So that's not entirely true like even before women had many rights they already were working for pay in various industries, I could give one very specific example but this is true throughout industries. Waltham (US Watchmaker) really drove down prices of watches by a fixation of 'interchangebility' not just of the mechanical pieces but more importantly immigrant workers and way more importantly women workers. This basically made them 30% more money over a decade so from 1860s to 1870s and that huge gain was seen by other companies who rapidly took that same idea of 'interchangebility' and soon lots of women were working in factories all over the world. They were often kept separate from the other workers and given 'simple' work to obfuscate the fact that women were paid way less than their male counterparts. Early labor movements would often talk about women being forced into factories to help make money for the household.

Assemblé des Travailleurs de Sonvilier, Enquête ouvrière 24.02.1867 "But, they will say to us, what about the worker's wife? Ah, yes, this being to whom nature assigns the care of the household, the early education of the children, and who is often already overburdened with tending to a large family, must still take up tools to help her husband provide bread for their children. Yes, it is a sad necessity! The father of the family can no longer provide the necessary bread for his children unless the wife helps him. And so, how many neglected households and sick children do we see because the mother is forced to devote her time and strength to the workshop."

You are right in that it was the pressure to expand the market base but women certainly were working in factories, just not alongside men because there was often a deliberate separation to keep them as low wage workers.

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And again this was happening in factories all over the world, this is just a specific subject I can quote from.

Yeah pretty much this to be honest, like SPD, Greens and FDP did all the nazi shit like the nazis who are rising now. They did austerity, they 'shut down the border', they helped israel in the whole genocide even go so far as so to say "Israel is justified in its war and killing civilians because Hamas uses civilian shields." and this was Baerbock the foreign minister that said that. They even said "Well the ICC we of course support it but....."

Like the difference between the nazis that go and the nazis that are coming is I guess more corruption since Merz is hilariously corrupt but as far as foreign policy and treatment and migrants go there's very little room to be worse. Like Police raiding church aslyums during the deepest night to grab a few men to send them 'back to syria' that has already happened under SPD. They've already been rounding up immigrants to appease the right. Absolutely no tears lost from me that these nazis are eating shit.

Scholz lost the vote so his government is now finally gone. Only 207 of 733 voted for him and 394 against. This doesn't come as a shock or anything this just makes it official elections are in 60 days in feb. Based on the newest poll SPD is going to lose quite a bit and get between 15-17%. CDU/CSU is going to be the biggest party with 31-35% greens might actually also lose after mentions of a Green-Black (Greens and CDU) coalition are around. AfD looks to double their % from the elections up to 20% maybe even higher.

No idea if what the greens in Belgium did had any influence since there a city government was decidedly won by the left and greens formed a gov. coalition with right-wing freaks.

Probably, shy nazis are a thing but even then unless they outperform by a ton like say they get 35%+ it'll probably have no different effect on policy because so far it goes like this already. AfD proposes nazi shit -> CDU dresses up the nazi shit a bit -> SPD passes it by dressing it up a bit again. Like it needs to be at a level where Union would have to include both SPD and Greens for it to be a factor imo.

I think it's highly unlikely allying with the AfD would be long term disastrous for them since their current strategy is going 'Why are you voting for AfD you are just throwing your vote away since no one will form a government with you. You should vote for us out of strategic interest.'

Plus SPD will throw themselves at the CDU and would allow everything you want anyways while the Nazis might make demands. Again Scholz the current leader was part of the previous cabinet under Merkel as the finance minister, and considering he is still the top guy it'll happen I'm like 95% sure. The other 5% is you don't have a working government (4%) and they will ally with the nazis (1%) and neither of those make the threshhold.

I could see the CDU reforming government kicking the SPD out and getting the AfD in at some later point but def not right now.

Karl Franz will summon the elector counts but I doubt anything will come of it.

Alright I said I would do a shortish thing about the upcoming german elections so here goes:

There's been 3 4 (one new one came in just as I started writing this) polls during the last few days so I'll just go by their numbers:

Alright we got numbers now how do they look....

In Germany you got a electoral threshold of 5% meaning if you get below 5% you can't get into parliament, this means that it's not unlikely that there would only be 4 parties represented in parliament after this election with around 20% of the votes being effectively thrown out. Voter participation is around 75% (Last election 76.4% but a few years before that 70.8%). So Parliament represents 60% of all Germans. Now with all of that out of the way we can talk about movements and malaise.

