Sept. 30 (UPI) -- Elon Musk is under fire after publicly backing a far-right political party in Germany, suggesting the current government should not be re-elected over its position on the current migrant crisis in Europe.
This is absolutely wrong. He is the big fish in this Capitalist planet. But besides, the fact that he is supporting one of Germany’s legal and legitimate political parties in their ostensible democracy is absolutely not something that anyone anywhere should be afraid of doing.
The same would be true of any billionaire on earth. But since Governments exist to serve billionaires like musk, there is nothing he needs to worry about.
How is that? Is the AfD a Nazi party? Maybe you should let the Government of Germany know, since Nazi Parties are explicitly illegal there. Or maybe you should stop throwing around terms like “nazi” to mean “things you don’t like” unless you have something specifically actionable, that would get the party banned in Germany?
There actually are motions underway in pursuit of a party ban on those grounds, yes. It hasn’t been determined yet if their statements and objectives qualify, but there is widespread belief they do.
That’s certainly a unique perspective, lol. The most fundamental element of political success in Germany is to promise to keep everything as is, and maybe the current social issue voters care about. German voters are more than anything else afraid of actual change.
For the most part it is a bunch of centrist parties forming centrist coalitions with varying flavors of ideological coloring, doing not much but maintaining the status quo. Now that the economic system is increasingly failing for anyone but the rich that’s not working out for them anymore because they have been blurring together more and more over the last decades, and anyone unhappy couldn’t really find someone to vote for.
This now has given growth to the far right afd, which is still the same hyper capitalist bullshit but with a strong reactionary flavor, appealing to many conservatives and generally economically left behind people, as is happening everywhere else.
They are far right wing, and the AFD state division of Thüringen is considered extremist and is under surveillance of the Verfassungsschutz (domestic intelligence services). They have a lot of proven Nazis in their ranks and the party leadership does absolutely nothing against it.
So IMHO it’s safe to use the blanket term Nazis for the AFD, although they of course don’t see themselves as such.
They have a ton of Nazis in their party. Not even joking, you can call some of their top ranking members Nazis. And that has been decided by court order. It’s not slander because the courts agree that the term is fitting for some of those people. And honestly in my eyes the one that runs with Nazis is a Nazi.
In Italy, the Fratelli d’Italia (FdI) party is perfectly legitimate despite the constitution banning the PNF party from being created again. Despite FdI having roots in the MSI (Italian social movement), having a fascist symbol in their logo and some of the politicians participating in far right manifestations and declared Mussolini was a good leader, it’s complicated to define what fascist, neofascist and post-fascist is. They have traits of fascism but also not, e.g. this time they are allied with US and not against them.
We had many years of a Nazi partin Germany called NPD they were finally banned a few years ago, but obviously another party filled that spot. The AFD was far right wing but not extremist and got fast more votes than the NPD ever got. After internal fights they went more far right after they thrown out their founder. Now they are even more extreme right and you can consider them a Nazi party. Banning the party is currently under consideration.
He endorses a demonstrably bigoted right-authoritarian party - specifically for its attitudes toward minorities and foreign nationals. Their policy on immigration is “don’t.” Their stated goals involve mass deportation. They explicitly claim “the concept of multicultural society has failed” and “Islam does not belong in Germany.” Naturally they’re also big mad about women being equal and gay people existing. They were always extreme nationalists, and then a couple years ago their old leadership split off because their own party was starting to scare them, and as a direct result these German-nationalist Christian-supremacist anti-minority nutjobs got even more blatant.
They’re Nazis. He endorses Nazis. He is loudly and openly throwing in his lot, with Nazis.
No deep opinion required. It’s a fact. He did not admit to being a Nazi.
Feel free to step back and consider the impact you have when blatantly lying about what someone else said. Especially when it comes to one of the most horrific organizations in human history.
Especially when it comes to one of the most horrific organizations in human history.
Yeah, wouldn’t it be fucking awful if a modern political party stood for the same things as that organization? What kind of asshole would promote those bigots?
He thinks it's controversial to not let migrants (men, women and children) drown and die, and has no problem promoting a party which is full of nazi sympathizers.
He's a sociopath, a racist and a fascist.
And those likely aren't even his worst characteristics, given the stories of sexual assault, links to Epstein, and the fact his father married his own daughter.
Musk rat receives a lot of hate for things he deserves getting hate for, but people get so mad at him that they turn every single thing he says or does or thinks or has any association with into part of why he’s bad.
Give the dude hate for the shitty things he actually does.
I don’t think I want to let him off the hook with a metal disorder.
