The double-tap gesture is something I was very excited about and have completely forgotten about since getting my watch. The caveats around what it takes to activate it (screen activated and facing vertically) are just so great, you wonder if anyone at Apple actually tried this and found it to be a better alternative to interacting with the screen. Their demo video actually does a perfect job of capturing just how ridiculously theatrical you have to be to get it to work: https://support.apple.com/guide/watch/use-double-tap-for-com...
I was also excited about it, until I tried it and discovered it has pretty poor usability. It's not always clear what the double tap will do. Maybe it will scroll, maybe it will clear the item you are looking at, and maybe it won't do anything.
Interesting idea, but those gestures only work on AW when not in low-power mode, meaning they take a non-trivial amount of battery. It would probably dampen Pebble's battery life significantly, and might not even be possible with the chip that it has.
yup that's what the Apple Watch double tap gesture does. On the hand wearing the watch you tap your thumb and index finger together 2 times in quick succession and the watch recognizes that unique motion pattern on your arm and does [something].
Nobody is going to the trouble of getting their target to set up cryptography tools so they can pass private messages back and forth between public channels.
They're going to move to another platform where they can find targets who have DM functionality available. BlueSky's job is done.
Having to delete the obvious spam "hello" DMs in Telegram is so much fun... Fortunately I'm not that active and only in a couple channels. I still see a couple a day (block/report, etc).
huh that loads for me. appears to require some javascript tho.
please note that no subscription != no cloud. of the features listed in the help page all but "tags" require an remarkable cloud account and may stop working if remarkable cloud ever shuts down.
I've been considering downgrading tbh. The new stuff is mostly good, but the infinite-page conflicts a lot with other gestures (I really wish I could disable it) and it's overall noticeably slower nowadays.
I fully agree. The original comment and the other replies to it are bewildering. There was nothing to gain here, yet people are throwing ad hominem attacks left and right.
I agree that would change things but I can't picture an open-source extension with millions of users pivoting to rely on something that's clearly a bug.
The Germans in this article all appear to be aligned to either BSW (populist far-left, pro-Russia, anti-US) or AfD (populist far-right, pro-Russia). BSW wasn't even elected into the parliament and AfD, while being part of the parliament, has virtually no power due to not being part of the government coalition and all other parties sharing an informal agreement to not pass legislations with the help of AfD.
What I'm trying to say is that these two do not represent the German political landscape at all. They also, while on different ends of the left-right-spectrum, both only represent the pro-Russian minority of the German political landscape. This is not a debate happening in Germany right now and no other party has expressed support of any position.
I thought Wagenknecht had somewhat distanced herself from pro-kremlin positions she and parts of Die Linke previously held? She's still pretty staunchly anti-NATO, though. I think her German-nationalist positions kind of overlap with positions that benefit Russia like resuming gas supplies to drop energy prices and heating costs.
The top AfD politicians, of course. But there are many other AfD members and employees who received money from Russian influenced people. Currently, the top AfD politicians are shifting from being in love with Russia to being in love with the US.
Actually the AfD has been fined several times because they have violated the donation regulations for political parties (2017, 2020 and 2021).
Other way around, Wagenknecht is the one who didn't distance herself from the Kremlin and forked off her own party, BSW, which finally enabled Die Linke to get at least some distance from the Kremlin. (This schism was fracturing that party so hard…)
But only a little nominal distance in a few interviews. Die Linke is still the official successor of the SED, which was the GDRs single allowed communist party. And this shows in membership and positions, which are 95% true to Moscow.
Arguing its SED successor status 35 years after the end of the GDR is positively silly, especially considering it's only half right since the party is a fusion of PDS and WASG, the latter having no SED or GDR connection at all.
And from the people I know, the Moscow parts of Die Linke have in fact largely left for BSW. Some are a bit too pacifist about Ukraine, but that's about it in terms of alignment with Moscow.
[Ed.: if anything, the SED successor flag should be given to BSW I'd say, but even that's off the mark.]
Afaik, Die Linke still have anti-NATO stance in their program and call for it to dissolve and a new collective defense pact be created with Russia in it, which was an eyeroll to me, given the war, cyber attacks and everything.
Edit: I last read some of that program in 2024, so not sure what’s their stance lately on this.
