Very concerning. But it shows that governments are triggered and hit at a vulnerable spot by these protests. They know that it is very hard for them to please the activists and pass sufficient climate legislation in the short term, so it is apparent that protests will continue and even increase. Also they don't want to appear "weak" by giving in (which is completely stupid of course). So with these harsh sentences, they show us that they are afraid and want to stop these protests before they get too large
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The glueing on streets, throwing stuff on glass covered paintings and so forth are mainly meant as recruitment tools. The media loves to cover that, as they can be displayed as annoying protestors, but they also do not seriously disrupt the status quo. The terrorist comparisons then turn some more moderate activists more radical, which these organizations then can recruite.
However they then target fossil fuel infrastructure. Just Stop Oil did shut down oil refineries, there have been protests shuting down German lignite plants, in Australia they managed to disrupt a coal port for week and there are many other examples. This hurts fossil fuel companies in the bank account, which is their weak point. So they absolutly hate them.
these are hardly recruitment tools. Nonviolent protests have been targeting lignite mines long before and had more supporters than people glueing themselves to the street.
It is the other way around in terms of "radicalization" although thos term is hardly fitting as demanding the government to uphold its own laws and international commitments can hardly be radical. Meanwhile the governments radicalized extremely, both in their language and now in their often criminal infringement of the protestors rights.
Hurt profits is the only language rich daddies speak...
So once people start using this effective tactic, expect violence performs by the state on rich daddies' behavior.
People have hard time understanding is that most law enforcement is actually an occupation force.
Threats to Germany’s climate campaigners fuelled by politicians’ rhetoric, says activist
Senior politicians in Germany have compared Last Generation, a nonviolent protest group that has blockaded motorways and thrown paint on glass-covered artworks, to terrorist organisations such as the Red Army Faction, a far-left group that killed dozens of people in the 1970s and 80s. Earlier this year, in tweets that have since been deleted, politicians from the centre-left and centre-right parties drew links between Last Generation and the Taliban.
The chancellor, Olaf Scholz, who has described the protests as “completely idiotic”, appeared to compare climate activists to Nazis last year after two people disrupted a panel at which he was speaking in Stuttgart. “Let me say frankly, these black-clad spectacles at different events, always by the same people, remind me of a time that lies long in the past – and thank God for that,” he said, to loud applause.
the German center left and center right parties are both proto fascist. The center left party SPD of chancellor Scholz is spearheading autocratic policies like total surveillance. The former minister of justice from the SPD wanted to pass a law that forces websites to save passwords in clear text, so police could access any accounts quickly and without notice to the surveilled person. Of course this would also allow police to stage entire crimes and blame it on the people whose accounts theyd take over.
The center right party CDU is trying to help the fascist AfD into power, by taking over their talking points, fabricating a migration crisis and spread disinformation such as the refugees getting new teeth while Germans wouldnt get dentist appointments. They also target scientists in particular climate scientist and try to undermine the trust in research and evidence, as it contradicts their shortsighted economic and social demands.
Centrists nowadays seem to be just like the "moderate right": fascists in denial.
Add that to the far left party in large parts having similar positions as the far right, no wonder Fascists are on the rise. They get support from almost everyone except the Greens and the Pirate Party.
Mind giving us an example of this, or should we just assume this is the classic centrist horseshoe bullshit?
[Context: Wagenknecht is a prominent politician of The Left party]
While I could give examples, this piece of satire should contain more than enough context.
Said women in that article is also very concerned about the trans lobby, which is totally not a right-wing boogeyman.
Let's play a game, shall we? Here's a few quotes and you should guess whether it's made by a fascist or by Wagenknecht. In each topic one is made by her, the other by the fascists:
Identity politics:
Identity politics amounts to focusing attention on ever smaller and ever more bizarre minorities, each of which finds its identity in some quirk by which it differs from the majority society and from which it derives the claim of being a victim.
