As Protesters across Germany remain calm, Chancellor Scholz resorts to amnesia and name-calling
Two snippets of insight into the current state of affairs of Germany
First, a posting by Hubert Aiwanger, a member of the non-partisan faction Freie Wähler (lit. free voters, something like ‘independents’ in the US), who posted the following yesterday evening:
My take is: these are the German patriots who, despite all the blunders of the recent past, are exercising their natural and constitutional rights of freedom of speech and assembly to demand redress of grievance.
Beautiful, eh?
The Berlin Blob Castigates Protesters
At the same time, Philippe Debionne of the Nordkurier—one of the few courageous papers actually doing journalism (in autumn, Mr. Debionne was censured by politicians for reporting from the AfD’s Covid enquiry in the Brandenburg state parliament)—posted a long reply to the Berlin Blob, which I’ll link to but, due to its length, I shall provide you with a ‘regular’ quote below (machine translation with my corrections; emphases mine):
Chancellor Olaf Scholz, bullshit and calls for violence
Mr. Chancellor, in your speech [also linked in Mr. Debionne’s post] shortly before the largest protests against a federal German government in recent decades, you addressed the Germans. In your speech you say, among other things: ‘Political opponents are not “complete morons” [orig. Vollpfosten] and “calls for violence and personal threats have no place in our democracy”.’ Why are you only saying this now? Now that the majority of Germans are against #Ampelregierung [current federal gov’t]? And a large proportion of these people take to the streets (regardless of whether a farmer or not)? Why didn't you say anything ‘back then’?
When Saskia Esken @EskenSaskia, party leader of the @spd @spdbt @spdd tweeted: ‘Thousands of Covidiots celebrate themselves in Berlin as “the second wave”, without social distancing, without masks.’
As Saskia Weishaupt @SaskiaLeaRaquel, Green Bundestag member, wrote: ‘The tactic of Querdenker [i.e., left-right deplorables] is to fight their way down the street little by little. Police must act and, in case of doubt, use pepper spray and batons! We must not give them an inch!’
As Bianca Blomenkamp, parliamentary group leader of the Greens Hamburg-Harburg @Die_Gruenen wrote on Instagram: ‘Today is a day on which I would like to punch anyone who remains voluntarily unvaccinated without ado.’
As Björn Casapietra @BCasapietra tweeted: ‘Anyone still unvaccinated against COVID-19 today should be brought in handcuffs to be force-vaccinated.’
As Jan Böhmermann @janboehm [a late-nite comedian on state TV] explained on Yotube: ‘It's the fault of the motherfuckers who still can't vaccinate themselves.’
As Marie von den Benken @Regendelfin wrote: ‘I wish: no unvaccinated idiots where other people are.’
What did you say as these and thousands of comparable statements in which psychological and physical violence against unvaccinated people and those critical of the Covid mandates were tolerated or even demanded? What you said, Mr. Scholz, as insults—and insults that are far (!)—worse than ‘complete morons’ [orig. Vollpfosten] were uttered with understanding or even taken as political correctness, what you said then was this:
‘For my government, there are no longer any red lines in what needs to be done. There is nothing that we are ruling out.’
And now, just before the largest protests in decades directed against the federal government, you stand up and warn of ‘extremists and some free riders’ who are ‘calling for an uprising and talking about overthrowing the system’?
Mr.@Bundeskanzler, the protests are not directed against the state. They are not directed against the democratic system and they are not directed against the Federal Republic of Germany either. They are against your government. Against the #Ampelkoalition.
People don't shout ‘Germany is dying’ like the autonomous Antifa mob or ‘One People, one Reich, one Führer’ like the right-wing extremists. The people who are now taking to the streets are shouting loudly: ‘The #Ampel has to go!’
Remember to check out Mr. Debionne’s posting to watch Olaf Scholz’ speech (that is, if you can stomach it).
Bottom Lines
If you’d only watched the Berlin Blob’s utterances, you’d probably agree with Mr. Scholz, eternal sunshine on the spotless mind-style (here’s looking at you, legacy media, consultants, contractors, and esp. you, spineless MPs).
If put in the context of what Mr. Aiwanger (who, by the way, also suffered the ‘Anti-Semitism’ bludgeon in autumn, on which see below) posted, you might think that Mr. Debionne is more correct in his assessment than the Berlin Blob.
As an aside, Mr. Aiwanger was heavily criticised by the Munich and Berlin Blob (he’s from Bavaria, hence the Munich Blob got into this, too) that alleged he had, as a teen (!) once handed out anti-semitic leaflets. This was before 7 Oct., but it caused a major tempest in a teapot, still, which was based on the (sketchy) remembrances of one of Mr. Aiwanger’s high school teachers. A few days later, it turned out that it wasn’t Mr. Aiwanger who handed out said leaflet, a major embarrassment, you’d think, right? As far as I can tell, Mr. Aiwanger hasn’t even sued the living hell out of the person who tried to destroy him publicly. But I digress.
What was Mr. Aiwanger’s ‘crime’, you’d might be asking? He called out the Berlin and Munich Blobs for their unwillingness to come to terms (Aufarbeitung) with their disastrous Covid policies, by the way.
And in that regard, the comments by both Mr. Aiwanger and Mr. Debionne are a good, if not excellent, representation of the current state of matters in Germany.
Remember: night is darkest before dawn.
The government response in Germany to populist opposition sounds nearly identical to the government response in Canada to populist opposition. Time will tell which government response is the most violent.