Today the Far-Right "academics/fraternities" ball takes place in Vienna

[Tender Branson]

And if you want to know what went on inside the Hofburg, here it is:

[Tender Branson]

The FPÖ then held their "New Years Convention" today at the Vösendorf Pyramide just outside of Vienna, which was attended by 5000 delegates.

Strache had his usual attacks against the "Marxist Red-Green city-government in Vienna", asked Faymann to step down as Chancellor and attacked the "bureaucratic monster EU".

Strache also heavily attacked the left-wing protestors yesterday, by saying they are "far-left extremist boot troops":

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The term "Stiefeltruppen" is very cynical here for the leftwing protestors (at least the "normal" ones), because we know who the real "Stiefeltruppen" were and are:

[Tender Branson]

I actually agree with you that it's a shame that a ball like this is still able to be held in Vienna.

But on the other hand the government parties are unable to do much against it: The Hofburg event agency is a private company and if the Far-Right fraternities pay them well for holding this event (which they probably do, considering the size of it), the SPÖ and ÖVP can only appeal to the event agency to scrap it. But not forbid it.

Well, in fact, a number of German cities have over the last years prohibited neo-Nazi events because they were constituting a danger to public security by attracting protest. Courts have confirmed such decisions. Whether it's a private venue or not doesn't matter, they use public space to get there.

What, however, isn't clear to me (and you might help here, Tender), whether this is actually a neo-Nazi event. Fraternities ("Burschenschaften") are student organisations. They have the image of being right-wing in Germany, and several, but most likely not all of them, probably are. But right-wing is not neo-fascist. The photos suggest a traditional student ball, with politics playing a minor role, if at all. In that case, the protest would be inappropriate, and also counterproductive.

I don't know much about the right-wing fraternities, but those here are likely more extreme than the ones in Germany (the opposite is the case in the far-left circles -> see protesting activists).

But they do a good job in veiling their intentions and they are also hightly secretive, so you cannot tell if they are really Neo-Nazi, or just extreme right-wing. But most of them probably are Neo-Nazi by the definition.

A funny thing: The Hofburg event agency didn't even list the fraternities ball on their website. There was only a ball mentioned on Thursday and on Saturday, with "Friday" being blank on their website.

To me it seems they are probably ashamed that they hosted them, but even more likely: They just want to avoid it and do it just for the money ...

When it comes to cities banning Neo-Nazi meetings, yes, they can do it. But then we are back to the question if the fraternities and the FPÖ are "Neo-Nazi" or not ...

But the Innsbruck city council recently banned a right-wing fraternity meeting within city limits:

http://diepresse.com/home/panorama/oesterreich/1553495/Wie-man-in-Innsbruck-Haltung-zeigte

Don't know enough if this would be possible in Vienna too (Red-Green city government !!!) and if it would go to court and how the courts would rule on this ...

Also, it would be a matter of free speech, as long as the right-wing fraternities do not act against the "Verbotsgesetz", for example by giving anti-semitic speeches during their balls.

But, it's still a shame that the Vienna city government didn't at least try to ban the Hofburg ball and then waited to see what came out of it.

[Tender Branson]

Wow !

New turn of events:

Not the FPÖ gets the big blame today, but ... the Greens !

Why ?

It turned out that the "Young Greens" (the youth-wing of the Green Party) set up the site www.nowkr.at as a platform for the organisations that wanted to protest the right-wing ball.

It also turned out that on this site the organisations recruited the German "black block" activists that turned the peaceful demonstrations into chaos and damaged the inner-city.

The website also featured the slogan "YOU CAN HAVE OUR HATE !", that the black block used in their demos:



The Young Greens say they only registered the domain, but the demo groups put in their own info stuff.

Austrian Green leader Eva Glawischnig called the violent riots of the black block a "disaster" and urged the Young Greens to renounce all forms of violence and a written guarantee that in the future no outside groups are allowed to post on the websites of the Young Greens.

The YG have said they won't sign anything, especially not today when the Holocaust remembrance day takes place. They also said that today it looks pretty crazy to attack anti-fascist measures.

