Politics Growth of the far right in Germany

It's the New York Times, so maybe some skepticism is in order...

See:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/18/...ternative-bjorn-hocke.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0

Amazing how many evocations of Nazism can be packed into a couple of sentences:

" At a chandelier-lit beer hall on Tuesday evening, the lean blond man’s voice boomed out over a crowd of hundreds — some middle-aged and working-class, but with a contingent of polished young professionals.“The AfD is the last revolutionary, the last peaceful chance for our fatherland,” declared the man, Björn Höcke, referring to the political party Alternative for Germany, and employing a reverential term for Germany, one of several nationalist buzzwords usually shunned in the country’s politics.
“Jawohl!” a few shouted. “Yes!”
When Mr. Höcke (pronounced HOOK-ay) lamented that “German history is handled as rotten and made to look ridiculous” — a subtle but clear reference to guilt for the Holocaust and other Nazi war crimes — the crowd responded by chanting, “Deutschland, Deutschland.”



Two issues:

First, in a very New York Times matter, the name "Höcke" does not actually rhyme with "Hook-ay": the ö is about the same sound as with English "learn", "bird" and "Germany". The e is about the same sound as "comma", "bitter".

The AfD are not actually pro-Germany. Even their name is an oxymoron. How can it be an alternative for Germany to withdraw from the EU, kick out foreigners and hide under nationalist isolationism? If they ever come to power, our economy is going to implode. The EU (or rather, the entity that has become the EU by today) has given us decades of peace, stability and economic prosperity, and they want to destroy all of this. Not because they want a better alternative, but because they're plain and simple Shills For Putin.
 
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It is a leader's task to defend his nation's interests. Therefore Merkel is a terrible leader. She puts the interests of Middle Easterners over those of her own people. That is betrayal, no matter what moral platitudes she uses to defend her behaviour. She resembles an attorney in a lawsuit who suddenly starts to advocate for other party while still being paid by the original client. By opening the gates to an invading army, Merkel has become a mortal enemy of the German people. The supportes of the so-called "Far-Right" are just folks with a healthy sense of self-preservation who don't enjoy being replaced by strangers.
 
I agree that Merkel has "created" the neo-Nazi far right due to her immigration policies ...............only a reversal of the immigration issues is the only way I can see as a demise of these neo-nazi

right wingers will detest these neo-nazi ONLY when these immigrants are finalised ...............so, neo-nazi currently have a function
 
Fact check:
Since Merkel's administration Germany has compared to the other EU nations ...
the 6th position of the old (non-ex-Iron-curtain) countries in average annual GDP growth
the 4h position in purchasing power
the 1st position in percentage of employed
the last position in percentage of unemployed.
Really, Merkel is definitely ruthless in working against her peoples' interests!

Fact check 2:
In the European elections 2014 the AfD got a third of their votes from the upper fifth people of income (entrepreneurs).
In 2015, when Germany received a million refugees, the AfD had fallen from over 10% to just above 5% in the regional elections.
In the elections of 2016 most of their gain was caused by workers and jobless (failure of the SPD politics, about 30% of their clientel voted AfD).

There is high volatility and very different reasons for voting AfD. Immigrants are only a part of the calc.
AfD gets their votees from...
CDU/CSU - not chauvinist enough anymore (that's not the same as xenophobic - more "Germany First" = envy society)
SPD - workers and jobless feel let down by them
FDP - liberals who want less social matters in their party
die Linke - especially in Eastern Germany, dislike the immigrant-positive politics of the lefties.
Altogether the AfD is a collecting basin for people who don't/can't get enough.
 
Well, if we're going to talk about fact checking, it seems I was right to show at least some skepticism about the claims of mass sexual mayhem by refugees or illegals during those celebrations in Germany.

https://www.thelocal.de/20170214/mass-sexual-assaults-by-refugees-in-frankfurt-completely-made-up

This is why you have to take all media reports nowadays with a huge grain of salt. Even the ones who are trying to present actual facts and aren't shilling for one side or the other don't check their sources.

We've had the same thing here with most of the cases involving cop shootings.

You have to be very cautious.
 
We are in the postfactual era already for a long time. The faster news move around the world the less time journalists have to check the facts. You won't make a fortune in the media-biz if you are the 75th who publishes the particular news. You have to be one of the first.

If you want only facts just skip the news. You won't miss much, rarely anything worth recalling, except for coffee pause talk.