What you're probably referring to is still in there, except they're not asking for a new defense pact with Russia in it, they're asking for a security system (with Russia in it). (page 89)
On the same page, they're also asking for the UN to be improved, specifically noting the security council. That's directly to the detriment of its permanent members, including… Russia.
P.S.: I profit monetarily from NATO, yet still think it's broken, but for reasons diametrically opposite to Die Linke: I think the US won't deliver as NATO member. It doesn't matter as long as US interests are the same as NATOs, but, … if Russia attacks the Baltics? I'm not gonna hold my breath for US NATO troops.
We are talking about a splinter party (BSW) from the main left party (Die Linke) which is a kind of anti-woke- and anti-immigration-party that spouts basically the normal Kremlin propaganda lines about Ukraine. There is of course anti-US sentiment there since is secondary to their main issue, peace at any cost so that Germany can get cheaper energy again.
Note that I'm not a German national but I live in Germany (former DDR / East) since 9 years.
Not just in Germany but elsewhere, the rule of thumb is that libertarian socialists (anarchists etc) tend to be both anti-US and anti-Russia, while the more common and more authoritarian kind tend to be pro-whoever is anti West, including Russia, China, or places like Syria was under Assad.
They are mainly pro-communism and anti-capitalism, delve in Marxism, Lenin, Stalin, etc. and are very supportive, less critical of modern Russia. It's probably kinda like people who are supportive of the USA, don't necessarily are supportive of everything MAGA & Trump are doing, but still support it in general.
> The Germans in this article all appear to be aligned to either BSW (populist far-left, pro-Russia, anti-US)
Picturing BSW as far-left, while not uncommon, strikes me always as very strange. While it's a bit unclear where to put them with their wild mixture of populism, the only reason they are by some seen as leftwing is because of the history of their founder. She was previously a member of the left party, but for many years, even while she still was a member of that party, has not held any views that could count as far-left.
The only reason some still put her in the far-left camp is that she was, looooong ago, a member of the communist platform in the PDS, the predecessor of the left party in Germany.
The BSW is indeed an interesting mix because they are conservative-liberal-left while usually leftist parties are progressive and authoritarian-leaning instead.
Examples for the BSW's left politics are * higher taxes for the rich * higher taxes for large and international companies * take on new debt to finance stuff * more state-aided social housing.
It's not just this administration, it's been essentially open season for fraud in the U.S. financial system ever since 2008. If you're a hoi polloi dentist who makes $100,000 trading options off of some insider info then yes, there are SEC cops on the beat who will come after you. Otherwise, you can pretty much do whatever you want until & unless a whole lot of people lose money, at which point it's too late.
AfD represents the political landscape, even if they (yet) have no power because other parties have chosen to marginalise them whilst still can. As long as you have votes, there are people behind you. Isn’t that democracy?
As it is correct, that they are virtually not in power, framing them as pro-russia is some sort of false flag. Just because they are not anti-russia, like every other party, does not automatically mean that they are pro-russia. AfD and BSW together got more then 25% of all votes. So, you are correct, they virtually are not in power, but they have some real power just by being there.
This HN post here is the best example for this mechanism.
AfD has SO many connections to the Kremel. At least a big part of AfD is obiously influenced by russian agenda. BSW is a different topic. They might just align with many points russia likes, but you can not be sure either.
BSW or AfD with power in the Bundestag would be russias wet dream in regards to german politics.
How many levels of "appear to" are we supposed to tolerate in order to minimize the perspective here? Here's where we started:
>The Germans in this article all appear to be aligned to [...]
So the person we don't like seems like they might be affiliated with a political party which seems like it's pro-Russia — this is unreasonably contrived when you zoom out and look at the whole argument.
Is there a rating site or alignment test for wiki articles and their authors? I'm aware of the inherent left bias on wiki and while I still find it informative I am forced (because of their behavior) to consider the subtextual implications in the language they use as well as what is willingly (and sometimes very intentionally) addressed or omitted. it would be nice to have a wiki-bias chart like the media bias chart.
Everything should be referenced with sources. If a reference is weak or even wrong it should be removed. Everybody can apply to be an editor.
I know that Wikipedia has a liberal touch BUT its sources can be used to interpret it yourself. With or without wikipedia, AfD has members with proven connections to the kremel.
