Octopus Overlords

This is nuts:



https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-63885028

I don’t see how these people thought they would succed. Even if they had killed or captured some government leaders, without the backing of the military and police, they were doomed to failure. They also sound a lot like US sovereign citizens in that they didn’t recognize the German govt as legitimate.

I have to marvel at the potential efficiency of the german internal security services. Though these guys also seemed to be just extraordinarily "noisy". Evidence to the latter is the alleged outreach to Moscow documented here @NY Times and the open talk about a Nuremberg 2.0.

Among those arrested was a man who had tried to make contact with representatives of the Russian government over the plans, according to the statement, though there were no indications that they had received a positive response from the Russian sources they had contacted.

...

A Russian citizen, whom the prosecutors identified as “Vitalia B.,” was “strongly suspected” of supporting Heinrich XIII in trying to establish contacts with Moscow.

I think this also shows the threat similar groups in the zuS pose, as if Jan 6 didn’t show that already. Individuals involved in sov cit and QANON have already carried out individual acts of violence.

QANON in Germany:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/11/worl ... articleSha

Early in the pandemic, as thousands of American troops began NATO maneuvers in Germany, Attila Hildmann did a quick YouTube search to see what it was all about. He quickly came across videos posted by German followers of QAnon.

In their telling, this was no NATO exercise. It was a covert operation by President Trump to liberate Germany from Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government — something they applauded.

This sounds so familiar in so many ways.

This stood out to me since I wasn't aware of this movement. It is ironic that Germany's democracy is much more functional than ours because we helped them design a better federal system based on our experiences; that has been twisted into a basis in part for delegitimization and a coup attempt.

The prosecutors described the group, which they did not identify, as being influenced by the ideologies of the conspiracy group QAnon and a right-wing German conspiracy group called the Reichsbürger, or Citizens of the Reich, which believes that Germany’s post-World War II republic is not a sovereign country but a corporation set up by the victorious Allies.

Dammit, I thought American exceptionalism at least applied to our love of conspiracies and QAnon BS. It turns out we aren't even exceptional in that.

I guess we'll just have to stick with our exceptional healthcare and pharmaceutical prices.

coopasonic wrote: ↑Wed Dec 07, 2022 11:26 am Dammit, I thought American exceptionalism at least applied to our love of conspiracies and QAnon BS. It turns out we aren't even exceptional in that.

I guess we'll just have to stick with our exceptional healthcare and pharmaceutical prices.

It's just another manifestation of American global dominance.

Wouldn't it be a "German Putsch Plot?"

Deutscher Putschplan

We'll, I mean even in English, using the French word when there is a perfectly apt German one just looks weird.

Hail Germany’s new ruler:

100+ officers per suspect seems like the appropriate amount.

The brain trust is already weighing in. Keep in mind this servant to a stable genius was Acting Director of National Intelligence as well.

Look, if there are consequences for treasonous behavior in Germany, what's to say there couldn't be consequences for treasonous behavior here next? Does anyone really want that???

coopasonic wrote: ↑Wed Dec 07, 2022 11:26 am Dammit, I thought American exceptionalism at least applied to our love of conspiracies and QAnon BS. It turns out we aren't even exceptional in that.

I guess we'll just have to stick with our exceptional healthcare and pharmaceutical prices.

When the German version has something even CLOSE to this, I will consider your suggestion. That, my friend, is EXCEPTIONAL. On many levels.

Carpet_pissr wrote: ↑Thu Dec 08, 2022 1:22 am

coopasonic wrote: ↑Wed Dec 07, 2022 11:26 am Dammit, I thought American exceptionalism at least applied to our love of conspiracies and QAnon BS. It turns out we aren't even exceptional in that.

I guess we'll just have to stick with our exceptional healthcare and pharmaceutical prices.

When the German version has something even CLOSE to this, I will consider your suggestion. That, my friend, is EXCEPTIONAL. On many levels.

Lesse... Mjolnir, Yggdrasil, a valknut, wearing fur. He already seems pretty Germanic to me.

LOL!

This has some great background on the German far right. Some of it is pretty scary:

The main difference I see here between how we deal with this is they don't wholesale ignore the problem. They apparently monitor this segment and wait for enough of a plan/effort to form to trip criminal thresholds. That seems like a reasonable approach versus our 'hear no evil, see no evil until it has stormed the capital, do a quick clean up, and go back to ignoring it' approach.

It's cool to see how a functioning democracy handles coup attempts.

The Germans (I'm mostly German, so it's a joke in my semi-Irish house) are sincerely great at efficiency. Sometimes to a fault.
Sometimes not.

Great episode of The Daily on this yesterday. Highly recommended.

Is that related to The Daily Show? I assume it’s a podcast?

Edit: nvm, NYT podcast, correct?

I was in Germany when a big protest was happening. They were in downtown Munich, protesting whatever it was, blocking traffic, blocking shops, and doing whatever. The police just sort of watched. And then some of the protestors decided to take it out onto the autobahn. The police rolled up with prison style busses, hit them all with sticks, and loaded them into the busses. Several hundred people arrested. Everybody who stepped foot on the autobahn got hauled away, no exceptions, they had plenty of buses.

The rest of the protestors just kept on doing their thing, it was all very efficient.