1/ Okay, while the Trump verdict has been very riveting, I'd like to talk about failure states in democracies for a bit.
Any stable democracy needs peaceful transfers of power. If a ruling government loses in an election and thus loses power, they are free to moan about it - but in the end, they should leave office without violence because (unless they screwed up bigly) they realize that they will likely return to power one day. They are invested in the system, and do not want to overthrow the basic democratic order of their country - because it works for them.
Thus, a country needs multiple parties with an investment in democracy, who are willing to form a government - but who are also willing to leave peacefully. If this is not the case, then the democracy in question is in a failure state.
An good (or rather, very very bad) example of a "proportional representation" democracy in a failure state was the late Weimar Republic. Starting in 1932, the NSDAP (Nazis) and the KDP (Communists) received a majority of the vote and thus representatives. Both wanted to overthrow the Republic and its democracy in its own way, and thus it became impossible to form a democratic government - let alone switch between different ones. But the Weimar Republic had problems in this regard even earlier, since there were numerous miniscule parties with only a very small number of candidates. They only cared about a small number of issues, had no motivation to compromise, and thus were not willing to join a working government.
#Hamburg , #Berlin , #Köln and #Frankfurt ...I want to go to a concert to watch an act who is performing in these places next year because the UK is sold out. German folk and folk who have been to Germany, which places do you think is the best option? Pls help.
#France 's main #FarRight party said it will no longer sit in the #EU parliament with the #AfD faction, indicating it had lost patience with the controversies surrounding its German allies. The head of the AfD's list in the polls, Maximilian Krah, had said in a weekend interview with Italian newspaper La Repubblica that someone who had been a member of the SS was "not automatically a criminal". Pierre Benazet reports from Brussels. #Germany https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNnQcLVch6s #FarRight#Germany#France
Yesterday's Russian attack on the #Kharkiv region, which killed and injured people, destroyed a printing press and burned 50,000 books, shows that Russia is at war with humanity and all aspects of normal life.
Russian terrorists kill adults and children, destroy cities and villages, leaving scorched spots where normal life once was. Another day of Putin's genocide... 8 killed and dozens wounded in this atrack. Please, speak up for Ukrainians. They need our help. 🙏
Yesterday's Russian attack on the #Kharkiv region, which killed and injured people, destroyed a printing press and burned 50,000 books, shows that Russia is at war with humanity and all aspects of normal life. Russian terrorists kill adults and children, destroy cities and villages, leaving scorched spots where normal life once was. Another day 8 killed and dozens wounded in this atrack. Please, speak up for Ukrainians. They need our help. 🙏
Étrange sentiment en visitant l'Allemagne : où se cachent les agents de la Polizei ? Où sont les militaires qui patrouillent avec des armes de guerre ? Où sont les vigiles de sécurité privée devant toutes les entrées ?
La France serait donc bien un État Policier anxiogène ?
J'ai arpenté des heures durant la gare centrale de #Berlin, une des plus grosses d'Europe, pas un uniforme en vue.
Four young Germans beat The Ecke, the SPD's top candidate in elections for the European Parliament in Saxony, so badly in Dresden on May 3, that he had to be treated in the hospital for a broken cheekbone and eye socket. He had been out posting campaign posters. The shockwaves are still being felt, even as far away as Berlin.In an unusual step, Faeser called for a special meeting of state interior ministers last Tuesday evening at 6 p.m., where they discussed improving security measures for politicians.
The interior ministers didn't even have the chance to log in to their video conference when, at around 4:15 p.m., a man hit Berlin Senator for Economic Affairs Franziska Giffey (SPD) over the head with a blunt object that had been wrapped in a bag. She had been visiting a public library in Berlin's Neukölln district.
At 6:50 p.m., the ministers still hadn't logged out of their conversation when the Green Party politician Yvonne Mosler got attacked and spat upon while putting up posters in Dresden.
Is there any way of stopping all this?
There have been numerous attacks on politicians and volunteer election workers in recent days. Even the running camera of a Deutsche Welle film team that accompanied Mosler failed to deter the perpetrators. Society, it appears, has reached a new level of brutalization. Berlin politician Giffey has called it a "fair-game culture."
These are acts that are usually only in the headlines or public consciousness for a short amount of time. Taken together, though, they act like a corrosive solution: Drop by drop, act by act, they erode democratic structures. Will they corrode to the point that they threaten to collapse?
Two pro-Russian activists in #Germany, whose ties to the #Kremlin were revealed in a Reuters investigation last year, have left Germany and moved to #Russia the couple’s lawyer said in a statement on Monday.
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of #Ukraine in 2022, Elena #Kolbasnikova and her romantic partner Max #Schlund have been active in Germany, organising pro-Kremlin rallies to urge #Berlin to abandon its military support to #Kyiv.
The Bavarian capital of Munich has attracted surfers for decades, in spite of the fact that it's hundreds of miles from the coast. How? The Eisbach wave, which sits on the edge of the Eisbach river. TheWorld.org's Rebecca Rosman dove into how the wave was created, and what it's like to surf it.
#Lithuania will acquire Amber-1800 radars for the Ukrainian army with a detection range of up to 400 kilometers.
This was announced by Boris #Pistorius, German Defense Minister.
According to the German Minister of Defense, Lithuania will join the so-called Air Defense Coalition, which is aimed at strengthening Ukrainian air defense, and will provide 6 Amber-1800 radars.
Heftige Diskussionen um Pro-Palästina-Camp in Frankfurt (Tagesschau, 2024-05-23)
Pro-Palestine encampment in Goethe-University (#Frankfurt) continues, for the time-being, as the Administrative Court ruled it not to be banned.
The report tells that all the residents in the student-dormitories (one Catholic and one Evangelical/Protestant) received a postal instruction from the landlord forbidding any visitors out of the encampment in their dorm. And that on Sunday, namely a day before the protest camp was to start.
A small comfort is, at least one student resident was upset by such an attempt to violate personal rights.
The production of our ultra-portable workstation, the TUXEDO Pulse 14 - Gen4, starts today. If you have already ordered, there are only a few days left until your order arrives!
Polizeigewalt bei Räumung der HU: Journalist der Berliner Zeitung misshandelt, verletzt (Berliner Zeitung, 2024-05-24)
As the police forces cleared the occupation inside Humboldt University (#Berlin), "Ignacio Rosaslanda, a video journalist for the Berliner Zeitung who was covering the operation was beaten by an officer despite identifying himself, and said he was denied access to medical treatment for several hours."
Once a journalist get hurt by authorities, at least in #Germany, it can be very noisy. Look forward to the consequences... 😉
The German army plans to get 200,000 additional 155mm artillery shells worth about 880 million euros ($960 million) within its framework agreement with the defence firm #Rheinmetall. It had already agreed to a 1.2 billion euro deal for several hundred thousand shells, fuses and charges.
The new shells are meant to refill the army's depots as #Germany helps supply #Ukraine as it fights off the Russian military, which invaded in 2022.
#Ukraine's use of German and other Western-supplied weapons to strike targets in #Russia will not "contribute to escalation," German Chancellor Olaf #Scholz told the Antenne Bayern radio station.
#Berlin has long opposed lifting the ban on Ukraine's use of Western weapons to target Russia, but reversed course at the end of May amid growing calls from Western leaders to lift the restrictions.
I returned yesterday from #Munich. What a lovely city, it is beautiful and so many things to see. I wish to return some day and have the opportunity to have more time to explore it. So far, my favorite place in #germany
Crazy if you think about it. Afd , extreme right party in second place , in Germany. The country that experienced the NSDAP, Hitler etcetera #exitpoll#afd#germany