>framing them as pro-russia is some sort of false flag.
They just take russian talking points and deliver them to their voters. It's just conveniently the same shit. And business trips to russia are just there to enjoy the scenery.
If they talk like russians, are present in russia, do interviews in russian media and don't condemn russian warcrimes...
Germany is a member of the EU and NATO, the eastern nations of which are openly, publicly, and officially threatened with Russian invasion to the point they are now preparing for conflict.
Straw man argument.
Neither Russia wants to invade Germany nor is Ukraine our neighbor (and if it is, then is Russia too).
Despite that is the US the most armed country in the world, not Russia.
I fear the things are much much more complicated then you think.
Yeah, of course Russia does not want to invade Germany - it is just arming itself to the teeth. And of course Russia did not want to invade Ukraine in 2021 - they were just building up their military on the border since Mar 2021 [0]. So Ukraine was safe all the way up to the of morning Feb 24!!! <s>Only those bad war-mongers would think that Russia was going to attack Ukraine </s>.
NATO is bigger and it has more soldiers and bigger armies, why do you think Russia will invade NATO, it's just ridiculous. :( It is not Russia that is increasing in territories, it is NATO that is approaching Russia over the past few decades.
Speaking as a Russian citizen, I remember hearing "NATO will invade us anytime now" pretty much since early 90s. Yet somehow in 30 years since then it is Russia, not NATO, which has repeatedly invaded its neighbors.
And the rhetoric that Russia is directing at the Baltic states - and has been for many years now - is largely indistinguishable from the pretext used to invade Ukraine. So those states at least have very good reasons to believe that they are next; and they are in NATO.
Just to be clear: Russia has invaded Ukraine, has declared that the country has no right to exist and ukraine people will be exterminated, but it is NATO that is the aggressor?
No one unarmed was exterminated and no one say that will be exterminated. You're exaggerating. None of the unarmed people were harmed on purpose. Yes, there are crimes in war. And there are precedents when the perpetrators were arrested. Yes, some words about "existing" really don't sound nice and strange, but if you really want to figure all out, then you need to watch the original full speeches, rather than quotes selected by interested Western media. But Ukraine and West reaction is not adequate. Ukraine nationalis really comitted bloody crimes, even european court confirmed it(https://www.echr.coe.int/w/judgment-concerning-ukraine-2). Ukraine and the West could really fight for their territories without war by peaceful ways. Ukraine also had no plans to hold a referendum on joining NATO, although not all people who support the West and the European Union would support joining the NATO military alliance. No Russia will be able to hold the territories if the entire civilian population went on strike against it. Sorry if you're not interested in looking into this deeply and you can't be persuaded.
For one thing, when you invade a foreign country, "we're only killing people who are armed and trying to defend their homeland" doesn't make it any less of a crime.
But also, the civilians who got shot in Bucha, and countless others in similar situation, would very much disagree.
Not at all. The US has tried to minimize its involvement in this war before it even started.
In the run-up to the full-scale invasion, Biden spent more time saying what he would not do than what he would do.
Think that, to this date, the US has not supplied a single fighter jet. The only airframes Ukraine received were provided by European nations.
About 30 Abrams tanks were delivered by the US, and that only after it was clear Ukraine's 2023 counter offensive had failed.
Since Trump's return to power, not a single aid package has been approved. To the contrary, the Trump administration has sided with Russia and North Korea on UN General Assembly votes about Ukraine.
Remember that in the 1990's the US put Ukraine under pressure to give up its nuclear arsenal (2nd in the world at the time) against promises that its sovereignty and independence would be respected (Budapest memorandums). Who is going to believe the US now?
Russia is basically ok with Ukraine being a buffer state so long as it doesn't become a NATO ally. At this point Ukraine will probably have to give up the Russian ethic regions adjoining Russia to get peace.
Imagine if Mexico tried to join BRICS or the Warsaw pact back when it existed. You can see the realpolitik logic here. If you want stability and peace for the Ukrainian people, do a deal. Ukraine wasn't in play but for NATO expansion eastward. Now it is, and it is the fault of the United States that this situation was created.
US politicians crow about what a great deal for them the Ukraine war is since others are fighting and dying to fight USA's enemy*. Very blood thirsty.
