Elon Musk is under fire after publicly backing a far-right political party in Germany, suggesting the current government should not be re-elected over its position on the current migrant crisis in Europe.
Sept. 30 (UPI) -- Elon Musk is under fire after publicly backing a far-right political party in Germany, suggesting the current government should not be re-elected over its position on the current migrant crisis in Europe.
In 2022, it was ruled that the BfV may classify and monitor the entire party as a suspected right-wing extremist group. A corresponding lawsuit by the AfD was dismissed because "there were sufficient factual indications of anti-constitutional efforts within the AfD".[36] On 26 April 2023, the BfV, after four years of investigations into the Young Alternative for Germany, categorized that group as a confirmed extremist organization. This allowed the chief of the BfV Thomas Haldenwang to place the youth wing under even more intensive surveillance than the tapping of phone and the use of undercover agents that had been the case until then.[45][46]
Just summarizing here. They are right wing extremists that have taken over old Nazi talking points and are gaining popularity with anti immigration, anti climate change and populist propaganda.
They're also famous for very much being “blind on the right eye”. They didn't ban the neonazi party “NPD” (for reference: the original Nazi party was the NSDAP) and their last ex boss (Hans-Georg Maaßen) is a far right conspiracy nut.
They've partially come around apparently as they're now watching the AfD (which is far stronger than the NPD ever was) as well as Maaßen.
BfV cannot ban parties.
Only the highest court (Bundesverfassungsgericht) can.
The only reason they did not do it was because the NPD has too little meaning to be a thread to the German constitution.
Russia, China and the Republicans have been propping European far right parties for the past x decades, and now the recessions and the wars are generating easy support for the populists
USA, Ukraine, Israel, Italy and certain NATO countries have been propping up far right culture across the world. Russia and China are just boogeymen for useful idiots to scream about.
Far right factions in USA support Russia only because of the anti-LGBT social alignment, and not because Russia's politics is far right. Russia is pretty much in alignment with socialist goals geopolitically and inside their country on the social axis (ban on Nazi elements).
Yes, seems that they're taking it very seriously and not just calling shit they don't like "Nazi". Considering this is the country that cheers on the Wagner-group, a neonazi extremist mercenary group led by open fascists and literally named after Hitler's favourite composer (as stated by Wagner's founder), I'm sure that they're taking the fight against Nazism very seriously and won't ever abuse it for propaganda reasons.
Unlike Zelensky, Putin has not banned all opposition political parties. Tells you who behaves like NSDAP in 2023. If you think Putin is an orthodox Christian fashie, wait till you meet Joe Biden, Donald Trump, Justin Trudeau and most western governments' heads that actually sleep in bed with church. Putin and Russia do not exactly work the way christofascist western totalitarian dictatorships, with a "neoliberal democracy" mask, do.
Banning pro Ukrainian/Nazi sentiment is morally correct besides being a national security concern. NATO wants Russia balkanised, not Ukraine. Ukraine is just a condom for NATO to fuck with Russia.
Italy and Ukraine are on the receiving side of the propping. Israel is a good mention but probably a lesser participant than the big three (the US does most of the dirty work for them).
In addition to supporting culturally reactionary and discriminatory governments, the far right fawns over the totalitarian strong-man geopolitics.
And as it is known, it's convenient for Russia to build fascist-aligned support in their targets to have a casus belli for their internal audience. All while following fascist doctrines themselves
Ukraine literally has a far right Nazi government and far right Nazi troops. Zelensky worships and salutes historical Nazi people both in Ukraine and recently with Canada in UN. Italy elected a neofascist party in power. They are on the giver side, not receiver side.
Russia's goals are in line with USSR, which, if history serves me correctly, was the opposite of fascist. You are spreading an obvious agenda that flips history.
If you think Putin is an orthodox Christian fashie, wait till you meet Joe Biden, Donald Trump, Justin Trudeau and most western governments’ heads that actually sleep in bed with church. Putin and Russia do not exactly work the way christofascist western totalitarian dictatorships, with a “neoliberal democracy” mask, do.
Also, are you describing Russia, or USA? You know, latter country rapes children in ICE camps and repigments the skin of black people, and conducts hysterectomies on women en masse. Also Catholic priests with state power get to kiddy diddle children with no consequences. In Russia, that would end up in either a mob murder or a death sentence.
The fact that US has been committing atrocities on the global scale for at least a century is crucial context for evaluating behavior of other countries Nothing Russia has done even begins to compare to the behavior US regularly exhibits. Countries have to be held to the same moral standard, and until the west starts accounting for its own crimes it is in no position to play world police or judge other countries.
Meanwhile, Chomsky is an accomplished political scientists with many published academic works on the subject. Dismissing hims as a linguistics professor shows profound lack of intellectual honesty on your part. And of course, nobody is asking you to take what he says as fact based on him saying it. The article makes a case that stands on its own merit, which you'd quickly realize if you bothered reading it.
And what was the path which made that possible in Ukraine and Italy? They didn't fall to fascist populists while being a power which strengthens fascist populists globally. It's hard to see what kind of 4D chess would make Ukraine create fascist minded separatists to be conquered and then fight them with neonazi militia.
The USSR was quite aligned with their own take on fascism. That's history.
And what was the path which made that possible in Ukraine and Italy? They didn't fall to fascist populists
Italy elected a neofascist girlboss as PM themselves.
As for Ukraine, refer to the leaked call between Victoria Nuland and Geoffrey Pyatt. You will know how democratic and sovereign USA wanted Ukraine to be.
I don't think there's any question if the USA is influencing Ukraine?
I tried to say earlier that the neofascists and its support in Italy didn't come from nowhere organically. And that support leads to gaining power through elections (I guess as opposed to a coup or whatever?) as nations with elections do
Russia and China don't have to do shit when Europe's greatest ally is as right-wing as it it's been. In fact, there's even a group for this: the International Democrat Union.
Would the Russia and China far right connections and actions then be happenstance in that hypothesis scenario and how could they be explained to be unrelated?
Russia and China are irrelevant because their interests in Western economies are tertiary at best: it neither affects them ideologically nor economically.
Whether Western governments buy Russian oil is entirely independent of what government it is. Whether Western governments buy Chinese manufactured products is entirely independent of what government it is. There's this puffed up sense of Western self-importance that doesn't really exist: Russia and China both see that the future of global economic growth will be in the Global South and are allocating resources appropriately.
In contrast, the International Democratic Union (and similar organizations) have a strong ideological reason for backing right-wing parties and a stronger personal reason to do so: it nets them more funding from corrupt corporations looking for tax breaks and decreased regulation.
There's this puffed up sense of Western self-importance that doesn't really exist: Russia and China both see that the future of global economic growth will be in the Global South and are allocating resources appropriately.
In addition to each northern superpower abusing the hemisphere, they do fight for influence between the northern smaller ones – the aforementioned propping of accelerationist and/or reactionary movements being one way amoug the trade ones you focused on.
IDU is a good example, while it seems to be just one path to the efforts
What's the purpose of US/China/Russia influencing others? Destabilization, dependancies, just to gain power for immediate or later use purposes? It's a mighty big question that'd summarize the whole history of geopolitics. Always been happening in different forms I guess.
What actually resulted in far right becoming a serious force in Europe was the economic war with Russia. These parties have been fringe for decades, and now they're polling high in most European countries.
The right took a stance against the war from the very start, while the left shat the bed by siding with the liberals. Now that support for the war is collapsing people are moving to the right.
It's the final straw (at this moment in time) yes for a situation which has been brewed for a much longer time
Saw your edit
The right took a stance against the war from the very start
This relates more to the moderate right. The far right was openly supporting Russia and against sanctions even after the Crimean invasion. Only after 2022 mobilization they've started to hide this
As the economy is once again in shambles thanks to how capitalism works, the voters are easy pickings for those with empty promises
The hardships that the working class is suffering are direct result of the policies basically all governments in the world have pursued over the past four (or even more?) decades.
And thus the landscape to gain support for reactionaries is ripe for picking.
Europe isn't alone. Capitalism slowly races wages down, the North America Trump play bolstered manipulating voters in places where voting is even possible, and then there's the places where elections have been a bigger sham already.
Sure, the solution to the problem is to move away from the capitalism system and the exploitation inherent in it. There seems to be no real progress in that direction, and instead we're seeing a shift to the right and fascism.
AfD is mostly populism. Apart from immigration they hardly agree on anything and have a lot of internal conflict about what the stance of the party should be.
The current situation is that the established parties (and especially the media) don't engage much in discussion with AfD and just call them nazis, which divides the country. Admitting publicly that you vote for them will also get you thrown into the corner of people everyone calls nazis.
It is not just populism. The party is full of racists and homophobes. A member in my area even admits to believing in the great reset, which is an ultra right and anti-semitic conspiracy theory.
The AfD is a cesspool of dyed in the wool Nazis. What their official positions are is entirely irrelevant to that. And yes, if you admit to voting for them, people will think you're a Nazi.