#nazi roots eu

[piracytheorist]

Things about Greece you're (probably) getting wrong

When you say "Greece" or "Greek", that's automatically referring to Modern Greece and Modern Greek. It's an existing country with a population of around 10 million people. The Modern Greek language is spoken natively by those 10 million along with 1 million people in Cyprus and around 2 more million in diaspora. If you want to refer to Ancient Greece or its history/culture, just add the word "ancient" to it.

The Greek name for the country is "Hellas". "Hellenic" is an adjective used for non-human nouns. Don't call yourself "hellenic" even if you have Greek roots, you're basically calling yourself "Greek thing".

There is no one correct way of pronouncing Ancient Greek as a whole. That language spanned over a thousand years and across places that didn't communicate easily or were outright hostile to each other. It's like claiming that Shakespeare's works should be pronounced with an Australian accent.

Along with the famous 300 Spartans, in the battle of Thermopylae there were also 700 Thespians (not actors, people from the town Thespiae) and according to some sources, also 900 helots (slaves) and 400 Thebans.

The town of Sparta exists in modern day. However, if you visit Greece, unless you actually are from Sparta, do NOT call yourself a Spartan, no matter what school/university you went to. "Spartans" is the name of a far-right, outright neo-nazi political party, so calling yourself that here equals to associating yourself with that.

Greek houses in American campuses sound weird. Do those letters (some of which are wildly mispronounced, btw) even mean anything

Democracy in Ancient Athens was not fair by today's standards. It was mostly a glorified, expanded aristocracy. The "demos" that had the authority to vote only consisted of land-owning Athenian men. If you were a woman, a slave, poor, an immigrant, or a child of immigrants, along with other descriptions I might be forgetting right now, you didn't have the right to participate in the ruling.

Oh yeah, the "birthplace of democracy" very much did have slaves. Some whom were prisoners of war.

Greece is on the southern end of the Balkan peninsula, located in South-Eastern Europe. However, many Greeks are wildly racist and will not admit we're part of the Balkans or Eastern Europe. There are cultural differences due to Greek not belonging in the Slavic languages (the most common language family in Eastern Europe) and for political reasons, but the main reason this distinction happens is very much racism. They prefer to be called a "Mediterranean country" (because then we're associated with countries like Italy and Spain, you know?)

Greece never recovered from the financial crisis of 2008, and has only been going downhill since then. However, the war reparations that Germany never paid Greece for the damages and the deaths it caused in WW2 is estimated to be over 200 billion euros. The German government considers this matter "to be in the past" (since they never paid them, I guess, we can forget about it!), yet is one of the countries that most strongly demands Greece to keep paying back the loans it took over the years from the EU. This is a very painful matter for all of us (especially considering there are people still alive who witnessed the destruction and death the nazis brought to the country, and now they along with their descendants are paying taxes that'll eventually reach German pockets), yet racism centers around hate for other Balkan countries and Turkey. Divide and conquer I guess.

[mariacallous]

The right-wing wave surging through Europe picked up size and speed on Sept. 29 as Austria’s hard-right Freedom Party won the country’s general election. Following on the heels of far-right victories in eastern Germany and the Netherlands earlier this year, Austria joins the likes of Italy, Slovakia, Croatia, and Hungary as European Union members where extreme rightist parties have—armed with unabashedly illiberal, authoritarian agendas—rendered the political establishment impotent.

Openly calling for a Volkskanzler (people’s chancellor) to lead the country—just one piece of Nazi lingo that party head Herbert Kickl regularly employs—the Freedom Party took 29 percent of the vote, catapulting it over the ruling conservative Austrian People’s Party, which sank to 26.5 percent, and the Social Democrats to a meager 21 percent. The Freedom Party’s record result though is not enough to form a government on its own. Moreover, the centrist parties’ totals, when combined with the spoils of one of two smaller parties—one liberal, one green—would constitute the makings of a majority.

But the Freedom Party is now front and center in Austrian political life. On the campaign trail, Kickl promised to turn the country into “Fortress Austria” by stopping migration cold, “remigrating” (that is, expelling) Austrian citizens with foreign roots deemed unable to integrate, purging the education system, and neutralizing the public media. He rants against “gender madness” and “climate communism.”

The Freedom Party also owes a particular debt to the COVID-19 pandemic. During the crisis, the Freedom Party alone assumed the stance of critic and championed freedom of choice in response to pandemic-driven restrictions and requirements. The conspiracy theories that swirled around the crisis fed the Freedom Party’s own body of irrational accusations and baseless explanations. The government did itself no favors by imposing four nationwide lockdowns, stiff penalties for noncompliance, and nearly 40 weeks of school shutdown.

The Freedom Party buttressed its prominent place in the annals of Europe’s postwar extreme right. It initiated the far right’s modern normalization in Europe when it took a place in government under the People’s Party in 2000, breaking the country’s mostly rigid pattern of conservative-social democratic leadership that had marked the Cold War era and beyond. When the Freedom Party’s charismatic frontman Jörg Haider temporarily became vice chancellor in 2000, the event was so unprecedented—even scandalous—that EU members isolated the Vienna government and imposed political sanctions until he resigned from the party leadership. Critics feared that tolerating an EU member with such questionable democratic credentials would legitimize it—and encourage imitators across the continent. (This happened even though Haider’s politics, when measured up against Kickl’s, were relatively moderate.)

And this is exactly what happened. In 2017, the Freedom Party returned to government—in control of six ministries, including defense, the interior, and foreign affairs—this time with no fuss from Brussels. Yet the coalition lasted less than two years, falling out in disgrace when Freedom Party leader and Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache was caught on video in an Ibiza hotel room soliciting funds from a purported Russian national and expressing intentions to take over and censor Austria’s most widely read newspaper.

It is a sign of new times that the possibility of today’s yet-more-radical Freedom Party coming to power is now acceptable in European company. There are no major protests or calls for sanctions. Moreover, it trashes the hypothesis—heard in Germany regarding the AfD—that stints in government will discredit incompetent, conspiracy-preaching populists whose outrageous pledges can’t possibly turned into effective policy. If the sordid 2019 video footage didn’t kill off the Freedom Party, presumably nothing will.

The extent of the right-wing shift within Austria—and its implication across Europe—isn’t superficial, and the results cannot be written off as a “protest vote” or as a diffuse swipe at the system. Kickl is an extremist among extremists who appeals to Austrians’ worst instincts—and with this triumph, he contributes to a playbook that Europe’s extreme right has been drafting since the 1990s.

“Our studies in recent years,” said Andreas Kranebitter, the director of the Documentation Center of Austrian Resistance, a Vienna-based research institute, in an interview with Foreign Policy, “show that there is more racism and antisemitism in the population, and a higher number of people adverse to foreigners and hostile to immigration, than at any time in recent decades.”

The Freedom Party, Kranebitter said, has spurred and accompanied this trend, even reinserting into the party program Nazi terminology such as Volkskanzler and Volksgemeinschaft, the latter referring to a homogenous ethnic community. “These are code words that right-wing militants understand very well, and ever more new supporters are accepting of or indifferent to, too,” he said. “And this now includes more women, professionals, college educated, and young people.”

Ulf Brunnbauer, an Austrian historian at Regensburg University, agrees that Freedom Party backers are not largely protest voters. “This might have been the primary motivation of its voters in the 1980s and 1990s,” he told Foreign Policy, “when the party broke the political duopoly that governed Austria since 1945. But today, the Freedom Party is the party of the establishment, too. Austrians understand very well that the party is racist and authoritarian, Kickl himself full of hatred and notoriously pro-Russian and anti-immigrant. Most people voting for them do so out of ideological conviction. It almost reflects the average person in Austria society.”