* The enemy of the USA ruling class, I personally don't harbor any animosity towards Russia though I dislike their form of government—a form that resulted from US attacks on the post-Soviet political economy.
> * The enemy of the USA ruling class, I personally don't harbor any animosity towards Russia though I dislike their form of government—a form that resulted from US attacks on the post-Soviet political economy.
So, Russia bears no responsibility for its own government, which is somehow manufactured by the US? OK, that's a new one on me.
Ukraine started seeking NATO membership when Russia invaded Georgia in 2008. NATO members refused, following this flawed logic "that it would provoke Russia". In 2014, when Russia first invaded Ukraine, Ukraine was still a neutral country.
The reality is that Russia had had NATO countries on its borders (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) for years before it invaded Georgia and Ukraine. And two years ago Finland joined as well. Russia did nothing to prevent this.
NATO is a defensive alliance. The only thing it threatens is Russia's imperialism and expansionism.
Russia broke countless agreements where it recognized Ukraine's borders and independence, so Russia's signature is now worthless.
Everyone knows how Russia treats the peoples of lands it conquers: torture, executions, deportations etc. No country could accept these terms. It would amount to national suicide. For this reason Ukrainians have to choice but to keep fighting.
> Would you just roll over and let Russia invade your country?
Apparently, many Ukrainian men would. Or maybe they'd seen it like a mere change in upper management, initially. Otherwise the Ukrainian government would not have felt it necessary to forbid them from leaving the country or to press/force them into military service.
(And, frankly, the people affected are the only ones whose opinion should matter in this situation.)
> Bleeding to repel the Russian invasion, you mean
It's always easy to spill other people's statistical blood from the other side of the planet.
I'd have taken the March pre-2022 deal rejecting NATO alignment in a heartbeat. In fact, even as the deals Russia offered got steadily worse they were always calibrated to be a better alternative than continuing to fight and lose.
NATO isnt powerful enough/motivated enough to help Ukraine fight off Russia despite pledging unlimited support in March 2022 (now proven to be a hollow lie).
There was nothing logical about Ukraine's decision to reject neutrality and to try and set itself up as a NATO military bulwark along Russia's most vulnerable border.
I'd have taken that too, with security guarantees. Otherwise what do you do when Russia comes back for another bite of the pie? That's why they want to join NATO.
"Give it independence" is a very misleading way to state it. Ukraine has declared its independence unilaterally; it's just that Russia wasn't really in a position to do anything about it then.
Yeah, they invaded twice and in each case a little diplomacy would have been sufficient to roll back the invasion. Diplomacy which was categorically refused for terrible reasons.
Hey, if you want to fight and die on behalf of your Western empire then Ukraine will be only too happy to have you and every Ukrainian of fighting age about to be thrown on to the front lines will be only too happy to trade places.
But, I get it - it's easy to treat little things like honest diplomacy and other countries' security concerns with complete disregard when you're not the one being thrown on to the front lines to die as a result of it. Only Ukrainians are forced to do that.
>Repeating Putin's talking points probably isn't going to convince anybody
Putin's a terrible human being and so are his supporters but he's not all that different to his western imperialist counterparts and the supporters of their narratives - people like you.
> Yeah, they invaded twice and in each case a little diplomacy would have been sufficient to roll back the invasion.
That's just a stalling tactic. The very people who built Russian diplomacy and personally mentored figures like the current foreign minister Lavrov have commented that Russia's offers have never been serious, pointing to details such as the fact that the people leading the negotiations are low-level functionaries without any authority to negotiate anything. You don't send errand boys if you're serious about negotiations.
Diplomacy is always a murky world but in this case there is one and clear stand out example where what you said is true. It was announced that Minsk 2 was purely meant as a stalling tactic to allow re-armament.
Unfortunately for your little theory it was Ukraine and Angela Merkel who admitted this and not Russia.
This was made even more painfully obvious just before that day in Feb 2022 when Russia demanded Ukraine adhere to this multilateral (i.e. also agreed by Europe) agreement theyd already agreed to and Ukraine just point blank refused, preferring to fight.
Russian diplomacy follows a Clausewitzian model (i.e. that you're better off in tbe long run if you are up front about your intentions), unlike the western model where one day you announce talks with the Iranians pledging good faith in your negotiations and the next day you launch a surprise bombing raid, hoping this means you got 'em good.
