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That's not a lot, in a country of millions. We do much more in France, every year. And it's been showing diminishing returns, as the government realized it coul

That's not a lot, in a country of millions. We do much more in France, every year. And it's been showing diminishing returns, as the government realized it could just not listen, and nothing bad would happen. In fact, it's a drop in the sea, compared to the rising casual xenophobia I can notice with my German acquaintances, friends, and even family. Medias, general discussions, and overall atmosphere is not going in the direction of peace. The fact that they welcomed many African refugees in the last few years increased the tensions, and the Russian crisis made economy a big focus. As a result, there is a general feeling of unfairness which politics use to push a divisive narrative. Prices have gone up, which in most countries is visible, but quality has gone down, and in Germany, this is a sin. Everything is touched by this: transport, food, service... And when people are unhappy, you can sell them an enemy.

nicbou 3y ago
Nothing is a lot compared to France. It's a lot for Germany, especially without a huge catalysing event.
- leipert 3y ago
  There was a huge catalyzing event. A lot of high rank AfD party members met with known far-right/neo-nazi people in a „secret“ meeting: https://www.dw.com/en/germany-afd-disputes-remigration-investigative-report/a-67941758 https://www.dw.com/en/germany-afd-disputes-remigration-inves...
  - nicbou 3y ago
    I was thinking compared to a Russian invasion, the Israeli-Palestine conflict. For the first time, it feels like people are reacting to the implications and not just the results. But yeah, that's definitely the catalyst. What an awful bunch of people.
  - nvm0n2 3y ago
    "A lot" means 2, they weren't neo-Nazis, the CDU also had people there and the meeting was so secret that journalists turned up to it on the day it was happening.
- throwbadubadu 3y ago
  There was one, which you could call snarky the reincarnation of the Wannsee conference: https://correctiv.org/aktuelles/neue-rechte/2024/01/10/geheimplan-remigration-vertreibung-afd-rechtsextreme-november-treffen/ https://correctiv.org/aktuelles/neue-rechte/2024/01/10/gehei... But I am not sure why grand poster is downvoted so much. This is a significant and important sign of the liberal and democratic side.. still the frustration is huge and fear and anger is constantly rising.. humans are bad and egoist. Extremism as everywhere is not avoided with good people showing their good faith, unfortunately, the only thing that keeps it low is happy people without economic stress.. in that sense the world is bound for trouble in many places, as we already see it. Democratic protests are good, but in the end it is democracy and current politics that fail here, not the misguided humans, and the other side which shows up won't improve it much..
mschuster91 3y ago
> That's not a lot, in a country of millions. We do much more in France, every year. And it's been showing diminishing returns, as the government realized it could just not listen, and nothing bad would happen. You guys have a protest culture I'm pretty envious of. Meanwhile, here in Germany you can and will get arrested for wearing a bicycle helmet...
- wahnfrieden 3y ago
  What?
  - mschuster91 3y ago
    Yes, I'm not kidding, and the police in Munich is ridiculously strict on enforcing this [1]. [1] https://twitter.com/PolizeiMuenchen/status/1047784568034676736 https://twitter.com/PolizeiMuenchen/status/10477845680346767...
    - wahnfrieden 3y ago
      Geez. The German people are lost if their state ever turns full on fascist against their own.
- DeathArrow 3y ago
  >You guys have a protest culture I'm pretty envious of. I would be envious on a culture of innovation, building and getting things done.
  - patates 3y ago
    Yeah, that too, where is that?
  - BiteCode_dev 3y ago
    We actually do have all of those. French research is doing fine, and infrastructures are in a much better shape than in the US. Things keep being built, I can't spend a minute outside without seeing some giant machine running. We are incredibly productive given a 35 hours work week, so getting things done is also right there. Our problem is rather turning innovation into a business. Getting money for it. Taking risks. Instead, innovations and innovators emigrate to the US. Yann LeCun went to do AI in the US, he didn't stay in France.
google234123 3y ago
In a democracy, the people have a right to control immigration. Uncontrolled immigration has been very anti democratic and has angered people literally all over the world (you can find many examples). I’m tired of people thinking that just because they have some reflective empathy doesn’t make their policy choices better or morally superior. There are real negatives when it comes to it that many in the left pretend don’t exist
- smallnix 3y ago
  But that party is planning to remigrate people with the wrong blood. The plan is to take away their German passports, move them into northern African country and create laws to make their life's as hard as possible in a decade long project to remove the unassimilated with German passports. Source: https://correctiv.org/en/top-stories/2024/01/15/secret-plan-against-germany/ https://correctiv.org/en/top-stories/2024/01/15/secret-plan-...
- peterpost2 3y ago
  You dont know what they are demonstrating against.
- 15457345234 3y ago
  Yeah, that's the theory, but in practice, pretty much across all EU countries, for about 35+ years there was no party which you could vote for which both had a chance of being able to form a government and had an anti-immigration policy. For all intents and purposes immigration policy was not (and remains not) somthing that was under democratic influence. That's why so many conspiracy theories have sprung up around the subject.
  - BiteCode_dev 3y ago
    In France, constraining immigration is equaled to racism for many people. If you include it in your program, you will be compared to the far right, and a lot of voters will ignore you without checking anything you have to say.
aurareturn 3y ago
And when people are unhappy, you can sell them an enemy. In the US, the enemy being sold to the public is China. It's China this. China that. China is stealing your future. China is stealing our technology. Both parties are happy to throw China under the bus to win some votes and hide their deficiencies.
- pydry 3y ago
  It's ironic coz in the 90s they were condescendingly told they were shooting themselves in the foot by not having a "free market" and centrally planning. Now they're too successful and it's a threat.
- dooopdoop 3y ago
  [dead]
- CDRdude 3y ago
  There’s not just one enemy being sold to the public. We are a nation of consumers and we have varied taste. Other enemies include Democrats, elites, Russia, the trans agenda, Republicans, billionaires, immigrants, fascists, and antifa.
jhh 3y ago
I've never seen such a big protest. The transit system in Hamburg was completely overloaded. People standing around Alster lake, you couldn't even get close to the actual point where the protest was scheduled to happen. Those protests possibly may be ineffectual and what not - they certainly weren't small. Hamburg: https://image.stern.de/34382826/t/ud/v2/w960/r1.7778/-/19-hamburg--zehntausende-teilnehmer-bei-demo-gegen-rechts-6345197741112-1.jpg https://image.stern.de/34382826/t/ud/v2/w960/r1.7778/-/19-ha... Both Hamburg and Munich protests needed to be canceled in the middle of the thing because the huge crowds were considered dangerous (I think rightly so).
- rvense 3y ago
  I've seen the headlines "tens of thousands" in several places, but also estimates that 1.5 million people showed up.
Mashimo 3y ago
These have been large protests for Germany. No need to talk it down. Over the weekend about one million people demonstrated.
- BiteCode_dev 3y ago
  I didn't mean to come off that way. I wanted to convey that compared to the wave of discontent that is taking Germany by storm, it's at best step in the opposite direction. Germans are not known to be proud, but they are. And right now, a lot of them feel they don't get what they deserve. Protesting against people showing how unhappy they are is unlikely to bring the change we wish it would.
klmr 3y ago
> That's not a lot Indeed, that wouldn’t be a lot: the framing in the article is grossly misleading. The actual number of protesters this weekend was hundreds of thousands, and plausibly >1M (not “tens of thousands”), according to unanimous reporting in various German media and official sources (see e.g. https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/demos-gegen-rechts-bilanz-100.html https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/demos-gegen-rechts-bilanz-1...).