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Shouldn't be too hard to tell but SPD during the period where they were able to govern collapsed, this is a trend that is probably just going to continue but it is remarkable just how shitty this iteration of Center Right Soc Dems is because polling at 16-18% is a historic low, my guess is just glancing at past elections that they'll not recover from this and become a 15% political party in the near future because of how colossal the shift to the right under Scholz was. Now to Union, they have recovered from the terrible result last time and are now sitting roughly where they've been the last few election cycles.

AfD looks to almost double their voter percentage from last time, they had their start in 2013 because of the syrian civil war as a 'anti-Merkel' party but they've gone away from that to try and be more chummy with the Union to get into power but kept all the other right wing outright nazi shit. I cannot state that enough they keep doing Nazi dog whistles and it's pretty fucking obvious that they are cryptonazis.

Greens they are down a bit but have been able to grow from their usual 6-7% they used to be at probably because they have a ton of atlantacists and pro-US people in their party I mean Baerbock is literally a former member of the german marshall fund think tank that's funded by the US. So Greens? Funded and supported by the US pass it on.

BSW, Sahra Wagenknecht used to be in Die Linke has made her own party that is the most likely to actually make it into the Bundestag of the small ones. Was able to grab votes by being anti war in ukraine. US scepticism and some literal Pat Soc stuff, media has been talking about her being funded by Putin and her being a Putin shill, unlikely that she'll be able to do anything if her party makes it into parliament.

FDP are more than likely out. It was unlikely that they would've made it but a few days ago an internal memo was leaked that detailed their plans to blow up the coalition and the most opportune time to do it. Worst of all? It had the Title 'D-Day Ablaufszenarien und Maßnahmen' which everyone rightly mocked. They've been getting dragged by civility people for being backstabbers, my guess is they'll not be a factor for a few cycles then go back to their 10% they can reliably grab with their deep pockets.

Die Linke, it's fucking dead it's not coming back it's over.

Most of the movements done so onto the malaise:

'Which party is best suited to deal with the problems of Germany?'

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So 3 years ago 45% would've said no party we are now at 55% which has improved a bit compared to the 60% at the start of the year because for some reason thing Union is going to fix it oh well. This number will grow because well things are going to get a lot more shitty.

Because the two big topics for germans are the russian-ukranian war and the economy. Which is why you have Scholz doing photo-ops in ukraine and Merz (Union) saying stuff like 'We are finally going to be strong again and spend money on our military'. For the normal german person how do they see the economy? Well 16% think the economy is going to get better, a number that has gone steadily down, while 60% of germans think it's going to get worse, a number that keeps going up, and 22% think that the situation is shitty but it won't change.

So why malaise? Well this is just going to be my prediction but we will see a repeat of the GroKo (Greater Coalition/Union-SPD) we saw under Merkel, but this time under Merz a incredibly and openly corrupt politician so get ready for this one, Union is going to be able to do whatever because of the looming threat of AfD so SPD 'has to' chose the lesser evil. The coalition will push a huge amount of austerity onto the people during a recession which as we all know from every other country this has been done to, is really good.

I'll do a thing about german maybe tomorrow since it's super fucked but all I say is that 50% of the germans have given up and basically said that no political party can fix things so.

A wet erase map probably. Though I don't know if that's an 'accessory' since it'd be like saying dice, or notebooks are accessories they are so central to the whole thing.

I think one thing I really like since about last year is 'origami' miniatures i.e. miniatures folded out of paper, there's just something that speaks to me when I put down a bunch of paper frogs or a paper dragon as a miniature. They are 'abstract' but honestly it's not like it needs to be super detailed. Plus I don't have to worry about it getting damaged or lost, plus I can give it to people, which if you are running a game for kids, you'll want to bring more than just one paper dragon miniature.

As for supplements I quite like the Book of Challenges from 3.5e and WallyDM's Journal of Puzzle Encounters both help me with just coming up with challenges and puzzles since I can page through it a bit then make a new puzzle/challenge.

The racism and famine update did quite a few things in general getting off bad laws is easier but agricultural nations got hit hard. Migration is back in a big way so any nation in the Americas will have a much smoother experience.

As for russian american company you start out in a pretty shitty position but you can gobble on mexico a bit and then stall out USA with Russia before going independent, if you do that you get an event like all other colonial nations when they go free, but you can also become Athabaska which would allow you to go for a turtle island run.

Honestly Multiculturalism is fairly easy to pass now, can be easier if you invite certain agitators.

