Neo-Nazi party given green light to target school children

It's hardly a green light, just not a red one. This is news simply because it is Germany, not because of the politics (or the music) but because "Germany ~ Nazism" is still a way of selling news.

This isn't a German issue - why wasn't Prussian Blue censored and why is the American Nazi Party (and why are several other similar parties) not banned in the US? Sure, 1st amendment rights - but why isn't this a good enough argument, in your eyes, for modern Germany?

I think you're missing the point slightly Nosey, the article wasn't saying claiming that Germany has more of a problem with Naziism than any other country, the point is that racists are targeting children directly with their propaganda.

Utter nonsense at its level best.....(not because of Nazism or its equally nonsense anti immigration policies,...as everyone has and should have the right to speak about his/her ideas) BUT simply because school children are not at an age to enter/understand or to be influenced by politics. Even doing so at Uni-level students would also be totally inappropriate.

If these type of activities made any sense then countries around the world have done something similar already ages ago and would not wait for us to to become pioneers in stupidity.

Chocky, I don't think I did.

The tone of the headline, ie "green light", suggests a decision to support which is not the case. It is just that they cannot give a red light. There is also the subtext about the NPD being a threat to the constitution.

It's fine that it's a story but the tone suggests to me a special 'German' mentality, ie that the NPD and such parties need to be controlled because in every German there is a fascist waiting to break out. If there was a similar action in the US, ie ban someone's right to free speech, people would be up in arms (some of them perhaps literally so) - the assumption being that in every American is a democrat (small d) waiting to break out (therefore no need to prevent idiots from broadcasting, since they will never become a significant danger).

Have there been rulings in the US which have prevented right-wing propaganda being disseminated to under-18s? If they didn't make such a ban would you call it a green light for fascism in the US?

I don't think it's implying that at all. If anyone is guilty of hysteria about this issue, it's the Germans themselves, classifying the NPD as a threat to national security is not in anyones interests, none of the mainstream parties are willing to open dialogue with the Nazis, meaning they will continue to feel like outsiders and therefore justified in their cause.

History repeating itself.

Agree that it's a self-made issue too and the idea that within there is a closet fascist seems to very much a part of the modern (liberal) German pysche.

Simple solution, parents to their children: do not talk to strangers or accept their brochures and CDs. That statement would do more than any released by the Federal Department for Media Harmful to Young Persons.

What a fraud, the guy points to a banner with family sprawled across it, while his organization proposes circumventing the child ­ parent relationship, which is essential to the family, by spreading their propaganda directly to children as they come to and go from school.

The biggest thing that sets me on fire is that they and the media claim that they a far right. They are far from it. But, I guess that depends on your view of the political yardstick, or meterstick, for me tyranny to the left end and anarchy to the right end. Look at their platform, not that different from the other parties. All the parties will trample your individual liberties, some will just do fast and hard and the others will do it gradually with a smile.

Agree with ironclad. Parents talk to your children about hatred and xenophobia (same goes for sex/disease/pregnancy, drugs, alcohol, cigs). Then what ever falls into your children's hands can be discarded. You cannot protect your children from all sources of trouble, you can only build in them the tool of thinking for themselves.

Also, let people produce as much garbage as they want, eventually it will be to much for any one person to absorb and most will be ignored. Kind of like leaflets placed on your car, who read them?

Ironclad, given that anarchy is political organization without leadership, I wouldn't even place them on the contemporary 'yard stick' (though some anarchists do team-up with leftists, and if you must classify dichotomously, then left is where they are).

I'd say tyrrany can be found at both ends of the spectrum, and if you'd like to upend and append the modern definitions of 'right' and 'left' in the context of politics (as you have attempted), so be it, just realize that on the right you have a set of shared values as you do on the left and most of the rest of the world classifies political movements/beliefs/parties based on which values they share most relative to the political context. For instance, the NPD is no further to the right than the Tea partiers in the U.S. if you look at the NPDs rhetoric, it's not nearly as strong as any single neo-nazi group's rhetoric. Certainly though, in both the NPD and Tea Party you have numerous connections and ideological agreements when it comes to things like immigrants, racial and sexual equality, and the rights of workers to collectivize. That being said, in Germanythe FDP and CDU are classified as rightest, but only in relation to the leftists in germany, they are harder on immigration and things of that sort (but they certainly have no connections to the neo-nazis), if you were to transplant the FDP and CDU to the U.S. they would there be considered more akin to democrats than republicans (as would most normal rightist parties in the U.S).

