the crisis is Fascism.

            • Gloomy@mander.xyz
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              8 months ago

              I am not very well read in political theory, but I would agree with the idea that capitalism HAS to end in crisis because exponancial groth just can’t be sustained.

              I would further point out that, to my limited knowledge, capitalism is a (or even the) root cause of the current climate crisis (altough things like humans inability to solve long term problems, as well as other factors come into play too. After all, things like the ozon hole have been solved even under a capitalist system).

            • Crampon@lemmy.world
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              8 months ago

              A great example of how this class operates. Our foreign minister from the Labour party had to step down due to suspicions of providing her husband with inside information on government contracts to public traded companies. The husband bought stocks and they made some cash.

              The reward for this corruption is a new position as our ambassador to the US. She officially got the job two days ago.

              We have seen this upper class of politicians never having to stand responsible for their actions for some years now. On both sides.

              There’s no wonder people get desperate. The only solution they get provided is using their vote. And when they do use it they get called out for using it the “wrong” way.

              Either the current politicians fix their shit, or the people will topple them. It’s fairly predictable.

          • Gloomy@mander.xyz
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            8 months ago

            I don’t know about other nations. In Germany we have had the Conservative Party ruling for 16 years as a right leaning Party, 4 years of a left party that implemented right wing neo fashist ideas, followed by another 16 years of conservative rule with more centeristic than right wing rule (the political void in the right was filled by the AFD, which has become a true fashist party in the last 10 years). The only “left” government we ever had in the last 36 years has been in the last 2, and they are heavily restricted by beeing in a coalition with a neo liberal right wing party.

            So, at least for Germany, this just doesn’t hold true.

            • gnuhaut@lemmy.ml
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              8 months ago

              The only “left” government we ever had in the last 36 years has been in the last 2, and they are heavily restricted by beeing in a coalition with a neo liberal right wing party.

              They’re all neoliberals. They wouldn’t be doing anything substantially different if the FDP didn’t exist.

            • tiredturtle@lemmy.ml
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              8 months ago

              Yes. Pretty much everywhere has had capitalists ranging from moderate to hard-line in lead. Now they’re just seeing that they can form coalitions with open fascists. Leftists don’t even have the opportunity to try to achieve change… Maybe Uruguay or such are the exception

    • _Cid_@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      These are a lot of statements without sources. Also most people would disagree with the statement that a government that includes social democrats and greens is implementing a “far right agenda”.

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        8 months ago

        Fucking Scholz said he wanted to “finally deport in a big way” (“endlich im großen Stil abschieben”). This is (well used to be) a far right agenda. They’re sending weapons to Israeli fascists while they commit genocide, and defend them at every opportunity. These people support fascists and fascist policies.

        What exactly do you even dispute is untrue about what I said?

    • EtzBetz@feddit.de
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      8 months ago

      Are you living in a different Germany than me? There are sadly things going on to make immigration harder. But other than that, things are okay.

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        8 months ago

        Make immigration harder??? Nice euphemism for this fascist shit. They’re throwing human rights out of the window. They’re literally putting migrants into concentration camps, if they’re don’t drown first thanks to Frontex pushbacks. Greens defended this so-called compromise to their base while fascist Meloni was giving victory speeches.

        “Endlich im großen Stil abschieben” (Scholz). I can’t tell the difference an NPD slogan and the SPD chancellor.

        And for the other shit, there’s some extra police authority or surveillance law proposed every other month or so. Pro-palestine protests are criminalized and they’re threatening Muslims with deportation for not being loyal enough to Israel. All the parties are discussing what sort of services they can cut so they have more money for the military. Real wages are shrinking. You can’t open a newspaper without reading about how Germany needs to prepare for war. Things are not okay.

    • rimjob_rainer@discuss.tchncs.de
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      8 months ago

      Build up the military?

      Any source on that? We do not have a military right now. Wouldn’t be bad if we wanted to defend ourselves against Putin.

      • SoyViking [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        8 months ago

        defend ourselves against Putin

        Putin is going to come and finish the job for Stalin any day now. Just wait and see, tomorrow the Bolchevik hordes might be flooding into Germany, to eat your Dachshunds and turning the Oktoberfest into a vodka and balalaika festival.

        Why would Putin do that? Simply because he is evil.

        The only sensible response is to cut every social program to fund the construction of a German death star.

