The BSW is neither left nor progressive. It’s a populist attempt to steal votes from both the left and the right with political views taken from both ends. And that might actually work out for them, because people looking to “protest vote” might view BSW as a less extreme alternative to AFD or a less left leaning Die Linke. Which is wrong in any case. Having the party leader name in the name of the party might give a hint on what this party is about.

We rescued this little guy from our chimney recently. With the help of an ornithologist who made sure the fellow is ok.

Thanks for your reply. I really appreciate it and I think you have some very valid points. To be perfectly honest, as a human being I am disappointed and angry about the official German state response to the ICC warrant, and the continued delivery of weapons to Israel too. And more personally, I went by a Palestinian protest camp in front of a local university yesterday and I must say I have the utmost respect and empathy towards these people freezing their asses off in tents in sub zero temperatures fighting for awareness of those war crimes.

Having said that, I think you are mixing up causes and effects. Let me try to explain and allow me to show you a different perspective on things, because the whole matter is way more complicated than it might seem, and while anger and hatred towards what is happening here might seem justified it only tells half of the story.

Ok, first some basic history facts (I’ll make this quick because you probably already know that)

• Nazi Germany killed about 6 Million Jews in the Holocaust, plus Germany caused WW2, which had an estimated death toll of 80 million people.
• After the war the Federal Republic of Germany (Bundesrepublik) was founded, and in the process vowed to never let that happen again. This vow is a central part of the foundation of the federal republic and staying committed to that vow is absolutely necessary to ensure the legitimacy of the German state. The severity and crushing weight of this fact is something that non-Germans or even younger Germans might find difficult to understand.

(Bear with me here, I haven’t even started yet - What is probably on your mind right now is that the very same thing Germany vowed to prevent is happening in Gaza right now, and they do nothing. I’ll address that)

So, having established the background it should be perfectly clear that Germany has a very heavy weight of responsibility towards the victims of their past crimes, and those victims we are talking about here are the Jewish people. And now is the part where it gets complicated.

As a person I am well capable of making a distinction between hatred towards the Jews (aka antisemitism, denying their right to live, denying the right of existence of the state of Israel…) and criticism of the israeli government. I personally have absolutely no problem calling Netanyahu and his right wing cronies war criminals and at the same time I am strictly positioned against antisemitism. These are very obviously two different things.

On the state/country level however, it’s not that easy. As a state government you have to take the official views of another state at face value. Which means you don’t have the luxury to differentiate between the state’s government and the people of that state, unless you publicly denounce the legitimacy of the government of that state. That’s basically how relations between all states work. And this is the culprit. Germany as a state, due to its history and aforementioned vow is not in the position to openly criticize the government of a country they have vowed to protect. Netanyahu on the other side knows this very well and uses Germany’s inability to act in his advantage whenever he can. For historic reasons, Germany needs to avoid being accused of antisemitism at all costs and Netanyahu uses this fact to play Germany like a puppet.

This isn’t limited to Germany by the way. If you look at what happened in Amsterdam, where violent israeli hooligans incited a riot, and the initial response by the dutch government was to solely blame antisemitic actions for the violence, it was basically the same mechanism at work. The Netherlands as a progressive democratic country with a shared history of atrocities towards the Jews can’t afford to be seen as allowing antisemitic hunts in their cities. Netanyahu and the dutch far right used this reflex to their advantage and it nearly lead to the collapse of the dutch government. In hindsight it became clear what really happened that night and even Amsterdam’s mayor had to row back and say that her choice of the word “pogrom” was wrong and so on. She was making it pretty clear that she felt played. But the damage was already done and the net result was in favor of the israeli government and the european far right.