If I had to classify Germany and the U.S. together it would look like this,

Die Linke, Grün, SPD, CDU/CSU, FDP, Democrats, Republicans, NPD (left corresponds to left, and right to right.

Surely, it is better to address issues of the-quick-fix with children as soon as they are able to understand.

Whether it is anti-immigrant-fixes, religeous-fixes or chemically-induced-fixes the sooner children realise that the general idea of a quick-fix is the problem - and, not some specific measure - the less likely they are of doing harm to themselves and others discovering this fact the hard way.

To me, the issue is not withholding information from children but ensuring that the information they have fed to them is balanced. Children have an incredible capacity for sorting through crap information as long as they are enough points of view.

So called modern definitions are an affront to the truth and history. The leftists have corrupted these definitions in an attempt to differ themselves from their not so ideologically distant opponents. Today, leftists use democratic as a code word for socialist; green is the new red. Socialism, fascism, national socialism, communism, and tyranny are all left.

To say that neo-nazis parties, or even neo-nazis light parties have common connections to American tea parties is extremely misguided and off the mark. When have the tea partiers advocated anything but racial and sexual equality, or immigrants rights, tread carefully here do not confuse legal with illegal. They do advocate the worker¦#39;s choice to unionize, or not; they do not advocate force unionization, forced paying of dues to union boss who may or may not have the workers¦#39; interest at heart, unwanted strikes leading to loss of wages. NPD¦#39;s advocacies for family and traditional values are superficially and fraudulently; see my comment above. It is a smoke screen, just like green movement¦#39;s environmental polices; they are more about power, control, and curtailing individual liberties than anything else. The ideological connection between them and the tea parties does not exist on any level.

In the United States, tea parties and conservatives are classical liberals; liberal, yet another word that has been misused for over a century. They support a small, both in purse and power, representative government, a constitution of negative liberties, defining what the government can not do to or for the people, and personal property, which the foundation of all liberties.

Well said Tollerman#12- My schooling in the US was one long rant by leftists. The only thing I learned from it was that a lot of teachers get paid to spew leftist filth on drugs, homosexuality, promiscuous sex, and anti-social behavior, while avoiding topics like math, science, literature (except for the degenerate stuff), history (except for anything that shows the country in a negative manner), etc., etc.

I rejected the left and right for the poodles they are, I registered Libertarian and will make up my own mind on issues, without the benfit of the left or the right's brainwashing.

German's should do the same.

By the way Ramstein's great. "Were all living in Amerika, Amerika, Amerika- Coca-Cola Wunderba!" Very funny.

This is a mistake. Naziism is a danger not only to the world at large but to everyone that loves Germany. Weimar Germany was much better then what Hitler the fascist concocted. If you want to instill a love of German Kultur in children give them a copy of Beethoven, not Rammstein.

Geoffrey "Ragnar" DeVere

2720 NW Pettygrove St.

Portland, OR 97210 U.S.A.

3163 S. Pacific St.

Tolovana Park, Or 97145 U.S.A.

Ironclad, saying that national socialism is to the left is about the funniest thing I've ever heard. They added socialism to the name in '21 to try and branch out to the left, of course it didn't work, and in '34 any leftist elements that were in the party were expunged with the night of long knives. I don't know where you get your history, but it's pretty lacking in the department of facts. As for the NPD they are not properly nazis, most there are associated with the nazis, and this is similar with regards the Tea Party movement in the southwest (of course this is me taking people within both groups at their words, I would sooner label both groups nazilicious than otherwise).

Tollerman, did you run away from some trials that went on after world war II, the more and more I read from you the more you sound like this guy who despised the left in Germany from 33-45.

Wend, degenerate arts eh, 'entertete kunst' is what the nazis called the exact same thing.