These are just stale deflections. Russian diplomacy is indeed stuck in Clausewitzian times: diplomacy is seen as an extension of military strategy and not as a tool for building durable cooperation. This becomes especially apparent when compared to how former great rivals like France and Germany, the UK and Spain, or Sweden and Denmark now conduct their relations with one another.
When you put Russia against this, it's abundantly clear how hopelessly outdated present-day Russian diplomacy is; it has much more in common with the distant past than with the modern day.
>Russian diplomacy is indeed stuck in Clausewitzian times: diplomacy is seen as an extension of military strategy and not as a tool for building durable cooperation.
Except that is what they are doing with BRICs with the entire rest of the world. It's only the American-led western hegemonic bloc they're clashing with - exclusively puppets and military junior partners of the United States like France, Germany, the UK, Spain, Sweden, Finland and Denmark.
Outside of this hegemonic military/economic bloc nobody has sanctioned Russia, which is why the effect of the sanctions we levied ended up being so pathetic. At the same time there is a huge appetite for joining the BRICs because the rest of the world is that fucking sick of us.
>When you put Russia against this
"This" is an empire in decline. The west is already following the same path as the USSR in the 1980s (dutch disease, massive industrial decline, fast incoming military overspend), except tailed off with more tacit and explicit support for genocide as a cherry on top. We're the best.
> In fact, even as the deals Russia offered got steadily worse they were always calibrated to be a better alternative than continuing to fight and lose.
They were always calibrated to be refused and there is a reason for that: NATO expansion is a red herring that Russia wants to use as an excuse for the invasion.
> There was nothing logical about Ukraine's decision to reject neutrality and to try and set itself up as a NATO military bulwark along Russia's most vulnerable border.
Ukraine has been neutral, and in fact quite friendly to Russia, both according to its Constitution and popular polls, up until the point Russia annexed a piece of its land and invaded another piece in 2014. By doing that Russia has shown that no promise of neutrality can save Ukraine from its tanks. I am surprised that some people are still talking about neutrality in good faith in 2025.
Remind us why a purely defensive alliance lead by a country on the othrr side of a planet needs to be closer and closer to the borders of the country against which that alliance was created?
Because small countries of Europe that don't want to be invaded by Russia seek to join the alliance that was specifically created to prevent such eventuality for its members.
That's why of the 4 wars it has taken part in in the last 30 years, 4 have been wars of aggression while 0 have been defensive (article 5 was invoked for 9/11 but occupying afghanistan wasnt a defensive move it was an imperial move).
It's a dog eat dog world out there for sure but sometimes the 14 year old boy isnt safer joining the crips for protection from the bloods. Sometimes he's just sacrificed as a pawn in a wider turf war as the crips' promises of protection ring hollow.
This is nonsense. The primary motivation for NATO is defense - the fact that it was not involved in defensive wars is rather evidence of its extreme effectiveness, being strong enough collectively that nobody even tries. OTOH countries not in it have been invaded (like Georgia and Ukraine).
It neither needs nor wants to be closer, and the long-standing rejection of Ukraine's membership application is a testament to that. Yet every neighbor of Russia is desperate to join it to secure themselves against yet another expansionist dictatorship in Russia.
They are openly supporting Russia, take their money, visit them while meeting high ranking Russian assets and are spreading the same Ideas. There is no framing here.
That's all fine and dandy, but also IMO it's entirely possible that the US cannot deliver their gold if these countries (and/or others) wanted it back.
Just look at what happened when Venezuela wanted their gold back. It took ages and that was a relatively tiny amount.
It's extremely naive for many EU countries to still believe that they "have" "their" gold stored in the US. And even more naive to not try and get it back.
The entire US banking and financial system relies on NOT delivering or owning the underlying (fractional reserve banking, federal reserve printing money out of thin air, failures to deliver every single day on everything from stocks to government bonds, failing CDS'es and so on).
> The entire US banking and financial system relies on NOT delivering or owning the underlying (fractional reserve banking, federal reserve printing money out of thin air
This is sadly a very common misunderstanding of how money is created inside the financial system, even by professional economists and financial advisers. In reality money is not valued at parity with some physical material but as a simple act of accounting [0,1,2,3,4].
