On the 5th of March 1933 the Nazi party of Germany managed to achieve a brilliant result in the parliamentary elections. They did not win the majority of the votes, only 45%, but that was the beginning which allowed Adolf Hitler to seriously change the course of world history later. At present the political state of affairs in European parliaments increasingly reminds of the situation 80 years ago.
More and more right-wing and ultra-rightist parties win seats there and the parliamentary majority has to reckon with their declarations and actions.
Parties on the right show high results in presidential and parliamentary elections in the EU countries. French National Front leader Marine Le Pen won 18% of the votes in the first round of the presidential election. The UK Independence Party won on average 14% in local elections. In the early parliamentary elections in Greece, 7% of citizens gave their votes to the ultra-rightist Golden Dawn party.
Some experts are already comparing the political state of affairs in European countries, as well as in the former republics of the Soviet Union, with the Weimar Republic. Right-wing parties have no majority in European parliaments so far but they can form coalitions and their own parliamentary groups. Like 80 years ago, this is happening against the background of an economic crisis. The crisis is responsible for the growth of radical moods, Assistant Director of the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology at the Russian Academy of Sciences Vladimir Zorin believes.
“The EU does not provide equal and fair development for all regions. So many countries, especially those that lost in WW2, crave for revenge. This revenge-seeking is the driving force of radicalism and attempts to revise history.”
Today, right-wing and ultra-rightist parties have made a gigantic breakthrough in such countries as France, Finland, Austria and Greece. They are supported by 10-15% of the population. Their electorate mostly consists of young people who are the most active part of society, Vice-President of the Centre of Strategic Communications Dmitry Abzalov says.
“A whole number of surveys shows that the European crisis is getting worse, which is followed by the growth of political parties with very radical views. To a large extent this is the result of double standards in the denouncement of Nazism. As a result of a fuzzy barrier, such parties’ chances to get into parliaments in North Europe or France have become much better, which was hard to imagine 5-10 years ago.”
The economic crisis gave nationalist parties a chance to receive serious support from the population. The crisis also became the reason for the failure of the idea of multiculturalism. No reciprocal influence of cultures and traditions resulted, on the contrary, confrontation came to the fore.
The understanding of Nazism has become blurred on the wave of right-wing ideas that are gaining popularity. Several politicians who are supported on the state level are even prepared to review the results of WW2, Vladimir Zorin believes.
“The world is standing on the threshold of new geopolitical changes. This also concerns the events in North Africa and the Arab world. Many parts of the world are troubled and restless. So some forces are trying to use the potential of nationalism and Nazism for solving contemporary problems. This is a very alarming fact which is also an important factor for further destabilization. For this reason, all forces that stand for the historical truth and the normal development of Europe and the entire world should be on the alert, Vladimir Zorin emphasizes.
The Voice of Russia
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says Zionism is on the verge of collapse as developments in the region move in line with the aspirations of regional nations.
“Today, the trend of circumstances is making headway to the benefit of nations and in line with the materialization of their cause and a glance at the 50-year history of the presence of Zionists in the region suggests that they are on the downward course of collapse,” Ahmadinejad said.
The Iranian president made the remarks during a meeting with the deputy head of Hamas political bureau, Moussa Abu Marzouk, on Monday.
President Ahmadinejad said that Palestine has been a “decisive issue for the entire region and the world and today the fate of the whole region has been tied to the liberation of the holy al-Quds (Jerusalem).”
The Iranian chief executive further reiterated the Islamic Republic’s support for the oppressed Palestinian nation and their efforts to liberate the occupied territories.
Marzouk, for his part, said that resistance is the sole way to achieve victory against the Zionist regime.
Presstv
Now that politicians and the establishment media have intertwined mental health and proposed gun laws, the top cop in Houston wants to change Texas law to make it legal for police to seize guns from citizens they determine are mentally ill.
A proposed law will amend the mental health code of Texas and allow police to confiscate a weapon taken from a person they determine is “experiencing a mental health crisis and has been found to be a danger to himself or others and is being transported by police for an emergency mental health evaluation,” according to the Associated Press.
Houston Police Chief Charles McClelland wants the Legislature to require a judge to decide if citizens referred for mental health treatment are qualified to exercise the Second Amendment. McClelland has teamed up with Republican state Rep. Allen Fletcher who is drafting a bill to keep firearms confiscated from citizens by the police in a property room until a judge decides if it should be returned.
“I’m not trying to take guns from citizens in this country, but there should be an additional judicial review,” McClelland told the AP. “Someone, other than the police, should have to review that case or that incident requiring that mental evaluation, to tell me if this person is still qualified to own or carry a firearm” and have it returned.
McClelland said police need the ability to confiscate a firearm prior to a determination by the state.
“Whenever that person’s (mental) evaluation is completed, because of HIPAA laws and medical privacy issues, I have no way of knowing if this person still qualifies to carry or have a firearm,” McClelland said. “But when they show up at the property room, I have no choice but to give it back. And I want to give it back if they still qualify.”
San Antonio’s top cop supports McClelland’s effort. “My stance on gun laws is not a political one,” San Antonio Police Chief Bill McManus said in a statement. “I am a proponent of any law that keeps guns out of the hands of people who shouldn’t have them and any law which enhances public safety and officer safety.”