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        8 months ago

        My guy, have you heard phrases like “100 Mrd. € Sondervermögen für die Bundeswehr”, “Wiedereinführung der Wehrpflicht” , shit like this? Or have you heard anything people like Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann have said in the past two years? Also, hasn’t the Russian army been struggling to overpower Ukraine for the past two years now? The poorest country in Europe with basically no functioning infrastructure to begin with that also is decidedly not a member of NATO? Wouldn’t the Russian Army have to cross the Baltic states and Poland to even reach Germany, triggering a response from all of NATO? Could it be they all the rhetoric about the Russkys expanding westwards is full of shit and nothing more but a fig leaf to sell austerity and a military buildup to the German populace?

        • rimjob_rainer@discuss.tchncs.de
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          Those are not sources, those are only talks and rumors. I’ve not seen any result of the 100Mrd. yet. And yes, the NATO would be triggered if they invaded Poland, but shouldn’t Germany as a member of NATO be able to help then?

      • gnuhaut@lemmy.ml
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        8 months ago

        Yeah yeah, I remember all that shit from back in the day. Die Russen kommen! Die Russen kommen! Oldest trick in the book.

        Natürlich, das einfache Volk will keinen Krieg […] Aber schließlich sind es die Führer eines Landes, die die Politik bestimmen, und es ist immer leicht, das Volk zum Mitmachen zu bringen, ob es sich nun um eine Demokratie, eine faschistische Diktatur, um ein Parlament oder eine kommunistische Diktatur handelt. […] Das ist ganz einfach. Man braucht nichts zu tun, als dem Volk zu sagen, es würde angegriffen, und den Pazifisten ihren Mangel an Patriotismus vorzuwerfen und zu behaupten, sie brächten das Land in Gefahr. Diese Methode funktioniert in jedem Land. – Hermann Göring

        Also, I love that you want a source for something that was a top news story for months. You somehow heard, dass die Russen kommen!!! but not the Sondervermögen? You’re just fucking with me, aren’t you?

        • systemglitch@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          Yeah I barely pay attention to Europe on news and I knew they were talking about rebuilding the military. Made for some good meme’s.

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      Liberals believe all ideologies other than basic western liberalism are based on confusion or ignorance at a personal level. And that’s the entirety of where ideology comes from. They don’t believe it’s rooted in history, conditions, wealth, anything. They see fascism as a complicated misunderstanding that could potentially be cured through a big speech or exposing fascists to the musical Hamilton. They think ideology is pathogen that spreads more easily through who they regard as ignorant and malleable. They believe racism is simply a matter of confusion over human biology that can be instructed away.

      They’re very similar to conservatives like that. They both think societies are built by IQ scores and being “civilized.” Liberals may dress up their goofy theories in fancy academic language, but ultimately they believe the following: “Stupid people are more prone to fascism simply because they’re stupid and didn’t read enough Margaret Atwood books like me. People are more stupid now because of Tiktok.” And that’s how liberals would explain why fascism is on the rise again

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        8 months ago

        And to elaborate on what you said, liberals believe that the “stupid” people are the proles. The uncultured, unwashed and financially unsuccessful masses who deserve every punch the invisible hand of the market throws at them. Liberals simply can’t conceive of someone with a fancy education, an expensive suit and good table manners being a fascist.

    • Tinidril@midwest.social
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      8 months ago

      It’s tough to be critical of “liberalism” when everyone has a different idea of what it means. It might help to specify “economic liberalism”.

      Along with it’s deep flaws, Liberalism is also associated with things like the abolition of slavery, universal suffrage, LGBT+ rights, etc. Conservatives also muddy the waters by blaming these things for economic hardship.

      • davel [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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        Liberalism has a definition, which Marxists have never forgotten, though thanks to two red scares and a cold war, others have forgotten. Now in Orwellian fashion, “liberalism” and “socialism” are floating signifiers, so we have liberals like Sanders calling themselves socialists despite never calling for the abolition of private ownership of the means of production.

        Slavery did end under liberalism, but then again liberalism started it.

        • fidodo@lemmy.world
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          Almost nobody knows the academic definitions of most political ideologies, they’re just all cable news buzzwords now. If you took a sample of the population I’d be surprised if even 5% could give you the correct academic definitions for the vast majority of political ideology terms.

          • possibly a cat@lemmy.ml
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            8 months ago

            And so we can choose to act towards restoring definitions to words with important meanings, so that we become capable of discussing the things they signify again.

