Ich kann in der Sache die neueste Folge der Anstalt (Abriss-Anstalt) von vor ein paar Tagen empfehlen. Dort werden Missstände der Finanzierung und Subventionierung des sozialen Wohnungsmarktes aufgezeigt. Sowie eben auch wo der neueste “Bau-Turbo” an der Realität vorbei geht.

Es begann wahrscheinlich schon vor einer Weile, als sich nach dem Wahlsieg sofort die Medien in voreilendem Gehorsam gefügig machten. Seit dem ersten Tag im Amt entrechtet er eine Gruppe nach der anderen. Angefangen bei Trans-Personen (Existenz über Verordnung aufgelöst), über Immigranten und gebürtige, nichtweisse Amerikaner (Habeas Corpus de facto ausgesetzt und damit sind alle betroffen) und körperlich Behinderten (DEI-A) und nun gehts jedweden politischen Gegnern aus “Links” an den Kragen…

Faschisten hören nie bei einer Gruppe auf. Und sie nehmen sich irgendeinen Vorwand, um das zu tun, was sie sowieso tun wollten. Objektive Wahrheit weicht der einen Wahrheit. Genau darum ist Solidarität und Organisation so wichtig, um dagegen halten zu können und dem keinen Nährboden zu bieten. Wir sollten schleunigst aus dem Geschehen lernen, denn auch hier in Europa sehen wir ähnliche Frühbewegungen in diese Richtung ohne wirkliche Opposition.

US-Präsident Donald Trump hat angekündigt, die Antifa-Bewegung in den USA als “bedeutende terroristische Organisation” einzustufen. Wie er das konkret umsetzen will, erklärte er in seinem Post auf Truth Social nicht.

Die Umsetzung ist egal und nicht der Punkt. Genauso wie der Vorwand (Kirk-Mord) sachlich nichts damit zu tun hat, werden Personen/Gruppen in Zukunft ohne Bezug zur Realität als Antifa bezeichnet und damit im Namen der Terrorismusbekämpfung der Willkür seines Staatsapparats ausgesetzt. Das ist die eigentliche Idee hinter der Aktion. Das sieht man z.B. auch am Satz danach:

“Ich werde außerdem nachdrücklich empfehlen, dass diejenigen, die die Antifa finanzieren, gemäß den höchsten rechtlichen Standards und Praktiken gründlich untersucht werden”, schrieb Trump.

There do exist things resembling that a bit. Usually done on the local level and mostly concerning some street/development design, where people are invited to actively participate in a workshop style event with experts and vote on the results. But yes, these are not mandates. And as soon as you go onto the state or federal level, such structures become virtually non-existent.

The others are parliamentary commissions which can be instated by parliament and are formed of mainly external experts around a certain issue. These are often used on state and federal levels of government.

I would love if representation was spread wider over the population and that involvement was higher. I also am baffled at how bad general civics education is here in school, especially at the obligatory level. I would welcome a far more detailed and engaging civics education where they could already get some experience right at the school. Or go and participate at some local event. This way they also see the importance of a truly democratic process. Alas, as long as they can’t vote, nobody seems to want their opinions.

Another part that needs addressing is finances. There’s a lot of intransparency yes, but the way it works now, it is also very hard to get your message across without being big in a main political party or having some big private sponsor. Which limits your actual freedom before and after you’re elected. If we’re thinking radical we might severely limit campaign budgets or think about public funds allowing the same restrictive scope for everyone, no matter their background and finances. This would also limit the imbalance in outreach between capital-backed candidates and others.

A third huge problem lies within the judiciary, where judges on many levels effectively also have to be party-associated to get elected. If that sounds completely compromising their necessary impartiality, yeah, it’s because it does. (Although I don’t have data on how that influences their work)

And lastly: The structures of accountability for politicians. I know that some steadiness or stability is necessary, but without the fear of accountability, far too many misuse their positions without repercussions. As we see from around the world, this invites more and more brazen figures to do more and more brazen violations. Just a brain-fart: 100k signatures to force a vote on relieving someone of their immunity so they can be tried in court. And to not just wait it out. Right now, it’s parliament that has this exclusive possibility.

This is not law yet. The Federal Council (the executive) has started a consultation process at the beginning of the year which ended in May. They are now looking at all the feedback that came in, that was - unsurprisingly - exclusively negative from all sides. If the responsible minister wants to go ahead with it, it goes to the Federal Council for a vote. If they approve it, this would be a decree to change an existing decree and that would come into effect next year or the year after.

And this is where direct democracy comes in: If this is the case anyone can start getting signatures for a public initiative which would change the constitution to prohibit such practices. In fact anyone can start doing that now. If it succeeds, then it’ll come to a popular vote. Threema (a secure chat provider) has already announced that they would do that and I’m sure that they wouldn’t be the only ones to band together in this.

The process might take long, but this is in no way “not good enough to counter a campaign for legal change with a goal” and in fact has happened multiple times in the past. Hence why Switzerland has a direct vote on issues every few months because of something called “Referendum”, whereby a popular vote can be forced on an issue passing through parliament. I might have my criticisms of the political system, but this ain’t it.

its system encourages it to have politicians as a thing

Well yes, there is some level of representation, so over 8 million people don’t have to decide every little detail on 1000s of changes of law. The system is built upon a “milita” system. I.e. politicians usually have a job. So people have the possibility to vote in experts or their vicinity and know that they won’t solely be career politicians. Unfortunately the laws around financing and propaganda are rather lax, giving an advantage to the rich, which leads to an over-representation of the capitalist class with occupations such as lawyers and business-owners and a clear under-representation of classical working-class jobs such as craftspeople or office workers. This is amendable though to correct the mismatch, if people realize their class interest and don’t fall for the same right-wing propaganda of a party whose playbook has been inspired by the US GOP for decades and who is inspiring Germany’s AfD now.

The main downside of the system imo has to do with people with no knowledge on an issue having to weigh in on them and therefore how powerful propaganda campaigns can be, which means that money buys power, as in every other existing so-called democracy - direct or not. Especially with how money shifts power away from the populace, this is inherent to capitalistic systems and it would be on the populace to protect itself from it. With enough propaganda though, people keep voting for more power of capital unbeknownst to them or not, just as they might vote against their interests on other things. The fact that you have to convince so many people, who hopefully do have some degree of education, makes it a lot harder though, for big capitalists to reach their goals, compared to less direct systems. And I know of several examples, how such a vote did not go in favor of big capital. What usually makes the difference is whether they succeed in portraying their advantage as the advantage of all.

Ah ja, dies ist ein weiteres Kapitel des internationalen Rechts - insbesondere Menschenrechte - als Wahlbuffet. Man bedient sich wann und wo es gerade passt und lässt links liegen, worauf man gerade keine Lust hat. Nennt sich Rechtsstaat. \s

Was in der Diskussion etwas verloren geht, ist diese Paralleljustiz namens “Schiedsgerichte”, wodurch sich Konzerne versuchen aus der Verantwortung zu stehlen oder geltendes Recht auszuhebeln, um sich Vorteile zu verschaffen. Es sind eben diese, welche auch in Freihandelsabkommen mit den USA auch dem Rest der Welt aufgedrückt werden (Siehe dazu bspw. die Kontroverse um TTIP und CETA und das darin enthaltene Investitionschiedsverfahren).