I am making a prediction now, once Ukraine loses the war there'll be a flood of opinion pieces and articles about how Ukraine lost the war not because western weapons weren't as effective as thought but because the nation is just too corrupt to win against the clearly inferior russian and even worse soviet weaponry. We'll see articles and opinion pieces about how corruption led to weapons not being delivered and being sold. Or how mobilization efforts were undercut by corruption and so ukraine never had enough people to actually fight, how the ukranian military was corrupt and so it's commanders inept etc. etc.

The west gets to save face and also keep Ukraine out of their 'garden'.

So following the whole german thing they did have a news brief today and it's about 20 minutes of them dodging the question looking extremely incompetent and getting somewhat agitated I might actually do some translations of that segment but for people who can speak german here ya go.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRl3X5nN4R4

Translation might happen but I am busy so could also just not happen...

Edit: Ate something doing a few comments from the start so might pick it up again at some point

Herr Jung: Mr. Wagner, before we move on to the appointments, I’d like to address the topic of the International Criminal Court because it has been signaled as a matter of significant interest.

Wagner: Mr. Jung, you may start.

J: I read your press release regarding this arrest warrant, and it states that the federal government will carefully examine the domestic steps to be taken. However, this leaves open whether the federal government considers the decision of the International Criminal Court binding. Could you clarify this?

W: I don’t need to clarify it; I can simply refer to what’s stated in the declaration.

J: Yes, but the declaration doesn’t include what you told us here, for example, in May. Back then, you said Germany would, of course, implement all decisions of the International Criminal Court and abide by law and order. That was clear in May. Today’s statement, however, doesn’t include that, whereas other European states have explicitly said this arrest warrant will be implemented.

W: I can still only refer to what is stated in this declaration, and that stands.

J: Mr. Hebestreit, on the same topic, can one interpret this as the federal government doing everything to prevent a situation where an Israeli minister—such as Prime Minister Netanyahu—could be arrested in Germany? That’s how it reads.

Hebestreit: That is an interpretation you are drawing from the text. I refer to the text itself, and that forms the basis of our actions.

J: Perhaps I could ask again: why is it so difficult for the federal government to state—given our historical context—that while we support the International Criminal Court in this case, it would be unthinkable for us to arrest an Israeli prime minister in Germany? That would seem justifiable, wouldn’t it?

W: I understand your point. This is precisely why we issued a declaration that addresses the two conditions we must consider. One is the importance of the International Criminal Court, which we strongly support. The other is the historical responsibility you mentioned. So, this statement should be viewed in light of these two aspects. I might even go so far as to say that I find it difficult to imagine us carrying out an arrest in Germany under these circumstances.

Herr Wackelt?: Is Mr. Netanyahu welcome in Germany?

H: I’m not aware of any travel plans by the Israeli Prime Minister.

W: I wasn’t asking about travel plans; I was asking whether he is welcome.

H: I have no current requests from the office of the Israeli Prime Minister for him to visit Germany, so I don’t need to comment further on this.

Frau Pauli: Just briefly, did I understand correctly—it’s difficult for you to carry out an arrest on this basis? So, on...

H: [Interrupts] No, that would be...

P: Or on what basis could you carry out an arrest?

H: Let me be very precise. I said it’s hard for me to imagine that, on this basis... That’s something entirely different...

P: Yes, that’s why I’m asking for clarification. So precisely.

H: It’s hard for me to imagine that an arrest would be carried out in Germany on this basis.

P: But on what basis? There’s the International Criminal Court, which has issued an international arrest warrant. Germany recognizes this court, and... yes, then there’s a problem because it concerns Israel and Germany’s historical responsibility or obligation toward Israel. But this press release doesn’t provide any indication of how the federal government would act if Netanyahu were to come to Germany. And now we can all ask this question ten more times, and the answer probably won’t change, but it still isn’t an answer.

H: I think it is, but we can certainly have different opinions on that.

P: Sure. [Laughs while Hebestreit does a Nazi smirk]

Frau Jäckels: You’ve had months to prepare for this scenario. Has no one in the Federal Chancellery or the Foreign Office thought about the consequences? Why does this still need to be examined now?

[Long Pause looking at each other]

H: I.... I don't understand the question

J: It’s been clear for some time that this scenario could arise—that there could be arrest warrants issued for Netanyahu and Gallant. Why is this still being examined now? You could have addressed this long ago.

H: I still don’t understand what you’re getting at.

J: It’s a very straightforward question. You’re now saying the federal government will examine how to implement this decision. But why does this still need to be examined? You could have been preparing for this scenario for months. It’s been clear that this could happen, and even likely that it would.

H: Well, the question is whether it was likely. But there’s no urgency here. So, let’s move on now.