Just checked the criminal statistics of Germany 2015 (the 2016 one isn't pulished yet). The sexual violence crimes against women decreased almost 2% compared to the year before, overall the number of crimes decreased as well, if you subtract the immigration law related crimes which tripled that year (no surprise with that high amount of refugees finding their way to Germany). So, no reason to make a drama out of it, just because some crimes got much attention.
 
Well, if we're going to talk about fact checking, it seems I was right to show at least some skepticism about the claims of mass sexual mayhem by refugees or illegals during those celebrations in Germany.

https://www.thelocal.de/20170214/mass-sexual-assaults-by-refugees-in-frankfurt-completely-made-up

This is why you have to take all media reports nowadays with a huge grain of salt. Even the ones who are trying to present actual facts and aren't shilling for one side or the other don't check their sources.

We've had the same thing here with most of the cases involving cop shootings.

You have to be very cautious.

comm on Angela, you should now better
it's not because 2 people made some false claims that other facts like the cologne new years eve rape never happened
and where are the apologies of the shameless politicians who at first denied something happened that night ?

you're right though not to trust the media
but the worst thing you can do, if you want to stop people from voting for the AfD is to go in denial and say all the problems with immigrants are just made up
 
it's not because 2 people made some false claims that other facts like the cologne new years eve rape never happened
and where are the apologies of the shameless politicians who at first denied something happened that night ?
I assume you mean first of all the Cologne Mayor Henriette Reker. But I beg to differ in this whole case, things are not so simple. She was stabbed during her election campaign ten weeks before the event and was inaugurated only two weeks before New Year. She is an independent candidate so no political party behind her with their network. The first press releases of the police didn't mention anything about riots, they described everything as "jolly atmosphere - festivities mostly peaceful". Only slice by slice the police disclosed the results of their investigations, knowing the shattering effect of false accusations. The regional home ministery requested further that they skip mentioning rapes by asylum seeking people, again keeping unproved accusations back.

In effect Reker got the knowledge of the full extent of the riots no less than a week after the event. Then she was tricked by the media. They asked her what she would advise women to do to avoid such situations and she quoted an existing communal guideline for safety during partying. The media quoted her without the question they asked, and accused her of victim blaming. I have a clear opinion about who is to call shameless here.

There are a few things that she as a 'been never before politician' has to learn:
- Talk-talk-talk, but never tell something to the media.
- Shut the f... up as long as investigations are not finished.

but the worst thing you can do, if you want to stop people from voting for the AfD is to go in denial and say all the problems with immigrants are just made up
I don't think there was ever a denial. You just don't tell around things that are not proved, especially in delicate matters. Facts were poor, despite a great amount of people with smartphones there was not much video material good enough to prove crimes. There was a lot of skepticism at first, assuming that this may have been made up by right wing organizations like Pegida or AfD. It took a couple of weeks to see the full extent of the events. Add proved fake accusations and nobody knows what's true or not.

The real problem with all this is the lack of knowledge about customs and (sometimes bad) habits of people migrating into Germany. Politics and authorities didn't know enough about this so they were completely unprepared. That's a big mistake, but it's not a reason to rebuke the whole refugee politics.
 
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In a nutshell when people face with new problems and it's source is external by origin then new aspects of ideas are needed in order to solve it's root problem.
In this case the immigration -- Antithesis will be to prevent migration and the actual politic can't solute this so more people seek alternative political parties for a possible synthesis.
 
In a nutshell when people face with new problems and it's source is external by origin then new aspects of ideas are needed in order to solve it's root problem.
In this case the immigration -- Antithesis will be to prevent migration and the actual politic can't solute this so more people seek alternative political parties for a possible synthesis.
Pretty much hammer hits nail.

The whole situation looks like...
Established political party meets new problem.
Party tries to solve it with old methods.
Method fails.
People seek alternative party to solve problems.
Alternative party promises to solve with even older recipes.
People run to alternative party.
God beware...
 
I agree that Merkel has "created" the neo-Nazi far right due to her immigration policies ...............only a reversal of the immigration issues is the only way I can see as a demise of these neo-nazi

right wingers will detest these neo-nazi ONLY when these immigrants are finalised ...............so, neo-nazi currently have a function

No. Neo nazis or nazis do not and never did have a function.
 
AfD is just an option for people who do not like to vote for Merkel anymore. I do not see them as far right. Or maybe my definition of far right is wrong ... :LOL:
 

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