Quote by:
Sarah Wagenknecht
The case of the job advertisement of a student anti-discrimination office in Berlin, which asks white people not to apply, shows the whole madness of left-wing identity politics.
Quote by:
Fascist party
The Green party and their politics:
Today, prosperity and nature are massively endangered by a Green policy to which all established parties have indiscriminately subscribed.
Quote by:
Fascist party
The Greens are damaging our industry and the prosperity of millions with their so-called climate policy, which does nothing for the climate.
Quote by:
Sarah Wagenknecht
On climate gluers protesting climate change:
And even more so, I reject the presumption of wanting to parent people. The climate gluers probably really believe that the world will end tomorrow if Germany does not save it by radically renouncing prosperity.
Quote by:
Sarah Wagenknecht
Due to increased prices and the threat of insolvencies, many employees are already on the edge of their existence anyway. Many simply cannot afford to be prevented from arriving at work on time by privileged full-time activists.
Quote by:
Fascist party
A revision to the 1980s "transsexual law", lowering the hurdles to change your gender.
The ideological background of the law is precisely to deny gender as a biological fact and to make it a matter of state of mind.
Quote by:
Sarah Wagenknecht
Ignoring cautionary voices, for example, that such a law would encourage criminal concealment of identity, the federal government is once again not only elevating itself above scientific facts, but is once again going against the Basic Law.
Quote by:
Fascist party
Immigration:
Mrs. Merkel's decision in 2015 opened the way to Germany mainly for young men. Real help would instead focus primarily on women, children, the elderly, the weak and the poorest. But they can't pay traffickers and can't survive a long flight.
Quote by:
Sarah Wagenknecht
The asylum seekers and illegal immigrants who flocked to Germany in even greater numbers because of Merkel's invitation have also been disappointed: To this day, the vast majority have no jobs. Instead, they are a massive burden on our social systems.
Quote by:
Fascist party
Sources:
- https://www.afd.de/joerg-meuthen-fuenf-jahre-wir-schaffen-das-merkels-zerstoererische-bilanz/
- https://afdbundestag.de/gauland-linker-identitaetspolitik-entgegentreten/
- https://m.focus.de/politik/deutschland/linkspartei-fraktionschefin-im-interview-sahra-wagenknecht-offene-grenzen-fuer-alle-das-ist-weltfremd_id_8442307.html
- https://www.nzz.ch/international/sahra-wagenknecht-im-interview-afd-parteigruendung-und-ukraine-krieg-ld.1754898
- https://www.queer.de/detail.php?article_id=45758
- https://www.afd-mainz.de/afd-verurteilt-klimakleber-blockaden/
- https://www.afd.de/alice-weidel-selbstbestimmungsgesetz-entmuendigt-eltern-afd-prueft-verfassungsrechtliche-schritte/
- https://www.evangelisch.de/blogs/kreuz-queer/186108/12-05-2021 [side note: wtf how are Protestants more accepting of LGBTQ people]
I think that's it, I'm unsure though.
Huh, I'm honestly surprised that this turned out to not be yet another bullshit claim about how "both sides are the same". How the hell does she even claim to be leftist with those opinions?
Note: I am absolutely not an expert in her views. I have not read any of the books she published nor do I watch every single talk show she attends.
In one of the articles I linked, she mentioned this:
Of course, in democracy you have to bow to majority decisions in the end - but if a majority gets the feeling between elections that what moves and burdens them is no longer taken into account at all in politics, then that contradicts democratic principles.
While this quote in itself seems innocent I think it reveals a great deal about her in combination with her other views. My theory is:
She is a populist and does not care enough about minorities if they can be abused by populist fearmongering.
Very often the fears of the majority are unsupported by reality. For example, the people in German states with the least amount of immigrants are the most concerned about immigration. Women who never visit's saunas are awfully concerned about trans women in women's only saunas.
There's no doubt she has socialist views (even though her secondary incomes exceed those of any other politician). But she takes no issue in combining her views with populist or nationalist rhetoric (like some sort of national socialism ;).