This is only like the first 10 minutes this goes on for 30 minutes I might do the rest because there's more shit there but yeah. Like "Oh there's urgency no rush how to deal with this." in the face of Genocide deeply unserious country led by unserious people.

Edit edit: This is like 5 minutes actually out of 25 minutes but my brain is starting to leak so give me a break they say a bunch of other shit but apparently germany does not recognize the ICC. They are incredibly smug and don't think it necessary to defend the right of the ICC or human rights since Israel now thinks the ICC has no right to exist. Again all of the people up there are like smug nazis and they are all part of the SPD so take from this what you will.

In der Schweiz weist das Bundesamt für Justiz darauf hin, dass die Schweiz das Römer Statut, das die rechtliche Grundlage des Internationalen Strafgerichtshofs bildet, ratifiziert hat. Sie müsste Benjamin Netanjahu und andere Beschuldigte daher grundsätzlich verhaften.

In Switzerland the Federal Department of Justice says that they've ratified the Rome Statue, which forms the legal basis of the ICC. Therefore they would have to arrest Benjamin Natanyahu and other people that have been charged as a matter of principle.

Since @plinky@hexbear.net did post that question I did my part only intending to write something short which got longer so now ima do it as a seperate post.

So I chose a 'left wing newspaper' and a 'right wing newspaper' for fairness here because we gotta see both sides of the worm.

TAZ (These are actually fairly left wing like I'm not doing a bit here)

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on charges of alleged war crimes and alleged crimes against humanity. Warrants were also issued against Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and the leader of the radical islamist group Hamas, Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri, as announced by the ICC in The Hague on thursday. The alleged crimes include murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts. Netanyahu and Gallant are additionally accused of using starvation as a method of warfare.

This is pretty much all they got to say about it at least when I looked so this is like the 'respectable left wing german' position.

Now FAZ aka Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung is 'center-right' you know respectable nazis.

War in Gaza: Arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant.

This is what the warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant mean.

Honestly I tried to properly translate this but I got kinda mad through it. Because it uses quite a bit of weasely language but here goes. I fucking ran on hateorade....

Prosecutor Khan accuses Netanyahu and Gallant of crimes against humanity as part of a "widespread and systematic attack on the Palestinian civilian population." thanks to state policy. It's not about specific attacks by the Israeli army on civilian infrastructure but rather on the restriction and obstruction of humanitarian aid to people in the Gaza strip. Especially immediately after the war began, when Israel completely sealed off the coast and severely restricted acces to water, electricity and food.

Ok kinda lying there since Israel is still starving the people of Gaza but it's like only bad.

Israel's government reportedly used starvation and other acts of violence against the civilian population as part of a broad strategy aimed at eliminating Hamas, freeing Israeli hostages, and collectively punishing the Palestinian population. However, Chief Prosecutor Khan did not clarify to what extent the eventual lifting of the complete blockade and the resumption of humanitarian aid deliveries to Gaza factored into the overall assessment.

Go fuck yourself Alexander Haneke you fucking bavarian piece of shit. He then goes on to write about how awful hamas is for roughly the same amount.

Why is the prosecutor so fixated on the allegation of starvation?

Since the beginning of the war, Israel has faced accusations from many sides of violating international humanitarian law. However, experts urge caution, as the legal assessment of these actions is often highly complex and depends on a variety of factors. For instance, when Hamas uses civilian facilities for military purposes, these buildings become legitimate targets; in such cases, Israel may accept civilian casualties if they are not disproportionate to the military advantage gained. By focusing on accusations of starvation and systematic violence against the civilian population, Chief Prosecutor Khan avoids these nuanced questions. “This approach allows him to target the investigations directly at government officials responsible for these strategic decisions,” explains Christoph Safferling, an international criminal law expert from Nuremberg.

HMMMMMM MY NUANCE, HMMMMMMMM MY HAMAS IS USING CIVILIAN SHIELDS, HMMMMM ISRAEL IS NOT TRYING TO BLOW EVERYBODY UP. LIKE YOU WANT TO KNOW WHY HE 'FIXATED' ON STARVATION? IT'S BECAUSE THERE IS UNDENIABLE TRUTH THAT ISRAEL DID AND IS CURRENTLY DOING IT, THERE'S NO 'HAMAS WAS IN THE REFUGEE CAMP' 'HAMAS IS HOSPITALS' HERE YOU FUCKING DOLT.

Like the whole thing is just this hemming at hawing at how Israel certainly didn't do a genocide they just went a little too far like holy shit how is your next paragraph.

COULD THE ICC HAVE DONE SOMETHING DIFFERENT FOR THE INVESTIGATIONS?

