The same day that Elon Musk fired the entire Twitter team concerned with fighting election disinformation, he also endorses a post where people are being encouraged to vote for the far-right German AFD party. The AFD thanked him for his endorsement and for disbanding the team that was fighting election disinformation.
Bless them 🙏 The doors of Cork City Library stayed open today as a group of counter-protestors formed a human shield on the Grand Parade to block far-right agitators from making their way inside.
The #FarRight group has been harassing library staff for months in an attempt to get #LGBTQ+ books banned
At least 100,000 people have taken part in a demo against the #FarRight in #Berlin today, with thousands out in many other cities. This has now been going on for a couple of weeks, since #AfD party leaders were revealed to have been at a conference where the mass expulsion from #Germany of citizens with an immigrant background was discussed (public post) https://ard.social/@tagesschau/111867883936658663
The fascist government in Italy is removing the names of lesbian couples from birth certificates. What were once loving parents, are now -- in the eyes of the law -- no more than strangers. Whether we are talking about Italy or the US, conservatism hates love.
'It looks like they’ve finally done it. For years, the far right has repeatedly tried and failed to set up a social network of their own – one where they can spread conspiracy theories and sow hate without any of the pesky content moderation that happens on the big tech platforms. [...]
You know why that is? Because there’s no longer any need: Elon Musk has successfully turned Twitter into a site where extremists have free rein."
“Some of the neo-Nazis and fascists I met undercover in 2020 are working as congressional campaign staffers and helping to form congressional caucuses. They are meeting with leaders of far-right political parties in Italy and Hungary. They are leaders in their local Young Republican organizations. They have access to elected GOP officials at the national and local level.”
"Days ago, voters in Ecuador approved a total ban on oil drilling in protected land in the #Amazon, a 2.5m-acre tract in the #Yasuní national park that might be the world’s most important #biodiversity hotspot. The area is a Unesco-designated biosphere reserve and home to two non-contacted #Indigenous groups. This could be a major step forward for the entire global climate justice movement in ways that are not yet apparent.
"This vote is important not only for Ecuador and for the Indigenous peoples in the Yasuní, who now have hope of living in peace in perpetuity. It is also a potential model for how we can use the democratic process around the world to help slow or even stop the expansion of fossil fuels to the benefit of billions of people.
"The Yasuní referendum proves that real democracy that respects the popular will can be a powerful tool for transitioning to a sustainable future. Ecuador’s state oil company, #Petroecuador, had been producing nearly 60,000 barrels a day in the Yasuní. It now must figure out how to dismantle its entire operation and go home. When in history has a popular vote ever forced an oil company to cease active drilling? Never.
"The Yasuní vote was not the result of a business decision made in a boardroom or government office. It was the product of two decades of #grassroots organizing by citizens and #activists like you and me. I know because I have been to Ecuador more than 250 times to work on a historic pollution case against #Chevron on behalf of the Indigenous people there. Many of the same Indigenous leaders and activists who helped fight Chevron organized the Yasuní vote.
"At the same time, the vote underscores how important it is to protect our increasingly fragile democracy. Without a robust democracy that allows citizens to place issues of critical importance on the ballot without the intermediation of elites, the Yasuní referendum never would have happened.
"The flipside is that powerful #OilAndGas companies understand the threat a real citizen-based democracy poses to their power. They fear a society where citizens can put referendums on the ballot without the approval of business leaders. Those of us in the climate movement often can’t even stop to focus on the connection between democracy and climate justice because we’re so focused on dealing with the immediate crises taking place before our eyes, such as the Maui fire.
"In the United States, it is not broadly known that the #FossilFuel industry quietly funds a national lobbying campaign that has introduced draconian #antiprotest bills in at least 18 states. These laws threaten anyone #protesting at an oil or gas facility with huge fines and serious prison sentences; some states even impose criminal liabilities on non-profit advocacy groups that support the protesters. These are really laws of intimidation designed to stop protest before it happens. And they are also manifesting in other countries including #Australia, the #UnitedKingdom and #Germany.
"As a result, many Americans who have committed #peaceful acts of non-violent #CivilDisobedience – central to the birth of our country and a cornerstone of our political tradition – now face decades in prison. In Atlanta, #Georgia, 42 people have been charged by prosecutors with 'domestic terrorism' for trying to save the city’s last green canopy in the #WeelauneeForest. Local police are trying to raze part of the forest to build a military-style police training academy, colloquially called “#CopCity”, that already resulted in the first police killing of a climate activist in US history. (The police have said that the activist, Manuel Paez #Terán, was used a weapon; activists dispute that claim.)
"The Atlanta cases represent a frightening escalation of attacks on #FreeSpeech and protest in the US. None of those charged – whom authorities accused mainly of vandalism and arson – committed a direct act of violence against another person. Nobody was injured other than the activist shot and killed by police while sitting in the forest.
"That this is happening in a city considered to be one of the cradles of the American civil rights movement shows just how entwined corporate and police power have become in their efforts to erode democratic rights.
