For the first time in 22 years, two German warships will sail through the Taiwan Strait, a move likely to provoke Beijing. Germany joins other Western nations in asserting freedom of navigation in the region amid China’s territorial claims over Taiwan
I’m more with you regarding Israel. However, the context here is China, not Israel.
Wtf. You know it’s 2024, right? Nazi Germany is no more (unless AfD and consorts form the new government).
I was not talking about WW2-times.
Germany got fucked “in the ass” because of capitalist greed, not because of “people like me”. If it was up to me our industries would’ve never left the country in the first place, and most of the privatizations wouldn’t have gone through. Corporate greed would’ve been stopped, and foreign companies that don’t have the interest of the people would’ve been nationalized a long time ago. But that’s not the reality. Besides that, there’s plenty of nazi like rhetoric going around nowadays. Green politicians talking about “the poison of Islam” [1], which reminds me a lot of the antisemitic rhetoric from WW2 (see “Der Giftpilz” [2], talking about jewish people as “the poisonous mushroom”). Besides that, Germany didn’t denazify properly after WW2 anyway (“Persilscheine”, proper card carrying nazis in the first democratically elected government, and so on). The chancellor talking about “deportations in big style”. The CDU trying to ban refugees from going to any public events. And these are not even the nazis in the AfD. It might be 2024, but mentalities haven’t changed much, we’re just picking other out groups to stomp on, mostly because we’re not tackling the real issues at heart.
But again, to get back on China, Germany is very well conducting major business with a ton of authoritarian countries, stomping on workers’ rights all across the world just to enrich German companies, and thus I won’t take their virtue signalling for anything more than just virtue signalling. They can talk about “feminist foreign policy” as much as they like while increasing business with Saudi Arabia, Azerbaijan, and now even working with the Taliban. They can talk about green policy as much as they like, while funding lithium extraction mines against the will of the people in Serbia. They can talk as much as they like about democracy, while empowering cops to break limbs and beat the shit out of protesters at peaceful pro Palestinian demonstrations. They can talk about humanity as much as they like, while funding a genocide in Gaza and an illegal occupation in the West Bank. And I haven’t even voiced an opinion on these policies, I’m here just pointing out the hypocrisy. If they care so much about Taiwan, they should at least make it clear that it is due to geostrategic interests, not because they suddenly found their love for democracy and what not other nonsense.
[1] https://jungefreiheit.de/politik/deutschland/2024/gruenen-politikerin-warnt-vor-dem-gift-des-islams/
[2] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Der_Giftpilz
Alright, I see it the same way. Still, Germany managed to manoeuvre itself into dependencies of Russia and China, which has shot and still shoots them into the feet.
I’m totally in favour of trying to find diplomatic ways. But if the call to the talking table is not followed and rather met with aggression on multiple levels, it’s usually the wrong way to give into the demands of the ones who are not afraid to use violence. Therefore, what you see as “funding aggression” is to me a display of resistance. It shows that we will not be bullied into submission, nor will we allow those who use violence to dictate the terms of peace or cooperation.
I’ve read the article and watched the speech of Katharina Dröge afterwards to get a grasp of the context. As I’ve suspected, the article of the far-right magazine “Junge Freiheit” over-emphasized the “Gift des Islams” part of her speech. It’s just typical click- & ragebait again and a very misleading headline. At least the article itself somehow manages to not completeley misrepresent her actual speech.
If you’re interested, you can currently watch it here: https://www.ardmediathek.de/video/phoenix-parlament/katharina-droege-in-der-generaldebatte/phoenix/Y3JpZDovL3Bob2VuaXguZGUvNDU4NjA2Mg
You’ll probably notice as well that this was a rather minor phrasing. More importantly, it was embedded in and directed towards islamism, i.e., people radicalized to the point of becoming murderous, which has to be prevented of course. In the same speech she is emphasizing the importance of asylum for all of those who have suffered the worst and don’t become radicalized criminals.
Given this context and the fact that the German Greens are usually considered a rather left-leaning political party, I find the comparison to ‘Der Giftpilz’ not only vastly misplaced but also ridiculous.
Thanks for pointing out the “Persilscheine”. Despite the tremendous amount of “Nazis evil”-content in school, especially in history classes, this wasn’t a topic. An educational gap I’m eager to fill soon.
Regarding the statement of unproper denazification I can’t add anything to that besides personal impressions which have no value for general statements.
Yes, yes. This is indeed really bad. From my point of view the big old parties SPD, CDU/CSU are fearing for their public support. And instead of trying to address the real issues, they’re mimicking talking points of the AfD. The latter, unfortunately, becoming increasingly popular in many areas of Germany.
I wonder why that is.
No, I don’t.
(Okay, people being too incompetent to critically think about media adds to that.)
However, I wouldn’t go as far as to say, that the mentalities haven’t changed much in all that time since WW2. Three generations were raised since then with the fourth one reaching maturity. And there is still a tremendous amount of people who are not sharing the same xenophobic idiotism propagated by AfD, CDU & Co. It’s not too late to prevent the mistakes of the past.
I’m also not really happy about that. It’s one devil replaced by the other. However, there are different shades to that. At least the one devils have not launched a full-scale war. And now Germans have started to question their dependencies on foreign countries a bit more. But of course it can’t be a long-term solution to keep things as they are now.
I’ll take virtue signalling. “It’s something”. Besides, the current government is the most productive since the Merkel-era and has initiated and achieved many good things. Although I agree that regarding foreign affairs it could be better. Most progress was achieved in domestic affairs.
And people love hypocrits. If someone says the one thing, but does the opposite, does it make them wrong in what they said?
How about we criticise the bad and praise the good?
Persilscheine are barely scratching the surface. They’re honestly the “paradebeispiel” of failed German denazification. Germany had full on SA NSDAP members in government in its first government after WW2. I invite you to read more on Theodor Oberländer. Actually, I invite you to read more on everyone involved in German politics up until the 80s, especially German diplomats. Most of them have some very, very disturbing skeletons in their closets, the people we praise as the founders of German democracy nowadays.
I have voted for the greens. I will never vote for them ever again. I’m tired of the bullshit they’ve been spewing, especially lately. I voted for a progressive agenda, not for our foreign minister to lie about Palestinian deaths, and her goons downplaying it. I’m tired of her virtue signalling and her “”“feminist”“” foreign policy on which she very, very selectively delivers. I’m tired of our minister of education and research trying to cut funding to scientists criticizing police violence on campuses, actively trying to suppress them. I’m tired of our chancellor talking about mass deportations. These are things a German should absolutely never do, let alone so called progressive ones. I haven’t voted for AfD light, and I surely haven’t voted for them to normalize far-right ideas.