I feel like Farage in general is a lot more extreme than he lets on and tries to tone it down a lot just to ensure he has some appeal to people who're quite right-wing but not mentalists. If he was in the US he'd be a full-on GOP hardliner I reckon.
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I can only comment on the one party I know enough of - but when you're saying the AfD is not close to the extreme right in Germany you're dead wrong. Just like when you claimed Jewish buildings in Germany are under heavy protection because of "non-Europeans" only, but not native German antisemites.
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Eh? From what I can see they only have 44 parliamentary seats and are behind the main two parties in the polls, even though they've quite clearly got a lot of mainstream support.
The BBC's Nigel Farage, to give him his full title. Is this week one of the 35 a year that he's on Question Time?
1: Do not twist what I wrote to fit your agenda, I never mentioned AfD in my original comment
2: Yet again, do not twist what I wrote to fit your own agenda, I never wrote that German buildings are under heavy protection, but I wrote that the new wave of antisemitism is mostly due to immigration. Something which is natural when you consider the antisemitism that is often rampant in some of these countries the immigrants come from.
The NYT (not exactly right-wing) seems to agree:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/10/world/europe/germany-immigrants-anti-semitism.html
https://www.tv2.no/a/8949781/
Translate if you like. That was the SD's greatest polling at about 26,6%, making them the biggest party in the country.
Now they are swinging between being the second largest and the third largest.
Not bad for someone "extreme right", like the poster I originally responded to classed them as, or what?
Feck me, you lefties don't half paint with a broad brush, while simultanously accusing everyone else of doing just that.
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He was calling you out on a demonstrably false statement about them being the "biggest party in Sweden". A single poll result from over a year ago isn't really a good comeback. Looking at the polling average since the previous election also doesn't seem to back it up.
I think "radical right" is probably a more accurate term for this breed of party, but "they're popular" isn't historically a good reason for saying a party isn't extreme.
If SD should be considered "extreme" or "radical" right then a whole host of parties should be labelled "extreme" or "radical" left also.
Their social policies are socialist, their economic policies are not protectionist, but their immigration policy is more restrictive than the rest of the parties in Sweden, something which to be honest is not hard to do.
This new breed of hybrid socialist\populist\conservative parties in Europe often had their beginning in less than stellar organizations, but so did a lot of purely leftist and socialist parties with their support of communist tyrants back in the day.
Everyone matures, everyone changes. It just seems less acceptable when it is the "far-right" doing it than the "far-left".
One of the links the post you quoted (#1276) consisted of:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...frauke-petry-beatrix-von-storch-a7935316.html
First sentence of your reply:
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The conversation I was referring to:
Another poster corrected you on Germany right then, but you didn't reply anymore.
Yes, but the examples I used were Front Nationale and SD, not AfD. I haven't followed AfD, have no idea what they are about, other than that they have an offspring party in Sweden now.
I didn't see him respond to me with any sources, other than an opinion? I just posted an article from NYT that highlighted the problem. And we can hardly claim that the NYT ventures to the right-wing spectrum of things, now can we?
I'm just correcting your assertion that they're the biggest party in Sweden, which is demonstrably false.
They were the biggest in the poll after (M) Moderaterna opened up for cooperation with them, which was the first results when I Googled it:
https://www.google.no/search?q=sver...9j69i57j0l4.1679j0j8&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
They topped one poll. That doesn't make them the biggest party in Sweden when they're not the biggest party in parliament and when they consistently come third in most polls.
It's pedantic I know, but if you're arguing that certain groups aren't on the 'extreme right' on the basis of their position in a certain country then it's fair game to call you out when you're making a false assertion to back that up.
Yes, but being between the second and third largest party is quite spectacular if they are to be considered "extreme right", isn't it? A fringe and extremist party like the poster I originally responded to claimed they were hardly should be in that position.
It is the automatic reflex to call these parties "extreme right" I react to, based on nothing else than hearing it in the media, spouted by someone less than partial and objective in the matter.
The goalposts have moved people, having strict immigration policies are no longer "extreme right" or "far right" policies, it is mainstream, or atleast mainstream conservative and right-wing.
I agree discussion on how we term such groups needs to be more nuanced, hence why I think terms like 'far left' and 'far right' can in general be a bit reductionist, but I do think we also need to look beyond what so-called far-right politicians/parties are saying and to what they'd do once in power.
Trump largely campaigned on an increasingly isolationist platform in which he was a lot less pro-intervention than previous Republican Presidents, but since assuming power has demonstrated that he's more than happy to use US might abroad and that he's perfectly content to try and undermine media institutions who oppose in in spite of how much he may espouse his love for 'freedom'. Similarly, Le Pen campaigned on a fairly isolationist/protectionist platform last year, but had she hypothetically won then she'd have likely backed Trump on his Syrian bombings last week.
Similarly, a lot of extreme far-right groups may espouse left-wing policy but the social concerns of their party are always dominant, the economic ideas secondary and changeable when votes are needed, as is often the case with populists. UKIP here are a perfect example - their roots are libertarian economically, but a couple of years ago they increasingly adopted their strategy to try and appeal to northern Labour voters, and tried to deny past sentiments where they'd expressed a desire to move the NHS to a private model.