I won’t accept that he’s a sociopath until there’s an official diagnosis. Sociopaths deserve empathy and need treatment. Musk is just a reprehensible asshole.
(By the way @Hyperreality, I’m not arguing with you. I’m taking the word “sociopath” more literally than you intended. I know what you mean, and agree.)
The fact that this gets media coverage like it even remotely matters is madness. Will there be media coverage of my posts on the topic, since it’s suddenly world news when a private American citizen comments on what is happening in another country…
To be fair, this is a private American citizen with close enough ties to far right politicians he hosted the campaign launch of one, who’s whim personally controls a major space launch provider and a site that sets the terms of public conversation and normality for a terrifying large number of people, and ohh ya, in an economic system based around the idea that the person with the most capital gets to decide what to do , well he has the most capital.
Because it does matter, motherfucker has millions of people listening to him and a worldwide social media that he controls. Even if his opinions are trash, he amplifies and spreads this garbage, and gives a platform for the scum of the earth who wouldn’t have it otherwise.
This isn't Tom the small business accountant from rural Ohio commenting on Germany's immigration policy on a facebook post. It's someone who controls more money than the GDP of multiple entire countries, and who has already shown an interest in using his companies to influence geo-politics based on his opinions in the moment.
If anything, you should be concerned that a single individual can make choices about global politics without discussion or legal safety guards - which has historically caused some issues in the place that the AfD comes from.
He’s building a Tesla factory in Germany. So that might be why. Also it’s not just a right wing party, but the most extreme right wing party in Germany that isn’t forbidden yet.
i think he sees himself as the lord of a one person realm, who is not only welcome to live wherever he likes, but the place he chooses is lucky to have him as an occupant.. he also sees no limit on the power of this unique and exclusive realm.. he thinks he is inventing its limits as we speak..
he doesn't feel bound by the limits of any citizenship
so topics like immigration are just political buttons for him to press.. he may have an opinion, but that might not influence what he is saying.. he says typically fascist things because he believes the destabilization it causes will increase his power..
Can’t he be like…a test subject on how well a human can fare, given the basics of food, shelter, clothing and why not, a video game and some beer vs in an American prison, not Club Fed?
Musk is an unwelcome immigrant sucking off the teat of the American taxpayer and taking their jobs. I dont understand why we dont seize all his assets, retake our money from him and ship his ass back to Africa
According to an expert assessment from the German Institute for Human Rights that’s a hundred pages long, all the conditions for banning the AfD party are met. Talks about the urgent need to do so are being kicked off. If a party ban is seriously being considered, you know they are doing something wrong. Party bans in Germany are very difficult to achieve for obvious historical reasons. So far only two have been banned, one of them was the SRP, the follow-up party of the Nazi party.
Considering that recent polls show the AfD at ~30% in some states, I doubt banning it will work. The only reasons it’s gotten this big is abysmal politics by the current and former govt. I’m pretty sure banning it is only going to make things worse. And I am not at all convinced you can truly consider them ban worthy like actual Nazis, even though the current govt would very much like you to think this way.
Space travel isn’t profitable. That doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be done, of course, but the way it works is that pieces of shit like musk wedge themselves in the space and then like a leech start siphoning public funding from NASA just because idiot or senile senators would rather allocate more money to private industry then fund a public good. So SpaceX get’s subsidized, and NASA gets privatized.
Regarding the profitability - spaceflight isn’t profitable yet. Some companies are trying to do manufacturing and mining that could be profitable in the future, especially if launch costs keep dropping. Moving heavy industry off planet seems like a good goal to me. That’s also ignoring different imaging and communications companies that are doing alright.
Regarding privatization - NASA has contacted out services from their literal beginning in the Mercury program. Contracting out basic/boring launch makes sense to me and lets them focus on bigger ideas. I don’t really think SpaceX is “subsidized” vs winning contracts to deliver hardware and provide services, especially when you compare to their competition for programs like ISS commercial crew/cargo and Artemis human landing system, where their direct competitors (Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Blue Origin, etc) are more expensive.
My big gripe is that no one else has launch capacity right now, so SpaceX has no pressure to get cheaper and companies don’t have a choice. Ariane 5 retired, Atlas V is booked out, and Vulcan, Ariane 6, New Glenn, Neutron, Terran R, etc. are not flying yet.
Russia, China and the Republicans have been propping European far right parties for the past x decades, and now the recessions and the wars are generating easy support for the populists
Russia and China don’t have to do shit when Europe’s greatest ally is as right-wing as it it’s been. In fact, there’s even a group for this: the International Democrat Union.