nicbou 3y ago

Nothing is a lot compared to France. It's a lot for Germany, especially without a huge catalysing event.

leipert 3y ago
There was a huge catalyzing event. A lot of high rank AfD party members met with known far-right/neo-nazi people in a „secret“ meeting: https://www.dw.com/en/germany-afd-disputes-remigration-investigative-report/a-67941758 https://www.dw.com/en/germany-afd-disputes-remigration-inves...
- nicbou 3y ago
  I was thinking compared to a Russian invasion, the Israeli-Palestine conflict. For the first time, it feels like people are reacting to the implications and not just the results. But yeah, that's definitely the catalyst. What an awful bunch of people.
- nvm0n2 3y ago
  "A lot" means 2, they weren't neo-Nazis, the CDU also had people there and the meeting was so secret that journalists turned up to it on the day it was happening.
throwbadubadu 3y ago
There was one, which you could call snarky the reincarnation of the Wannsee conference: https://correctiv.org/aktuelles/neue-rechte/2024/01/10/geheimplan-remigration-vertreibung-afd-rechtsextreme-november-treffen/ https://correctiv.org/aktuelles/neue-rechte/2024/01/10/gehei... But I am not sure why grand poster is downvoted so much. This is a significant and important sign of the liberal and democratic side.. still the frustration is huge and fear and anger is constantly rising.. humans are bad and egoist. Extremism as everywhere is not avoided with good people showing their good faith, unfortunately, the only thing that keeps it low is happy people without economic stress.. in that sense the world is bound for trouble in many places, as we already see it. Democratic protests are good, but in the end it is democracy and current politics that fail here, not the misguided humans, and the other side which shows up won't improve it much..

mschuster91 3y ago

> That's not a lot, in a country of millions. We do much more in France, every year. And it's been showing diminishing returns, as the government realized it could just not listen, and nothing bad would happen. You guys have a protest culture I'm pretty envious of. Meanwhile, here in Germany you can and will get arrested for wearing a bicycle helmet...