Anyway. I promised to address German state attitudes towards Gaza. While the aforementioned vow to protect Jewish life has absolute precedence over other matters (as explained) the atrocities committed by Israel in Gaza and Lebanon are very visible in Germany and they are also constantly being reported in all news media, including the state-funded public broadcasting services. For everyone to see. Every day. Basically without much comment apart from when some UN or US person says something critical about Israel. There is absolutely no-one condoning or even justifying the war crimes against Palestinians (there is some bothsideism concerning Hamas violence though), and the way most of this is presented without much comment really stands for itself. The same goes for humanitarian initiatives towards Gaza including UN projects. They exist and a lot of people are actively trying to help, this includes officials across the political spectrum. But of course they keep a low profile, because they simply have no other choice.

To wrap this up. Germany is trapped inbetween its responsibility to Jews due to its history and a new reality of bad-faith actors in Israel. The fear of being wrongfully denounced as antisemites and the fear of actual antisemitism gaining traction in the population lead to some very questionable decision making in German politics, and to a seemingly one-sided news coverage. However I’d argue in most cases not evil intentions are the reason, but good intentions gone wrong. Like they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

I think the faces and the way they talk can be understood even without knowing German

interesting statement. Especially from someone who speaks german like you do. I’ve seen some of your comments in german speaking lemmys and I am pretty sure that you are actually informed about how german politics work. So you know that Olaf Scholz along with his party SPD and by extension the coalition is weak, indecisive and bland. This exactly is the reason why they make a statement that boils down to “we’re not deciding anything right now but we can’t imagine arresting Netanyahu”. They are simply cowards and not the evil genocide loving villains you want to portrait here. You should really know better than spreading this polarising divisive crap. I know it’s easy and fun and you’ll get your upvotes, but that doesn’t make it true

Not exactly. The ratifying countries are bound by contract to arrest them. Plus It’s a serious issue not to do it, because this would delegitimize the ICC as an institution, which is not in the interest of most ratifying countries. So it essentially boils down to a choice between losing the court as a valuable weapon against war criminals or bad relations with Israel.

What happens after an arrest is another matter and I think that is where the real pressure would happen

Chuck didn’t get the memo

This article takes some truthful statements and turns them into a hateful propaganda shitshow of epic proportions.

Not even the most right wing extremists in Germany have “an appetite for genocide in Gaza”. They have their own political agenda, which is to blame protesting local immigrants for antisemitic actions, in order to further their anti immigrant agenda. Their intentions have absolutely nothing to do with Gaza.

Secondly, the mentioned resolution (as bad as it is particularly because of the unhelpful definition of antisemitism in there) is nothing more than the german guilt reflex, triggered by recent events. It’s not even legally binding.

There is no support for the Gaza genocide among the people at all. Quite the contrary, accepting an obligation to protect Jews (which is good and necessary due to our history) and at the same time watching Israel’s fascist government committing war crimes in Gaza and Lebanon puts most of us in an extremely uncomfortable position.

I too find it appalling how the Israeli government can play Europe like a fiddle, and what happened in Amsterdam recently is a good example of Israeli influenc. But most of what this article states is simply untrue. The authors mental gymnastics kind of want to accomplish something along the lines of “all Germans are Nazis because they killed Jews and they are also Nazis because they support Jews now”. Yeah, fuck you too.

There’s a lot one can do. This is a nice starter:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/nov/17/how-to-survive-the-broligarchy-20-lessons-for-the-post-truth-world-donald-trump

I would have framed a few things differently, so here’s my take:

• The system thrives on fear and isolation of individuals. So, obviously, do not succumb to fear and apathy.

• Be kind to your fellow humans (that includes people who believe the bullshit! Most of them aren’t evil just very misguided).

• Offer help and look out for each other.

• Get organized, don’t isolate yourself hidden behind your phone. There are organizations in which you can help a good cause and gain a network of trusted people in return.

• Stay alert and aware of the situation.

• Don’t assume safety just because you think you’re not the target right now. They start with the weakest ones but that’s just the beginning.

• Plan ahead and have an escape plan ready just in case.

Micromoochies, Nanomoochies, Picomoochies? The possibilities are endless

Absolutely. The tendencies are visible all over the world and there will be grave consequences for all of us. However, there are differences. In Germany for example after the horrors of WW2 the political system was specifically designed to prevent something like this from happening again (ironically the creation of the german constitution was heavily influenced by the US). Which sounds like a good thing at first, but what happened in the last decade was basically this: The right wing parties became stronger at every election and as a result there were coalitions forged between opposing parties to prevent right wing parties from taking over power. And this in term lead to years of standstill in political decision making, dragging down the country, because opposing parties tend to block each others ideas. Which in turn made the right wing even stronger, because they now had someone to blame for the resulting mess. Germany and by extension Europe as well have a lot of bureaucracy, which on one side gives a bit of a shield against hostile takeovers, but has a downside of inefficiency in acting to protect democracy too. It’s not looking too good, but Trump’s habit of pissing off his allies might have a net positive effect of uniting people against this bullying and encouraging them to get their shit together. But I think it’s to early to tell. Could as well sway in the other direction and produce Trump bootlicking countries like you said.

About surveillance technologies, indeed the possibilities set our current situation apart from when Nazis came to power in the past. It’s absolutely crazy to witness how a commercial surveillance industry disguised as ad services (Google/Meta/…) created a monster that makes Orwell’s 1984 look like a children’s book, and most people still don’t even understand the implications in order to realize what they’re up against. From a european perspective, there is an upside in that at least for now the EU is actively trying to limit the power of those mega corporations. These processes however are chugging along at snail pace due to the aforementioned bureaucracy. Slow, but steady. Which is at least something.

Sorry for the lengthy reply. It’s such a broad topic and there are no easy answers.

It’s never as bad as the pessimists think it’s going to be

That depends on the timescale you are considering. Most of the people who would tell you otherwise because they were suffering in WW2 are dead by now. If you have spent your entire life in a comparatively stable and safe environment (like I did), you might assume that things can’t get that bad.

I think an assumption like that is dangerous, because it gives you a false sense of security

Hello. I’m from Germany and I have bad news for you. If our own history taught me anything, it’s this: When there is a critical mass of citizens (including military personnel) who are willing to ignore common societal values and at the same time there is a corrupt justice system which can just bend the law to their will, there is very little in the way to full scale fascism. You guys have the groundwork for this right in front of your face. Your supreme court is only inches away from fulfilling that role and the last election showed that a majority of people are already blindsided enough to wholeheartedly believe the bullshit that they are being fed.

So please don’t take this lightly. Democracy is not for granted and it can be taken away. It’s a slow process up to a point where things fall in place and then it happens very quickly. In Germany the rise of the Nazis didn’t happen over night. Warning signs were there from the first world war on, and the slow erosion of society along with economic factors was a key element. Hitler himself was widely regarded as a loud mouthed clown with little chance to actually accomplish anything.

The erosion part has been going on in the US for decades now. This time, most of the puzzle pieces needed are already in place.

And about the “they are incompetent, it won’t be that bad” argument. They don’t need competence to break things when they are in power. Breaking things is precisely what these people are looking for. Destruction of democratic values, economic instability, fear, poverty, chaos and social unrest are the key to more power. You just need to look at the designated cabinet positions. Those candidates were specifically chosen to fuck things up in the worst way imaginable. This is not a coincidence. This is a recipe taken right from the fascist’s handbook.

You’re misinformed and those generalisations are nothing but uneducated hatred. Muslims do not all share the same beliefs, in the same way that Christians have different types of beliefs (like catholic, protestant, Jehovah’s witnesses or the Ku Klux Klan) The people you are talking about are a relatively small subset of extremists, which exist in every religion, even in Buddhism.

Btw, I’m not defending any religion here. I’m not a religious person. It’s just stupid to label a world religion with 2 billion members as potential terrorists. Most of them are just ordinary people living their daily lives.

You are a victim of right wing propaganda if you forget that.

I’m gonna have to strongly disagree… I have all those health issues, and they keep getting worse, I can’t remember the last time I had sex, I’ve got a massive shiny forehead where hair used to be, and so on. But actually, I am better off today than I was in my 30s and 40s and this is basically due to one reason: I’ve stopped putting pressure on myself on fulfilling the life that I thought I needed to have. I’ve spent so much time trying to do the "right thing“, especially as a father, but it turned out that all my worries and all the effort I’ve put into doing the right thing were unhealthy for me and life had its own plans anyway.

