Bulletins and News Discussion from February 24th to March 2nd, 2025 - Fascists? In Germany?! - COTW: Germany

Image is a map of the German election results made by Andolu Agency.

The results are in from the German elections, and the outcome is pretty unsurprising for those who have been paying attention to the German socioeconomic situation, and prove our predictions from years ago correct. The conservatives (CDU/CSU) won the plurality of votes (28%), representing a slight gain from 2021. Meanwhile, Scholz's party, the SPD, collapsed from first place in 2021 to third place this year, almost halving their number of seats; the Greens had a less dramatic collapse but still lost many votes. The coalition of CDU/CSU + SPD seems like the most likely end result of this election; something something nothing ever happens but everything keeps getting worse.

Outside the main coalition, there's three important takeaways IMO.

First is that AfD - the far-right Euroskeptic party - has skyrocketed into second place, achieving a full 20% of the vote. This is definitely very concerning and does not exactly bode well for the future, but it isn't necessarily immediately disastrous, because the CDU/CSU (as well as the SDP and Greens) has vowed that they will not form a coalition with the AfD.

Second is that Die Linke - the pro-NATO, pro-Israel socdem party - has mostly reversed its awful performance in 2021, increasing its vote share from 4.9% to 8.8%. What this suggests is that while Germans are fleeing from the center, a very significant minority are going leftwards (though still aren't particularly anti-imperialist).

Third is that the BSW under Wagenknect, who split off from the Die Linke (absolute classic), appears to have barely fallen short of the 5% vote share needed to get seats in the Bundestag. The BSW has some good foreign policies (peace with Russia, for instance) but pretty awful domestic policies; quite patsoccy.

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1.3K comments

Well while Trump and Zelensky have been fuckin around creating content, Greece is seeing hundreds of thousands out in the streets protesting and a historic, massive general strike on the second anniversary of the train crash that embodied the heart of their struggle with austerity and neoliberal bullshit
All international and domestic flights were grounded as air traffic controllers joined seafarers, train drivers, doctors, lawyers and teachers in a 24-hour general strike to pay tribute to the victims of the crash.
Businesses were shut and theatres cancelled performances.
In a survey carried out this week by Pulse pollsters, 82% of Greeks asked said the train disaster was "one of the most" or "the most" important issue in the country and 66% said they were dissatisfied with the investigations into the accident.
"Every day, the monster of corrupt power appears before us," Maria Karystianou, whose daughter died in the crash and who heads an association of victims' families, told the crowd in Athens.
Students shouted "Text me when you get there," - the final message many of the victims' relatives sent them. A cardboard sign read: "Greece kills its children."
- We're very likely talking about millions in total that went to the streets, in Greece and many other countries as well. It's almost unbelievable to see our people more united than they have ever been before since the fall of the junta. Finally people are leaving their couch for the first time, and don't blame the strikers and protestors for interrupting the peace, but actually take part in it as one. It was really a historic moment, and no amount of cop violence and provocation will make us step back, there is nothing stronger than the people when they unite.
  
  Hell yeah, salve for the soul to see
  
  I'm glad there's a greek person here cos I have a question, which groups are backing/called for the strike, I assume the communist party and its affiliated trade unions is one but for there to be this many people in the streets did the old center left and syriza also called for it?
  Also are there regime affiliated trade unions in greece? I'm asking because in Portugal it'd be really hard to get something like this going because one of the 2 main trade union confederations is always very government aligned (regardless of whether it's the PS or PSD)
  
  I am not 100% certain on this but I think PAME originally called for the strike, which is a KKE aligned Trade Union Front which actually organizes the movement as opposed to the other high level unions like GSEE which has long been filled by opportunists and didn't agree on the strike for a long time until it was pressured to legalize it in the end.
  The opportunist left / center parties (Syriza, PASOK, Mera25) all tried in their own ways to sabotage this and keep it from becoming a general strike. In workplaces and universities their forces were saying for example that this isn't a relevant topic for a union general meeting since it's a political issue and generally trying to cause discord. They tried altering the meaning of the strike, to target the specific government only and not the profit seeking as the root cause, and tried to hide their own responsibilities in the crime from the previous governments they participated in. Eventually they too joined in order to maintain their socialist facade.
  Several far right groups have also supported this issue and also participated in the demonstrations with their own bullshit demands trying to paint the government as a corrupt mafia and not a party enforcing the system of profits like all the others before them.
  It is also very important to note the amazing strength and willpower of the victim's families who have been fighting this for two years and have also organized into their own group and call for demonstrations.
  Keep in mind that this did not happen all of a sudden, but as the continuation of a long series of demonstrations and strikes, our worker's movement getting stronger through our personal work in organizing workers to their unions etc., and high long term unrest from the many problems we workers face in our everyday lives, from basic necessities being extremely expensive, to work accidents taking lives because safety measures are seen as a cost.
  Here is the announcement made by the central commitee of KKE, sadly I can't find it translated though.
  
  That's what I wanted to know, thank you
- Fucking Reuters lol. 22 images and 20 are of people being mean to the police, and you have to go all the way to 19 to get a crowd shot.
- Any liberal who posted about "don't buy day" should be forced to watch a video of a real protest like this. Actually shutting down the country vs a rounding error.

1299 comments