            If we don’t use words as they mean, but instead use unorthodox terminology, then we allow the significance of such words to be lost, with no standardized alternatives in common use - i.e., no alternatives that are any more clear than the original word.

            There is a war on language. It’s primarily a subset of the class war. We can surrender, or fight what is probably the simplest fight of our life: We can use words as they were meant to be used.

            And the more we do it, the more others will follow. Knowledge is a box that cannot be closed. And knowledge is an important ally to the average person whether they realize it or not. (Yet the war will still to rage on, as not all who misuse words are doing so by accident.)

        • A1kmm@lemmy.amxl.com
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          I don’t think it is fair to say that there was ever 100% agreement over what some of those terms meant.

          Like or hate it, language means what the people think it means, and as GP suggests, choosing terms that disambiguate differences is a far better approach that allows people to find common ground rather than have a knee-jerk reaction to a policy because they associate with one ambiguous label and are told that the policy is associated with another.

          Adding more dimensions to the policy spectrum help. One dimension (left/right) covering all manner of social and economic policy leads to confusing outcomes.

          A two dimensional view - economic left-right on one axis, and libertarian/authoritarian - is one view that is popular now, so giving four quadrants, left lib, right lib, left auth, right auth - and that is already a lot more granular. With any quadrant view of course, the dispute is always going to be where the centre is… it is something of an Overton window, where extremists try to push in one direction to shift the Overton window and make positions that were firmly in one quadrant seem like the centre.

          However, there are other dimensions as well that could make sense to evaluate policy (and political viewpoints) on even within these axes. One is short-term / long-term: at one extreme, does the position discount the future for the benefit of people right now, and at the other extreme, focusing far into the future with minimal concerns for people now. Another could be nationalist / globalist - does the position embody ‘think global, act local’, or does it aim to serve the local population to the detriment of global populations?

          That is already a four-dimensional scheme (there could be more), and I believe that while real-world political parties often correlate some of those axes and extremes on one are often found together with extremes on another, they are actually near-orthogonal and it would be theoretically possible to be at each of the 16 possible points near the edges of that scheme.

          That said, even though they are almost orthogonal, an extreme on one might prevent an extreme on another axis in some cases. For example, I’d consider myself fairly economically left, fairly socially libertarian, fairly far towards favouring the long term over the short term, and fairly far towards globalist (think global, act local) thinking. But some would say that an extreme left position requires no private ownership of the means of production. In the modern world, a computer is a means of production. I would not support a world in which there is no private ownership of computers, because that counters my the social libertarian position. So, I draw the line at wanting public ownership of natural monopolies and large-scale production - I would still want to live in a pluralistic society where people can try to create new means of production (providing it doesn’t interfere with others or the future, e.g. through pollution, safety risks, not paying a living wage, etc…), rather than one where someone like Trofim Lysenko has the ear of the leader and no one can disagree no matter how stupid their beliefs are. But I’d want to see the ability for the state to take over those new means of production in the public interest eventually if they pan out and become large scale (and for research to happen in parallel by the state).

          I think putting one’s viewpoint on multiple dimensions makes it far clearer what someone believes, and where there is common ground, compared to picking labels with contested meaning and attacking the other labels.

        • Tinidril@midwest.social
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          8 months ago

          So that’s the change you want to see in the world. Technical linguistic grammar takes precedence over political outreach.

          I fully support your desire to spread vocabular competence. My impression from your first post was that you had other priorities.

          • Alsephina@lemmy.ml
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            8 months ago

            Overthrowing liberalism/capitalism and stopping fascism requires mass organization and class consciousness, part of which is often understanding these basic concepts. And people did. They have to again.

            These weren’t egghead concepts back when we had a labor movement large enough to support a labor press.

            • Tinidril@midwest.social
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              All I’m saying is that if you don’t take your audience into consideration, your message will be misunderstood. If you want to use the “correct” (more debatable than you think) terminology when that terminology isn’t well understood in the culture, then take the time to explain the language. Or keep scratching your head about why your getting downvotes and convincing nobody.

              • Alsephina@lemmy.ml
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                8 months ago

                keep scratching your head about why your getting downvotes and convincing nobody

                Yeah you do that.

                • Tinidril@midwest.social
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                  I’m getting downvotes because I’m telling a bunch of bubble communists that actual communication is more important than in-group signalling. No head scratches required. It’s why the left has been hopelessly ineffective for at least half a century.

