Out of words. Mostly.

I feel like I'm out of words, and, well, running out of hope, looking at how political stuff here in Germany is going right now. The AfD with its horrible rhetoric has voted together with CDU (who were supposed to be a democratic party), and now said CDU is showing a face that's almost as ugly as that of the fascist right-wing extremists. They are using the same rhetorics as well.

So here we are, a few weeks before the elections 2025, and it feels more like we're in 1933 again. When I was a teen in school, we got to watch the play "Die Welle" (The Wave) in our local theatre. One of the big questions that arose in the discussions afterwards was - what would we have done? How would each of us have reacted, and acted? 

I never really thought there would come a day when I'd be able to find out. I am horrified, really, to see that so many people today are STILL considering to give their votes to those from the AfD, or the CDU/CSU. We're running into rampant fascism, and a replay of 1933 and the following years, if they are given control. 

Germany is my home country. I grew up here, and while there's a lot of not-so-spiffy stuff going on, I feel at home here - but I am seriously considering options to go somewhere else now if the right-wing parties take over. Because I don't want to see how everything goes crash and burn, and I also don't want to be a victim of said crashing and burning. (Yes, my name is not German. My father came to Germany as a child. And no, I have no intention of finding out whether the fascist would still generously consider that as "German enough" or if they'd prefer to send me off somewhere.)

So. If you are in Germany, and have the right to vote, please think carefully about where you make your crosses. There's always the Wahl-O-Mat if you'd like to see how the parties' aims line up (starting on February 6 for the upcoming elections), and now there's also the Real-O-Mat to show you how the parties' actual decisions and votes match or do not match with your opinions. 

And if you feel like protest voting, there are plenty of parties who have no chance to do a lot - like Volt, or even Die Linke. Or you might actually vote for the green party, who does have a chance to really turn things around, and who have been trying hard to keep things civil, and do a decent job at running the country while the FDP was busy with killing the government, and the black parties busy with trying to copy the fascists. 

Voting far right is not protest voting. It's democratic suicide. Please keep our country safe for everybody. Vote left, or green.