eu-cool astronaut-2 astronaut-1

    • UmbraVivi [he/him, she/her]
      ·
      4 months ago

      Second Thought makes videos targeted at radlibs. People who (generally) have a conscience, know that capitalism is flawed and are receptive to socialist ideas, but still have faith in the systems they're familiar with.

      "Hey, look at all these far-right figures popping up all across Europe, could it be that profit-maximizing billionaires inevitably lead societies towards fascism?" is a much better way to reach these people than "Your succdem PM is a Nazi, soon President Xi will make it rain ICBMs on all of Europe inshallah"

  • edge [he/him]
    ·
    edit-2
    4 months ago

    I watched the whole video, so I know what he said at the end, but:

    Realistically, what's going to defeat European fascism this time? There's only one real way to defeat fascism and the Soviet Union isn't around to do it again.

    • reaper_cushions [he/him, comrade/them]
      ·
      4 months ago

      European Fascism doesn’t exactly require a whole lot of beating, this time around. In 1933, Germany had a large population of young people that could be fed into the meat grinder of the eastern front. Right now, all of Western Europe is facing an impending demographic catastrophe with incalculable consequences. Case and point: Germany’s strongest birth rates have been in the years of 1962 to 1965 with a pretty sharp decline and eventual stagnation around the mid 2000s. Retirement age in Germany is 65-67, thus in the waning years of this decade, Germany will face labour shortages it will not be able to accommodate. Now, imagine if fascists come to power in Germany and actually expel the quarter of the population that has a migration background (which, on average, is considerably younger than the “Bio-Deutsch” population). The country would be in ruin effectively immediately. This is no economic basis for a major military campaign on the scale of Operation Barbarossa.

      The situation is not much better in the rest of Western Europe.

      • edge [he/him]
        ·
        edit-2
        4 months ago

        This is no economic basis for a major military campaign on the scale of Operation Barbarossa.

        Fascism would still need to be beaten regardless. Many people within fascist countries will be in grave danger. The Soviet Union had a moral imperative to dismantle fascism whether or not Barbarossa happened.

        Overall this wave of fascism isn’t really expansionist anyway (besides Israel), but that’s not the only threat of fascism.

        • reaper_cushions [he/him, comrade/them]
          ·
          4 months ago

          I’m a Central Asian person living in Germany. I’m keenly aware of the threat to the lives and livelihoods of us, a threat that has been made ever more clear since October 7th. However, in terms of destructive force that can be unleashed onto the rest of the world, this wave of fascism is shaping up to be the farce to the tragedy it was last time around.

          • QuietCupcake [any, they/them]
            ·
            edit-2
            4 months ago

            You make excellent points about the demographic situation and the like, and it's great to read something positive like that. But it seems really off to be downplaying the threat that fascism poses to the world. To come out and say that it doesn't have the destructive potential this time around is just wild, considering the fascists didn't have a nuclear arsenal last time. And that's not the only reason that it could be even worse in a WWIII scenario than it was in WWII, with the absence of anything like the Soviet Union now, as u/edge was pointing out.

      • Bloobish [comrade/them]
        ·
        edit-2
        4 months ago

        My mind honestly goes to cannibalistic fascism in which these countries utilize fascism to forestall outright labor disputes that in the end make shit EVEN WORSE because in the end fascism is an illogical reactionary ideology that is only good at murdering a crap ton of people.

    • Hestia [she/her, love/loves]
      ·
      4 months ago

      You are entirely discounting the global south and China.

      China is quickly becoming the dominant economic force, and while it may not happen under Putin, as Russia continues to forge close ties with them, there's a very good chance some of their Soviet roots will return.

      And then there's the fact that Israel is poisoning the global south against western imperialism.

      • edge [he/him]
        ·
        4 months ago

        I highly doubt China is going to invade Europe to root out fascism there. They might be able to take economic actions, but fascism with a bad economy equals more fascism, especially if it actually is the fault of another country.

      • FunkyStuff [he/him]
        ·
        4 months ago

        How's a Chinese expeditionary campaign to fare in Europe though? I don't think it would be good for them to overextend all the way to the subcontinent, it'd probably go down closer to their own soil if they did go to war with European Nazis in the next 30 years.

    • quarrk [he/him]
      ·
      4 months ago

      Realistically, what's going to defeat European fascism this time?

      If it really came to a WW3 style conflict, seems clear that it would be the BRICS countries, roughly speaking. Who actually participates would depend how it unfolds I guess, but I don’t see China letting Russia fall to NATO or vice versa.

  • Awoo [she/her]
    ·
    4 months ago

    I worry that his final message of "vote left to delay the fascists" will be misinterpreted by some of his audience that do not understand that the democrats are not left and he is not advocating for that.

    • grandepequeno [he/him]
      ·
      4 months ago

      There are plenty of leftist parties in european countries that are not akin to the american democratic party that can pickup some seats, and where these parties exist there's usually an understanding that they're "the left" and not the "center-left" so I think it's hard to misinterpret unless someone REALLY wants to vote for sucdems for some reason.

      • Awoo [she/her]
        ·
        4 months ago

        Yes in europe.

        His audience are americans that still refer to the democrats as left though.