          • davel [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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            Despite the erasure of the words’ meanings in the public consciousness, the concepts still exist.

            If you have new, sexier names for the concepts which will accelerate their reintroduction into the public consciousness, I’m all ears.

            • Tinidril@midwest.social
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              It doesn’t have to be sexier terminology, or even different terminology. Just don’t drop the word “liberalism” into a conversation and expect the average person to understand what your talking about.

              You could use “corporatism” which has kind of taken over that definition in common language. I know it’s technically incorrect, but language also isn’t static outside of academic disciplines. But ultimately you can use whatever language you want, just don’t assume a particular definition will be understood without explanation.

              • LemmeAtEm@lemmy.ml
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                The only people I know of who don’t know what the word “liberal” means, especially in the context the person above was using it, are very ignorant Americans. To be clear, even though I don’t like most Americans, I’m not blaming them for being ignorant in this particular case because they have been subjected to decades of mostly uncontested propaganda deliberately obfuscating the term. But most of the rest of the world knows what everyone is talking about when saying “liberal” and knows it’s a right wing ideology. And everyone shouldn’t have to hold up the conversation to preemptively explain what the word means to those who don’t already know. People are generally expected to pick up the gist of a sentence or point via the context of what’s being said. The context was perfectly clear and it just sounds like concern trolling to go on about needing to hand-hold and dumb down the terminology being used for “the average person.”

                • GarbageShoot [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                  8 months ago

                  And everyone shouldn’t have to hold up the conversation to preemptively explain what the word means to those who don’t already know

                  Well, if you know that the person doesn’t know, giving definitions can be a helpful way of setting up your argument, but obviously these lemmitor assholes are just wasting your time.

              • Alsephina@lemmy.ml
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                You could use “corporatism” which has kind of taken over that definition

                Neoliberalism” rather. Though that’s more like mask-off imperialism. And “corporatism” is just capitalism but when you don’t want to admit that the problem is capitalism.

                Either way liberalism is the same idealist, individualist culture/ideology that emerges under capitalism to maintain that capitalist mode of production, and must be destroyed along with the mode of production it sustains.

              • GarbageShoot [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                8 months ago

                You could use “corporatism” which has kind of taken over that definition in common language

                No one says “corporatism” in the real world. The better suggestion for an “alternative” is to just say “capitalism”, because that’s accurate enough.

                • What_Religion_R_They [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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                  8 months ago

                  nOOooOOOoooooo you can’t blame capitalism! We have to make up a word that means “capitalism” but isn’t capitalism and fix that (through reform! because we shouldn’t try to abolish capitalism).

        • FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today
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          Lol I’m sure Prolewiki is an unbiased source that the majority of people would agree with on the definitions of words. /s

          • GarbageShoot [he/him]@hexbear.net
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            It’s basically just “classical liberalism and neoliberalism”, and whether politically illiterate Americans use that word that way doesn’t matter very much from an analytical standpoint, because in political science, history, philosophy, and even just popular discourse in most other countries, the term “liberal” mainly has that meaning.

            • FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today
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              8 months ago

              Oxford Dictionary:

              lib·er·al

              /ˈlib(ə)rəl/

              adjective

              willing to respect or accept behavior or opinions different from one’s own; open to new ideas.

              relating to or denoting a political and social philosophy that promotes individual rights, civil liberties, democracy, and free enterprise. Similar: tolerant, unprejudiced, unbigoted, broad-minded, open-minded, enlightened, forbearing, permissive, free, free and easy, easygoing, laissez-faire, libertarian, latitudinarian, unbiased, impartial, nonpartisan, indulgent, lenient, lax, soft

              noun

              a supporter of policies that are socially progressive and promote social welfare. “she dissented from the decision, joined by the court’s liberals”

              a supporter of a political and social philosophy that promotes individual rights, civil liberties, democracy, and free enterprise.

              Opposite: narrow-minded, bigoted,


              You are free to argue with dictionaries, but if your enemy is liberalism as defined by civil rights, democracy, and welfare then you are the enemy of all people, in my eyes.

              • GarbageShoot [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                If one is trying to define liberalism against feudalism, that definition is fine, but it’s just redditor sophomorism to act like a dictionary is a replacement for an actual historical or academic definition of a political tendency.

                • FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today
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                  Take it up with oxford, Words mean what the majority believes they currently mean. Anything else is just some shit somebody made up. This discussion is about the current meaning of Liberalism in today’s political context.