The YG also said: "Glawischnig didn't talk to us for the last 4 years, that her communication skills are bad and it reminds them of what other parties usually do."

Glawischnig responded: "Accecpt my conditions, or you'll get fired !"

It could not have been better for the FPÖ ...

http://derstandard.at/1389858370565/Glawischnig-droht-jungen-Gruenen-mir-Rausschmiss

[Tender Branson]

This all looks more like folklore than the severe civil war Austria is talking about...

Civil war ?

No.

I just make it look like one with my Mega-thread here ...

[Tender Branson]

Ok. This makes sense. But by doing this you supporting the clichè Americans have of the European far left, of course. ;-)

According to a friend who lived in Austria for several years, Vienna's police president is also getting a lot of the blame. Is this the case or is it just a facebook meme?

Indeed, but mostly from the Left: Pürstl said in a recent ORF discussion that the police will try to get the names from (possible violent) protestors who were transported to hospitals by the Red Cross from the clinics they were transported to. Plus that the police will use the footage of surveillance cams in the inner-city to get the Black Block protestors that trashed the inner-city.

Even though this is within the law, the Left attacked him for "breaking data privacy".

Additionally, the Left attacked him for "being too brutal on the demonstrators" during the protests.

Because of this, the Left is now spreading rumours that police-chief Pürstl is a member of a Far-Right fraternity ...

You can watch the whole ORF discussion here:

http://tvthek.orf.at/program/Im-Zentrum/6907623/IM-ZENTRUM-Krawall-um-den-Ball-Polizei-Proteste-Provokation/7399954

[Tender Branson]

Thanks for the research, Frankenburger !

We should probably note that most of the extreme-right/Neo-Nazi fraternities have some sort of "Aryan Paragraph" as well, even though they never admit it.

Aryan Paragraph means that they only accept new members with an ethnic German/Austrian background that goes back centuries. This is why the guy of Chinese origin in the article would not be admitted to most of these fraternities, even if he were staunchly right-wing ...

[Tender Branson]

The Vienna city council has voted today to "ban" future fraternity balls in Vienna, with the votes of the Red-Green government.

According to the article below this is not binding for the Hofburg event agency, which is a private company, but the decision is "likely to put increasing pressure on the agency not to host it next year".

The Vienna city council agreed to "ban" it because the ball is damaging to the international image of the city.

http://derstandard.at/1389858756072/Gemeinderat-stimmt-ueber-Aus-den-FPOe-Balls-in-der-Hofburg-ab

Let's see what triumphs next year with regards to the Hofburg agency: Sanity and respect for Holocaust-survivors or money.

[Tender Branson]

Today, once again the police had to come out in force because the right-wing "Identitaries" held a protest march in Vienna, with a ton of left-wing protesters nearby.

While the right-wingers marched more or less peacefully through the city, the left-wingers attacked the police and then the police tear-gassed them down ...

Meh, why do the left-wingers always think they accomplish something with this sh*t ? They should rather focus on the Neo-Nazis instead.









Once again, German participants (this time with the Far-Right):



You can watch all the pics here:

http://derstandard.at/2000001316139/Der-Marsch-der-Identitaeren-am-Samstag-in-Wien

[Tender Branson]

If you are wondering what the yellow-black poster of the right-wingers means:

"It's your country. DEFEND YOURSELF ! Identitary movement."

[Tender Branson]

That front row of marchers in the third picture down must be some of the most inoffensive looking far-right marchers I've ever seen. Anyway, the left-wing protestors clearly are not into this type of thing for political purposes, but instead because they're masochists

Not all right-wingers these days look like skinheads ...

A lot of those are actually club-visiting metrosexuals, or when it comes to women, pretty hot and styled up ...

[Tender Branson]

How many far-rightists in Austria support merging with Germany?

Hard to say, maybe 20-50% ?

I don't think that even among far-right voters there's a big desire to merge with Germany, with many of them are simply patriotic protest voters, who would never think of this and who like Austria. (The Neo-Nazi and far-right Burschenschafter types on the other hand - they would probably like merging with Germany).

In the "normal" voting population (non-right wing) you will probably find not more than 5% who would want to merge with Germany.