"The prosecutions in Georgia are also occurring in a broader context where the right to vote has been seriously impaired. Voter suppression is now a regular feature in many US states, with ludicrous laws being passed to throw out votes. In this short century, two presidents have taken office in the US who did not win the popular vote. Votes are constantly thrown out for the thinnest of reasons, as journalists such as Greg Palast have meticulously documented.
On top of these threats to democracy at the state level, the US #supremecourt and its unelected, mostly #FarRight justices are weakening both our democracy and its ability to regulate the fossil fuel industry. The court has consistently approved measures like voter ID laws and felon disenfranchisement that make it more difficult for historically marginalized groups to vote. It has also, of late, decided its role is to strike down popular legislation, so who knows what they’d do to a popularly won ban on oil drilling.
"I am an #EnvironmentalJustice and #HumanRights lawyer, but one reason I spend significant time focused on issues of democracy is because I simply cannot do my work if our political system does not allow the political space to advocate freely. After I helped Indigenous peoples win a major pollution case in Ecuador, I was detained for almost three years in the US after being targeted with the nation’s first-ever corporate prosecution. My own case is a reminder that the normal rules of democracy can easily be suspended when entrenched economic interests face a serious enough threat to their bottom line.
"As I write this, a heat dome in the US sits over the entire midwest and is affecting 100 million people. Fires have destroyed millions of acres of land. A tropical storm just smacked southern California for the first time, and the historic town of Lahaina in Hawaii burned to the ground with hundreds of people still unaccounted for. In the meantime, the oil industry is reporting record profits, creating enormous incentives for a small group of powerful shareholders to maintain their power by shrinking our democratic space.
What the referendum in Ecuador teaches us is that democratic processes when coupled with strong grassroots organizing can produce startlingly effective results. Taking a cue from our friends in that brave country, the next major move for the climate justice movement could be to launch a national campaign to put the simple question presented in Ecuador before the American people in every state that allows citizens to place their own questions on the ballot. The question is whether we can vote to end the destruction of our planet by the burning of fossil fuels.
"It is clear we cannot trust either of the two major US political parties – both of which mostly support fossil fuel expansion – to adequately address this crisis. We simply cannot save the planet without first protecting and strengthening our democracy."
"It was in the countryside that both Mussolini and Hitler won their first mass following, and it was angry farmers who provided their first mass constituency.”
George Monbiot writes on the far right’s new agrarian populism, from Berlin to Nevada, and the moral forcefield surrounding farmers’ protests, defending them from criticism. #FarRight#Fascism#Populism#Farming#Agriculture#EUPol#USPol
#France 's main #FarRight party said it will no longer sit in the #EU parliament with the #AfD faction, indicating it had lost patience with the controversies surrounding its German allies. The head of the AfD's list in the polls, Maximilian Krah, had said in a weekend interview with Italian newspaper La Repubblica that someone who had been a member of the SS was "not automatically a criminal". Pierre Benazet reports from Brussels. #Germany https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNnQcLVch6s #FarRight#Germany#France
Not American myself, but cause for concern because what #ChristianNationalism does first, the European #farright reuses.
#HeritageFoundation#Project2025 aims to concentrate all power in the executive branch, allow discrimination based on religion, erase all gender and equality not based on their interpretation the bible, and more..
But why you should take them seriously? 50000 absolute loyalists trained to take over all levels of administration, for starters.
France’s Le Pen ordered to stand trial in EU funding scandal
French prosecutors on Friday (8 December) ordered far-right figurehead Marine Le Pen to stand trial over claims she used EU funds to finance party activities in France.
German court defunds neo-Nazi Heimat party. Is the far-right AfD next?
Germany's constitutional court on Tuesday approved a request to withdraw public funds from the neo-Nazi Die Heimat (Homeland) party, potentially opening the way for a similar move against the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD).
In a spasm of anger, 3 #FarRight#Republicans on the #RulesCommittee, which controls what #legislation comes to the #House floor, refused to back rule needed to bring up the #aid bill, putting it on track to die in cmte. But every Democrat on the panel stepped in to save it in extraordinary breach of custom.
I find it sickening that the #media and, of course, politicians, are pushing the idea that the rise of the #farright (eg Holland) is fundamentally a result of immigration
so, it is the immigrant's fault and not the fault of the dominant society with its political, social and cultural system and institutions
and, also, what they're saying is that if you want to have less of the far-right you have to "solve" the "problem" of immigration
French government dissolves far-right Catholic association
The French government dissolved the fundamentalist Catholic association Civitas on Wednesday (October 4), stating that the group seeks to “wage war against the Republic” by spreading anti-Semitic, Islamophobic, homophobic and conspiracy theories.
In the meantime #fascists march 'legally' through the streets of #Milan in #Meloni's #Italy. Yes, be alarmed! This will be normalized everywhere or we must prevent this from happening. Don't think they won't come for you. Go on the streets and block them! DON'T LET THEM MARCH! :antifa: