Maybe don't trust AI so much.
Obviously the fascists don't put their most odious ideas in writing, they plan them in secret instead.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/19/turmoil-in-ger...
Maybe don't trust AI so much.
Obviously the fascists don't put their most odious ideas in writing, they plan them in secret instead.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/19/turmoil-in-ger...
> discuss removing asylum seekers
Those aren't citizens though? I don't agree with their ideals but lets please be honest about what they do and don't support.
> asylum seekers and German citizens of foreign origin deemed to have failed to integrate.
Read just a little bit more of the article ;)
My bad, that does change things. Somewhat surprising that they would include that item as it alone tips the legal scales against them dramatically.
I was skeptical enough to look over the linked correctiv article and I notice that while those contacted are generally quoted as dodging most of the other questions they invariably come out against expulsion of legal citizens.
> And all those who campaigned for refugees could go there, too.
Are there any credible sources for this independent of the correctiv article? Because this sellner character is approaching comic book villain level in their portrayal of him and thus I find myself not wanting to take the word of a single outlet.
I'm from the country Sellner is from - the same country Hitler was from! - and he is indeed comic book villain levels of evil. For example, he was in contact with the Christchurch shooter before he committed his terrorist acts.
Just read his Wikipedia article [0] and you'll find out more about his character, like this gem:
> Sellner said that Jews were a problem in the 1920s and made references to the "Jewish question"
> Are there any credible sources for this independent of the correctiv article?
Correctiv is a non-profit investigative journalism outlet that managed to infiltrate this secretive far-right meeting. They are known to be gold-standard levels of credible and have won a ton of journalism prizes. It's not exactly yellow press.
Due to the very nature of it being a secretive meeting, their reporting is exclusive. Obviously the neonazis want to put on a nice face, so they didn't exactly invite Reuters to their lets-plot-deportations-of-foreign-born-citizens meeting.
To quote his ideological companion from across the pond, Nick Fuentes :
> This is why I tell people, hide your power level. OK? You're not hiding your power level if you're in a group chat with hundreds of people saying we're going to put people in gas chambers. OK, guys? [1]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Sellner [1] https://www.mediamatters.org/white-nationalism/nick-fuentes-...
My intent wasn't to ask about that specific meeting but rather about the reported positions of the individuals involved. No matter how reputable I wouldn't want to take a single source as fact when the claim is that someone secretly holds reprehensible views in private that contradict what he says in public.
Setting aside the other attendees wikipedia more than covers sellner in that regard.
"Hiding your power levels" is a key strategy of the neofascist right. Make yourself look reasonable until you have enough power to do the despicable.
This explains why they are publicly denying what they are plotting in private.
Here's some choice quotes, translated to English.
"We must proceed completely peacefully and deliberately, adapt if necessary and butter up the opponent [literally: smear honey on their mouths], but when we are finally ready, we will put them all against the wall. (...) Dig a pit, all in and quicklime on top."
-- Holger Arppe, former AfD Vice Chair [0]
"The worse Germany is doing, the better it is for the AfD. [...] Therefore we have to consider a tactic between: How bad can things get for Germany? And: How much can we provoke? [...] Because then the AfD does better. We can always just shoot them all later. That's not an issue at all. Or gas them, or however you want. I don't care!"
-- Christian Lüth, AfD Press spokesman [1]
"It doesn't matter, nothing will change, even if we were to eat chalk [act harmless]. Even if we said: yes, we are separating from X, Y and Z now and acting moderate here."
-- Hans-Christoph Berndt, AfD Brandenburg senate leader [2]
[0] https://taz.de/Frueherer-AfD-Fraktionsvize-verurteilt/!56167... [1] https://www.tagesspiegel.de/politik/afd-sprecher-wollte-fluc... [2] https://mik.brandenburg.de/sixcms/media.php/9/Einstufungsver...
Based on the political extremes in the US I had figured AfD would have its share of somewhat unsavory characters but this is almost comical. Are you sure the germans haven't confused meeting minutes and disney scripts? (I say, but then look at who we managed to elect.)
Yeah, as bad as unsavory characters in the US are, the AfD is full of straight-up, unrepetent Neonazis.
Like this is not just me mischaracterizing my political opponents, it is the most accurate label based on their behavior. They're the type of people who want to make the 1930s happen again in Germany.
This is why I react somewhat strongly when people try to relativize their abhorrence and make excuses, most frequently out of incorrectly mapping their own country's political systems.
I hope I could convince you that - especially given Germany's past and its commitment to never let this happen again - banning them is not some sort of political repression, but an immune response from democracy under attack. It is a manifestation of defensive democracy [0] , the principle written into the German constitution after the horrors of fascism.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defensive_democracy#Germany
I suspect most cases are like mine, not misunderstanding so much as encountering an exception to the default "safe" set of assumptions. When someone maligns a political party or institution it is usually partisan, emotional, and unfair. When encountering this, in the vast majority of cases the official position will be quite close to the "real" one. AfD secretly harboring a significant number of actual bonafide nazis in high ranking positions and actively covering this up is very much the exception the world over.
If you seek to convince people then leading with the sort of examples you linked me is probably the way to go. For those open to new information it cuts to the chase and the rest you weren't going to convince regardless.
The trouble with the german approach that bans political parties is IMO that it creates an easily abused tool that muddies the water. It's no longer so simple to judge a given situation since now you need to consider the content and context of the speech as opposed to merely whether or not it constituted a direct threat of violence.
Meanwhile I don't think it's likely to be effective for the stated purpose. In one scenario the extremists get laughed out of the room as a tiny minority. In another they hold the majority in which case banning them is extremely unlikely to work out favorably. Imagine if Trump who won the popular vote this last time around had been banned by the sitting establishment. There's no way we come out of that unscathed.
I think ideally, one would nip those fascist movements in the bud before they become big enough to be problematic. There's a phrase in German antifascism - "Wehret den Anfängen!", translating to "resist the beginnings". The Nazi movement itself also became really difficult to stop once it had some serious traction, one has to really stop these movements from becoming this big in the first place.
Problem is, the German Verfassungsschutz (lit. "Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution", the domestic intelligence agency) was itself infiltrated by the far-right [0] and so didn't ring the alarm in time.
I agree with you that there's probably no way to come out unscathed from trying to ban them now - their followers are already radicalized and it probably wouldn't be pretty. But that being said, what else should we do? Just do nothing and let it all happen once more? Break our promise of never again? Watch history repeat itself? No - we have to at least try.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans-Georg_Maa%C3%9Fen
Germany has been very bad at resisting the beginnings. The actual Nazis seemed just kinda unfriendly and not that bad until suddenly they were that bad. There was a ten year buildup until the Holocaust.
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