In principle, the same procedures apply at the International Criminal Court as in German law. Arrest warrants and pre-trial detention are not convictions—they primarily serve to secure the legal process and prevent the accused from evading the court or committing further crimes. In cases of particularly serious allegations, issuing an arrest warrant is standard practice, even in Germany. However, when it comes to government officials of a state engaged in a war, the question arises whether an arrest is truly necessary and politically feasible.

HMMMMMMMMM I WONDER IF HE DID IT, HMMMMMMMMM I WONDER IF THE GENOCIDER REALLY SHOULD BE JAILED AFTER ALL HIS COUNTRY IS AT WAR HMMMMMMMM I AM THE THINKER, WE CAN'T ARREST HITLER HIS COUNTRY NEEDS HIM IT'S AT WAR

One last for the road...

Hamas celebrated the arrest warrants as a historic step, calling the decision an “important historical precedent and a correction of a long history of injustice against our people.” According to Hamas, the United States had spent months trying to block the action against the two “terrorists,” Netanyahu and Gallant, and had “terrorized” the court and its judges. Hamas did not comment on the warrant against Mohammed Deif. The group urged the court to expand its investigations to include “all criminal leaders of the occupation,” targeting ministers and officers who have “shed the blood of our Palestinian people.”

YES THEY ARE TERRORISTS THEY LITERALLY DID TERROR BOMBINGS, YES THE USA TERRORIZED THE COURT AND JUDGES GET THE FUCKING " " OUT OF THERE LIKE IT'S CRAZY HOW HE IS JUST QUOTE MINING HAMAS WHILE GIVING ENTIRE PARAGRAPHS TO ZIONISTS.

Johann Wadephul, the Deputy Chairman of the CDU parliamentary group responsible for foreign policy, told the FrAZ that the issuance of the arrest warrants was problematic. “There are doubts about the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court in this matter. The German government is called upon to take a clear stance,” said Wadephul. He linked his response to criticism of Foreign Minister Baerbock, accusing her of failing to send “the best German candidate into the race for a seat at the ICC.” “That Germany is not represented in this important body, and thus unable to advocate for Israel’s right to self-defense, is a serious failure by the foreign minister.” For him, it was inconceivable that “a democratically elected Prime Minister of the State of Israel would be arrested on German soil.” The arrest warrants, he said, demonstrated the “complete lack of sensitivity at the top of the International Criminal Court.”

SHUT THE FUCK UP JOHANN SHUT THE FUCK UP ALEXANDER SHUT THE FUCK UP GERMANY

I mean like wrong? At least speaking for switzerland, there's no 'sharp line' like there's literally bilingual cities and cantons like Biel/Bienne when I moved closer to the french part the local dialect had more french words in it it's not a 'sharp line' at all. The Röstigraben is more used as a political term similar to something like the urban rural divide because the french speaking cantons are reliably more left than the swiss-german speaking part. As for Rhätisch more people speak portugese than it but I don't know what point that is for what it's worth my partner loves watching the Rätisch program and has gotten quite good and understanding more and more so that nowadays she can get the gist of it.

Like shit I 'conducted business' in french this week my guess is that if I was on the opposite side of the röstigrabe they would be able to speak german with me, actually they did in Fribourg so....

The maximum number of first-class-official languages is how many people are willing to support them. Again compared to Belgium the political parties aren't separate if I lived in the french part even not being able to speak a single word I'd be able to do shopping since everything is in german, french and italian, any government document they have to give out in an official language. In school I learned french so again. All about like actual effort.

Edit: Actually talking about Rumantsch there's literally a somewhat big indie game in Rumantsch you should check it out it's neat.

Probably because it's the one thing they can put out there that doesn't put 'the west' in a terrible light? Like what other news are there? Genocide in Gaza which USA, UK and Germany are helping so can't report on that. Climate disasters can't do that one. General impending right-wing shift in politics thanks to the failures of european governments and decreasing standards of living can't do that one either. Germany coalition collapsing.... protest actions all over, jailing pro-palestine protesters etc. etc.

There is no good news out there currently except this is the one where finally they get to point fingers at the perfidious slav.

No you see that was the russians as well.

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Ban Russian ships from the EU-area?

Blowing up Nordstream 2 would've been cause enough for it!

It was a joke! Bro it was just a joke BROOOO

I dunno get better material or get used to being called a lib yank, like there's more than enough really shitty things switzerland does, did and has done all you gotta do is look it up for like 5 minutes.

Yeah man the devious swiss set the standard lmao actual lib take.