During his anti-Second Amendment address in January, Obama conflated firearm ownership and mental illness when he signed nearly two dozen unconstitutional executive actions. According to the establishment media, “mental health emerged as a core feature of the president’s plan to prevent further tragedies like the Dec. 14 shooting in Newtown, Conn.”
However, according to Paul Appelbaum, a professor of psychiatry, medicine and law at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York, only between 3 and 5 percent of violent crime is due to mental illness.
New York’s recently passed gun law requiring mental health professionals to report people they consider potentially violent will not prevent gun violence. “We’re not likely to catch very many potentially violent people” with laws like the one in New York, Barry Rosenfeld, a professor of psychology at Fordham University in The Bronx, told NPR in January. Laws like the one ushered in by New York’s Democrat governor “cast a very large net that will probably restrict a lot of people’s behavior unnecessarily,” Rosenfeld said.
Infowars
In May 2010, a huge, almost perfectly circular, sinkhole measuring 66 feet (20 m) wide and 100 feet (30 m) deep suddenly opened up, swallowing a three-storey building and a house in Guatemala City.
In December 2001, a house in Waihi, New Zealand, collapsed into a huge hole measuring 50 metres wide and 15 metres deep. A family of five, including three young children, escaped serious injury despite their home crashing into a chasm created by an old mine shaft collapsing in the middle of the night.
In November 2010, a giant crater suddenly opened up in a family home in Guilin, southern China's Guangxi Province. The pit formed at around 2:30 am when the members of the family were all in bed. Homeowner Zeng Pengqi said: We heard a loud cracking sound and the ground was shaking. We thought it was an earthquake. The family raced outside but was bewildered to find that no other homes were shaking; venturing back inside they discovered that a huge 2m deep pit had mysteriously opened up in one of the downstairs rooms.
An aerial photo shows a massive crater that appeared in a residential street in Schmalkalden, Germany, in November 2010
A man looks at a house that started leaning after a tunnel collapse in the Russian Black sea resort of Sochi in March 2013. The house, unnocupied at the time, began leaning after a tunnel on a nearby road construction project collapsed.
In June 2012, a 70-year-old woman had to be rescued by firefighters after the path beneath her feet crumbled and she plunged five metres down into a pit without warning. Firefighters set about making the opening larger and they were able to bring the woman up to safety. She was checked over by medical staff and was found to be suffering several fractures but no life threatening injuries.
A firefighter is lowered down into a 10m deep pit that suddenly opened up on a road in Harbin city, China, in August 2012. Two people were killed and two others injured...
...One of the injured was a 14-month old baby girl who was rescued from the pit by a firefighter.
In August 2009, a road in Hefei, Anhui Province, China, suddenly sank, causing one taxi and three motobikes to fall into the hole
April 2011: Rescuers work at the site of a road cave-in in the Fengtai district of Beijing. A truck was trapped in the pit but the driver was rescued and no casualties were reported.
A huge 20-metre wide (66 ft) sinkhole formed overnight in the yard of a family home in Leshan, southwest China's Sichuan Province in January 2011. Zhang Fengrong said he heard a loud roaring sound coming from outside. When he went to investigate he was stunned to discover the huge pit. He said he and several relatives had tried to measure the depth of the pit using a rope attached to a heavy iron, but after they used up the 40-metre long rope the iron still hadn't hit ground.
In August 2010, a hole suddenly opened up in a road in Taiyuan, China, causing the collapse of part of the nearby building of the Shanxi Provincial People's Hospital an hour later. No casualties were reported in the accident.
In January 2007, a huge crater opened at the construction site of the Pinheiros subway station in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Officials said a passenger minivan had fallen to the bottom of a 40-metre (130-foot)-deep pit dug to facilitate delivery of supplies for workers, and the lip of the hole gave way to a landslide, taking with it vehicles on a roadway around the edge and dumping tons of earth, asphalt and concrete on them.
January 2013: People look at a caved-in area of a paddy field in Fukou county, Hunan province, China. More than 20 pits have formed in the area during the past four months. According to the local media, the government's initial investigation showed years of mining has destroyed the local underground water systems.
This huge sinkhole suddenly appeared in July 2012 on a main road in Changsha, capital of southern China's Hunan Province. The enormous hole opened up at around 1am and swallowed up a car - killing one and injuring a further three people.
In September 2009, four firefighters escaped injury when their fire engine sunk into a large hole caused by a burst water main in the San Fernando Valley, Los Angeles
March 2013: People stand beside an enormous hole in the ground in Guangyuan, a village in southwest China's Sichuan province. The hole currently measures 24.9 metres in diameter and residents fear the pit will continue to grow until it starts swallowing nearby houses.
A taxi is lifted out of a 3m deep sinkhole that suddenly opened up in Handan city, Hebei province, northern China, in August 2012
June 2012: A car sits in a giant sinkhole in Duluth, Minnesota
A truck hangs over the edge of a sinkhole that opened up in the parking lot of Hughes Relocation Services in Salt Springs, Florida, in June 2012
A tourist peers into the Darvaza Gates Of Hell gas crater in the Karakum Desert, Turkmenistan. The eerie cavern has been on fire for more than 40 years. It was discovered in 1971 by Soviet geologists when the ground beneath their drilling rig suddenly collapsed, leaving a large hole with a diameter of 70 metres (230 ft). As the huge crater was filled with potentially poisonous natural gas the decision was made to set it alight. Scientists expected it to burn itself out within a few days, but the fire is still as fierce as ever.
The Telegraph
