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Laeserin 2d ago

What Russian trolls want you to believe:

Germany is building up a massive military force to take over Europe. The Nazis are back! This is WWIII. 😱

Reality:

Germany is facing mass unemployment and deindustrialization, does not have a functioning road or train system, bridges all over the country are crumbling, has no military service and a defense as small as Italy's despite a ⅓ more people, has no real information or security service, has a decrepit and unsecured electrical grid, and has _no emergency supplies_ of energy, generators, food, or medicine.

It has nothing. It literally has absolutely nothing. Zero zip nada.

It took years to even setup an emergency warning system and it still doesn't work, properly. There is a seemingly endless supply of work-shy and disproportionately violent foreigners flooding into the country, and a never-ending stream of productive, peaceful citizens leaving to get away from them.

You can cut one power cable in the German capital and take out a whole suburb for a week, and the city can't even figure out how to organize emergency shelters, lighting, or a soup kitchen for the residents.

Yes, we need to spend more money on this stuff. Unfortunately, a lot of the money that was supposed to go toward this is being spent on social welfare, woke/lefty NGOs, refugee whatever, and other vote-buying. Surprise, surprise.

In other news — completely unrelated to the Union doing whatever stupid stuff the SPD says — the AfD is now at 26%, making it the most-popular party in Germany. They are rapidly making headway by promising to do amazing things like figure out how to keep the lights on and the border controlled.

/rant

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Discussion

Digital Panhandler 2d ago

I think they just need the right kinda of leade to turn all that around. 😏

PringleMac 2d ago

Alice Weidel

serenitys forge 2d ago

It should tell you everything when a lesbian in a mixed race marrige gets called a Nazi .....

PringleMac 2d ago

Indeed!

I have a close friend whom knows Alice well.

She has been fighting hard. The threat is real. But she will fight to the end to restore Germany na k to its glory.

God bless Alice and the AFD 🙏

Laeserin 2d ago

I don't think anyone thinks Alice isn't earnest, but she's also not the entire party.

Laeserin 2d ago

It should tell you everything that the AfD has a disproportionately high number of young, migrant voters, whilst elderly Germans are overrepresented among the Greens.

serenitys forge 2d ago

The migrant part does suprise me a little actually.. 🤔

freemymind 🇨🇭 2d ago

What problem you expect her to solve? By what means?

Laeserin 2d ago

She's actually pretty sharp, so simply not being completely stupid might help, but her party is a bit of a circus. Governing is hard.

Of course, they can hardly be worse than the SPD. 😬

PringleMac 2d ago

😆

verbiricha 2d ago

how has it gotten that bad so fast? we used to look up to Germany as an example of a modern industry, great infrastructure & engineering, efficiency, work ethic... who tf ruined it? they should be in jail.

Laeserin 2d ago

It was the Union. Specifically, Angela Merkel and her erratic, illogical, populistic politicking.

She's not in jail, tho. She's on a book tour. 😂

verbiricha 2d ago

"Frau Merkels große Kunst besteht darin, nicht mit ihrer Politik in Verbindung gebracht zu werden."

-Volker Pispers

Marcelinho 2d ago

right to jail 🤭

😆

Chris Krause 2d ago

Centrally controlled fiat currency that enables those central planners to exert force to its member states.

Laeserin 2d ago

I think Germany has proven that it's perfectly capable of going to shit without the euro.

Chris Krause 2d ago

I had a fiat currency and corrupt politics even before the Euro. The latter just accelerated this development.

German.gov.

TheFuzzStone 2d ago

woke-communism

PringleMac 2d ago

So sad - I have alot of family in Germany. A few have thankfully freed to the USA. The others are heading back to the mothership, Croatia!

FCK the EU!

Chris Krause 2d ago

Is that the famous quote from Victoria Nuland 😂

PringleMac 2d ago

😜🤣😅

freemymind 🇨🇭 2d ago

I think most people from europe actually look to the US and see a authocratic state. Not in the forming. But in the being.