Had she been around in the 1920s, I don't doubt she would've been in the Communist Party. Simultaneously though, she would've likely been a ravaging antisemite since blaming Jews for - well, anything really - was quite popular in Germany at that time.
Her leftism seems to be about socialism only. A socialist country where minorities are hunted down is preferable to a capitalist one where they have equal rights, it seems.
Yeah, based on the quotes you provided she does seem like a populist. Reminiscent of Slovakia's Smer, actually; economically leftist (at least nominally, I don't know about her or Die Linke's actual policies) but otherwise completely indistinguishable from extremist right wing parties.
As I said in another comment, as a Finn who votes for our version of Die Linke – Vasemmistoliitto aka. Left Alliance – I'm extremely glad they haven't gone down the populist road. Probably also why they don't get so many voters nowadays, not enough hate for minorities and no support for literal imperialism happening next door.
Thanks for putting this together! Though with some pride, I can say I only got 1 wrong, the one about trans. Still hard enough; point granted.
Love for Putin would be one. As long as Die Linke is keeping Wagenknecht, they have to endure comparisons like that. And I say that as someone who voted for them the last election.
Pro-Putin / Russia leftists are a deeply idiotic phenomenon. As another voter for the left here in Finland I'm glad our version of Die Linke is actually leftist and doesn't support blatant imperialism
Well, in Germany we have a saying "Wessen Brot ich esse, dessen Lied ich sing". Basically, I will support the story of whoever pays my bills.
Ha, we have the exact same saying here when literally translated: "kenen leipää syöt, sen lauluja laulat" or "you sing the songs of the one whose bread you're eating". We probably got it from you folks, we've got a lot of phrases that were borrowed from German.
How to antagonize and radicalize peaceful protestors 101. If I didn't know better (that Scholz doesn't understand how people work), I would say he was trying to get people to start putting bombs under SUVs.
in the UK I cannot wait until we're able to vote out the Tories and especially rishi sunak who we never voted in the first place. Any party would be better than them at this point.
Reminder for the UK people we are not America you don't vote for a PM you vote for a local MP so remember kids don't vote Tory even if you like the one who knocked on your door that time :D
"I can't wait to vote for a local labour MP who will represent my interests because I like and trust them as a person, I like the pledges they are making and their intentions of they are pretty of a government, and I would like them to help get enough MPs for Kier Starmer to form a government." is what the poster should have said.
The Tories capturing the red wall was because of people voting for Boris / against Corbyn (which Boris claims was solely a vote for Brexit). Because of that a ridiculous number of incredibly low quality candidates got into Parliament. Our representatives need to represent us, not just be a colored dot on a map showing a majority for one party or the other.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Human rights experts and campaigners have warned against an intensifying crackdown on climate protests across Europe, as Guardian research found countries across the continent using repressive measures to silence activists.
Catrinel Motoc, the organisation’s senior campaigner on civil space and right to protest in Europe, said: “People all around the world are bravely raising their voices to call for urgent actions on the climate crisis but many face dire consequences for their peaceful activism.
Les Soulévements de la Terre, a collective of local environmental campaigns, had staged a series of protests, with tactics including sabotage, that ended with violent confrontations with police, and Darmanin denouncing the activists as “far left” and “ecoterrorists”.
The Digos police unit, which specialises in counter-terrorism, in April justified the use of anti-Mafia laws to target the group by saying its civil disobedience actions had not taken place spontaneously, but were organised, discussed and weighed up by an internal hierarchy.
“These one-off bans, of which there are very few in absolute terms, are not imposed because of the reason for the demonstration.”The Italian interior ministry referred to a statement from the culture minister Gennaro Sangiuliano in April, who said attacks on monuments cause economic damage to the community that is is expensive to clean up.
The Bavarian interior ministry referred the Guardian to the public prosecutor’s office in Munich, which provided a statement from June in which it confirmed it had authorised the tapping of phones for six of seven Last Generation members under criminal investigation.
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