And this, Brunnbauer said, is in part a consequence of the Freedom Party’s meticulous groundwork. “They have systematically invested into propaganda work and built an alternative media universe. The party has created a new sense of ethnocentric patriotism and engaged broadly in local government. The Freedom Party learned from [Italian theorist Antonio] Gramsci: Political power rests on cultural power. The Freedom Party has transformed Austria’s political culture.”

This process—again, much like in Germany—includes the consternating transformation of the country’s traditional conservative party, the People’s Party. Whether as a result of the shifts in societal opinion or the Freedom Party’s success in tapping it, the conservatives have put up no fight against the far right, but rather have embraced ever more of its stances on migration, even etching in its program that asylum-seekers should have their valuables confiscated at the border, purportedly to cover the costs of processing them.

This year alone, Karl Nehammer, the country’s conservative incumbent chancellor, has dangled one piece of populist bait after another in the face of conservative constituencies, such as the denial of social benefits to asylum-seekers during the first five years of their tenure in Austria. “Our aspiration is a social welfare system for those who can’t work—not for those who don’t want to,” he said, referring to migrants. And, in addition to offshoring asylum procedures outside of the EU, the party has proposed that there should also be prisons in third countries for sentenced migrants.

On the issue of immigration, opined Die Presse, a conservative Austrian daily, the People’s Party “is barely distinguishable from the Freedom Party.” And as in Italy, France, and elsewhere, it didn’t pay off: “All those in favor of such policies have long been voting for the Freedom Party,” the newspaper concluded. The 11 percent points that it shed went largely to the Freedom Party.

Kranebitter and other observers note that the pandemic played an important role in the Freedom Party’s reemergence. When Austria made vaccination compulsory late in 2021, Kickl exclaimed: “As of today, Austria is a dictatorship.” The Freedom Party’s poll ratings shot up to around 30 percent, concluding its brief stay in the post-Ibiza scandal doghouse.

“Austria not only pursued a very restrictive coronavirus policy,” argued the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, a Swiss-based, German-language daily newspaper, “but many of its measures also differentiated between vaccinated and unvaccinated people. This caused deep resentment among those who felt discriminated against by the state. This feeling has occupied those affected much longer than the memory of arduous restrictions.” The fiasco wounded all three government parties (the People’s Party, the Social Democrats, and Greens) in one shot, while the Freedom Party stood defiantly against what many felt as injustice.

As it was in 2000, the Freedom Party is now among Europe’s far-right pioneers again, proving that a once-discredited, ultraright party can still upturn and defile an entire political culture. The lesson will not be lost on Central Europe’s other pro-Russia populists.

[warningsine]

BRUSSELS (AP) — Far-right parties made such big gains at the European Union parliamentary elections that they dealt stunning defeats to two of the bloc’s most important leaders: French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

In France, the National Rally party of Marine Le Pen dominated the polls to such an extent that Macron immediately dissolved the national parliament and called for new elections, a massive political risk since his party could suffer more losses, hobbling the rest of his presidential term that ends in 2027.

In Germany, Scholz suffered such an ignominious fate that his long-established Social Democratic party fell behind the extreme-right Alternative for Germany, which surged into second place.

Adding insult to injury, the National Rally’s lead candidate, Jordan Bardella, all of 28 years old, immediately took on a presidential tone with his victory speech in Paris, opening with “My dear compatriots” and adding “the French people have given their verdict, and it’s final.”

Macron acknowledged the thud of defeat. “I’ve heard your message, your concerns, and I won’t leave them unanswered,” he said, adding that calling a snap election only underscored his democratic credentials.

The four-day polls in the 27 EU countries were the world’s second-biggest exercise in democracy, behind India’s recent election. At the end, the rise of the far right was even more stunning than many analysts predicted. The French National Rally stood at just over 30% or about twice as much as Macron’s pro-European centrist Renew party that is projected to reach around 15%.

In Germany, the most populous nation in the 27-member bloc, projections indicated that the AfD overcame a string of scandals involving its top candidate to rise to 16.5%, up from 11% in 2019. In comparison, the combined result for the three parties in the German governing coalition barely topped 30%.

Overall across the EU, two mainstream and pro-European groups, the Christian Democrats and the Socialists, remained the dominant forces. The gains of the far right came at the expense of the Greens, who were expected to lose about 20 seats and fall back to sixth position in the legislature.

For decades, the European Union, which has its roots in the defeat of Nazi Germany and fascist Italy, confined the hard right to the political fringes. With its strong showing in these elections, the far right could now become a major player in policies ranging from migration to security and climate.

The Greens were predicted to fall from 20% to 12% in Germany, a traditional bulwark for environmentalists, with more losses expected in France and several other EU nations. Their defeat could well have an impact on the EU’s overall climate change policies, still the most progressive across the globe.

The center-right Christian Democratic bloc of EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, which already weakened its green credentials ahead of the polls, dominated in Germany with almost 30%, easily beating Scholz’s Social Democrats, who fell to 14%, even behind the AfD.

“What you have already set as a trend is all the better – strongest force, stable, in difficult times and by a distance,” von der Leyen told her German supporters by video link from Brussels.

As well as France, the hard right, which focused its campaign on migration and crime, was expected to make significant gains in Italy, where Premier Giorgia Meloni was tipped to consolidate her power.

Voting will continue in Italy until late in the evening and many of the 27 member states have not yet released any projections. Nonetheless, data already released confirmed earlier predictions: the EU’s massive exercise in democracy is expected to shift the bloc to the right and redirect its future.

With the center losing seats to hard right parties, the EU could find it harder to pass legislation and decision-making could at times be paralyzed in the world’s biggest trading bloc.

EU lawmakers, who serve a five-year term in the 720-seat Parliament, have a say in issues from financial rules to climate and agriculture policy. They approve the EU budget, which bankrolls priorities including infrastructure projects, farm subsidies and aid delivered to Ukraine. And they hold a veto over appointments to the powerful EU commission.

These elections come at a testing time for voter confidence in a bloc of some 450 million people. Over the last five years, the EU has been shaken by the coronavirus pandemic, an economic slump and an energy crisis fueled by the biggest land conflict in Europe since the Second World War. But political campaigning often focuses on issues of concern in individual countries rather than on broader European interests.

The voting marathon began in the Netherlands on Thursday, where an unofficial exit poll suggested that the anti-migrant hard right party of Geert Wilders would make important gains, even though a coalition of pro-European parties has probably pushed it into second place.

Casting his vote in the Flanders region, Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo, whose country holds the EU’s rotating presidency until the end of the month, warned that Europe was “more under pressure than ever.”

Since the last EU election in 2019, populist or far-right parties now lead governments in three nations — Hungary, Slovakia and Italy — and are part of ruling coalitions in others including Sweden, Finland and, soon, the Netherlands. Polls give the populists an advantage in France, Belgium, Austria and Italy.

“Right is good,” Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who leads a stridently nationalist and anti-migrant government, told reporters after casting his ballot. “To go right is always good. Go right!”

After the election comes a period of horse-trading, as political parties reconsider in their places in the continent-wide alliances that run the European legislature.

The biggest political group — the center-right European People’s Party (EPP) — has moved further right during the present elections on issues like security, climate and migration.

Among the most watched questions is whether the Brothers of Italy — the governing party of populist Meloni, which has neo-fascist roots — stays in the more hard-line European Conservatives and Reformists group or becomes part of a new hard right group that could form the wake of the elections. Meloni also has the option to work with the EPP.

A more worrying scenario for pro-European parties would be if the ECR joins forces with Le Pen’s Identity and Democracy group to consolidate hard-right influence.

