Extreme right wing populism is rising in Europe... What can we do to stop it?

[Harke the Boeotarch]

Not really -- they were still trying to rebuild a country smashed by defeat in a war, with an economy struggling to keep from collapse under the weight of sanctions. Hitler and other Nazis played off the punitive planks imposed by the peace settlement quite skillfully, stirring and magnifying the resentment of the German people at being expected to pay for what it cost their enemies to defeat them. Even schemes to disarm "undesirables" were often ploys to get around the limitations on arms under the control of the government, by handing the confiscated weapons over to "reliable" persons who would use them as the government/party directed, and they got mileage out of stimulating anger at how Germany had been weakened.

I don't deny they were very much damaged by WW1, but stupid undeveloped nations don't just start world wars against the U.S., the British Empire, the French Empire, the Dutch and the Belgian colonial Empire, the Sovjet Union and the other European countries and empirettes I left out, not out of sheer ignorance.

 

[SLOPPYSECONDS]

ya cans a see why many lands polis ans Co ans supportin cast get away wit murder all a time wens reads internet 2

anyway

thakyou

 

[pat grimshaw]

Have you any knowledge whatsoever of the socioeconomic position of European German speaking people of the 1930s?

I have to say Harke that I give more credence to your views on this topic. Your people lived through all this and the bombings.

Most of the other people here in this thread learned all about this in their affluent high schools on the either side of the planet. The current crisis in Europe (and in my country to a lesser extent) as intellectual theorising for them. They're quite eager to turn a blind eye to the blood shed at the Boston Marathon and the twin towers.

 

[Kulindahr]

I don't deny they were very much damaged by WW1, but stupid undeveloped nations don't just start world wars against the U.S., the British Empire, the French Empire, the Dutch and the Belgian colonial Empire, the Sovjet Union and the other European countries and empirettes I left out, not out of sheer ignorance.

Once you've disarmed everyone but "reliable" people, it only takes a small percentage of the population to drag the rest along, ignorance or not. And when the entire nation is angry already, it's not hard to build on that. Germany wasn't really "developed" again until Hitler started annexing neighbors.

 

[SLOPPYSECONDS]

Once you've disarmed everyone but "reliable" people, it only takes a small percentage of the population to drag the rest along, ignorance or not. And when the entire nation is angry already, it's not hard to build on that. Germany wasn't really "developed" again until Hitler started annexing neighbors.

cheer up no land develop evas now ans like country is ans is not so sayin germany like it a supermakret package like rest amazin worlds spill is alway a wonda

ans people was no invent until afta it win votes or sumthang few day ago

anyway
_KOFF_
planet ina gurd hands wit 1st worlds nice folk

thankyou

 

[unloadonme]

This is priceless!

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02895/billboards_2895666b.jpg

 

[belamyi]

http://static.neatorama.com/images/2013-05/Australia.gif

 

[moniker]

Adopt "first past the post" election systems like in U.S. and Canada which discourage fringe parties winning any seats. But all nations seem reluctant to adopt good ideas if they originate elsewhere.

 

[belamyi]

Adopt "first past the post" election systems like in U.S. and Canada which discourage fringe parties winning any seats. But all nations seem reluctant to adopt good ideas if they originate elsewhere.

That would be a big blow to European hypocritical sense of tolerance, which admits theatrical representation in an assembly of people who makes them feel uneasy, whom they despise and whom they are actually proud to ignore as legitimate representatives.

 

[unloadonme]

Adopt "first past the post" election systems like in U.S. and Canada which discourage fringe parties winning any seats. But all nations seem reluctant to adopt good ideas if they originate elsewhere.

Depends what you call a fringe party. The latest poll in the UK in advance of the May European Parliament election has the parties as follows:

UKIP: 38%
Labour: 27%
Conservative: 18%
Liberal Democrats: 8%

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/apr/30/ukip-nigel-farage-top-polls-european-elections

That won't be replicated in a national General Election, but there's no denying the level of support UKIP enjoys mainly, it has to be said, because of the extent of negative feeling in the UK towards the EU.

 

[belamyi]

Adopt "first past the post" election systems like in U.S. and Canada which discourage fringe parties winning any seats. But all nations seem reluctant to adopt good ideas if they originate elsewhere.

That would be a big blow to European hypocritical sense of tolerance, which admits theatrical representation in an assembly of people who makes them feel uneasy, whom they despise and whom they are actually proud to ignore as legitimate representatives.

In any case, that policy does not serve so much to exclude parties because of their "bad", rubbish ideology, but any party who is outside of the established Punch&Judy show of BigPartyInPower&BigPartyInTheOpposition, and perpetuates unfairness and misrepresentation, as in the case of the last general elections in Spain, in which the majority of the people did NOT vote FOR the party who is now in power with an ABSOLUTE majority.

 

[belamyi]

In 2014, we are enjoying and suffering at the same time a system which is anachronichal, since it was born in the late XIXth century with the rise of the political and economical powers that later shaped the XXth century, with the consolidation of the main Western nations as big global powers and rule-dictating players, and is now falling along with the failing of the energy of those shapers and players... inside the nations, not as independent and even roguish corporations and private economic powers.

It is not with hope, nor with resignation, that I am writing this, I am simply pointing at the obvious... of the sort that usually gets ignored.

 

[bankside]

It was more due to resentment of the imposed peace settlement and the willingness of people looking for a way up despite nations who were still plainly their enemies to believe that the Nazis actually were trying to raise Germany back to an important place in the world.

One of the consequences of military adventurism is that a country may not be happy with the terms imposed on it as a consequence of its folly. Generally, a country is not entitled to feel content with those terms. And repeating or magnifying the folly is no strategy to renegotiate either.

 

[SLOPPYSECONDS]

1 day discova noodulls
_ coor dat be a thang _

tankyou

 

[Harke the Boeotarch]

Adopt "first past the post" election systems like in U.S. and Canada which discourage fringe parties winning any seats. But all nations seem reluctant to adopt good ideas if they originate elsewhere.

That's probably one of the reasons the US is behind on GLBT issues compared to the Netherlands.

 

[xbuzzerx]

No. We want the Jews— at least the rich ones. We have had the "asylum seeker debate" for a decade here but it's so messy because everyone agrees we want smart, educated Jews but not the illiterate gay-hating Afghanis/Iranians/Pakistanis etc etc etc.

But all the people who settled your present-day nation were illiterate gay-haters.

But good luck changing attitudes by choosing only to associate with people who already agree, I guess?

 

[Harke the Boeotarch]

But all the people who settled your present-day nation were illiterate gay-haters.

But good luck changing attitudes by choosing only to associate with people who already agree, I guess?

Maybe they thought they had enough criminal idiots in Oz already?

 

[bankside]

That's probably one of the reasons the US is behind on GLBT issues compared to the Netherlands.

Yeah, and why would Canada be 20 years ahead of the US on these issues? The kinds of decisions going on today in the states date back to 1994 to 2004 in Canada and we have first-past-the-post as well.

 

[pat grimshaw]

But all the people who settled your present-day nation were illiterate gay-haters….

Settled? Settled what? Who are you referring to? Do you have any names?

 

[xbuzzerx]

Settled? Settled what? Who are you referring to? Do you have any names?

If it was paramount to keep illiterate gay-haters out of Australia they could have started with the felons they offloaded there.