Right now in Germany, politicians and journalists are hyped-up over right-wing violence and potential threats. The public, if you read polling data, suggests they now fear right-wing threats more than terrorism....but that shift has only occurred since the news media has hyped the murder of the Kassel CDU politician.
Well....a couple of days ago (Monday), over in Hockenheim (about 10 miles south of Mannheim, in the mid-section of Germany)....the Mayor of the town had some guy ring the doorbell, and ask for him. The door was apparently closed on the guy, so he walked around the house to the backyard, found Dieter Gummer (mayor), and slugged him pretty hard (enough to break the jaw).....knocking him to the ground, and then left. Apparently, nothing spoken before the punch.
SWR (the regional public TV folks) talked over the subject this morning. Naturally, the cops are all disturbed over this, and the news media has hyped it as a right-wing potential attack.
But there is this one odd feature of the story. The attacker was dark-skinned and had an accent.
Odds of this guy being right-wing? I just haven't noticed too many dark-skinned folks in Germany who are conservative right-wing types. Having an accent? Well, you can't find many right-wing radicals who have an accent.
The odds that this knock-down has nothing to do with right-wing radicalism? It's pretty high odds, if you ask me. It would have been nice if the guy had something to say....before he slugged the mayor, but that apparently wasn't part of the situation.
So I'd go and caution folks not to buy too much into all this right-wing threat stuff, and just label each situation as it comes up. The sad thing....this might have been some disgruntled Greek guy angry over city management making things tough for his cafe.
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