The second biggest group — the center-left Socialists and Democrats — and the Greens refuse to align themselves with the ECR.

Questions also remain over what group Orbán’s ruling Fidesz party might join. It was previously part of the EPP but was forced out in 2021 due to conflicts over its interests and values. The far-right Alternative for Germany was kicked out of the Identity and Democracy group following a string of scandals surrounding its two lead candidates for the European Parliament.

The election also ushers in a period of uncertainty as new leaders are chosen for the European institutions. While lawmakers are jostling over places in alliances, governments will be competing to secure top EU jobs for their national officials.

Chief among them is the presidency of the powerful executive branch, the European Commission, which proposes laws and watches to ensure they are respected. The commission also controls the EU’s purse strings, manages trade and is Europe’s competition watchdog.

Other plum posts are those of European Council president, who chairs summits of presidents and prime ministers, and EU foreign policy chief, the bloc’s top diplomat.

[darkmaga-returns]

by Fabio Giuseppe Carlo Carisio

European NATO members are willfully ignoring the “Nazi” character of the Ukrainian government, which they have empowered as an anti-Russian instrument, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has asserted.

On Monday, the senior diplomat expressed concern over the “demons of neo-Nazism, Russophobia, and other hateful ideologies” spreading across multiple EU nations. Member states are deliberately overlooking Kiev’s misconduct, even as it persecutes ethnic Russians and violates human rights, he stressed according to RT.

The Mason Roots of Zio-Nazism

This statement is absolutely well-founded and shareable because it is confirmed by dozens of independent investigations conducted by Gospa News.

Some of which have also highlighted a new and very dangerous type of right-wing extremism: the so-called Zio-Nazism founded on a nationalist oligarchic dictatorship of some states (such as the USA and Israel) that adopts the same methods of ethnic cleansing already ferociously used by Adolf Hitler’s SS, not by chance the idol of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who is a historic ally of American President Donald Trump.

It should also be remembered that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is also of Zionist Jewish lineage, promoted and strengthened in the West by Freemasonry, but in a secular vision like that of George Soros who organized the 2014 coup in Kiev together with NATO countries.

[eddieydewr]

the sad thing is most ppl have no idea what zionism is and honestly being anti zionist imo means you are antisemitic. period. being a zionist and a jew are inherently linked and pretty much all jews are zionists cause the actual meaning of the word is not a bad thing that they try to paint it as. all zionism means, a movement which originated in the 1800s due to rising hate of jews in europe, is for jews and jewish culture to be preserved and for them to have a safe place in the land where they are indigenous because people have been exiling and trying to kill them all off for CENTURIES. if you are against that, against jews and their culture being safe in the land they come from, from which they’ve been forcible expelled for centuries, then you are either a raging bigot or are a useful idiot who has no idea what the word even means or any knowledge of history. the fact that young libs are out here talking about “raging act of zionism” and having no clue what a gigantic nazi they sound like is INSANE to me. insane. they are a bunch of morons being duped by propaganda and used by people who hate the west and all the ACTUAL progressive ideals they stand for…. noah didn’t make or hand out zionism is sexy stickers but ya know what? zionism stickers aren’t bad. they don’t mean anything bad. if you think jews should exist and have a home is a bad sentiment then rot in hell tbh

all of this. i literally look at ‘zionism is sexy’ the same way i would look at something like ‘annibyniaeth is sexy’. annibyniaeth means welsh independence :)

there are shitty people who make the ideology look bad ofc, including conservative jews (both pro and anti), so people think it’s associated with the ethnic cleansing of palestinians, or that jews are running the world. white supremacists and useful idiots agree that zionism is bad and evil for different reasons, lmao.

we have shitty people in the welsh independence movement - we don’t all agree on the same things; we have people who want to stay out of the EU, kill off the welsh language (huh??? like the english almost did then?), stop immigration, have a fully white wales bla bla, anti LGBT, and even ‘noooo we can’t be free until palestine is free’ 💀 we are meant to be a single issue movement, ffs. implement it first with everything necessary ready to set into motion when it happens first, unlike brexit. my god. anyway lmao i digress.

antis don’t care that noah also supports palestinians, they just care that he’s jewish and the fact that he has sympathy for the 10/7 victims instead of… laughing? saying they deserved it? even if he was a full on antizionist with internalised hatred for who he is, it still wouldn’t be good enough for them. roots (iykyk) said something the other day and it’s so true: people don’t care where jews live. they care that jews live.

[transingthebourgeoisie]

So the far-right wins in one of the founding members of EU and NATO. Told ya. Back to fascism for Europe. Its the third domino after Brexit, Italian fascist party winning. Nexit hun? They already said they'd stop the aid to Ukraine so that Ukranians would march on Berlin inside the Russian army. The reversal of the WW2 only with Russia winning the Cold War when EU and NATO collapse together with any democracies they keep defending.

Ooh, hang on, let me reply to this like this isn't some random bait anon; do keep the chain going, I'm simply fascinated to know where you go next.

Of course fascism is finding root in the EU and NATO; this is not a failing of these things, this is the very function of these organizations, of liberalism as a whole. In short; you told me shit, we've been ringing this bell a long time. Do remember; if we had our way, fascists wouldn't make it into politics; their careers would end with a few inches of soil.

Anyway; the defeat of the fascist government in the Ukraine is a good thing. Russia isn't greatly preferable, - make no mistake it has its own goals for the country much opposed to those of the Ukrainian people, - but I would hope we could get behind the eradication of Neo-Nazi cells, right? If not I've a few inches of soil for you.

[otnesse]

And that's not even getting into instances where the creators in question freely gloat that they tricked their audiences into rooting for something they wouldn't even root for normally because they made sure to dress them up in stuff that made them look like stuff they'd want to root for (George Lucas did EXACTLY that with the Rebel Alliance and Ewoks. Modeled them after Vietcong, yet in the Rebel Alliance's case, dressed them up like American forces, while modeling the Empire after America during Vietnam while DELIBERATELY dressing them up like Nazis. Same goes for Hideo Kojima and how he handled Metal Gear, including manipulating us into rooting for Che when most of us had no idea of what he's actually like, never made even a single critique towards him other than, you know, dying at age 39 in Bolivia, even though Big Boss in prior games and even that game was shown to not be fond of Communists, same goes for Miller.), not to mention wreck their own heroes by having them specifically adhere to philosophies that they themselves agree with even when most people DON'T actually agree with it at all (Lucas making the Jedi into nihilistic moral relativists in the Prequel Trilogy as well as Return of the Jedi, plus pointlessly retconning huge chunks of the EU in a hissy fit over demanding that creation of a military in ANY capacity is not to be embraced. Also Kojima and his having Solid Snake essentially promote the Joker's philosophy from The Killing Joke to Raiden in MGS2 and the latter embracing it.). Oh, and also the same creators bluntly making clear direct ties to a successful movie they made to one that was controversial at best regarding intended themes (Linda Woolverton, especially Beauty and the Beast being thematically tied directly to Maleficent regarding man-bashing feminism. Also Kojima making clear in his Grand Game Plan he intended for America itself to be evil and the purest form of it, while MGS2 left it vague thanks to Solidus whether America was evil itself or was simply hijacked by the Patriots.). And in some cases, like with Metal Gear Solid V, you go in with bad expectations, yet afterwards it turns out even your lowest expectations were TOO DANG HIGH due to Kojima upchucking what little consistency was left in the Metal Gear series by revealing you were playing a body double all along (oh, and said body double was the same guy Snake killed in the first game, DESPITE Big Boss making clear they fought that time before then), all so he could give a final flip the bird at America to push that it, not Big Boss, was the true Moby Dick. Oh, and pushing the big good of a story as being the true big bad just to ensure the bad guy gets some redemption even if they didn't actually deserve it that much, or at least making the big good the bad guy was the wrong way to go (Maleficent and King Stefan, and to a much lesser extent Ardyn and Bahamut), and also having the nominally good guy, pure good guy at that, doing the EXACT same heinous actions as the villain who's rightly demonized for it still being treated as a good guy (The Boss from Snake Eater, particularly her using a Davy Crocket against Groznyj Grad and Graniny Gorki, who were technically her countrymen by that point, with barely a peep from Snake or the others despite how Volgin's earlier usage of the Davy Crocket against the Sokolov Design Bureau was rightfully treated as a MAJOR moral event horizon for him. Also Zeno and his actions during the Tournament of Power in Dragon Ball Super, ESPECIALLY after the mess that was Zamasu's Project Zero Mortals [with the manga making it even WORSE by indicating that Zeno had essentially the same idea, only unlike disdain for humanity continuing to sin like Zamasu had, he literally was doing this to clear shelving space, and he's STILL friends with Goku despite that crap.]).

