this post was submitted on 09 Feb 2025
929 points (99.5% liked)

World News

40543 readers
2969 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News [email protected]

Politics [email protected]

World Politics [email protected]


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Summary

Over 200,000 people marched in Munich against the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, with organizers claiming 320,000 participants.

The protests, held under the slogan “democracy needs you,” warned against any party collaborating with the AfD, particularly the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), ahead of legislative elections.

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Meanwhile in the US news outlets are alergic to broadcasting on protests.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 hours ago

Their business is more important than integrity, and they've seen that the president will attack anyone who tries to get in his way.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Aren't the AfD only doing well in parts of East Germany, which had previously been under decades of Soviet rule?

This would be a more substantial counter-protest if it occurred in Leipzig or Dresden.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 23 hours ago

To claim that "Nazis are only relevant in the ex-GDPR" is part of what gave us this mess. Yes the AfD as a Party and other Fascist organizing still benefit from a lot of factors stemming from the History but fascist have a foothold and are gaining ground in the whole of Germany, as well as all other partys trolling to the right in "response" to the AfDs popularity. Friedrich Merz's latest escapades are just a new lowlight in the "mainstream" Partys attempt of claiming they can deport better.

So no I would say protest is substantial in every part of the country and 300000 people taking to the street in one Major city is nothing to sneeze at. (There are protest happing all over the country by the way).

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 day ago

They poll between 11 and 18% in bavaria from what I found. They're doing best in the east, but unfortunately the entire country has a significant part of the population voting for them.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 19 hours ago

It's young men voting for AfD, also in East Germany, i.e. unrelated to presence of "soviet rule" (DDR was an independent state, not part of the USSR). It's precisely the people being educated in the contemporary glorious western democracy that are turning to fascism, unsurprisingly not the ones who were drilled with antifascism since they were kids in the Freie Deutsche Jugend.

The rise of the far right is taking place all over western Europe and more so in the US, which currently has people in office doing the Sieg Heil and was, until last month, funding a genocide in an apartheid state. Blaming any of this on the Soviets (who actually defeated Nazism at tremendous cost) is ahistorical bullshit.

[–] [email protected] 57 points 1 day ago (1 children)

A big thank you to every single person who showed up.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 day ago

It has been a pleasure

[–] [email protected] 87 points 2 days ago (2 children)

That's a whole lot of people. Good on them!

[–] [email protected] 43 points 2 days ago (6 children)

America needs to learn from Germany. This example. Not the other one. We are currently FAFO on that one.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

I agree. We won't see a huge response until people start getting hit by high prices for most things and they see items missing at their grocery stores. My guess is May/June - especially when the temperatures warm up across the U.S..

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago

Came here to say the same thing. Time for Americans to step up and step out.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 2 days ago (2 children)

They have an economic system where they can take days off without losing their homes.

We don't. It's part of the plan. Can't have mass protests when you're about to lose the roof over your head.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 day ago (1 children)

You can't take days off for protests in Germany either.

Which is why protests are almost always held on the weekend to allow as many people as possible to join them, since significantly fewer people are working.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

There's also public transport, healthcare, literally weeks of paid days off. They simply have better social resources than we do.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Sure, but I'd argue the largest aspect is cultural.

There's a reason France's protests are significantly more disruptive than those of other European nations, despite similar social resources and significantly worse police brutality.

I mean, the US has denser cities than most of Europe. It's not impossible to have large-scale demonstrations with hundreds of thousands of protestors in them.

I suspect it's just that most Americans aren't all that interested in changing the status quo for the better. The amount of apathy is perhaps only topped by Russia.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 21 hours ago

Public transportation is pathetic in the USA. I guarantee most of the 200,000 German protestors used the U-Bahn and S-Bahn.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

the US has denser cities than most of Europe

Citation very needed

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Ah, turns out I'm somewhat wrong. From what I can tell, the city centers in the US are denser but if you include the entire city Europe has generally denser cities.

Most US cities are significantly taller in the center due to skyscrapers and highrises. Most European cities are more "horizontal" in that regard by having many multi-story apartment blocks instead of a handful of highrises.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago

Most American cities aren't New York.

We have no real public transit, and many of our cities were urbanization following the invention of the automobile and are spread out to accommodate the automobile infrastructure and longer commutes.

Houston is our third most-populous city and has a metroplex with a Combined Statistical Area of over 12,000 square miles. That makes it roughly the size of the Netherlands, with around 40% the population of the Netherlands. Soon, Houston, Dallas, Austin, and San Antonio are going to form one giant metroplex that's 60,000 square miles.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago (5 children)
load more comments (5 replies)
load more comments (3 replies)
[–] [email protected] 31 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

I was there, it was awesome. Bit short though and the audio equipment wasn't suitable for so many people.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 days ago

Thank you for showing up!

load more comments
view more: next ›