- a man is killed in a cruel knife attack
- concerned citizens take to the streets in anger
- one of them apparently does a Roman salute, or something
- the governmnet and press jump on that and claim everybody was doing the salute thing
- the protesters say, firstly that's not true and we condemn the guy who did the salute as much as you do, and secondly why are you more angry about the salute than about the murder
- the government says we are right and you are wrong and we'll hold a free concert to prove it.

The power of persuasion really is with the, innit?

The power of distraction, rather.

Depends where one stands on the oppression olympics ladder. Gov is being preventative, according to its philosophy. Honestly, people should have the space for it, be it a government body, or the individuals. It's the space for opinions being there that interests me, not the actual gestures or manifestations. Call me laconic, but I mean it.

The manifestations are both deadly and ostentatious, depend too much on the angles of interpretation.

According to photos circulating in the internet Roger Jürg Köppel an SVP member and Swiss Nationalrat was one of those concerned citizens marching and discussing the situation with Neonazis.

Köppel was elected to the Nationalrat with high hopes of his contribution to the Party and State however he has been quite quiet in this role.

NZZ claim he did not attend to vote in a quarter of the Nationalrat votes; the NZZ gave him the honorary title of "King of the missing".

"one of them apparently does a Roman salute" Roman salute! LOL! you are quite a comic!

That's a very elevated way to describe a nazi salute..I don't think it's a good idea to downplay this stuff...

Edit> unfortunately the rise of the far-right parties in a few countries is a reality even though I agree it's a reaction to the aggressive and militant neo-marxism....a reaction that we shouldn't be approving of but who can keep a clear head anymore? I have a repulsion for both groups of extremists, although much more for the far-right.

No, but it's also not a good idea for the media to completely ignore (or denigrate!) the people who are actually concerned about the migrant problem, and instead put the full focus on a couple of idiots doing a Roman/Natzi salute Instead of actually addressing the problem of migrants, they chose to change the topic/narrative. That is very dangerous, and I can almost guarantee it will lead down a road that none of us wants to go down.

What is there to say about "the problem with migrants" that hasn't been said before, though? Ad nauseum. It's all a load of blow anyway. Nobody knows what they want apart from "send them back" which is just devoid of any practical or sensible suggestions.

Reading the guff on here and elsewhere around the internet, it seems some people have convinced themselves it's just a straightforward and simple case of rounding people up like sheep and shuffling them off from whence they came.

Most people are "concerned about migrants" (or refugees or asylum seekers) for varying reasons but it seems those people who dare to raise the question "So, what's the solution?" are seen as bleeding heart liberals.

What's wrong with saying "I don't know"?

Merkel is clueless but, then again, so is everyone else but they just have the cosy position of 'not being in charge' to hide their ineptitude.

You are absolutely right, which is why there is so much frustration now. At the height of the migrant crisis so many people were saying "don't let them in as you'll never get rid of them again" and this has proven to be true. It's not like people didn't see this coming and warn against it, and that's why there's so much anger now.

The genuine real far right is a small fringe group who, although they have a lot of violent potential, are numerically insignificant (with the possible exception of countries like Greece).

But by painting large numbers of people who definitely have no sympathy with this far right with the same broad brush, you are preparing a dangerous shift in perception. Call somebody a nazi long enough and maybe he or she will start wearing that epiphet as a badge of honour, or other people will come to interpret that the word nazi just means anybody who doesn't like Merkel, and won't see what's so bad about it. This people will no longer be on their guard for real nazis. Like the little boy who cried wolf.

And if they had taken the decision "not to let them in" what do you think would have happened?

Everyone turns round at the border and heads back?

It would be genuinely interesting to hear what the solution at that stage would have been and the expectations for the wave of people making that trip.

A lot of people are arguing like this. the arguments are variants of

- we couldn't possibly logistically have turned them back at the border. There were too many of them and they weren't willing to turn back.
- we don't actually want them here but now they are here we have to deal with them.
- we do want to send them home but we can't because we can't trust their governments not to torture them, and some have lost their papers and we don't know what country to return them to.

All of these arguments are ultimately fatalistic. We are powerless. We can't do anything. So toughen up and live with it.

In some cases there may even be some truith to these arguments. Fatalism can sometimes be reality. But often people who don't want to do something differently hide behind the argument that actually there is no alternative.

There are often more alterntive courses of action than immediately meet the eye. Denying them is a policy of the powerful to keep down the meek.

If you look at 99% of the public discourse in German media right now, it is precisley this. Politicians are pretending to be in dailogue with everyday people, but actually all they are doing is telling people how stupid they are, how incredibly dumb of them to fail to see they are wrong, that there is no alternative.. It's so incredibly patronizing. And I think that it is precisely this patronizing that is causing people to ask questions they wouldn't otherwise be asking, and is thus further polarizing an unpleasant situation.