Heck, even Vader being Luke's father all along was an example of this (that it actually worked out at all and led to his redemption was in SPITE of the retcon rather than because of it).

I see posts go by periodically about how modern audiences are impatient or unwilling to trust the creator. And I agree that that's true. What the posts almost never mention, though, is that this didn't happen in a vacuum. Audiences have had their patience and trust beaten out of them by the popular media of the past few decades.

J J Abrams is famous for making stories that raise questions he never figures out how to answer. He's also the guy with some weird story about a present he never opened and how that's better than presents you open--failing to see that there's a difference between choosing not to open a present and being forbidden from opening one.

You've got lengthy media franchises where installments undo character development or satisfying resolutions from previous installments. Worse, there are media franchises with "trilogies" that are weird slap fights between the makers of each installment.

You've got wildly popular TV shows that end so poorly and unsatisfyingly that no one speaks of them again.

On top of that, a lot of the media actively punishes people for engaging thoughtfully with it. Creators panic and change their stories if the audience properly reacts to foreshadowing. Emotional parts of storytelling are trampled by jokes. Shocking the audience has become the go to, rather than providing a solid story.

Of course audiences have gotten cynical and untrusting! Of course they're unwilling to form their own expectations of what's coming! Of course they make the worst assumptions based on what's in front of them! The media they've been consuming has trained them well.

[beardedmrbean]

Aamulehti covers a Gazan asylum seeker who remains in limbo more than a year after applying for refugee status in Finland.

Hamza Alhendi arrived in Finland in 2023 on a visa granted by Finland, before the war started in Gaza. He hoped to complete his medicine degree, which was in the final stages, and has managed to achieve that, thanks to co-operation between professors in Finland and Gaza.

But after the war erupted, he decided it would be best to apply for asylum, given the devastation in Gaza and the continuing violence.

He has now been waiting for a decision for more than a year, with Finland's Immigration Service (Migri) pausing processing of applications from Gazans.

Alhendi is left in limbo, and contrasts his position with that of people from Ukraine. They have had their stays in Finland expedited by special rules for temporary protection due to the situation in their home country.

"Ukrainians don't face the same bureaucracy," said Alhendi. "They too deserve help, but why is the system different for them? Internal displacement is possible in a large country, but not for us. Everyone deserves to be treated equally. Treat us the same as you treat Ukrainians."

At present his passport and visa are held by the police, as his application has not been processed. That means he cannot head elsewhere to try and practice his profession in a country where he could work in English, for example. And so he continues to wait.

Migri declined to comment on individual cases, but said that confirming the identity of asylum seekers could take a long time if they came from unstable countries. The deadline for issuing a decision on asylum cases is 21 months.

Estonian production

Helsingin Sanomat looks at Finnish manufacturers in Estonia, who moved production there and have a workforce earning wages significantly lower than their Finnish counterparts.

The paper visits a cluster of Finnish plants in Pärnu, on Estonia's west coast, and gets a tour of the Pomarfin shoe factory.

The company shut down production in Pomarkku, a small town in the western region of Satakunta, at the turn of the millennium.

Their current workforce in Pärnu is paid much less, with many of them on the minimum wage. That rose eight percent in January to 886 euros per month.

That forced the factory to increase wages for others by 2.7 percent, to maintain the relative benefits of doing more skilled work.

A lot of Estonian manufacturing has moved to Asia as wages in Europe climb higher, but an influx of Ukrainians fleeing the war in 2022 has provided a new source of labour for some of them.

So for now, production of the Finnish-designed shoes will remain in Estonia.

Defence mindset

EU leaders met on Thursday to hammer out the details of a deal to increase defence spending and support for Ukraine, and eventually came up with an agreement that could see up to 800 million euros of additional funding.

The deal was greeted enthusiastically by Roberta Metsola, the President of the European Parliament, who said it was "about damn time".

Less profane comments came from the Czech President Petr Pavel, who told Czech media that the rest of the continent could learn a thing or two from Finland. His comments were reported by Iltalehti.

Finland has been one of the leading voices in helping Ukraine, and Pavel traces the roots of that back to the Second World War.

Czechoslovakia folded too easily after the 1938 Munich agreement, according to Pavel, giving up territory to Nazi Germany without a fight despite having some defensive capabilities.

Finland's military preparedness was in a worse position in relation to the Soviet Union in 1939, when the Soviets launched an invasion, according to Pavel.

"Despite that the Finns did it, and today we can see where they are," said Pavel in an interview with the CT24 channel. "Then they defended themselves a second time against attack from Germany. Now Finland has more self-confidence than other European states, more self-respect, and you can see that in their attitudes."

[l-in-c-future]

The Future of Germany and her new vision for the future of Eurasia

In exclusive interviews with Alice Weidel, foreign policy spokesman Matthias Moosdorf and powerful ideologue Björn Höcke, DW’s Richard Walker and Rosalia Romaniec scrutinize the AfD���s views on Germany’s alliances and NATO Article 5 commitments to the Baltic states and Poland, its skepticism of the United States, possible future architectures for European defense, who should have nuclear weapons, future ties with Russia and China, and how Germany should act in a Taiwan conflict scenario.

Includes analysis from leading international experts on Russia, China, the US and Europe: Alexander Gabuev (Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center), Amanda Hsiao (International Crisis Group), Katarzyna Pisarska (Warsaw Security Forum), Peter Rough (Hudson Institute), and Judy Dempsey (Carnegie Europe).

What do AfD's ideologies and policies imply? 1. Possible Germanic exit of NATO and EU.

2. Prussia back but this Prussia is Pro-Russia. Plausibly the entire Germany will become the new "East" Germany if this party becomes future Germany government. Join the pan-Russian new empire under Putin.

3. AfD 'downplayed' Nazi ideology doesn't mean they do not endorse such ideology. It is just a carpeted political expression.

4. They wrongly pin that Germany 'should have' closer relationship with PRC because Germany has already have quite close economic relationship with PRC. Germany is far less much political hostile to PRC in previous governments compares to USA and other EU members. However, the 'closer ties' under the pro-Putin plus package (including Xi) will mean an AfD government will not be a friend of Taiwan. 5. While USA is under the seige of internal political turmoils, demanding ALL US troops and bases to leave Germany is a whole different matter. It is more than a 'Germany first' rhetoric (ironically, this echoes with D Trump's MAGA and America first ideology regarding NATO). Therefore an AfD government has much broader consequences on NATO.

6. If an AfD Germany government executes NATO exist , it will have destructive consequence to the Allied forces because Germany is not the only country being affected by the rise of far-right and right wing nationalistic and ethnic 'purity' driven populism. Germany is one of the greatest power within EU and NATO on Europe. The recent EU election already revealed prevailence of right wing 'conservative' parties. The early signal of what the future of EU might look like already on the horizon. If AfD becomes a Germany government, this regime will further EU further towards far-right wing.

