The Storming of the Reichstag 2
New Music and Other Noteworthy News
Initially, I had a number of other topics to write about today but 2020 being 2020 current events just threw that plan out the window. Whilst I will be sharing a new playlist and some rage tweets worth talking about at the bottom of today’s newsletter local news demand a closer look, and hopefully some discussion.
I often get comments from friends abroad mentioning their admiration for how much we have our shit together in Germany, regarding our history, our anti-fascism and certainly in regards to how we handled ourselves since March during this pandemic. It is time to burst that bubble. We don’t have our shit together, far from it. In regards to our collective attempt at de-Nazification, sure, in comparison to England and our Colonial History, Japan’s genocide in China or the genocides committed in and by the U.S., yes, sure, we have made attempts to reckon with our history. Frankly, and that’s outside of my so-called extreme Left Wing worldview, it’s been a botchy surface level job. Large parts of our state apparatus and society is still institutionally, and culturally, rife with Prussian and 3rd Reich ideology. Our police and courts are thoroughly undermined by Neo-Nazis that protect and support their blind eye towards racist attacks in this country. Feel free to research the NSU story here as a small example. We can then talk about the murder of a conservative politician by another extreme far-right network, the murders at Hanau or the attempt to storm and shoot everyone in a Synagogue in Halle. We have a genuine problem in this country with racist, fascist networks that are actively working at re-creating the 3rd Reich. If you are interested in how deep the right wing terror networks go, I suggest you watch this documentary.
In any case, this sets the stage for the anti-corona protests in Berlin this Saturday. It’s more than puzzling, especially being here, but I’ll try and make sense of it for you. Germany hasn’t been as hard hit by Covid-19 as for example, Spain, Italy or the UK. Even our protective measures are mild, quarantine, face-masks, in comparison to our European neighbors. Yet, around mid July a wild mix of people, that included people from the spiritual end of the hippie world, conspiracy theorists - yes, including QAnon folks, pissed off Boomers to a wide range of extreme far right pigs, from the Identitarian Movement to the lunatics of the Reichsbürger Movement got together on August 1st to hold a protest against the state’s measures to protect us all from a deadly pandemic.
In itself, fine, no matter how crazy the notion, protests are legal and should be. However, the idea of 20`000 people marching through Berlin, without social distancing and face masks during a deadly pandemic is a serious health concern. It still happened, the police didn’t intervene, even with Neo Nazis and their parliamentary representatives cruising around waving symbols and flags clearly illegal in this country. Now that was August 1st.
The same coalition of hippies, boomers and neo-nazis planned on getting back together this past Saturday to not only spurt their nonsense of conspiracy theories, overthrowing the state to re-install the 3rd Reich to hippie, love all and pray away the virus nonsense, but to make a statement. Initially, the city-state of Berlin didn’t allow the protest based on health and safety grounds, then the local law courts overturned the Senate’s decision and the show went on. Total insanity if you ask me, and according to official police numbers around 40`000 marched, or rather tried, through Berlin towards the Brandenburg Gate.
Again, aside from the serious health risks and irrespective of my own opinion on their views, this is ok, a free, democratic society needs to be able to withstand contrarian views. What is anything but ok is the sheer number of racist, fascist pigs in this group and the groups acceptance thereof, especially, in this country and our history. Enabling racism and fascism by the so called “centre” of society by silent acceptance is what enables atrocities like the 3rd Reich. It’s as simple as that. Simply due to their extreme nature, racists and fascists will never achieve critical mass by themselves, but what they have, are and will achieve is the acceptance, ignorance and silent support by the “centre” via intimidation, information manipulation and violence. Make no mistake, this “new” cultural war for hegemony has been ongoing for well over a decade and we are starting to see the first results.
The protest largely occurred without violence, however, towards the end of the afternoon a small group of around 200 conspiracy nuts and neo-nazi’s ran through police barriers and “stormed” the steps of the Federal Parliament for a photo-op. I seriously doubt there ever was any real intention of actually storming said building, but extremist groups live for visuals and they got them. Flags of the old German Reich being waved on the steps of the democracy that exists solely on the promise of “never again”, is indicative of how fragile that promise is. Especially, in light of the fact that at least 40`000 people had no problem marching alongside these fascist pigs.
Long story short, whilst the dismantling of the U.S. is akin to watching Rome burn in HD with Wifi, it’s a global problem, one that is engineered and has been planned for decades. The questions that need to be asked are: What are we going to about this, actively, and who gains to profit from this. I am a firm believer in money/greed/power/ego being prime motivators in these long term de-stabilizing plans on a national / global scale but let’s hear it. Comment below.
I have to go into a little more detail about this week’s playlists. It is a little shorter than usual, 2 hours instead of 3 hours but it is packed with fantastic new and old songs that lean a little more to the angry guitar side of things as well as some deep cuts from the electronic dare I say, dance world. There are a tunes from the increasingly important Fontaines D.C., Sleaford Mods, Protomartyr - mixed with some classics from Bowie, George Harrison, The Cure, PJ Harvey and Baroness. Specifically, I wanted to briefly speak about a German song on there.
It is called “Be Vigilant”, it’s by Reinhard Mey - a key figure in the `68 poet / songwriter / political activist era of German Music. I implore you to read this translation of his lyrics, there are some hard hitting truths in there.
The point I want to make though is that we have this enormous tradition of political poetry and folk music in Germany. A lot of it is brilliant and I wish I could translate it all for you but again, I know this exists in Spanish and French. I, however, don’t know much of that world, nor the other languages this type of work exists. If you do, please share any and all you know below.
This ties in a great deal about the first story above. Again, what is happening in the U.S., is nothing new, it’s an old playbook that has been used around the world for well over a century. I know it’s new in the U.S. but be assured that the solutions for your fascism are there. Ask a comrade. Seriously.
No Comment Needed.
They are and they are an integral part of the short and long term strategy once we can look past the civil war that is being played out, follow the money and realize it’s all an issue of have and have nots. It’s always been about working towards realizing class consciousness, unifying us have nots and then utilizing the power of numbers against the real enemy. Here is a wonderful text by George Lukacs that is worth your time.
Perspective. Defund it all. Period.
Sarahjust now
In response to your request for protest songs: I went down a rabbit hole of Phil Ochs, American, this weekend. I knew him from Ani Difranco’s version of his song “When I’m Gone” (brings tears to my eyes) and did a deeper dive into his protest songs. Power and the Glory, I’ll Be There, I’m Going to Say it Now, and I Ain’t Marching Anymore, are great places to start. Amazing life story, that one