Question from one of the (obviously) last German Anti-Fascists:

Do U hear anything about the every day increasing Terror of Neonazis,
Ballhead-Hools and whatever this plague can be called over there ???
Some days ago they started parading with 100-200 'men' and then
hunt blacks with baseballbats through the streets...
Judging from our medias, you must be a lot more used to street-violence than we
are, but does it have this aimed political interest ?
Our big, fat chancellor just got one thing to say: "this will damage
germany's image in the foreign country and our export-balance".
I say:"If this continues like it did the last 2 years, than it'll be a
real hard live here for long-haired guys. All the 'non-arics', gays,
can't go out alone at night in most of the bigger towns.
As long as I can , I can think, what country could be better to live in?"
but more or less, they're all the same.

(pfff, it's so hard to formulate thoughts with a few years of
school-english and ten years dust on it...)

So, if anyone knows how to get rid of the nazis, the government and
the little rest of our problems, or if anyone knows a better
country to live in (pls no country with more than 21.000 murders/year)......

Joerg

12 responses total.

I'm a bit confused by some of your English usage, but this neo-Nazi
issue is worth discussing.

There has been some coverage of the Neo-Nazi movement in Germany in the
American media, but I don't remember hearing about it in the past couple
months.  Much of the violence here in the USA seems to be related to
domesitc disputes and the illegal drug industry, but we have our share of
hate here.  In fact there was a white supremesist demonstration in
Charlotte, Michigan a few weeks ago.  Charlotte is a small town about an
hour's drive from Grex in Ann Arbor.  Americans value the right to free
speech and the government was not able to prevent the hate group from
doing their thing, but the planned demonstration inspired an anti-hate
demonstration which was bigger than the original hate group.

We've had some recent high profile ballot proposals on the question of gay
rights.  There are some states and cities where it is legal to
discriminate against homosexuals, but l think women's rights and racial
minorities' rights are improving in this country.

Joerg, your English is better than a lot I read on-line.
We hear about German "Skinheads" from time to time. We get the
impression that it is a dangerous minority group.

I admit that I'd prefer to hear that responsible Germans would despise
the skinheads' actions because they are "wrong" rather than because of 
Germany's "image". That send a very scary message to me.

The US is a very heterogeneous society. We have large cities with serious
drug and crime problems. We have small towns that have much more acceptable
levels of disorder. You probably only hear about the former in Germany.

Ann Arbor, for example, is a relatively peaceful town of about 125,000
people, which is being turned upside-down at the moment because a
single lunatic who has raped killed several women over the last 3 years 
has now killed a victim, too. This type of thing is not common here.

Yes, there is racial hatred in the US, but it seems to be on the decline,
and there is not much racially motivated crime any more. Most of our crime 
is poverty or drug related.

Ann Arbor has a sister city in Germany, by the way - Tuebingen.

 The German government is either considering or has passed a law making it
illagal to state in public that the Holocaust never ocurred.

If that passes, or has passed, I thnk its a travesty.  I know it isn't America,
but free speech is fundamental.  Even if what is said is a lie or hurtful to
an entire religion, the right must be maintained.

 We basically already have something similar here -- look what happened to
Al Campanis, Marge Schott, or 'Jimmy the Greek.'

They still have those rights, they just aren't going to be paid for saying
those things.

 I disagree.  Marge Scott OWNED the baseball team, but her 1st Amendment rights
were censured by the baseball league, & she was fined, etc.
 
  Saying "Nigger" to the 'wrong' person or in the wrong tone can land you
with ethnic intimidation charges (does that mean that 'nigger' is a
recognized ethnic group?!), & look what kind of mess you can get into for
referring to people as "water buffalo!"

There are consequences inherently resulting from all social actions.  One of
these is social sanction.  There is no law per se required in order to insure
that social sanction will occur, rather it seems laws are required to prohibit
social sanctions from being applied in many cases.  The reality is that
economics determine the application of both laws and social sanction to a
tremendous extend.  Marge Schott was not sanctioned, fined, etcetera, because
of what she said, but rather because the potential loss of revenue to the
industry because of the potential public response to the fact that she said it
when and how she did.
        In effect, we are thereby sending the same signals as a chancellor who
worries about the "image" problem created by roving gangs of violent racists.
        
        What right have we to criticize then?

re#7  I agree.  I'm not sure about other states, but in Florida they had 
serious "hate crime" laws.  If you used a racial slur while committing an
act basically it qualified you for one step up in punishment.  The law was
declared unconstitutional twice by state judiciary, but a third version is
currently working on being passed.  Sad, aint it.

Freedom of speech  - okay
But freedom of Nazi-Propaganda ????

There are lots of this fine-dressed 'National-Conservatives', 'Neo-Nazis',
'Old-School-Nazis', even Christian Democrats (our government party)
coming along with arguments like :
"There was no holocaust at all, we are still slaves of the international
jewish conspiracy, we have this bad recession because there are far
too many of these stinking blacks and raping arabs in our holy
country, let's kick them out or build some new camps."
Okay, most of the arguments are more subtle, but's basically they
mean the same. And what happens if they can go on can be easily learned
from history. But what can be done against it.

Nazi-Parties (one is in our Town-'Parliament') try to organize speeches
and rallies in Cologne over and over again.
Possibility 1:  do nothing. They can go on as they want to.
                (result see above)
Possibility 2:  go there with candles in the hands and sing " we shall
                overcome". Result: the nazis have a good laugh and
                go on as they want.
Possibility 3:  Block the location and say : "If you want to come through,
                try it.". Result: German police beat up the 'left aggressors'
                but the nazi-event couldn't take place and every hall
                or pub, who thinks about hosting one of these events won't
                do it again.

I don't really know, whichj of these possibilities is worst, but
DEATH-VICTIMS of Nazi-Attacks increase about 50% per year.
Last Year they killed more than the whole left-terrorists in the last 25
years. There must be a way of stopping it.

Yes, the so called 'Auschwitz-Lie' is now sentenced with max. 3 years jail.
(My history-teacher had good luck, that he's too old to give lessons now.)

40% voted for fascist Shirinovski, the fascist are back in the italian
government, 10% voted for fascists in many dutch cities, 13% in
belgium .........

And one of the central connecting points of them is the NSDAP-AO
in America because of their freedom of speech.
But don't misunderstand me: I absolutely dislike any kind of
state-authority or control of meanings, but there could be a more
important reason than this: preventing a 4.Reich.

It won't work. You cannot control how people think by outlawing speech.
Stick with freedom of speech and let them have their say.
Freedom of speech does not include killing people. Address that portion
of your problem aggressively - not their speech.

It is not an easy road to defend someone's right to speak hatred and venom.
You must show it for what it is and turn intelligent Germans against it
by speaking against it, not by legislating against it.

This is the "American Way" (tm) - I believe in it. It may not work for
some countries, but I still don't think the alternatives will be better.

re#10  What happens if we begin to outlaw any speech or thinking?  We become 
that fascist state you fear.  The only difference is that YOU happen to agree
with the ideals of THIS fascist government.

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