7. Implications to global security is dim. Both sides of the Atlantics resembly terribly close to the prevailing ideological and political landscapes in 1930s before WW2. This is unprecedented since the beginning of last century. Whether it was the rise and competition of fascism and communism between the global powers, it is a high fire political seasons for conflicts and wars. Yet worse than the 1930s, the current Western democratic world doesn't have strong countering forces to deter far right emergence internally and attacks of foreign autocratic superpower Russia because the people's belief about alliance and democracy fades like a rapidly dying person. Whether these populistic parties become authoritarian governments BECAUSE PEOPLE CHOOSE them and therefore such governments tighten relationships with other existing autocracies such as Russia, China and ANY other similar regimes, the future of democracy of Eurasia doesn't look bright.

Conclusion

As I wrote before, unless the Western governments have will to address the root causes of the rise of populism and ultra-nationalism to smooth people's anger and disenfranchising and distrust of the existing establishments, the fires of extremisms will burn down the current democratic world order.

EU needs to reflect its ways of handling politics and polices. Member nations are grunting and grudging because they feel like losing too much national sovereignties while EU is bureaucratic, rigid, and too imposing without regarding individual countries' circumstances.

What the Western world MUST learn from history is that it was their own disintegration and internal divisions that caused the demises of every previous empire and kingdom.

Not that just the side of Russia, China or whoever may break the last straws of their long broken dockey necks. They should be aware that it doesn't need Russia and China to officially invade them. Rottening from inside out was the more true cause of the demise of a country BEFORE external forces come in. Russia surely has historical great motive to break the democratic Eurasia but China doesn't seem to benefit much from a WW3 given her current dim economic situation. Any external political turmoils are as bad as to China as the rest of the world. "China" is not a one type fit all generic excuse and explainations for ALL problems of the Western politics. A wall doesn't suddenly collapse unless it is already weakened significantly.

[deblala]

The Nazi Roots of The "Brussels EU" - Las Raices Nazis de La "UE de Bruselas"

https://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/sociopol_germany14.htm

[mariacallous]

BRUSSELS (AP) — Far-right parties made major gains in European Union parliamentary elections Sunday, dealing stunning defeats to two of the bloc’s most important leaders: French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

In France, the National Rally party of Marine Le Pen dominated the polls to such an extent that Macron immediately dissolved the national parliament and called for new elections. It was a massive political risk since his party could suffer more losses, hobbling the rest of his presidential term that ends in 2027.

Le Pen was delighted to accept the challenge. “We’re ready to turn the country around, ready to defend the interests of the French, ready to put an end to mass immigration,” she said, echoing the rallying cry of so many far-right leaders in other countries who were celebrating substantial wins.

Macron acknowledged the thud of defeat. “I’ve heard your message, your concerns, and I won’t leave them unanswered,” he said, adding that calling a snap election only underscored his democratic credentials.

In Germany, the most populous nation in the 27-member bloc, projections indicated that the AfD overcame a string of scandals involving its top candidate to rise to 16.5%, up from 11% in 2019. In comparison, the combined result for the three parties in the German governing coalition barely topped 30%.

Scholz suffered such an ignominious fate that his long-established Social Democratic party fell behind the extreme-right Alternative for Germany, which surged into second place. “After all the prophecies of doom, after the barrage of the last few weeks, we are the second strongest force,” a jubilant AfD leader Alice Weidel said.

The four-day polls in the 27 EU countries were the world’s second-biggest exercise in democracy, behind India’s recent election. At the end, the rise of the far right was even more stunning than many analysts predicted.

The French National Rally crystalized it as it stood at over 30% or about twice as much as Macron’s pro-European centrist Renew party that is projected to reach around 15%.

Overall across the EU, two mainstream and pro-European groups, the Christian Democrats and the Socialists, remained the dominant forces. The gains of the far right came at the expense of the Greens, who were expected to lose about 20 seats and fall back to sixth position in the legislature. Macron’s pro-business Renew group also lost big.

For decades, the European Union, which has its roots in the defeat of Nazi Germany and fascist Italy, confined the hard right to the political fringes. With its strong showing in these elections, the far right could now become a major player in policies ranging from migration to security and climate.

Bucking the trend was former EU leader and current Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who overcame Law and Justice, the national conservative party that governed Poland from 2015-23 and drove it ever further to the right. A poll showed Tusk’s party won with 38%, compared to 34% for his bitter nemesis.

“Of these large, ambitious countries, of the EU leaders, Poland has shown that democracy, honesty and Europe triumph here,” Tusk told his supporters. “I am so moved.”

He declared, “We showed that we are a light of hope for Europe.”

Germany, traditionally a stronghold for environmentalists, exemplified the humbling of the Greens, who were predicted to fall from 20% to 12%. With further losses expected in France and elsewhere, the defeat of the Greens could well have an impact on the EU’s overall climate change policies, still the most progressive across the globe.

The center-right Christian Democratic bloc of EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, which already weakened its green credentials ahead of the polls, dominated in Germany with almost 30%, easily beating Scholz’s Social Democrats, who fell to 14%, even behind the AfD.

“What you have already set as a trend is all the better – strongest force, stable, in difficult times and by a distance,” von der Leyen told her German supporters by video link from Brussels.

As well as France, the hard right, which focused its campaign on migration and crime, was expected to make significant gains in Italy, where Premier Giorgia Meloni was tipped to consolidate her power.

Voting continued in Italy until late in the evening and many of the 27 member states have not yet released any projections. Nonetheless, data already published confirmed earlier predictions: the elections will shift the bloc to the right and redirect its future. That could make it harder for the EU to pass legislation, and decision-making could at times be paralyzed in the world’s biggest trading bloc.

EU lawmakers, who serve a five-year term in the 720-seat Parliament, have a say in issues from financial rules to climate and agriculture policy. They approve the EU budget, which bankrolls priorities including infrastructure projects, farm subsidies and aid delivered to Ukraine. And they hold a veto over appointments to the powerful EU commission.

These elections come at a testing time for voter confidence in a bloc of some 450 million people. Over the last five years, the EU has been shaken by the coronavirus pandemic, an economic slump and an energy crisis fueled by the biggest land conflict in Europe since the Second World War. But political campaigning often focuses on issues of concern in individual countries rather than on broader European interests.

Since the last EU election in 2019, populist or far-right parties now lead governments in three nations — Hungary, Slovakia and Italy — and are part of ruling coalitions in others including Sweden, Finland and, soon, the Netherlands. Polls give the populists an advantage in France, Belgium, Austria and Italy.

“Right is good,” Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who leads a stridently nationalist and anti-migrant government, told reporters after casting his ballot. “To go right is always good. Go right!”

[darkmaga-returns]

On Thursday I am going to record a conversation with Moscow-based journalist and friend, Fiorella Isabel. You can follow her excellent analysis at her Substack.

We are going to focus on the direction of travel of Russian foreign policy since the Ottoman, Zionist, Nazi, US, EU, UK, Wahhabi coup finally succeeded in plunging Syria into a terrorist vacuum post-Assad.

I found this article by another esteemed colleague, Eric Zuesse, to be very insightful. As Eric says:

My main field of specialization, within meta-science (my major field), has always been ideology. It’s a field in which no university offers a Ph.D or other doctoral degree, but I have been studying it intensively on my own ever since the 1960s. The closest existing field to it is political psychology, but unlike that, it includes also ethics (the analysis of moral beliefs); and, unlike philosophical ethics or the religious sub-category of that, it’s purely scientific, which means that it is based only on all of the empirical evidence about it and excludes as being evidence anything that is not derived from trustworthy historical records; so, all mythological ‘evidence’ is excluded from being considered in it.