Would the Russia and China far right connections and actions then be happenstance in that hypothesis scenario and how could they be explained to be unrelated?
Russia and China are irrelevant because their interests in Western economies are tertiary at best: it neither affects them ideologically nor economically.
Whether Western governments buy Russian oil is entirely independent of what government it is. Whether Western governments buy Chinese manufactured products is entirely independent of what government it is. There’s this puffed up sense of Western self-importance that doesn’t really exist: Russia and China both see that the future of global economic growth will be in the Global South and are allocating resources appropriately.
In contrast, the International Democratic Union (and similar organizations) have a strong ideological reason for backing right-wing parties and a stronger personal reason to do so: it nets them more funding from corrupt corporations looking for tax breaks and decreased regulation.
There’s this puffed up sense of Western self-importance that doesn’t really exist: Russia and China both see that the future of global economic growth will be in the Global South and are allocating resources appropriately.
In addition to each northern superpower abusing the hemisphere, they do fight for influence between the northern smaller ones – the aforementioned propping of accelerationist and/or reactionary movements being one way amoug the trade ones you focused on.
IDU is a good example, while it seems to be just one path to the efforts
What’s the purpose of US/China/Russia influencing others? Destabilization, dependancies, just to gain power for immediate or later use purposes? It’s a mighty big question that’d summarize the whole history of geopolitics. Always been happening in different forms I guess.
That’s like asking sources for everything that has happened ever. I said you already converted with your secret proof. We don’t need to consider what the world knows — or thought they knew, you’re convincing enough
USA, Ukraine, Israel, Italy and certain NATO countries have been propping up far right culture across the world. Russia and China are just boogeymen for useful idiots to scream about.
Far right factions in USA support Russia only because of the anti-LGBT social alignment, and not because Russia’s politics is far right. Russia is pretty much in alignment with socialist goals geopolitically and inside their country on the social axis (ban on Nazi elements).
Yes, seems that they’re taking it very seriously and not just calling shit they don’t like “Nazi”. Considering this is the country that cheers on the Wagner-group, a neonazi extremist mercenary group led by open fascists and literally named after Hitler’s favourite composer (as stated by Wagner’s founder), I’m sure that they’re taking the fight against Nazism very seriously and won’t ever abuse it for propaganda reasons.
Italy and Ukraine are on the receiving side of the propping. Israel is a good mention but probably a lesser participant than the big three (the US does most of the dirty work for them).
In addition to supporting culturally reactionary and discriminatory governments, the far right fawns over the totalitarian strong-man geopolitics.
And as it is known, it’s convenient for Russia to build fascist-aligned support in their targets to have a casus belli for their internal audience. All while following fascist doctrines themselves
Ukraine literally has a far right Nazi government and far right Nazi troops. Zelensky worships and salutes historical Nazi people both in Ukraine and recently with Canada in UN. Italy elected a neofascist party in power. They are on the giver side, not receiver side.
Russia’s goals are in line with USSR, which, if history serves me correctly, was the opposite of fascist. You are spreading an obvious agenda that flips history.
And what was the path which made that possible in Ukraine and Italy? They didn’t fall to fascist populists while being a power which strengthens fascist populists globally. It’s hard to see what kind of 4D chess would make Ukraine create fascist minded separatists to be conquered and then fight them with neonazi militia.
The USSR was quite aligned with their own take on fascism. That’s history.
And what was the path which made that possible in Ukraine and Italy? They didn’t fall to fascist populists
Italy elected a neofascist girlboss as PM themselves.
As for Ukraine, refer to the leaked call between Victoria Nuland and Geoffrey Pyatt. You will know how democratic and sovereign USA wanted Ukraine to be.
I don’t think there’s any question if the USA is influencing Ukraine?
I tried to say earlier that the neofascists and its support in Italy didn’t come from nowhere organically. And that support leads to gaining power through elections (I guess as opposed to a coup or whatever?) as nations with elections do
How would the Warsaw Pact be an excuse for being a christofascist totalitarian state that imprisons “others”, kills political opponents, and invades other countries and steals their children?
If you think Putin is an orthodox Christian fashie, wait till you meet Joe Biden, Donald Trump, Justin Trudeau and most western governments’ heads that actually sleep in bed with church. Putin and Russia do not exactly work the way christofascist western totalitarian dictatorships, with a “neoliberal democracy” mask, do.
Also, are you describing Russia, or USA? You know, latter country rapes children in ICE camps and repigments the skin of black people, and conducts hysterectomies on women en masse. Also Catholic priests with state power get to kiddy diddle children with no consequences. In Russia, that would end up in either a mob murder or a death sentence.