Laeserin 2d ago

The US is just crappy and collapsing in a different way.

PringleMac 2d ago

Hopefully not.

There are many amazing Bitcoiners in the US

Laeserin 2d ago

Same for Germany. We're definitely at the forefront.

freemymind 🇨🇭 2d ago

A system that collapses does not mean every individual in it collapses. A political system can only exist with support from citizen. Citizen can also thrive without support from politics. This is a one way depencency, when one is healthy and thriving.

Laeserin 2d ago

Russia is also crappy and collapsing even faster, due to their stupid Ukrainian adventure, but that doesn't mean they are wrong to say that we're not much better and that it didn't even take a war to break us. We voted for our own decline.

PringleMac 2d ago

We are all pawns - it’s going to take a lot of us plebs to get FED up before the hahe changes.

I hope I see it in my lifetime.

Jón Kolbeinn 2d ago

People from the EU would rather move to Khazakstan than USandA. Some of you Yanks are thick.

PringleMac 2d ago

I’m not a Yank - worse - an Aussie!

Jón Kolbeinn 2d ago

Well. That's better at least.

“Freed” to the USA? You’re kidding, right?

Laeserin 2d ago

Yeah, we escaped from the USA to Germany. 😂 We're afraid to even return to the States for a vacation.

PringleMac 2d ago

Oh really why is that?

PringleMac 2d ago

Should have written left - fled (word I meant to type) is a bit dramatic. 😆

Static Drifter 2d ago

And somewhere in Ukraine a disgruntled low quality painter is gathering momentum and must be stopped with Special Military Actions. Forgive my distasteful comment, but some people seem to have Putin’s Phallus so deep-throated is impeding the oxygenation of their blood, and therefore their ability to think for themselves.

Glad you used the term "trolls" and not "bots"

freemymind 🇨🇭 2d ago

You refer to the profiteurs of russian narratives I assume?

Иван 2d ago

I'm hearing this for the first time. Usually all the trolls talk about Europe's fragmentation, its complete dependence on the United States, and the relocation of all major German manufacturing to the U.S.

The main message that "Europe is decaying" is already perceived as a meme, and when I see photos from Germany posted by someone I know, I'll jokingly say that it's "decaying" or that "you can even feel freedom in the air there".

Laeserin 2d ago

The German-language trolls, are the ones I'm referring to. We get an anti-Germany message tailor-made to suit us.

serenitys forge 2d ago

I should just copy this and replace "Germany" with the "United Kingdom".

It would still be 98%accurate 😥

Jeroen Ubbink 2d ago

This sounds exactly like The Netherlands. Makes sense i guess. The only thing we did better is that we voted against chat control.

What we do worse is that it's snowing now and unless it stops and thaws within the next few days people will starve to death because we always under invest in infrastructure to keep roads accessible.

I always thought that liked the Dutch roads way more than the German ones, almost no red lights in the rural area we visited last year for 10 days. And speeding limits which is great too…

Laeserin 2d ago

Yeah, Berlin actually had the same exact incident happen in September, but they didn't learn anything at all from it, and were just like, that's okay, we'll just have to ride bikes and BBQ outside. No biggie. 🤙🏻

And now it happened during the coldest, darkest part of winter and they're like... Oh, well that is actually worse. Gosh. Gee. Golly.

Yeah, you idiots, the power going out in winter is worse. All the facepalms, fr.

Menno Reitse Bouma 2d ago

Who is starving to death? And the Germany description does not sound exactly like NL to me at all. Sure there's plenty to improve here (as in any country), but lets not overreact, its still a great place to live and I personally couldnt think of many countries where I'd rather be born.

Same is true for almost every European country. Betrayed by the boomers who first sucked it dry, and then became more decadently left-wing as they got to the later stages of life, almost as if they were seeking an ideology to fit with their selfish decisions (debt, immigrants, budgetise the military, infrastructure etc to fund left wing hobbies).