If I were briefly to define the field, it is scientific ethics, but anyone who would interpret that phrase to mean “ethics of science” would get it wrong. It’s instead entirely non-philosophical, non-speculative, ethics. It is only ethics that is 100% empirically (meaning historically — not at all mythologically) based. It might also be called “post-philosophical ethics,” because all of philosophical ethics is based only on opinions, not on any empirical studies, it’s not rooted purely in historical accounts but also in other people’s opinions and in myths.

[inqilabi]

What do you think of this piece in the guardian? "We must confront Russian propaganda – even when it comes from those we respect" (cant post link) Especially the claim that eastern european countries would only join NATO if they knew they were sitting next to an "aggressor"; that is, out of fear. Watching the last documentary you shared btw. The coup evidence seems inconclusive.

yea i read, it's imo ridiculous. What Russian propoganda? Which channels is Russian propoganda making it's way into? I haven't seen it in msm? I am having to go out of my way to dig up a counter narrative because e.g., google and youtube is filtering results. And russian orgs are banned in US and EU. He is talking about some leftists, which makes it even more ridiculous since they're a minority, not controlling the publishing arm of the US empire lol

Then he goes and talks about how there are russian bots. There could be (id be surprised though given that I haven't seen anything in msm go viral thats pro-russian, and given that russian access to social media and journalistic platforms is banned. Even Zelenskyy banned russian journalist orgs way back in 2019 or so). But I remember when it came out that there are bots that do the bidding for the US empire during the Venezuela, Bolivia coup attempts and recent Cuban hashtag. Now if you go google this, you'll only see the reports on how there were bots created by these govs to oppress their people and not how there were bots created by the US to push the narrative for overthrow.

The author of that piece doesn't expand on why NATO is itself a threat. Anyone who does not think of NATO as the root cause, prime aggressor will not understand this moment in history. To think of NATO as simply a defence alliance, is to bury it’s history as a terrorist military wing. NATO was specifically created to counter Soviet communism, revolutionary socialist and workers movements in the interest of US finance capital. That is, NATO's purpose is to protect the US ruling class interests, and then to protect comprador ruling class in Europe from socialist/labor movements[1]. Therefore, NATO's primary purpose is to create a European colonizer alliance in order to exploit primarily the global south [2][3] In order to do this, it must keep Russia in check as it is a threat to US capital since Russia is a national capitalist economy. In order to do that, it destabilize the balkans by coups, soft-power, funding RW factions etc against Russia. Balkans are also exploited themselves for their resources and through IMF loans.

So NATO is the European military arm of USA, that by force of weapons and physical military presence, ensures that US finance capital has markets in the balkans and global south. NATO bombed Libya and backed death squads in 2011 under Obama because Libya tried to create a pan-African currency and delink from US petrodollar entirely. So Russia and Ukraine is happening in this context, as well as the context of US Cold War activities in the area and funding Nazis since then[4][5]. Ukraine is a proxy war for USA. And the ordinary persons suffer.

Re: the coup evidence. I think it is as conclusive as it gets. Here's a video of a Ukrainian RW faction leader talking about doing the west's bidding and getting weapons [6]. We know CIA and FBI were on the ground after Maidan and telling the Ukrainian government what to do [7], then there was a leaked called between EU and US picking the gov after Maidan [8]. It does not get more conclusive then that. If you are looking for declassified CIA docs of US admitting to it, those usually happen after 50 years. We got confirmation of CIA involved in Iran after 50 years [9]. It’s too late the damage is done by then. USA has overthrown the govs of atleast 80 countries, atleast a 100 times. If you were a betting person, you can point to a country not aligned to US interests, and by statistic alone you can win the bet that the USA is doing a coup.

[brilliantfantasticgeronimo]

sorry mutuals this has to be the longest reaction post i have ever done in like 7 years of tumblr sldkjfklsd this episode was just A Lot

-weekly butthurt recall that chibnall beat me in using the faiths in a 13 doctor story and now when i do it in next year in my xena crossover is not gonna seen as clever. damn u chibnall. -”bel’s story” omg what is this.... high concept realness??? im in. -my meta-analysis of "flux is a metaphor for climate change/enviromeltal catastrophe" gets stronger every episode. -SEXU BRONZE DALEKS. love those fuckers. bless them for finally iguring out floating. rip any stairs or swamps that get in their path. -even more irl enviromental collapse parlallels: the fear over right neo nazi factions rising in europe rn. -"my love" is she gay? -these blue time-bees reminds me of the thingies from father's day. miss those cute guys. they never showed up again ): -there's so much color everywhere this season... who knew the end of the world would be so pretty... -the little echo effect of swarm fingers snapping in the recap... ooh yes -the day going to black effect ohhh yesss -im watching the audiodescribed version for the first time and i's really interesting to be honest! im picking up a lot of new vocabulary for the weird things that they describe on screen lol -ooooooohhhhhhh pov of the doctor man!!! im loving this. i have read a lot of fics of people trying to do this, specially this era, and it feels very satisfying how the show is confirming that “high speed” thinking. -”leap and the net will appear, that’s what john buroughs told me” we love 1 little bitch namedropping even in monologue / just to show off to the audience she doesn’t know is there.

-(yes in this case “little bitch” is gender-neutral)