wahnfrieden 3y ago
What?
- mschuster91 3y ago
  Yes, I'm not kidding, and the police in Munich is ridiculously strict on enforcing this [1]. [1] https://twitter.com/PolizeiMuenchen/status/1047784568034676736 https://twitter.com/PolizeiMuenchen/status/10477845680346767...
  - wahnfrieden 3y ago
    Geez. The German people are lost if their state ever turns full on fascist against their own.
DeathArrow 3y ago
>You guys have a protest culture I'm pretty envious of. I would be envious on a culture of innovation, building and getting things done.
- patates 3y ago
  Yeah, that too, where is that?
- BiteCode_dev 3y ago
  We actually do have all of those. French research is doing fine, and infrastructures are in a much better shape than in the US. Things keep being built, I can't spend a minute outside without seeing some giant machine running. We are incredibly productive given a 35 hours work week, so getting things done is also right there. Our problem is rather turning innovation into a business. Getting money for it. Taking risks. Instead, innovations and innovators emigrate to the US. Yann LeCun went to do AI in the US, he didn't stay in France.

google234123 3y ago

In a democracy, the people have a right to control immigration. Uncontrolled immigration has been very anti democratic and has angered people literally all over the world (you can find many examples). I’m tired of people thinking that just because they have some reflective empathy doesn’t make their policy choices better or morally superior. There are real negatives when it comes to it that many in the left pretend don’t exist

smallnix 3y ago
But that party is planning to remigrate people with the wrong blood. The plan is to take away their German passports, move them into northern African country and create laws to make their life's as hard as possible in a decade long project to remove the unassimilated with German passports. Source: https://correctiv.org/en/top-stories/2024/01/15/secret-plan-against-germany/ https://correctiv.org/en/top-stories/2024/01/15/secret-plan-...
peterpost2 3y ago
You dont know what they are demonstrating against.
15457345234 3y ago
Yeah, that's the theory, but in practice, pretty much across all EU countries, for about 35+ years there was no party which you could vote for which both had a chance of being able to form a government and had an anti-immigration policy. For all intents and purposes immigration policy was not (and remains not) somthing that was under democratic influence. That's why so many conspiracy theories have sprung up around the subject.
- BiteCode_dev 3y ago
  In France, constraining immigration is equaled to racism for many people. If you include it in your program, you will be compared to the far right, and a lot of voters will ignore you without checking anything you have to say.

aurareturn 3y ago

And when people are unhappy, you can sell them an enemy. In the US, the enemy being sold to the public is China. It's China this. China that. China is stealing your future. China is stealing our technology. Both parties are happy to throw China under the bus to win some votes and hide their deficiencies.

pydry 3y ago
It's ironic coz in the 90s they were condescendingly told they were shooting themselves in the foot by not having a "free market" and centrally planning. Now they're too successful and it's a threat.
dooopdoop 3y ago
[dead]
CDRdude 3y ago
There’s not just one enemy being sold to the public. We are a nation of consumers and we have varied taste. Other enemies include Democrats, elites, Russia, the trans agenda, Republicans, billionaires, immigrants, fascists, and antifa.

jhh 3y ago

I've never seen such a big protest. The transit system in Hamburg was completely overloaded. People standing around Alster lake, you couldn't even get close to the actual point where the protest was scheduled to happen. Those protests possibly may be ineffectual and what not - they certainly weren't small. Hamburg: https://image.stern.de/34382826/t/ud/v2/w960/r1.7778/-/19-hamburg--zehntausende-teilnehmer-bei-demo-gegen-rechts-6345197741112-1.jpg https://image.stern.de/34382826/t/ud/v2/w960/r1.7778/-/19-ha... Both Hamburg and Munich protests needed to be canceled in the middle of the thing because the huge crowds were considered dangerous (I think rightly so).

rvense 3y ago
I've seen the headlines "tens of thousands" in several places, but also estimates that 1.5 million people showed up.

Mashimo 3y ago

These have been large protests for Germany. No need to talk it down. Over the weekend about one million people demonstrated.

BiteCode_dev 3y ago
I didn't mean to come off that way. I wanted to convey that compared to the wave of discontent that is taking Germany by storm, it's at best step in the opposite direction. Germans are not known to be proud, but they are. And right now, a lot of them feel they don't get what they deserve. Protesting against people showing how unhappy they are is unlikely to bring the change we wish it would.

klmr 3y ago

> That's not a lot Indeed, that wouldn’t be a lot: the framing in the article is grossly misleading. The actual number of protesters this weekend was hundreds of thousands, and plausibly >1M (not “tens of thousands”), according to unanimous reporting in various German media and official sources (see e.g. https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/demos-gegen-rechts-bilanz-100.html https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/demos-gegen-rechts-bilanz-1...).