True but not the discussion being had here. Stay on topic.
Also, stop holding Chomsky up as an authority on anything. He is a linguistics professor; nothing more…unless you count just being a leftist Alex Jones, presenting his opinion as fact and selling scripted interviews with himself as “documentaries”
The fact that US has been committing atrocities on the global scale for at least a century is crucial context for evaluating behavior of other countries Nothing Russia has done even begins to compare to the behavior US regularly exhibits. Countries have to be held to the same moral standard, and until the west starts accounting for its own crimes it is in no position to play world police or judge other countries.
Meanwhile, Chomsky is an accomplished political scientists with many published academic works on the subject. Dismissing hims as a linguistics professor shows profound lack of intellectual honesty on your part. And of course, nobody is asking you to take what he says as fact based on him saying it. The article makes a case that stands on its own merit, which you’d quickly realize if you bothered reading it.
So you/re now admitting that you’re intentionally mischaracterizing Chomsky’s area of expertise then. Then you proceed to straw man about excusing something. What was said to you is that the west has to hold itself to the same moral standard that it aims to hold others to. Until people in the west can fix their own broken society they have no business running around judging others. It’s absolutely incredible that you can’t comprehend this.
So what you’re saying is let The invasion continue without any resistance whatsoever because “no u!”. It’s absolutely incredible that you can’t comprehend this.
All Russia had to do was stay behind their border. It really was just that simple. Nothing more complicated than that. Super easy… barely an inconvenience. So easy even a caveman could do it.
Maybe the bluefaced MAGAt footstomping about “Biden’s war” would be acceptable if those same fucking assholes didnt spend twenty years calling us all traitors for objecting to an obviously fake war in Iraq and Afghanistan.
All NATO had to do was to not keep expanding east the way NATO promised to do when USSR dissolved. Nothing more complicated than that. Super easy… barely an inconvenience. So easy even a caveman could do it.
Even Stoltenberg openly admits that NATO expansion was what caused the war:
Your shithole country wanting to be the world hegemon is why the war is happening. The war will end once your deplorable regime decides to abandon Ukraine like a used condom, and we’re already seeing signs that this is happening. You fuckers used the people of Ukraine in an idiotic ploy to try and weaken Russia somehow. This scheme was even openly explained by RAND in this paper. Now we see the consequences of that.
NATO expansion started long before Putin got into power buddy, with NATO was invading countries like Yugoslavia. I wonder why Russia would see it as a threat. You just keep on making excuses there for your deplorable empire.
Btw, read your Chomsky article. It is exactly what I said he is: a guy posting opinions without any purpose or context for the sake of hearing himself speak …a leftist Alex Jones.
You actually think this makes a point of some kind? Putin oppresses political movements; he absolutely supports the ideology of them, just not in opposition to his authority.
Wow. Imagine holding up a christofascist oppressor as a beacon of hope and freedom 😂😂😂😂😂
Unlike Zelensky, Putin has not banned all opposition political parties. Tells you who behaves like NSDAP in 2023. If you think Putin is an orthodox Christian fashie, wait till you meet Joe Biden, Donald Trump, Justin Trudeau and most western governments’ heads that actually sleep in bed with church. Putin and Russia do not exactly work the way christofascist western totalitarian dictatorships, with a “neoliberal democracy” mask, do.
Are you telling me that Putin has not banned Pro Ukrainian sentiment? Do you really not understand why zelinsky has been Pro-russian parties? You people are utterly incapable of rational thought, aren’t you?
Banning pro Ukrainian/Nazi sentiment is morally correct besides being a national security concern. NATO wants Russia balkanised, not Ukraine. Ukraine is just a condom for NATO to fuck with Russia.
What actually resulted in far right becoming a serious force in Europe was the economic war with Russia. These parties have been fringe for decades, and now they’re polling high in most European countries.
The right took a stance against the war from the very start, while the left shat the bed by siding with the liberals. Now that support for the war is collapsing people are moving to the right.
It’s the final straw (at this moment in time) yes for a situation which has been brewed for a much longer time
Saw your edit
The right took a stance against the war from the very start
This relates more to the moderate right. The far right was openly supporting Russia and against sanctions even after the Crimean invasion. Only after 2022 mobilization they’ve started to hide this
As the economy is once again in shambles thanks to how capitalism works, the voters are easy pickings for those with empty promises
The hardships that the working class is suffering are direct result of the policies basically all governments in the world have pursued over the past four (or even more?) decades.
And thus the landscape to gain support for reactionaries is ripe for picking.