Anyway that much is clear. What is more interesting to me is what comes next. Europe will get out of this impasse either way, but will it be messy or organised? I hate the current EU but gut feeling says European integration is not getting wound back any time soon. It’s almost like a charismatic pan European leader needs to emerge, but today I can’t even picture what that would look like.

Laeserin 2d ago

Karl der Große 🗡️

kravietz 2d ago

You're right about the integration, but the very point of EU from the beginning was an alliance of fundamentally different Member States pivoting around the LOWEST COMMON DENOMINATOR OF SHARED VALUES. What we got in EU today - including the time-consuming consensus-based decisive process is the best thing we can have without going back to the dark ages of 19th century in-fighting. EU is a very complex beast, but in general it DOES work well on the topics that involve complex negotiations across 27 countries with conflicting interests, which led huge economic growth for both the new joiners and sustained economies of the old members, a classic win-win.

There's an excellent book from an insider about how EU operates in reality, that skips all the 'straightening cucumbers' nonsense invented by British tabloids:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Enraged-Citizens-European-Democratic-Deficits/dp/0857423622

First - I appreciate the level headed response, Nostr is so great for this.

I read a book by Eduard Habsburg over the holidays (“seven rules for turbulent times”) and one of the points he makes about empires, is that succesful ones should always devolve things to the lowest level possible, ie what can be done on local level should be done there. Decentralisation!

This is probably what I hate most about the EU, the tendency for bureaucrats in Brussels to want to decide whether the lights in my street should be on or off at a certain time (hypothetical example but you get the idea). It’s total overreach from far away. Increasingly it also feels like an institution abused by national governments to pass things national populations don’t want and force it down our throats as a fait accompli (immigration, chat control, crypto laws, that sort of thing).

This all pains me because I am a proud European and I love some of the benefits of integration. But the institution needs to change as it’s making a lot of people extremely upset in its current form and tendencies.

kravietz 2d ago

That's one of the most widespread myths reinforced by Britons. Nobody in the #Brussels "tells anyone" what to do, UNLESS that's APPROVED by all Member States. And to be approved, it must be first requested by one of them!

Think of "Brussels" as a legal company that you outsource your complex business negotiations to, nothing more.

If one of 27 countries comes up with some problem or idea - any some of them may be irrelevant to you but relevant to them - the cogs start moving and the whole legislation process follows, involving negotiations with everyone else - the 27 Member States, EEA associated states etc etc - but at EVERY stage all stakeholders are involved and it takes a few years of complex negotiations (in case of Mercosur it took 20+). But at the end the compromise should represent interests of ALL parties. If it doesn't, Member States can veto it - which is what Hungary does routinely with sanctions on Putin for example, at the same time whining about "lack of democracy in EU" 🤡

But what you really see from regular EU citizen's perspective is some media noise in say 2020 "EU plans X and Y", then everyone forgets about it. If your government doesn't give shit about that, so they also forget to even send their representatives, notify trade organisations and instruct your MEPs , and then in 2025 the compromise lands where someone finds something they don't like and they run to press whining about "OMG EU MAKES US DO X!!!" and everyone is outraged. But in reality what you're seeing is your government incompetence, MEPs and trade organisations NOT doing their job and ultimately blaming everything on EU because that's what voters will buy. This is moronic and suicidal, but that's what they do

Tried to zap you but no wallet set up!

kravietz 2d ago

Sorry but the idea of installing some $9.99/month app only to get/send zaps on an allegedly decentralised network sounded quite contradictory to me so I've never done it ):

Malicious Bovine 2d ago

Unfortunately AfD is funded by the same guys as the trolls, so not really an alternative.

#rant

das Land der dichten Denker

freemymind 🇨🇭 2d ago

Wäre Zeit, dass die denkenden Dichter wieder zum vorschein kommen...

ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴇᴀᴛʜ ᴏꜰ ᴍʟᴇᴋᴜ 2d ago

it gets quite yawn how pervasive this russian trolls meme works. russians are much simpler once you get ot know them. they literally are not painting pretty pictures around anything. i don't get where that all comes from. i mean, maybe i'm weird but most of the russian art i see, ukrainian also, seems to be quite edgy by western standards, but in a deeper, more philosophical way. they aren't obvious, but they aren't inscrutable eiither. very pragmatic by nature.

How much of this is regional? I spent about 10 days in the Munich area last year, my son was in school there for a semester. He lived in a small town about an hour southwest of Munich.

While I can see Munich having issues due to its size , the rest of the places we went seemed “ok”.

Laeserin 2d ago

Bavaria is generally better, than the rest of the country. Even in the cities. But we have to pay the debts and suffer the incompetence of the others, so we're still effected.

We have our own Bavarian border guard, for instance, but the federal state and parties keep suing them, to prevent them from

* checks notes *

guarding the border.

😂 We really enjoyed the Bavarian region. i have heard places like frankfurt and cologne are rougher

freemymind 🇨🇭 2d ago

But you know, that the Afd is heavily supported by Russia? You start out with russias narratives and what to seem to dismantel it, while proposing the same solution as Russia is proposing to german voters.

Vote racist, vote hate, vote utalitarian, (what gives you confort is morally good), dismiss core values of democracy (egalité {gleichheit}, liberté {Freiheit}, fraternité {Brüderlichkeit}) and accept breaking laws and the end of separation of powers

This is what Afd preaches fed by russian propaganda. Afd is nurished by russian propaganda.

https://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article119895035/Positionspapier-Die-AfD-will-zurueck-zu-Bismarcks-Aussenpolitik.html

https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/verfassungsschutz-sabotage-russland-china-afd-100.html

Jón Kolbeinn 2d ago

Thank you nostr:nprofile1qqst0nulg2nedvy3appae6ge60h5crwg9cpfg5hd7z7meh4eajunu7qpzamhxue69uhkzarvv9ejumn0wd68ytnvv9hxgtc4vhrjh for pointing this inconsistency out. If people think AfD is going to make things great, they are going to hell in a handbasket.

Laeserin 2d ago

We're at the point where many people — even those who don't want to vote for the AfD — are happy to just have the AfD gain ground, to send a message that

Schadenfreude ist auch irgendwie Freude.

Jón Kolbeinn 2d ago

That may be. I don't know how bad it is there but I would warn to tread carefully.. Europe does not need more division, perhaps division is the plot and Old Europa is the sacrificial lamb.

I apologize for being in a bad mood but there are some powerful people who want to see Europe torn to pieces and that's something I can't cheer for.

freemymind 🇨🇭 2d ago

I can imagine that many people actually feel that frustrated, that they are happy seeing bad politics being smashed.

But I think this is far from reasonable. Very naive.

When we want to live in a good society, people with working solutions are key. These individuals can work in the private sector, in public sector and as politics.

I think the key is prefering working models over easy models. Sometimes solutions are easy, sometimes they are complicated. But in the end it does not matter if a solution is easy or complicated. It is only important that it works.

Populist go an other way. They propose easy solutions. Even when they are not solvong any problem with it.

Like pointing fingers on scapegoats. We know from history, that human are able to violate scapegoats. We know that human are able to kill scapegoats. But all the hate and all the fingerpoivting, does not make them the real cause of our problems.

And in consequence killing them and violating them does not bring anybody to a better reality.

Laeserin 2d ago

The problem has become that some of the parties we voted for, last round, didn't make it into parliament. The options, for liberals, are extremely thin on the ground, now. You can only refuse to vote, vote for AfD, or throw away your vote on Freier Wähler or FDP or similar.

We've been effectively locked out of government and opposition.

freemymind 🇨🇭 2d ago

But you do not legitimate voting for violation of liberal values, when there is no liberal in the parlament?