          • Alsephina@lemmy.ml
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            Where did he say that the majority of people agree with this definition?

            Well, the majority of workers in the US probably did, until the labor movements were crushed in the 60s and 70s

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              If the majority of people don’t agree on the proposed meaning of a word then that isn’t what the words mean. In other words, it is wrong.

              • Alsephina@lemmy.ml
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                It’s a materialist/Marxist definition, hence the

                Because Marxists are like seen-this-one

                https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Fascism

                All successful labor movements and mass organizations in the past have included teaching others how things work, handing out pamphlets, etc.

                And so we can choose to act towards restoring definitions to words with important meanings, so that we become capable of discussing the things they signify again.

                If we don’t use words as they mean, but instead use unorthodox terminology, then we allow the significance of such words to be lost, with no standardized alternatives in common use - i.e., no alternatives that are any more clear than the original word.

                There is a war on language. It’s primarily a subset of the class war. We can surrender, or fight what is probably the simplest fight of our life: We can use words as they were meant to be used.

                • FiniteBanjo@lemmy.today
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                  Yeah, I’m glad you’re slowly starting to comprehend the conversation. I’m informing you that making up definitions for words is wrong and is the source of confusion when you try and fail to converse with others.

      • GarbageShoot [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        Along with it’s deep flaws, Liberalism is also associated with things like the abolition of slavery . . .

        Liberalism is also associated with the invention and virtually entire existence of chattel slavery along with the exporting of the criminalization of queer people to cultures that did not feature such things.

        • Tinidril@midwest.social
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          Is it though? In the common consciousness? I really don’t think it is. Whether or should be is a different discussion, but the bubble in which those concepts are innately connected is pretty small. You can’t just say “liberal” today and expect it to be understood in that way.

          • GarbageShoot [he/him]@hexbear.net
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            Is it though?

            Yes, it is responsible for those things, like when we say smoking is associated with higher risk of lung cancer.

            In the common consciousness?

            Moving the goalposts. Good job observing that liberal propaganda takes credit for good things and not for bad things.

            Though outside of America, you get a much more accurate view of the term because liberal means “sniveling, centrist, market-fetishist” in most other countries.

            • Tinidril@midwest.social
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              Yes, it is responsible for those things

              I never said it wasn’t. It’s about language and perception.

              Moving the goalposts.

              Nope. This was my exact goalpost from the beginning.

              Good job observing that liberal propaganda takes credit for good things and not for bad things.

              Not at all. I have no objection to telling people what liberalism is all about. However, the reality is that decades of propaganda from liberals and conservatives has successfully shifted the definition to a point where it’s foolish to just drop the word without further explanation.

              • 420stalin69 [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                The qualifier “progressive” is used to describe a liberal who supports progressive social issues.

                Supporting gay rights or feminism etc, that’s being a “progressive” (loosely speaking, it can be defined better than that.)

                You seem to want to insist all liberals are progressive liberals but they aren’t.

                That’s why the qualifiers “classical liberal” or “liberal conservatism” exist.

                In some countries the “Liberal” party are the socially conservative faction of society.

                You’re wrong to conflate liberalism with progressivism. That’s why they’re different words.

                You’re also wrong to imply that progressive stances are “owned” by “liberals”.

                You want to say “progressive liberal” is a tautology…. But it isn’t.

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        Yeah you’re the one being pedantic here. Liberalism has exactly two definitions that get used 99% of the time. Someone might say liberal to mean “socially liberal,” which means open-mindedness in regards to progressive movements such as feminism, promotion of gay rights, acceptance of trans people, and all that stuff. This is usually the only definition used in the USA.

        Or they mean liberalism as the broad ideological foundation of capitalism, with a belief in the promotion of free enterprise, distribution, public-private separation, and the primacy of individual rights. This definition is almost never used in the USA except by socialists, but outside of the USA this is understood as the primary definition of the term whereas “socially liberal” is regarded as a secondary definition.

        And it’s very easy to determine which one a person is talking about if you look at the context clues. The only other context I can think of where liberal is used is the academic term “liberal arts,” but that refers to scholarly topics that would have been taught to people who weren’t slaves.

        • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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          And you will notice that every person who calls themselves a liberal in America still believe in the broad ideological foundation of capitalism.