Would iit really have been so difficult to go out and say, "shit, aguy was killed, we undersrtand that you condemn that. we condemn it too, but let's calm down a bit". But now we have a governmnet sponsored concert against people who don't like murder on the streets of their city. Provocation can't get much more direct than that. So the government is not even attempting to bring people together. How much absurder is this going to get.

When the Left protest everything from Trump to whatever else they don't like, the media lauds them as "being brave to speak out and show their dissatisfaction with the way things are, daring to make a change, etc...". When some on the right speak out and protest/demo...they aren't allowed...or it's "Look at the Nazis!"


And yes, they (and everyone else)saw this coming when Merkel "welcomed" everybody. It was like watching a car crash in slow motion.



What is the solution? It's multi-layerd, and has been layed out clearly, but nobody acts on it. Only Italy after electing a right-wing party finally has the balls to turn the boats back. Securing the border and turning people back before they reach here is step one. Then the EU has to stop the overly generous social welfare given to refugee/migrants so they are not enticed to come. Then stop the human smuggling chain in Africa (Italy is also doing something there). And then finally to help African/ME countries build themselves up, so people are not enticed to leave.


The steps are clear and reasonable, but the EU is so slow and dumb to act, while still playing this holy "humanitarian" act, when everyone can clearly see they are getting gamed by people taking advantage of it.

The problem was: they were already there, at the EU border, with no return ticket.
At some point, they'd have made a run for it. And then?
Even if you could have rounded them up, put into cattle-wagons and sent to the Turkish border - do you think they'd have said "Jolly, that's great - bring'em on"?


But that's obviously not something Angela Merkel wanted her conscience to be loaded with.

She had the choice between two bad options.


Of course, politics was unprepared for what was to follow. Totally.

Well, it's an interpretation, rather than hard fact.


Is it a solution, though? It's more of a wishlist where nobody has a clue how to implement it. Italy has closed its borders (well, appears to ). Has it truly solved the problem, or just moved it on? Or has the new right wing government in its eagerness to cement its position as the right choice for the nation simply fudged the figures?

Yes, you can say "let's not pay benefits to any of the migrants" but then you have a whole new raft of problems which everyone will gnash their teeth over but nobody will have a clue how to solve.

The problem with countries closing borders is that it does not solve the problem, it just moves it around and leads to more deaths.

For history buffs, the same solution was tried in 1938 when people were trying to run away from Hitler.
Maybe fewer Jews would have died if there had been a more enlightened approach?

It's clear, reasonable and actionable steps. But nobody is acting on it, save for Italy. If the EU actually stepped up the Frontex (Border and Coast Guard) and turned ships back to their port of origin, that would for sure have an effect, and a visible deterrence would also at the minimum send a message to migrants and traffickers that the game is over. The ones who do make it to the EU should be given the bare minimum. Not bank accounts with monthly deposits, but a place in a refugee tent, 3 meals a day, and that's it, until it's time to return to their country of origin.



But instead of this, there are "humanitarian NGO" ships that are out looking for migrant boats to pick them up and ferry them to EU. Then when they get to Germany or Sweden, they get bank accounts, free medical care, freedom of movement, and pretty much the same rights that native EU persons have. The migrants send pictures and stories back to their villages of how great EU is, and, well, it's no wonder there is a non-stop train coming into EU.


This is what the Germany are protesting. It's clear what's happening to everyone. But politicians are not doing anything about it. Nothing. Zip. Just blowing hot air. So yes, you are right, all the points I outlined remains sadly a "wishlist" until the people of EU elect some leaders who will finally have the balls act on these things. Like Italy.

They should have closed the borders and turned them back, end of. In fact, it was only the Balkan countries closing their borders which stopped huge influx anyhow. The EU like to claim it's their deal with Turkey that did it, but it's not.

The bottom line is if they'd have closed the borders and put a hold on Schengen, we wouldn't be seeing the massive problems across Europe that we are today. Sure a few would have gotten in, but the numbers would have been manageable and so it would have been possible to send rejected asylum seekers home.

I'm not saying closing the borders would have been easy but it was certainly the best option on the table. All those bleeding heart wankers holding refugees welcome signs would have howled a bit, but it'd have soon been forgotten.

The vast majority of the migrants weren't escaping extermination.

You are again confusing asylum seekers with migrants.

Your claim that the vast majority weren't escaping extermination says more about you than them!

The vast majority of asylum seekers weren't esaping extermination either, as they arrived in the EU from countries deemed safe.

No doubt you have a credible source for this?

In 2017, nearly half (46 %) of EU first instance asylum decisions resulted in positive outcomes.

You do know what "vast majority" means?

In your case "vast majority" means less than half?