-this effect of the other 3 “falling” into the time storm looked a bit silly tbh dskljfkl and i love jodie but her green-screen acting in this bit.... dsklfjklds well... let’s just say she’s had better moments. -the eu feelings intensify -WHAT IS HAPPENING -I LOVE THIS -INFERNO REALNESS??? -jodie is so beautiful -seriously what is happening -diana get away from him he has a dog husband to come back to >:( -he's so smooth tho i love him. -"you are not ugliest fella in this city" oh no they are cute ): -i hate liking dan this much. how dare this show make me root for someone male straight and white AGAIN. -ohh and his parallels to the doctor’s personality intensify... - -THASMIN REGULAR PEOPLE AU. -ok not quite but i got really excited for a sec sdljkf -all this casual banter is killing me what are ya'll  saying stop speaking so fast. there’s foreigners in the audience. -dan/diane x thasmin parallels -lol this constant "diverse casting for cops" is sure a thing huh. i see through u chibs/bbcs. #acab -the sfx artists are on fire this episode (i hope they got paid well and didn’t have crunch time....) -Right. if all time is bleeding through and things are like, all over the place..., it actually makes a lot of sense lore-wise that weeping angels are over-powered and feasting on everything. it’s not seeming like a pointless bringing of an old monster for fanservice, but actually serves the story a lot if u think about it.good stuff! -i want all these aus omg -mandip in napoleonic era sicfi outfits is doing things to me -wow "grant serpent" doesn't sounds ominous and evil at all vinder. def an organization u can trust. -jodie in black is doing thins to me -NITRO NINE TIME -Ace should have patented that formula smh -13 referring to vinder as "that other lad" cos she doesn't know him yet lollll -once you get the "trick" of how this episode / serial work’s structure works is a little less impressive, but i’m still having fun w/ it and the actual content of the flashbacks. -time storms ldskfjlk THIRTEEN QUICK THROW THIS ALARM CLOCK!!! THE PAST IS COMING OUT OF HER EAR...... -(do ppl still remember that meme? i should find it again man, it was so good slkdjf) -the art desiggggnnnHhhhnggggg -also: something about pyramids and platonic solids and greek mythology./alchemy.. maybe they should have put a dodecahetron instead? pyramds represent fire after all, not the ether/time... (not that they dont look cool but, they could have continued the greek theme!) -RUTH RUTH RUTHTHTRFJKHKJDSLHFLSKJDHFLSDJKHFLSKDJHFLKSJDHFLKJSDHFLKSJDHFLKJSDHF -¨this is my past" HOLY SHIT I JUST GOT THE TIME LOOP IM- THAT'S WHY WE DIDNT HAVE 13'S IN A FLASHBACK IT'S BECAUSE THIS IS HER FLASHBACK AHHH -chibnall have my babies -the absolute disgust when ruth looks at thirteen as realizes she is her reflection.... peak In-Character doctor mood. ("i’m not the woman i used to be, thank god") -(look all i want is 20009809 low-stake stories about thirteen/ruth having a fun two/three // seven/five mutual-repulsion dynamic... is that really asking too much, EU/fic writers. i never asked you for anything) -"pretty smart for a dog" -no but memes aside this is really impressive... like, it's very sophisticated plotting, and the weaving of lore is great... but it's still all about character building for our 4 (5 ) heroes. it’s nice that chibnall keeps that in mind. -that said... this episode is kicking my ESL ass... my brain is spinning trying to keep up ToT -OHHH man. so much backstory. -lol ruth is so done even when she is helping her future self. i love them so much -"you fucked up, me." -dallying. -OHH THE CAPITALIST PIGS IN THEIR FUNNY HATS ARE BACK - im digging the like, subtle horror-vibe of this. the cackling was pretty creepy dslkjf. -honestly this serial is also a great tourist ad for liverpool. just look at that waterfront! woah -this ghostly effect is pretty nice -BEL THE LUPARI ARE FINE DONT WORRY (the retroactive storytelling!!!... chef’s kiss) -the subtle commentary of these alien fuckers (meritocrat cybermen, nazi daleks, supremacist warmonger sontarans, etc) having to be fought even at the end of the world is really y cool. idk what to make of it yet political-messaging-wise but i dig it lol something like... how we have to fight until the end and shit and we have to struggle as long as we are alive and... that's fine... good stuff worth thinking about. -hey there not-brax. -"challenges are temporary, life is constant" -is she a past / future companion? like melanie bush in trial of a time lord? -vinder's story makes me want to replay SW: KOTOR 1+2 so bad. The aesthetic/vibe of this mission is so on-point w/ that game... -ok i think the specific primal horror this story is tapping into is like..., being at work and not knowing what's happening that day or missing an assignment and school lol -SONYA SONYA SONYA SONYA SONYA -bless this confirming a headcanon i didn't even knew i had that, not only is yaz not into any kind of "modern music", she also doesn't like "video-games." ( i love 1 boring-ass bi-mess with no social life). -also im losing my mind at fake-gamer-gurl sonya. -13 is such a sassy asshole to yaz even when she's helping her lol im sorry guys but this is every entertaining dslkjfsdklfj -noooo!!! this was my thing ... i was going to have thirteen take the place of the fates dammit again chibnall ): im gonna have to rewrite the climax of part 3 aghhslkdjf -future memories... eyes emoji -omg omg omg yaz picking up things!! i love you yaz u are so smart even if 13 doesnt see it. -this episode reminds me of how much dw deserves a proper videogame. -ooh they took the "image of an angel is angel" thing! i like. -CLEVER YAZ -"do you want me to be single forever?" i died -"PROTECT YAZ.... and that lad." -division dark-side thirteen/ruth are doing things to me. -"do not underestimate me" put me down as horny *and* confused :D -man division!era swarm was a lot less glittery... it’s like the meta of how each master is very much designed as a foil for "their" doctor lol -also swarm gives tim-shaw such a kicking. -hmm... ‘the passenger’ gives me watcher vibes... -the eu-vibes of this adventure intensifies. -there's so much lore and funky wilderness-era dialogue happening here and it's all nonsense scientifically ... and i love it. -”TIME SHALL NEVER SURRENDER TO SPACE” -which other show gives you dialogue like this honestly? i’ll wait -cartmell is weeping for not coming up with this. -thirteen/ruth using the “forbidden form” of multiverse tech... ohhh yes -not!dan with karvanista laser’s axe :)  dogtp -"YOU AND ME TOGETHER" that’s gay doc -bell is so cute --- she is so gonna die isn’t she ): -i have no idea what ruth!thirteen did but it sure seemed epic, clever and....... ruthless (eyy) -ohh another bit of retroactive storytelling here... now we know how swarm got captured! -”WE SHALL NOT BE CONTAINED” swarm is such a hamm. i love them. nimon serial energy tbh. -i appreciate the continuity of the time storm design being the same as the time vortex this era (as per the opening credits) -also the continuity of the faiths being gold! aka the screwdriver aka the current tardis crysals aka the logo aka thirteen's signature color. we love meaningful and consistent color usage *clap cla*. -”CONVERT THIS CU*Ts” i love her. -7 billion cybermen... are these the parallel earth OG cybermen? from hartnell era? hence the same population as earth? -i love the message of this story: all these civs striving for conquering things-... but there's no point to conquering because the earth/world/universe is all gonna end anyway. good stuff. -*blasts the cyber with a laser* "Love is the only mission.idiot.“ wtf i LOVE her. -(also i rewatched one of my favorite fiive/tegan scenes after the bit with and it was relevant to this moment!) -”stop te recording” ohh shit the guy is gonna betray vinder / do something shady. -i liked the continuity of "recording" motifs connecting the previous bell scene and this storyline. -ppl were right last week man i mean "fray samport"?? these names are such classic who bs lolll -honestly props to chibnall for making me so invested in all these side-characters. vinder u deserve the world son not these corrupt space napoleonic fuckers. -vinder you are an idiot though dslkjf if someone tells you "have you spoken to your family about any of this?" you cant trust them it’s obviously a threat. -idiot slkfjkl -segun has been pretty chill this episode tbh. i noticed a couple moments that could have done with more music... -maybe it's better tho it might have been too much sensory overload skldjf -YESSS DOGGIE -OHhh ho fuck i love this. the temptation of the doctor to see everything... even more torture bc it is yet another “selfish” choice they aren’t even allowed to make... ugh poor bb ): -”WHO ARE YOU??” i love flux. what is anything. who are we? who are you, tumblr user? we don’t really know. -"lost causes are my specialty" <3 <3 <3 -so “THE RAVEGERS” azure and swarm got  introduced by something? meaning there’s a bigger fish behind all this? valeyard? -is she the master? romana? the rani?????? SUSAN??????¡¡¡¡ -"EVERYTHING HAS ITS TIME" ahh my favourite rtd themeeee!!!!! - also again..., climate change fightin' vibes -ahh frog universe vibes. -"it was made. it was placed" more: "humands" didn't cause climate collapse some very powerful people that resist systemic change did. -who knows who this old lady is but she is calling out the doc hypocrisy so obviously, we tan :) -"You dont understand anything" maybe if you told her things... jackass....??? -man im so into this arc. so good. -ohhh--- the first few chords of thirteen's theme in this scene suddenly interrupted with the "this is bad happenings" music... i see u segun. i see u. -"WE'RE GONNA STOP YOU" (crickes) dan i love you you absolute madlad. -dude the constant parallels and all the “romantic  love beating the odds” framing and thirteen just not getting it and yaz subtle side glance... dare i say.... #thasminendgame. -swarm has a little pig nose. -aghh the reflection thing coming back again!! cinematographyyy -hehe another "vinder as yaz's companion" moment. so cute. -dan has known the doctor for like 2 day but it’s like he has speed-run through an entire companion arc lol -thirteen like HOW DARE YOU ASK ME THINGS dsslkfjlksd ass!!! -i feel like yaz might die / sacrifice herself by connecting some dots before the doctor and thirteen is gonna realize it only too late and she's gonna feel like a complete idiot for the rest of her fourteenth incarnation. -(sigh of relief) ohhhh god bless. vinder isnt yaz's endgame dslfjsdkl good for him vinder/belll otp let them reunite and have a million little tamagotchis :) i do not have an ulterior agenda for this :)))) -”and YOUR URBORN CHILD AS WELLLLL” slkdjfkld this is so cheesy i love it. -oh no ): i dont like where this is going.... -omg i love this cheesy grease summer loving effect... what is doctor who if not intellect and ROMANCE over brute force and cynicism? -if im gay and you are gay then who is that angel piloting this plane