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          Huh… we’re seeing anglocentric capitalists trying to rebrand liberalism somehow compatible with right wing. Always some liberty-hindering agenda gets newspeak marketing campaigns, “economic liberalism”, “neoliberalism”, “classic liberalism”

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        Liberalism is associated with those things because it allowed them to happen to avoid a negative effect to property rights (revolution, riots) once more radical people pushed for them. Liberalism is reactionary and regressive, but some liberals are easier to convince of specific rights extensions than others. You’ve been lied to a lot if you think liberals did these things

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        Liberalism is also associated with things like the abolition of slavery, universal suffrage, LGBT+ rights

        Communists had to pry these concessions from liberalism with organized violence, don’t pretend like liberalism did these things.

        • ShimmeringKoi [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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          Adding to this: if you like weekends, overtime, safety standards, or simply not working 19 hours a day in the dirt factory, you have communist violence to thank.

        • juicy@lemmy.today
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          Honest question: when did communists use organized violence to abolish slavery? To win LGBT+ rights?

          • OurToothbrush@lemmy.mlM
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            A lot of radical abolitionists were communists

            The lgbt liberation movement would wave the flag of the legitimate vietnamese government during the US invasion. Marsha Johnson, Leslie fienberg, communists.

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        honestly there seems to be some confusion/distinction only in the US.

        i think most people elsewhere mean mostly “neoliberal capitalism” when they say “liberal”.

  • Kuori [she/her]@hexbear.net
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    the correct answer (which germany will never land on) is to shoot the nazis. it has always been the only solution to a nazi infestation but germany has always found that difficult to swallow.

    • 小莱卡@lemmygrad.ml
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      Shoot the nazis, establish a dictatorship of the proletariat, establish capital controls and develop the productive forces so the material conditions that lead to fascism don’t come back.

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        A socialist government, or an organized proletariat and their vanguard party.

        Unfortunately the decades of suppressing the left since the Cold War and annexation of the GDR means an organized proletariat and a vanguard party has not emerged in Germany (though there is the DKP), hence the rise of the far-right. A socialist government like the GDR would correctly label these as nazis and would not have let the far-right grow to this point.

        • CableMonster@lemmy.ml
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          How do you know innocent people would not get included in the “Nazi” categorization? In america lots of people get called nazi that have no relationship to it.

  • Dra@lemmy.zip
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    Let’s see if any Lemmy users are able to correctly identify why this is happening. Bonus points for American-Style ignorance

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldB
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    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    Germans have already had a front-row seat to the rise of so-called illiberal democrats in Poland and Hungary who used their power to stack courts with pliant judges and silence independent media.

    Today, German lawmakers are rewriting bylaws and pushing for constitutional amendments to ensure courts and state parliaments can provide checks against a future, more powerful AfD.

    But every remedy holds its own dangers, leaving German politicians threading a course between safeguarding their democracy and the possibility of unwittingly providing the AfD with tools it could someday use to hobble it.

    Hesse’s rival mainstream parties came together to pass a “democracy package,” rewriting several parliamentary rules, including one that effectively blocked the AfD from the intelligence committee.

    In the eastern state of Thuringia, mainstream lawmakers also wanted to block the AfD from their intelligence committee, and initially agreed to put their differences aside and vote for each other’s candidates.

    Some measures under discussion would give law enforcement and domestic intelligence agencies more latitude, never an easy step in a country that experienced both Fascism and Communism in the last century.


    The original article contains 1,301 words, the summary contains 181 words. Saved 86%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

  • nekandro@lemmy.mlOP
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    Today, German lawmakers are rewriting bylaws and pushing for constitutional amendments to ensure courts and state parliaments can provide checks against a future, more powerful AfD. Some have even launched a campaign to ban the AfD altogether.

    You see, democracy is when…

    • Downcount@lemmy.world
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      I’ll help you with this sentence:

      … it defends itself against an undemocratic power.

      • Ogmios@sh.itjust.works
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        Yes. Democracy is when you refuse to allow the people to have a say in their systems of governance.

        • Downcount@lemmy.world
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          Yes. Democracy is when you refuse to allow the people a party that wants to dismantle the democratic state and bringing in nothing than hate to have a say in their systems of governance.

          • Ogmios@sh.itjust.works
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            Maybe if you want to prevent such a hypothetical future the democratic solution is to offer something better for people to vote for, instead of using threats of violence by employing the law to enforce your systems.

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              There is and never will be a perfect system of whatsoever. I’d rather watch them nazi party get forbidden than waiting for a solution that will come in place when it is already too late.