Europe isn’t alone. Capitalism slowly races wages down, the North America Trump play bolstered manipulating voters in places where voting is even possible, and then there’s the places where elections have been a bigger sham already.
Sure, the solution to the problem is to move away from the capitalism system and the exploitation inherent in it. There seems to be no real progress in that direction, and instead we’re seeing a shift to the right and fascism.
In 2022, it was ruled that the BfV may classify and monitor the entire party as a suspected right-wing extremist group. A corresponding lawsuit by the AfD was dismissed because “there were sufficient factual indications of anti-constitutional efforts within the AfD”.[36] On 26 April 2023, the BfV, after four years of investigations into the Young Alternative for Germany, categorized that group as a confirmed extremist organization. This allowed the chief of the BfV Thomas Haldenwang to place the youth wing under even more intensive surveillance than the tapping of phone and the use of undercover agents that had been the case until then.[45][46]
Just summarizing here. They are right wing extremists that have taken over old Nazi talking points and are gaining popularity with anti immigration, anti climate change and populist propaganda.
They’re also famous for very much being “blind on the right eye”. They didn’t ban the neonazi party “NPD” (for reference: the original Nazi party was the NSDAP) and their last ex boss (Hans-Georg Maaßen) is a far right conspiracy nut.
They’ve partially come around apparently as they’re now watching the AfD (which is far stronger than the NPD ever was) as well as Maaßen.
BfV cannot ban parties. Only the highest court (Bundesverfassungsgericht) can. The only reason they did not do it was because the NPD has too little meaning to be a thread to the German constitution.
AfD is mostly populism. Apart from immigration they hardly agree on anything and have a lot of internal conflict about what the stance of the party should be.
The current situation is that the established parties (and especially the media) don’t engage much in discussion with AfD and just call them nazis, which divides the country. Admitting publicly that you vote for them will also get you thrown into the corner of people everyone calls nazis.
It is not just populism. The party is full of racists and homophobes. A member in my area even admits to believing in the great reset, which is an ultra right and anti-semitic conspiracy theory.
The AfD is a cesspool of dyed in the wool Nazis. What their official positions are is entirely irrelevant to that. And yes, if you admit to voting for them, people will think you’re a Nazi.
I rarely agree with Musk but he is on point with this issue. You leftist are too naive and you’ll eventually ruin Europe with your overly soft approach on immigration policy. Just look at how broken Sweden is now because of this.
You don’t need to live in Sweden to be aware of the significant issues they’re having with gang violence and it’s not native Swedes these gangs are made of. I live in Finland and Yle, which is the Finnish equivalence of BBC makes news about this weekly and they’re by no means a site known to spread right wing propaganda so I don’t see a reason to assume any bias there.
You’re right. It’s probably all just lies and right wing propaganda and there’s no real issues with immigrants there what so ever. I mean if the news says something I don’t like it must be false, right?
Even if we are selective with the news sources, it doesn’t change the fact that the majority of violence were made by immigrant gangs. Actually I’m more towards the left where I am currently resides, but that doesn’t stop me from seeing this fact. And I’m an ex-muslim too, so I do have a pretty good idea on how those middle eastern and north african muslim immigrants think. I don’t see any problem with other non-muslim immigrants.
Do you know why gangs form? It’s much closer related to poverty and other systemic issues, than who the people themselves are. Being a gangster is not something that’s in your genes, it’s formed from environmental factors. Gangs come into existence because the system fails them, and they fall through the cracks.
When someone immigrates its likely due to a strong need to do so. And if you’re new to a country, you won’t know anyone, or have a solid grasp on the language, have little money, and likely struggle to find a job. These are the factors that cause criminal activity. They require active intervention to handle. And, very coincidentally, Sweden has been defunding or privatizing a lot of its public welfare state in recent times.
For example, someone being lonely and unable to find a job is a prime target for bad stuff. This is the target demographic of the alt-right pipeline, for example. Which also, by the way, very much is a thing that operates on non-immigrants too, it’s just that they tend to go through politics, removing the rights of others, bigotry in politics, or move towards a police state.
It’s short sighted to look at these problems as some individual failings, instead of the systemic issues that they are.
Okay, do you see any gang violence by other asian immigrants? You can say all the things that may contribute to why they join gangs, but the fact is already in front of your eyes. Are you saying other asian immigrants receives better treatments than those middle eastern and north african muslim immigrants? I can only see how their ideology and mindset that runs around in the family that set them apart from other immigrants. Ideology is something you cannot change easily. And you’re importing dangerous ideologies into Europe without much restrain. That’s what you’re doing now and that’s why I call you European naive.
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