[mariacallous]

In Germany, it is in hushed, angst-infused tones that observers now utter the words “Weimarer Verhältnisse,” or Weimar conditions. This refers to the chaos and violence that political extremists sowed during Germany’s 1918 to 1933 Weimar Republic, an experiment in democracy that ended with the Nazis grabbing power. Postwar Germany has gone to extreme lengths—in every field of its culture, economy, and society—to proscribe any return of the precarious conditions that witnessed fierce street battles between the communist left and Nazi right and enabled Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Party to capture so much of the German vote that it could come to power in 1933—and from there shut down the democratic state and impose a fascist dictatorship.

This is why Germans today are so deeply distressed about the shocking spate of violence against candidates and campaign volunteers involved in the run-up to the EU-wide European Parliament elections on June 6 to 9. And there is some evidence that the phenomenon, while most intense and sustained in Germany, is not confined to the Federal Republic. In Slovakia, Prime Minister Robert Fico was the victim of an assassination attempt on May 15. France, Poland, the Netherlands, and other countries have also seen violence against politicos surge—although its perpetrators are not generally as closely associated with the extreme-right scene as in Germany.

The Dutch political historian Ido de Haan underscores that the far right’s ascendance across Europe is at the root of the problem: “The larger context for this violence is mostly the hard right’s ascendance across Europe,” he told Foreign Policy. He pointed out that the far right leads or participates in governments in Hungary, Italy, Slovakia, Finland, Sweden, and most recently the Netherlands, too. The far-right parties, including in Germany, are expected to score particularly well in the EU vote, and headline-grabbing attacks could play into their court, he said.

Indeed, Germany appears to be the epicenter of the phenomenon—and female personnel are particularly vulnerable. On May 4, a prominent Social Democrat, Matthias Ecke, was hanging posters in Dresden when attacked by four teenagers, at least one a known right-wing radical, and badly beaten, landing him in the hospital with broken bones. That week, a female Green party campaign worker in the same city was assaulted. In Berlin on May 7, a former mayor, Social Democrat Franziska Giffey, was assailed and hurt. In 2023, aggressive behavior toward political figures and officials in Germany surged: 3,691 incidents, 80 of them involving physical violence. The numbers show that the lion’s share of perpetrators are extreme rightists. The party bearing the overwhelming brunt of abuse: the Greens.

The hard right has long seen leftists as its primary political enemy, but several years running now it is the Greens party—with its high-profile climate policies and progressive identity politics—that presents an oversized target. The far right brands the environmentalists as elitist, cosmopolitan, and more concerned about the natural world than the human beings living in it. They are pigeonholed as the party that wants to ban and outlaw things like combustion-engine automobiles, domestic flights, and new oil and gas heating systems. But all of the democratic parties are objects of hate for the hard right, and they are singled out as such with purpose and strategic calculation.

“In Germany,” de Haan said, “these cases and others constitute interference in the electoral processes,” which he argued is, for the moment at least, unique in Europe. The Greens and other leftist parties are targeted in an indirectly organized, tactical effort to obstruct their campaigns and undermine democracy, he said. “The extreme right’s aim is to deny the legitimacy of democratic processes. It wants to assert itself as the most visible and consequential political force prepared to stand up and do something dramatic about the system’s perceived failings.”

“These attacks are aimed at destroying the very basis of democracy,” agreed the left-liberal daily Tageszeitung, “at the political commitment of people in their city and community. If everyone is too afraid to run for office, the perpetrators will have won.”

In contrast, the Fico assassination attempt in Slovakia appears to be more similar to past political violence in Slovakia carried out by underworld protagonists or political enemies. The assailant was a lone perpetrator, frustrated with government policies and thus appears “closely related to the specific conditions in Slovakia,” explained Ulf Brunnbauer, a historian at the University of Regensburg. Therre is a “supercharged polarization, a public debate full of hate speech, ubiquitous accusations of corruption and illegitimacy against political opponents, and the big conflict over Slovakia’s geopolitical position: West or East,” Brunnbauer told Foreign Policy.

Experts in Germany say the prominence and expansion of political violence has everything to do with the Alternative for Germany (AfD) itself, an extremist party with convictions that often dovetail with those of full-fledged neo-Nazis, the likes of whom are at home within its ranks. “The AfD is a party with violence in its DNA,” said Heike Kleffner, an author of several books on the German right and head of a counseling center for victims of right-wing violence. “Its language, proclamations, and accusations condone and even call for violence against its political foes,” she said.

So incendiary is the party that several AfD branches in eastern Germany and the national AfD youth section are the subject of German intelligence service observation. The AfD’s politics are so much more radical than those of its far-right peers in the European Parliament’s Identity and Democracy group, an alliance of populist right-wing parties that includes Marine Le Pen’s French National Rally, that the alliance expelled the AfD from its ranks on May 21. A new German study found that 28 AfD members serving in German legislatures had been convicted of violence-related crimes, including verbal violence and incitement to hatred.

Kleffner pointed out that right-wing attacks against democratic officials are not new, although their scope has expanded. In 2019, Walter Lübcke, a Christian Democrat politician in Hesse, was gunned down by a neo-Nazi after expressing sympathy with refugees. In 2015, the liberal-minded then-candidate for mayor of Cologne was stabbed in the throat while campaigning.

In response, the AfD denies that it has anything to do with street violence. And it points out that it is also the victim of political violence. On May 22, an AfD politico, Mario Kumpf, was punched in the face at a supermarket in Saxony. Most recently, on June 5, another local AfD official was attacked with a knife in Mannheim, a city in western Germany. But neither the AfD’s number of victims nor the severity of their injuries is on par with those of the democratic parties—and the attacks are not part of a larger political strategy.

The threat of injury has already impacted Germany’s political culture. Candidates and campaigners travel in groups. Party insiders say that they are finding it harder to get new people to run for office.

“No one can say what the threshold is at which democracy tips over,” Holger Münch, head of Germany’s federal investigative police agency, told the German media. “But when 10 percent of office and mandate holders say they are considering quitting because of the hostility and another almost 10 percent say they no longer want to run for office again because of the hostility, this is clearly too high.”

The spike in violence and the dramatic headlines have renewed calls for police departments to do more, and even for the state to ban the AfD. The German government passed a Democracy Promotion Act that would finance initiatives that promote “diversity, tolerance, and democracy” with around 200 million euros a year.

Historians such as Brunnbauer say that the violence on the German political scene is nothing like the pandemonium that raged in Weimar Germany. But others point out that then, as now, the hard right utilized violence to achieve political goals. The hate speech, injunctions to take action, and demonization of political opponents jacks up the animosity that like-minded toughs dole out in fists and clubbings on the street.

“The consensus that existed in the old Federal Republic that [political violence] is unacceptable under penalty of political ostracism has been shattered,” opined the Tageszeitung. More violence could shatter the new normal, delivering democracy in Germany a blow that may not equate with the conditions of Weimar Germany but which looks enough like them to set off alarm bells.