              And unless you aren’t a nazi, putin follower or trumpist, I don’t know why I even have to explain why a German future with a nazi party at its front will be no good for nobody.

              • freagle@lemmygrad.ml
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                LOL, it’s so funny how close you are and yet how far you are. When the USSR was dismantled by compradors in power and they invited the USA to come in and liberalize their economy, they suffered millions of death of poverty and their life expectancy dropped 10 years in 10 years, literally as bad as if they had been invaded and literally worse than what COVID did to the USA. So Putin gets elected on the narrative that he will reassert Russia’s sovereignty and not allow the USA and Europe to continue imposing austerity, causing mass suffering, and then he does so. Everyone in Russia gets a better life after Putin takes office. And since he’s KGB, he knows exactly how the USA is trying to infiltrate Russian politics and ensure a puppet government is in place. And yet, you can’t see how Putin is doing exactly what you’re saying Germany should do: prevent undemocratic forces from taking power by using his authority to do so.

                Maybe one day you’ll get it. The USA is the fascist core and Europe is the birthplace of the USA as well as the USA’s luxury market and historical globe spanning power base. Every other country outside of them is doing absolutely everything they can to prevent the USA from taking away their ability to operate as a sovereign state, and in a lot of places that looks like authoritarianism. But in the end, it’s literally anti-fascism.

                Don’t believe me? Look at the voting record in the UN for resolutions condemning the glorification of Nazis. The USA votes against it every single time.

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                It is easy to say that when you’re not the one that they are using the law against.

                Will you say that when they come for you next?

                • catloaf@lemm.ee
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                  If they come for me because I’m a fascist, then yes, just take me out behind the shed and put me out of my misery.

                • Killing_Spark@feddit.de
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                  Are you actually referencing the “first they came for the Jews but I wasn’t a Jew” thing to argue that we should let nazis go ahead and take the power?

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                The solution being proposed here to prevent authoritarian systems is… other authoritarian systems. Can you understand why people see this as a problem brewing?

        • fidodo@lemmy.world
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          Checks and balances are about preventing a small faction of the government from gaining absolute control of the entire government. It’s not about preventing a say, it’s about preventing a total takeover that prevents anyone else from having a say in the future.

    • Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      Are you surprised that the country that ushered the Nazis into power is more vigilant about making sure they never head remotely in that direction again?

      Even the party’s leader resigned in 2022 because he saw that the party was becoming more totalitarian and incompatible with German democracy.

    • axont [she/her, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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      Banning fascist organizations is not only democratic, it’s one of the bare minimum tasks a democratic society should perform in order to protect itself. Personally I think their solution is a little weak. Fascists will always wiggle around courts and laws, then use those very same laws to their advantage. It’s what they do. They fill in the gaps that liberal societies are always going to have, yet endlessly try to repair.

      The best option is to shoot fascists in the head, without hesitation. That’s not a metaphor for anything, I mean literally line them up against a brick wall and shoot them with guns. Then announce you’ll do the same to any further fascists you discover. Drive all potential fascists into hiding, make them cower in fear and remain powerless. That’s the only thing that has ever worked.

      • 7bicycles [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        YMMV on the CDU vis a vis being fascists but I’d argue you can look back at Adenauers “Radikalenerlass” (“Radical Decree” or something) that purported to stop extremists from both sides from holding certain important jobs and somehow managed to find 1000 left wing extremists for every right winger in '70s germany.

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        Yes, because it’s so easy to murder a few people. We just need to label people we don’t like as Nazis and shoot them. What could possibly go wrong? And when we are at it, I think my neighbour is a nazi too, let me shoot him.

        • axont [she/her, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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          It’s way easier to shoot a few nazis than to let them form political organizations, raise money, and present themselves as a threat. Yes, that’s true.

          You talk like it’s difficult or debatable who qualifies as a nazi. It’s not. They always expose themselves and announce their intentions clearly. This isn’t a matter of people who we have a disagreement with. They’re not simply people we don’t like, they’re people who threaten to kill us. This is a matter of fascists who publicly announce their intentions to pursue racist, bigoted murder against me and people like me. It is part of AfD’s standard platform that LGBTQ people receive fewer rights than straight people, and that all foreigners should be rounded up and deported. Those are fascist threats, not some disagreement on who we like. They only historical method of dealing with these fascists is to destroy them before they destroy us.