Historically a currency (subset) has been pegged against rare minerals as a method of insurance against state or exchange rate instability, the flip side is that this restricts state spending and economic growth -- a growing economy needs a growing stock of currency to service loans and avoid debt driven deflation, as in e.g. the great depression [5,6,7].
This is why gold/silver standards are always episodic in world history [8].
Even in the fien-de-secle gold standard era the majority of currency in circulation had its origin in endogenous bank lending [9].
The typical stability and viability of a currency is from the fact that it can be used to procure real goods in the wider market, which in turn is because money contracts are legally enforced via social power relations, e.g. by a local government with the power make and enforce such rules. Incidentally this is why cryptocurrencies act as an investment asset and not as a currency, it lacks the enforcement component and it appreciates in value, which is never what you want for a currency [10].
You addressed only 1 of my example points and your post doesn't explain how USD is not essentially "printed" (digitally) out of thin air (or I'm too dumb to read which is entirely possible).
Look up the meaning of "failures to deliver" in the stock market. In short: it means stocks sold by market makers and never delivered. AKA: they take your money when you buy a stock, it appears in your account, but they didn't actually deliver anything.
Then look up how many of those happen daily in any US stock.
Or read up here: Naked, Short and Greedy: Wall Street's Failure to Deliver by Susanne Trimbath
It really doesn’t. The Federal Reserve’s gold vault is in New York, not Fort Knox, and it’s separate from the U.S. Treasury’s holdings. This thread started about foreign gold held at the Fed, Germany and Italy’s reserves, not U.S. sovereign gold in Kentucky. Mixing those up is like arguing about your neighbor’s bank account while waving around your mattress stash. Different institutions, different controls, different issues.
Or while you are at it provide some evidence to your conspiracy theory.
You're correct this does not matter this year. But in the 2013 German election, AFD got no seats, and now it has the second most seats. BSW was not around in the 2021 election, they got about 5% of the vote but Die Linke managed not to lose their vote to BSW. BSW probably picked up voters who would have gone to either AFD or Die Linke (kind of like voters in the early 1930s who switched between the KPD and NSDAP).
This is the future of European, and US elections. Undermining Russia is important to the rulers of Europe and the US, but not as much to workers and voters. You can see the sea change with Trump in office and socialist candidates like Bernie, who is getting huge crowds in Idaho and Oklahoma, or AOC and Zohran in New York. Young people can't afford houses, even programmers are having trouble since the 2022 layoffs - can you imagine the Amazin RTO in Seattle mandate would be possible in 2021? Wealth inequality leads to disruption, and political parties are made to appeal to the masses - either fascist or socialist. The political tendencies arising are no anomaly.
> You can see the sea change with Trump in office and socialist candidates like Bernie, who is getting huge crowds in Idaho and Oklahoma, or AOC and Zohran in New York.
I can see how Trump being in office is indisputable sign that populists are getting popular, but what does "huge crowds" cash out to? "crowds" should be as little as 1000 people. Combine that with to urban-rural and education polarization, and it doesn't seem too hard to get a 1000 college educated city dwellers to show up to a rally in Idaho.
This is a very superficial perspective. Disclaimer: I disdain both BSW and Afd.
You're basically falling into "the populist trap" in which they take a fact or something true and wrap it with a lot of BS and conspiracy theories. If you disregard the true core "just because it's from the wrong party" you give them political lever. We've seen that playbook working out for 10+ years.
De Masi did a great job as a financial expert in a parliamentary group, highly regarded by people over the whole political spectrum. I don't understand why he joined BSW but that doesn't weaken his point here.
And since we're already publicly discussing Trump blackmailing us with decommissioning US IT-Services without further notice, it is exactly right to talk about assets like gold being stored on US soil.
Extremists should never be ignored, especially in unstable times, but mentioning that these people are currently not in power and aren't even in the parliament is good context.
We are talking about national gold reserves, not some household items.
They exist for the reason to liquidate them in case of national emergencies/severe economic crises.
It's easier to liquidate these reserves when they are stored in trading hubs. That could be New York and London, or maybe even Shanghai, if China wasn't a systemic rival.
Storing all of them at "one's place" is a larger risk than splitting it up and storing them in several places, each with a different risk profile.
