re: #15 Killgore Trout

The Germans have been cracking down on their neo-Nazi parties lately. They probably want to keep a low profile for a while.

Well, I just noticed that for years now the far, far right-wing parties of Europe have all come together and tried to form a far, far right-wing block. Only the parties from Germany are missing. And I don’t think this is because of keeping a low profile. There have only been half-hearted attempts at banning the NPD (the biggest one) since 2003 (I think mainly because they have so many moles from the federal government). 2006 they got voted into the parliament of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, 2009 into Saxony…

My take on it is that if you go far, far-right, you have a good chance at arriving at a neo-nazi ideology. In Germany, that means german, “authentic” neo-nazis. Not that any of them have been around when the actual nazis were around (with some exceptions, but the majority has died or plays no active role in politics anymore), but I can still see how it could strike up some ambivalent feelings, striking up pan-european alliances in a democratic setting where formerly the german nazis had their, well, very unique way of forming a united europe.