Grünheide is a small town in Brandenburg and the site of Europe’s only Tesla factory. It is a rare bright point in a German economy that is otherwise rapidly deindustrialising thanks to fruitless Green environmental policies, and so it has become a flashpoint for leftist activism. You might think that the German left would have no problem with Tesla, as e-vehicles are an important pillar of the energy transition, but here you would be very wrong. Happy fairy tales about the bright future of electromobility emanate primarily from the leftist political establishment; their activist militias have different ideas, often preferring broad crusades against everything related to industry, capitalism and profit.
The Grünheide factory employs 12,000 people and contributes millions of Euros every year in taxes, which is bad enough from the activists’ point of view. Still worse,
… by blocking another road with the help of an “end nEocoLONialism” banner (the capital letters spell ELON, which is very clever) …
… and by throwing paint over a fence onto some cars in a parking lot:
A random girl on the “Disrupt” Twitter account platform explained this bold act as an instance of militant opposition to “the absurdity of automobile capitalism.”
Then our brave communist warriors posed for a poorly staged photograph with a lot of trash, pink smoke and a “DESTROY TESLA” banner …
… before finally storming the factory itself with the help of an inflatable turtle:
Afterwards they declared victory on Twitter, and announced the immanence of socialism, wherein trams, buses and cargo bikes will be the only means of personal transport:
The Gigafactory has stopped production today. All car factories should be stopped just like this one!
We want to decide democratically how and what we produce: Trams. Buses. Cargo bikes.
Mobility that benefits everyone. #stoptesla
Their exultation was, alas, premature. None of our socialist revolutionaries managed to penetrate the perimeter fence, and the factory was already shut down to give the workers a long weekend following the bank holiday on Ascension Thursday. These are but mere details on the path towards communist utopia and the end of history.