Well, if WWIII starts they will not be cashing in their gold no matter where it is kept and world financial capitals would be the last places to survive strikes.
Usually russian propoganda is anything that stirs internal conflict. This does not mean that any internal conflict is russia propoganda, but they are very quick to try amplify any conflicts. This is KGB strategy of active measures (subversion). Read more here : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuri_Bezmenov
So the logical conclusion would be that if anyone tries to criticize their government the higher up will just declare it pro-Russian and make person shut-up? How fucking convenient. Maybe it is better to stop looking for Putin under one's bed and take responsibility for own fuckups.
From World War II, the problem with keeping it at your own place was that, if someone overruns your country, your government-in-exile may be able to keep control of gold that is outside your country. Gold that is inside your country, however, is controlled by the invader. (And may be looted by them. Even if you later get your country back, the gold may be gone.)
That exposes you to the risk of the country holding it. But for much of recent history, the US was seen as a lesser risk than a Russian invasion. Whether that is still the way the risks balance... I think we each may hold our own opinion on that.
Well, influential people (that is, people fairly close to Putin) in Russia are saying that, after Ukraine, Russia will take Poland. Yeah, that's not Germany, still less Italy. But it's much closer to Germany than I would be comfortable with if I were German...
Duma does not make any major decisions. They just rubber stamp what Putin tells them to. Medvedev is Putin's toy. Listening to them is the same as to some western lunatics who while formally being part government spit some bullshit like "the world flat."
In this case, if you’re American. It signals a loss of trust in them which is an impossible absurdity if your a priori is that America is the eternal good and only future for us all. Can’t have that.
After skimming through the comments derailed into AfD/BSW discussions, I'm happy to find this comment, because as a non-extremist German, this is the reason I want the German gold out of the USA. Right now, it makes as much sense as storing the gold in North Korea. It will just be held hostage or stolen by the local dictator.
Both things can be true at once: the politicians talking can have legitimates arguments while being part of pro-Russian parties that don't have power in Germany and do not represent the German government opinion.
It's not the argument made in the top level post, they are just saying “What I'm trying to say is that these two do not represent the German political landscape at all. […] This is not a debate happening in Germany right now and no other party has expressed support of any position.”
Maybe there should be a real debate on that topic, or maybe Germany should even pursue such a repatriation of their gold reserves, but as a matter of fact there's no such debate or plan besides fringes parties, that's it.
This is a very skewed view of the political landscape. Would be nice to forget this pro/anti Russia narrative. Please also note that AfD has become the strongest party in Germany. Sure, firewalled, but question is, for how long.
> Please also note that AfD has become the strongest party in Germany
It has not. They got 20% in the last Bundestag election, compared to 28.4% for CDU. Unless they get significantly stronger it seems very unlikely that anyone wants to be in a coalition with them on the short or medium horizon.
There are a couple of different polls and I really don’t care about them, just remembered that there was a moment when AFD surpassed CDU[0] and if I recall correctly it was when Merz announced the big debt package.
When someone has a different opinion, it doesn’t mean they are lying. Please stop this thinking.
Also would make sense to read carefully. AfD has more votes in the polls than CDU (not the union CDU/CSU! - which are essentially two parties).
For this kind of comparison you have to treat CDU/CSU as a single party. They're always counted as one in national polls. It is very confusing and misleading to treat them separately in this kind of national comparison.
I’m not sure what to say. We can talk about the exact meaning of the words, but it doesn’t really matter.
I’m not saying AfD is good or bad, just telling you the facts. AfD surpassed CDU (not the union!) in the latest polls. In the last elections they “won” in east Germany. You can’t block a party, if half the country votes for it. Let’s see what’s coming.
I'm not even disagreeing, just right now the AfD does not have actual power yet. They cannot make federal laws or decide policy.
They probably will be able to do that either after the next election or after the government coalition collapses.
But as of now all they can do is b*tch and moan.
Btw, who says you can't block a party just because half the country voted for them? You can't wish the sentiment away, yes, but you can totally force them to rebuild the party infrastructure. Again and again, if needed, if they keep making an illegal extremist party.
Yes, exactly, stick to the facts! Read my comment again, I haven’t said anything about the last election.
If you check the latest polls, AfD surpassed CDU (not the union CDU/CSU!).
This seems like a gadget just for the sake of having another gadget...