I realized that the world doesn’t really care about what I do and that lead to the realization that I can do whatever the fuck I want. So now, the pressure is relieved and I’m trying to focus on things I enjoy doing instead of chasing some life plan. I still have depressive phases, but not caring so much about things that I deemed super important a few years ago has made things much easier. Also I found that people have no power over you if you let them know you don’t care. You don’t need to pretend to be happy to anyone. You can choose just not to play their game of toxic positivity and enjoy being your own grumpy old self. I definitely do.

I’ve recently seen some statistics about perceived happiness by age distribution. Turns out, it’s sort of an inverted bell curve. People in your age group are feeling significantly worse off because the more positive youth experiences are still quite fresh while you’re not ready yet to adequately deal with the downsides of adulthood. This is a kind of midlife crisis. The good news is: It will get better, statistically.

And a more personal note from someone suffering from intermediate depressed states: It might not really help you right now, but there is a soothing realization in that most of the burden you are feeling right now is only in your head. A different state of mind is possible, but you’ll have to work on it. The big foggy cloud surrounding your head is not THE reality but your current perception of reality and that can be changed. Sometimes it helps to just get a different perspective, and you’ll get to that if you try new things that look even mildly interesting. Get out of your so-called comfort zone (which isn’t that comfortable anyway as you know by now) and do little things every day that you haven’t done before. Even if the specific things you are trying out might turn out to be a failure, you’ll discover other interesting things along the way. A word of warning… Don’t let anyone guilt trip you, if you try new things. Your environment usually doesn’t want you to change and that can be a problem, because if you change yourself your environment has to deal with that change too. So make sure you find people who support you as a human being, instead of just supporting your role as a good parent, employee or debtor. Also check for yourself if all the things you feel obligated to do have to be done in the exact way you are doing them right now. Maybe there are some adjustments to be made to gain more personal freedom, to get regular breaks from the chore in your daily life.

Good Luck!

Could be snapless in a minimal install, but if you need Firefox, Chromium, Thunderbird or a bunch of other useful stuff they all come as a snap package

I’m in a similar situation. I’ve used Kubuntu (Ubuntu + KDE) for more than a decade now, and it has mostly worked beautifully. Over the years, memorable problems were a few issues with GPU drivers, GRUB shenanigans and the occasional amateurish KDE UX fuckup. But in general I found the whole experience much better than what I saw on Windows during the time.

However, for a while now Ubuntu is breaking my #1 rule of software products: Do not annoy your users. Every update they are trying to push (and fix) their useless Snap architecture a bit more, and every updates makes things effectively worse. Examples: displaying annoying popups to tell you that Snap app x needs to be updated and that the app has to be closed for that, but not updating it when closing the app, trying to fix that in the latest version by auto installing the latest snap with a popup and progress bar when closing the app (making me wait to turn off my computer till it’s finished - I just finished my work and want to go home please), numerous interoperability issues because snap apps run in some kind of sandbox and don’t play nice with regular (Debian and Linux) mechanisms, and so on. It’s an absolute shitshow, and I think they have now annoyed me, personally, long enough. I need to find something better.

Ah. I just needed that off my chest. Maybe I should give Mint a try

I think OP wants something that also minimizes the "set“ part. Arch is for enthusiasts who like to put a lot of effort into creating their own perfect Linux system. I’ve tried it once and to be perfectly honest I don‘t want to fiddle around with basic settings if there is no need to. I’m pretty busy with other things in my life and want stuff to work out of the box with sane defaults if possible. It’s essential that stuff can easily be customized afterwards though.

Arch is very good for people who want to invest time into learning what goes on under the hood. Perfectly valid use case, but probably not for OP.

Thank you kind stranger

As a non-native english speaker, I don’t know what “pegging” means and now I’m too afraid to look it up.