          • Luxemburgist@lemmy.ml
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            It is part of AfD’s standard platform that LGBTQ people receive fewer rights than straight people,

            They’ve supported civil unions but not gay marriage, but consider it a settled issue. Their leader, Alice Weidel, is a lesbian woman with a Sri Lankan partner.

            and that all foreigners should be rounded up and deported

            The AfD has many immigrant supporters and members. That secret meeting they supposedly had, about “deporting immigrants who refuse to assimilate”? It was a random far-right crank meeting in which a single AfD member attended, and was alienated from his party for doing so. This is what Alice Weidel had to say about it, translated:

            Untrue allegations of the most outrageous media and political scandals, ladies and gentlemen. These are DDR methods. I think it’s great that they’re now writing everything down in detail. Private encounter between personalities with different backgrounds, including one AfD member and people without party reservations. It wasn’t a secret meeting either, just a private gathering that these corrective activists used secret service methods to construct a conspiracy theory from.

            The Bundestag faction on how to deal with the millions of irregular and illegal migration since 2015 is not set in alleged secret meetings, but in party conference committees. It is based on the basic program of 2016 in the EU election program and the numerous statements and parliamentary speeches you can read and listen to. All right state resources to prevent illegal border crossings through more effective border controls. To revoke citizenships obtained illegally from criminals who are not entitled to naturalization. To expel and deport migrants who are criminals and terrorist suspects who do not have a right to stay.

            Whoever is a German citizen belongs without question, without a doubt, to the German people. This is precisely why German citizenship must not be lost and distributed with a watering can. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the enforcement of applicable law and regulations that have been neglected by the government for almost a decade in this process.

            I certainly don’t agree with them, but their platform is basically American Republican “tough on border and illegal immigrants” and “limiting and prioritizing skills based immigration” style.

            This kind of disinformation is exactly how 2016 happened in the US. Trump says he wants to build a wall and curb illegal immigration, liberals say he wants to kick every Latino out of the country, his supporters get to shout “fake news” at everything. Calling them Nazis only feeds their supporters’ victim complex; it’s like Hillary’s “basket of deplorables” but 100x worse, and AfD politicians get to go “you’re upstanding citizens, but the woke left see you as evil for caring about your country. They’re the real Nazis.”

            There are extremist minority politicians of the AfD who like to dogwhistle of course, which is also functionally the same as the GOP. Except if an AfD politician ever said something like “immigrants poison the blood of our country” as Trump did, they would be arrested.

          • rimjob_rainer@discuss.tchncs.de
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            You realize that you sound as extreme as those you want to destroy? I can’t really tell the difference between Nazis and the likes of you anymore.

            • axont [she/her, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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              sounds like you see more nazis than we do. We don’t have this kind of problem of not understanding who is who. We know who the enemy is and what they deserve. if your understanding of fascists is this shallow it’s no wonder you’d sympathize with them

                • axont [she/her, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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                  If you wanna insult me please call me a queer Marxist Stalinist devil worshiper or something, because that would be more accurate. Call me a North Korea apologist because that’s true. I’d also readily accept insults like baizuo or first world crakkker, because those are unfortunately also true.

                  i think fascist for you just means “scary person with bad ideas.” if it’s only a pejorative to you, rather than a specific identifiable movement, then you’re not gonna get it. I recommend reading Robert O. Paxton, or Marxist theorists like Antonio Gramsci or (my personal favorite) the historian Perry Anderson. They’ve all written on the particular contours of fascist ideology and how to identify it, rather than treating it as simply a set of violent tendencies.

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          not sure about your neighbor but anyone caping for nazis the way you do should probably be lined up and shot alongside them

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      L take. AES countries which are actual democracies do the same thing.

      Though of course, banning it isn’t gonna go anywhere for Germany unless they tackle the root cause of capitalism.

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        I think they’re saying that liberal “democracies”, as soon as they need to, will use the exact same censorship that they claim “autocracies” use, and which not using is the entire source of their supposed moral superiority.

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      You see, we call it Wehrhafte Demokratie. According to Wikipedia this can be translated as battlesome democracy, though I find that clunky.

      The entire idea of our constitution is to keep a democracy, we even have a constitutional right to disobedience, if democracy is threatened.

      The constitution is deliberately very open, but there’s one thing that’s non-negotiable: FDGO, liberal-democratic basic order. If you’re operating outside of that, you’re not supposed to be part of the political landscape.