Dunno about Germany. It had a big move to the right. The second strongest party is now right, passing two other traditional established parties.
Lefty Memes
An international (English speaking) socialist Lemmy community free of the "ML" influence of instances like lemmy.ml and lemmygrad. This is a place for undogmatic shitposting and memes from a progressive, anti-capitalist and truly anti-imperialist perspective, regardless of specific ideology.
Serious posts, news, and discussion go in c/Socialism.
If you are new to socialism, you can ask questions and find resources over on c/Socialism101.
Please don't forget to help keep this community clean by reporting rule violations, upvoting good contributions and downvoting those of low-quality!
Rules
0. Only post socialist memes
That refers to funny image macros and means that generally videos and screenshots are not allowed. Exceptions include explicitly humorous and short videos, as well as (social media) screenshots depicting a funny situation, joke, or joke picture relating to socialist movements, theory, societal issues, or political opponents. Examples would be the classic case of humorous Tumblr or Twitter posts/threads. (and no, agitprop text does not count as a meme)
1. Socialist Unity in the form of mutual respect and good faith interactions is enforced here
Try to keep an open mind, other schools of thought may offer points of view and analyses you haven't considered yet. Also: This is not a place for the Idealism vs. Materialism or rather Anarchism vs. Marxism debate(s), for that please visit c/AnarchismVsMarxism.
2. Anti-Imperialism means recognizing capitalist states like Russia and China as such,
as well as condemning (their) imperialism, even if it is of the "anti-USA" flavor.
3. No liberalism, (right-wing) revisionism or reactionaries.
That includes so called: Social Democracy, Democratic Socialism, Dengism, Market Socialism, Patriotic Socialism, National Bolshevism, Anarcho-Capitalism etc. . Anti-Socialist people and content have no place here, as well as the variety of "Marxist"-"Leninists" seen on lemmygrad and more specifically GenZedong (actual ML's are welcome as long as they agree to the rules and don't just copy paste/larp about stuff from a hundred years ago).
4. No Bigotry.
The only dangerous minority is the rich.
5. Don't demonize previous and current socialist experiments or (leading) individuals.
We must constructively learn from their mistakes, while acknowledging their achievements and recognizing when they have strayed away from socialist principles.
(if you are reading the rules to apply for modding this community, mention "Mantic Minotaur" when answering question 2)
6. Don't idolize/glorify previous and current socialist experiments or (leading) individuals.
Notable achievements in all spheres of society were made by various socialist/people's/democratic republics around the world. Mistakes, however, were made as well: bureaucratic castes of parasitic elites - as well as reactionary cults of personality - were established, many things were mismanaged and prejudice and bigotry sometimes replaced internationalism and progressiveness.
7. Absolutely no posts or comments meant to relativize(/apologize for), advocate, promote or defend:
- Racism
- Sexism
- Queerphobia
- Ableism
- Classism
- Rape or assault
- Genocide/ethnic cleansing or (mass) deportations
- Fascism
- (National) chauvinism
- Orientalism
- Colonialism or Imperialism (and their neo- counterparts)
- Zionism
- Religious fundamentalism of any kind
(This is not a definitive list, the spirit of the other rules still counts! Eventual duplicates with other rules are for emphasis.)
Its amazing what happens when your erstwhile left-leaning parties spend more time playing footsie with billionaires then actually solving problems for regular people.
The political left has gotten too cosy with neoliberalism, and forgotten their roots, ceding kitchen-table issues to the right-wing.
Which is insane, because the right doesn't care about the poor except as grist for the mill, they're just better at faking empathy, or at least milking victimization
Well, that's what liberal democracy does to originally left-leaning politicians.¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Definitely agree. Maybe you could argue that you'd just need to cut out former East Germany to make the post accurate, but even overall, germanys far right is definitely strong.
Do german not see the effects of climate change? Why would they not vote for green party? Germany has faced such harsh weather this year with all sorts of weirdness
Yes climate change all fine and well, but have you actually seen what they want us to do? Ride one of those gay bicycles to work and eat less beef. Next thing you know they want to put up renewable energy wind turbines in my neighborhood, that ruins the pretty landscape! No, I dont want to tighten ecological protections, why do you ask?