We also need to consider who is voting for such parties. I don't know a lot on the context of the Swedish Democrats, but even if they're not racist, I imagine they're likely the most popular mainstream option for people who are. Look at Trump - while I do think he's racist, people who support him could hypothetically argue he's not, and that we're merely making assumptions based on things he's said. But what those supporters can't deny is that Trump has managed to gain a significant level of support from actual racist groups...and by that I don't mean groups that're slightly dodgy but the actual KKK. When you consider that some of Europe's 'far-right' parties have some less than acceptable roots going back...then, well, I can see why people are wary to see them as particularly moderate. Context matters, and a simple argument that 'Oh, they're kind of left-wing economically so they can't be far-right' ignores a lot of the surrounding reasons as to why certain parties are deemed extreme.
You didn't mention them afterwards, but the first sentence of your reply was: "Those parties mentioned are not close to being "extreme right". And the AfD was one of the parties mentioned in connection with Farage.
Of course it could have been some kind of slip, but I can only judge by what you've actually written, and in that regard my point stands.
A main reason I wrote you didn't post more was to make clear I didn't cherrypick and cut out anything from the conversation after the correction.
So to focus on what happened again:
1. You said the protection for Jewish institutions in Germany is "not due to Europeans" and did not retract that statement so far.
2. I said that's as wrong as your statement about the AfD.
I'm not in for a lengthy discussion, my contribution was about two specific points, that's it. If anybody wants to make up his or her mind about it, everything can be found in posts #1276+77 and those on this page.
It’s hard to tell with Farage - maybe he just exploited the race issue to achieve his main goal of getting the UK out of the EU, particularly in the North where London commodity brokers called Nigel are not an easy sell. However, the company he keeps suggests he is a fairly hardline nationalist. And what it is not in dispute is that a lot of UKIP voters were outright “send ‘em all back” types.
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Dr Thomas Binder seems like a bit of a prick.
He's getting absolutely slaughtered on Twitter for that right now.
Pile on!
Saw that original tweet yesterday, other supposed "cardiologists" backing him up in his mentions as well. The state of twitter tbh.
Social media the place that gives every idiot a voice.
I don't think it would matter if the entire world was "democratic", you've hit the nail on the head. There is nothing democratic about foreign policy, or nation state relationships. I was proposing a system that would work, if it could be allowed to work. However, I was really just proposing it because I know it could never be allowed to work, and it highlights the absurdity of taking morale high ground in geo-politics where one side isn't just blatantly massacring millions of people.
A democratized UN is a great idea, but nobody wants that who has power in it, authoritarian or democratic. Why? We believe democracy is the most correct form of government, but we won't apply it to an international governing body. In that case, why should Richie Rich be treated the same way as Joe Average in the USA? Richie Rich has more money, wealth, power, so why should he be limited to a single vote, the same as that plebe Joe Average?
Again, it's a novel concept, and it was posed just to point out the hypocrisy of the UN and the security council. It will never happen, at least not any time soon.
What would work would be if all five members of the security council are democratic, as they would be working of the same sheet of music in terms of rules, norms, and interests. Having three liberal democracies, one authoritarian kleptocracy, and one quasi-communist/quasi capitalist autocracy is always going to cause complete gridlock in the security council. Once Russia and China flip in the coming years, the security council will finally mean something.
That's an optimistic assumption. Not sure either of them will be flipping for a good while yet.
At some point the substate pressures of authoritarianism will become unsustainable.
But Security Council is working on matters regarding international peace and security. Those three liberal democracies are directly responsible for the worst violations of international law over the last couple of decades, what with what's going on in the Middle East. So why would it be good for the world if all five members were democratic? I assume when you mention working of the same sheet of music in terms of rules, norms, and interests you mean everybody dancing to America's tune, just like most of the world has been doing for a while. I can see how that's appealing to you, but somehow I doubt Chinese and Russians share those sentiments. As for them flipping in the coming years, democracy has no real history in either country, so don't hold your breath. It's more likely that US economic grip on the world will start weakening and Chinese will slowly but surely start taking over. Once petrodollar kicks the bucket, the only way back for you is a major war. That's when things are going to get interesting.
Exactly. And that is why no country should give up the ability to unilaterally take militarily action in its national interests or as a coalition with like-minded states for the common good or retain a nuclear capability as a deterrent. And this is also why Jeremy Corbyns view that we should all disarm and look to the UN to resolve issues is seriously flawed. The UN doesn't work.
Maybe one day, but probably not for a good while. China's slipping further in the other direction with Xi's consolidation of power and is probably as powerful an individual figure as the country has had since Mao. Russia's got no real history of democracy and is embedded with too much corruption (same as China) to make any realistic transition to democracy beyond what they already have at the moment (i.e. not at all) in the immediate future. Ideally they'll eventually pursue such a path eventually but I feel like the idea all countries will make the trajectory we want them to based on our own practices is probably quite unrealistic.
Not surprising. The OPCW were shot at as they tried to investigate the 2013 Sarin attack as well. Assad and the Russians are obviously attempting to obscure the investigation by delaying access to the crime scene.
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What's this, giving him material for his next #InfoShart ?
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Definitely not under duress in that photo.
Well, of course, Russian journalists are well known for intimidating children all across the world. And if it was you who spent your childhood years in a warzone, you'd obviously strike a pose and plant a Hollywood smile on your face whenever press showed up.
Still, for the victim of a recent chemical attack he's looking pretty good, no? On the original photo, posted earlier, that was his father on the right, by the way.
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Remind me again, how does it benefit Assad to use a chemical weapon attack?