I mean as long as there is no Liberal in the parlament, it is as more important to form liberal unions, be active and speak out liberal values, even when they are disliked by some.

Ideas can find support in other parties that are in parlament. It is to make the extra mile and connect liberal ideas to their parties goals.

Laeserin 2d ago

It's questionable for liberals to effectively boycott elections or vote for more of the same, when the government is being run into the ground by the other parties and there is some hope of alleviation by a new entrant.

I don't vote for the AfD, but I'm not going to throw shade at liberals who do. It is a tough decision, with no good choices. Voting for the AfD is the only choice that might result in positive change, in the medium-term.

Laeserin 2d ago

Even Russian clocks tick correctly, twice per day.

They say these things because they are blindingly-obvious corrections to the problems, so our inability to implement them is proof of how collossally idiotic we are, as a nation.

Look at the Germans! Just look at them! Look how stupid they are! Imbeciles.

They hold us up as an example of *What Not To Be*. And there is no perceived risk to them, as they assume we really are too stupid to implement them. It has been decades? What proof is there, that we can reform? We are just managing our decline... and doing so very badly.

kravietz 2d ago

100% agreed, Russian do invent entirely fabricated stories, but they are short-lived and don't resonate widely. The fabricated story "criminal case of Lisa F" (2016) had life time of a few weeks, but the fall out of Merkel's "Wir schaffen das" from 2015 lives well till today - because it resonated, certainly with a lot of help from Russia but that wasn't the deciding factor I suppose. Interestingly, Russians didn't poke Germans much on the nuclear phase-out, quite the opposite to be fair, they were very supportive of it, which kind of tells you where this idea might have come from.

I take it from your flag that if Germany/ EU get locked into a hot war with Russia it won't affect you at all, no matter how costly it is to them?

freemymind 🇨🇭 2d ago

What is the relation to the thread? But yes beside, that most parts of the economy would collapse probably Switzerland would not be affected until a country directly attacks us.

But I assume maby Switzerland would then change laws to allow to send weapons to countries in war.

Neutral countries that can sell arms and other necessities do quite well in war.

At a time when the EU's so called ally is openly plotting to steal territory from an EU nation it would probably be good to have leaders who don't end up volunteering their citizens to fight in a two front war with two different nuclear powers

Laeserin 2d ago

Europe is also a nuclear power. That is an irrelevant point.

Yes, Russia and the USA each have ~6x the deployed warheads that France has and a much larger land area to attack.

Laeserin 2d ago

There isn't much point in trying to conquer Europe and blowing the entire continent to smithereens and covering it in toxic dust, first. Russia and the USA are greedy, not insane.

Laeserin 2d ago

We have no idea if the Russian warheads are deployable, or how many are. The Russians also don't know; they can only play roulette with them. They simply don't have the financial resources to maintain such a large arsenal.

It's mostly the US with the massive, assured capability, at this point.

Laeserin 2d ago

The geographical size of the countries is not essential, as you would aim at the cities. Europe's population is very spread out, whilst the others cluster tightly along the edges.

Russia is actually the easiest to take out: just point everything at Moscow.

I'm talking about them glassing France specifically. The EU is not in charge of their nukes. That's France's decision. France's nuclear stockpile is almost entirely deployed. Russia and the US have much more in addition (though in Russia's case a lot of the non deployed is in a questionable state.

Nuclear bombs aren't like nuclear waste. About 60k people moved to Hiroshima between the atomic bomb being dropped and Feb 1946.

I don't believe Russia wants to invade western Europe so they wouldn't be as concerned about human/ rebuilding costs like they are in Ukraine.

> Just point everything at Moscow

Then why hasn't this been done yet?

Laeserin 2d ago

Because you can only do it once.

The idea that everyone is just itching to drop nukes is propaganda for the cowardly, but you can only die one time and it doesn't matter how you died once you're dead, so get over it, already.