Guys, is it gay to be strong and be self-reliant by transporting yourself with the power of your muscles?
If so I'm all in
Well, if you put on a skimpy outfit that emphasises those muscles and smear yourself in oil before going out and self-transport using them, it might be a little bit gay ...
In addition to the other comments: Germany has a lot of voters that are like 60+, some of which either don't care too much because they will die long before the worst of climate change happens, or simply don't want to change. Any policies that try to reduce carbon emissions are met with criticism by people not wanting to change their own behavior.
There is a shitton of young people voting for the braindead AfD as well.
The green party is pretty much the neoliberal party in green paint.
Can't speak for Europe, but Canadian green parties are an uncomfortable split between true-believers that are unfortunately spending more time on identity politics than environmentalism, and hucksters looking to make money off the green movement.
...and honestly they're more of the latter.
I'm from Germany and the Nazis were 2nd strongest Power.
And they were even 1st strongest Power in the entire old GDR.
Would not call that “beating” yet. And maybe I'm not up-to-date about the Netherlands, but my latest info there was that the Far Right also won many votes again.
So still really shit times. When looking on the German Nazis they grow and grow.
And spread. We have so many in our part of Canada. It's insane.
Let's not forget that CDU won by a very small difference to AFD. And it's not exactly like CDU is super progressive man. We are in a timeline where we are celebrating that CDU won.
In the Netherlands most far right seats were shuffled between FVD (4 to 0) and PVV (1 to 6/7). Can't explain their final seat, but I guess it might have to do with there being more this time around? We did have a couple progressive parties gain a little (D66 +1, Volt +2), but over all right/left/far right are said to have roughly retained their size compared to last elections.
This makes PVV the second biggest list in NL, with GL/PvdA (Green/socialist left alliance) being first at 8 seats. Thing is, while GL/PvdA is collaborating in our national politics as basically one party, they're expected to join the European factions they're already a part of, separating them into 2× 4 seats. They will (and have been) collaborate and align their votes in Parliament and believe such collaboration might be the way forward on a European level as well.
Because our media loves for there to be a heated fight, this is being interpreted as a victory for both PVV and GL/PvdA depending on who you ask
Why is Germany included in this? The fucking brown shit nazis of the AfD had huge gains this election and became second strongest party in the country.
I feel like going around and smacking everyone who was too lazy or to uninterested to drag their ass to a voting booth and stand up against this ongoing shift to the right.
Seriously, Germany makes it super easy to vote. You are automatically registered, get an invitation in the mail, get mail ballots with 2 clicks on your cities website and there is literally a polling station for everyone in walking distance and no wait time. THERE IS NO EXCUSE!!
Also, please note that the German AfD is so batshit extreme, that even the other european Nazis don't want anything to do with them and kicked them out of their EU coalition.
They are under constant observation by the German Verfassungsschutz because they are dancing on the line that would make them an anti-democratic extremists group that would be banned by law.
Yeah I think that OP need to look a little more t European politics, as half if not most of these countries have been sliding right like there is no tomorrow, literally.
They likely also think the US beat the far right because trump lost in 2020. WE DID IT! FASCISM IS OVER.
Lots of criticism for Macron calling snap elections, but I actually think that's the right move. He needs to break through the cynicism and get people to recognize the threat they really face. Waiting won't help; it just breeds complacency.
It's been 7 years that Macron and his minions did all they could to divide french society in order to stay in power. They criminalized the mostly peaceful ecological and social protests, they (over)used all the least democratic powers (49.3 and others) they had to push through socially unjust reforms, they have cynically and with the sole aim of winning votes, lumped together the parties of the left and the far right, and have deliberately blurred the political field. They refused to stand in the way of the far right in the last parliamentary elections, allowing a few hundred of them to become MPs and giving them prestigious positions in the parliament, simply out of political expediency. They have constantly pushed far-right themes such as security and immigration into the public debate, again simply to try and divide people and win votes. For these european elections, they snubbed all other parties other than the extreme right and even gave them more credibility (and publicity) by sending the Prime Minister to debate with their representative (and with no one from any other party). Macron, who said a few years ago that he would do everything to ensure that people no longer had any reason to vote for the far right, has been playing with fire in an attempt to divide the country and keep power. He is guilty of the current situation, and the dissolution of the assembly is not a clever or courageous move, but rather a cynical act of impotence by a lonely man who now wants to play the "it's me or chaos" game. To think that if the far right wins these next elections and a PM from their ranks is appointed, this would be an opportunity to prove how incompetent they are and destroy them, is to becompletelyy delusional. It's forgetting that this would put France in a catastrophic situation for years to come, with social and ecological ruin, and above all that its main effect would be to open the Overton window even wider, making it even more likely that the far right would soon gain to the real power with no real counterweight, the Presidency.
Is this an accurate assessment of macron’s intent or did he make a mistake and this is the cope? Because the US coped this way in 2016, and it only emboldened the masked nazi militias currently demonstrating and plotting in clear view.
did he make a mistake and this is the cope
No this is a 'whole loaf' move, when in US politics its always 'half a loaf or less'.
It will either succeed or it will fail. If successful, he can turn the tide on the right and get things moving in the other direction.
If it fails, well, good luck Europe.
No this is a ‘whole loaf’ move, when in US politics its always ‘half a loaf or less’.
Can you explain what you mean by this?
I mean the difference between "Half measures" and "Full measures". I think a good example of this in metaphor are the two episodes of breaking bad:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half_Measures
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_Measure_(Breaking_Bad)
Its metaphor, but since we're talking strategy here, I'm going to use it. The basic idea is that if you don't fully commit to a strategy, your half-commitment becomes the source of why it fails to work.
Its the same in business or any other kind-of sport or competitive enterprise. Macron isn't acting in half measures. He's demanding either the full thing, or nothing at all, which I think is the right strategy. A half success gives Macron nothing.
Dude please explain the whole loaf thing we need to know 🍞
Beating the far right? Dude they are second strongest here in Germany, had massive gains and I live in fear I will see the second German fascism soon.
What the guck do you mean beating them?
Same for the Netherlands, the only reason the far right didn't win here is because they had a lower voting percentage compared to the left
What the fuck are you smoking?
Something with a high amount of copium (fuck, I need this stuff too)
Wtf are you talking about the fascists had a huge win this election and the liberals aren't even doing any handwringing they just pretend everythings fine and we can just vote them out in the next cycle.
!RemindMe 5 years
Netherlands has the most right wing government in decades
Not 100%sure on this but i believe the far right made massive gains in Greece too
I wish i was this optimistic. Half these countries are right af lol
With AUR and SOS there, Romania also didn't.
We really need to get our shit together and pull a Revolution again... Our political system is in need of a good slappin'...
Yeah, this was "funny" to see. Between those and the hilarious PSD/PNL alliance, these election results are a mess.
Thankfully it's not unrecoverable. They got a few more seats, but are still a relatively fringe party.
I'm heavily considering signing up as a member of Volt Romania. They weren't big enough to be on the ballot this year, but a lot can happen in 5 years.
It kinda feels like they did this to themselves in France at least. If they weren't so help bent on raising the ~~requirement~~ retirement age, people might've not flipped so hard. And of course it won't get fixed and they'll have other issues, but people don't often think that far ahead...
The two far-right parties in Portugal, the Iniciativa Liberal (American-style ultra-neoliberals) and the Chega (Fascists) were the only parties who grew their vote and Parliamentary representation, which together now adds to almost 20%
Further, if you add them to the AD cohalition (containing the center-right party and the traditionalist conservative one) who came second just a short way from the first placed, and even if you consider the winner a leftwing party (whilst they're supposedly center-left, their politics are "slightly socially-aware neoliberal", so them being left-of-center is open to dispute), AD plus the two far right parties still adds to a victory of the Right when last time around it was the Left that was ahead.
There is no way in Hell any of this shit can be seen as a victory from the point of view of the Leftwing unless "we didn't got trashed as much as we could" is a "victory".
The fight isn't over yet !
I hadn't been paying attention to the election results. My first reaction was a happy one at the meme. But then I read some comments and they are disputing it.
So what's the situation? How fascist is Europe now?