So it would be good to be governed by people who aren't champing at the bit for war then (as I suggested many posts ago)?

Laeserin 2d ago

That would be the EU.

It's the USA and Russia that need perpetual war, just to not have their economies collapse. Not us.

Lunapilot 2d ago

Given the way the EU is desperate to get involved with the never ending war in Ukraine, one suspects that their system is close to collapse if they don't waste another generation of young people on the battle field. Automation and robotics are going to take a lot of entry level jobs over the next decade and Governments are always worried about what will large quantities of idle people do if the Government can't keep them occupied...

Laeserin 2d ago

The Swiss (and Austrians) are NATO free riders, and they know it.

As bad off as Germany is, Russia would have to be completely suicidal, to directly attack it. That's why they focus on undermining the populace with propaganda. You don't have to attack Germany. You just have to convince the Germans that they need to hate themselves even harder.

charliesurf 2d ago

What you say probably relates to other countries in Europe too. But i want to ask something specific, if you know.

Who is going to keep the lights on, repair the power cable, emergency shelters, the soup kitchen etc? The state administration or some private company? Was it always like that?

Laeserin 2d ago

Everything that responded quickly was private: charities, churches, volunteer fire fighters, sports clubs, restaurants and cafes, neighbors helping neighbors, etc.

But the residents start to wonder:

Why are we paying taxes, if the state isn't there, when we need them?

So, you need the state to give some job to the private sector maybe. Or the state is downgrading delibrrately so that the private sector will take its place. I am not going to suggest something. Whatever works better for the people!

Laeserin 2d ago

The problem is that Berlin is not just a city, it's a state. The government services outside of the state, like the army or the coast guard, can't just march in and start doing stuff. They have to wait for permission, but the Berlin government took days to announce an emergency and ask for aid.

The private groups didn't need permission. And some, like the police and the firefighters, already had that permission. That is why they were faster, but that is also why the larger and more technical aid took so long to get there.

That was why the Berlin state failed: incompetence. And, apparently, simple laziness and arrogance.

Laeserin 2d ago

Also just idiotic stuff like publishing the plans for the electrical grid on the Internet.

TheFuzzStone 2d ago

But you have to admit, it's fun! And it gets even more fun when you realize that people are paying for this woke communism around them.

On the other hand, Germans return bottles and think they are saving the world.

I also like German bread. The Germans know how to make it. But there is a chance that good quality bread will be banned because it will offend Ahmed from Frankfurt or a trans-communist from Berlin, and then bread will be made from recycled cardboard because it is more environmentally friendly.

"Work-shy" lol, that's gold

kravietz 2d ago

I guess the nuclear phase-out didn't help either?

real power > abstract power

The truth is that Germany is bleeding taxpayers to fund Israel and destroying its own economy to launder that money so a handful of politicians can get rich at the expense of citizens.

Exactly like USA, UK, Canada, Australia etc. are doing.

Germany is Israel's second largest funder after USA and provides 30% of the weapons Israel use to slaughter children in Gaza.

Laeserin 2d ago

You may not have noticed, but Israel is wealthier and more technologically advanced than the Germans, and their exports are *irreplaceable*.

If the Palestinians would stop breeding canon fodder, for more than 5 minutes, they might figure out a way to become our valuable trading partners, as well. Instead of building pipe bombs out of the irrigation canals we sent them, just so that they can rule over a pile of rubble with a nice beach.

> has no real information or security service

Not true. It's just dedicated to monitoring it's own citizens for speech violations

Laeserin 2d ago

Well, yeah. But none aimed at defense.

Wejustfoundthis 2d ago

Germany needs their own Lee Kuan Yew.

They are afraid of Hitler so much, that they threw away the baby with the bath water.

Stop worrying about Russia, start worrying about USA taking over greenland and then denmark. Your ally is eating you up.

questioning 2d ago

How about you follow in the USA's footsteps and worry about yourselves. Stop the bleeding.