Is fascism back with us?
- Thread starter Mike D
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Boozing in pubs and eating chips and gravy… northern boys love graveh
Saddleworth2
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And would all those extra Hungarians stay in Hungary I wonder, or would free movement of people within the EU just help create more emigration?I think it is a bit nuanced than that, it's better to read the arguments than construct a hysterical strawman.
Reichsbund der Kinderreichen - Wikipedia
en.m.wikipedia.org
Viktor Orbán: no tax for Hungarian women with four or more children
Growing families better than letting Muslim immigrants in, says prime ministerwww.theguardian.com
it’s a pretty simplistic solution to a more sophisticated problem.
Doesn’t that hungry little fella wanna leave the EU?
ZenHalfTimeCrock
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A kind of populist nationalism has certainly emerged, one that seems predicated on the claim of its representatives to have a direct and charismatic connection to 'the will of the people' and that frequently gets defined in narrowly ethnic terms that exclude large sections of the population.
Here I am not just thinking of the UK and characters like Farage, and also Johnson with his disparaging and inappropriate remarks about Salafi women that were clearly designed to attract support from the Tommy Robinson crowd, but also of the transformation of more traditional right-wing parties like the Swiss People's Party, the Austrian People's Party, as well as the greater prominence enjoyed by more radical ones like, say, Lega Nord, the French Front National, and Jobbik. Orban's Fidesz party in Hungary is another example, along with the rise of the alt-right movement/QAnon in the USA, Trump's divisive presidency, and the politics of characters like Putin, Bolsonaro, and Duterte.
One way to look at this development is in terms of denial (including denial of the fact of climate change).
In our post-fact society, the narrative would go something like this:
The need for facts in politics is predicated on a vision of a better future. They are required to underpin an aspiring politician’s vision, to demonstrate that it is achievable and will not collapse. But what happens when the notion that free markets can deliver prosperity collapses, as it did in 2008? What do you turn to when you start to realize that this project has only increased economic inequality globally?
When that future disappears, what is the point of facts? Why would you want them when they tell you that your children will be poorer than you, or that climate change will have maybe the last word? Why should you trust the purveyors of facts, namely, 'left-wing' academics or that cabal of scientists who work for the IPCC (or for SAGE if you are an anti-vaxxer)?
Here's a possible answer: you might turn to politicians who make a show of disparaging facts, who liberate us from any appeal to an evidence-based future. Instead, you turn to what Yale historian Tim Snyder has referred to as 'the politics of eternity', and Svetlana Boym as 'restorative nostalgia'.
If you are Putin, you get your troll farms and media to promote a nostalgic vision of a restored Russian empire. If you are Trump, it involves making America great again. Turkish and Hungarian media promote similar phantoms, and with us in the UK it's about marching brightly into a future in which we have taken back control of something or other, as part of a process of levelling up.
Of course, there's nothing wrong with getting a bit nostalgic now and again. It only becomes dangerous when it entails the striving to recover a lost past in a manner that substitutes an unreflective emotivism for critical thinking, and the denial of an unpalatable future.
For anyone interested in delving into all this more deeply, I would recommend the following books:
Here's Snyder explaining the contrast between the politics of eternity and the politics of inevitability. Been a while since I read his book but from what I recall, it's a good place to start.
Note that Snyder's thesis has attracted its fair share of criticism. This can usually be found by Googling for reviews of the above publication.
Here I am not just thinking of the UK and characters like Farage, and also Johnson with his disparaging and inappropriate remarks about Salafi women that were clearly designed to attract support from the Tommy Robinson crowd, but also of the transformation of more traditional right-wing parties like the Swiss People's Party, the Austrian People's Party, as well as the greater prominence enjoyed by more radical ones like, say, Lega Nord, the French Front National, and Jobbik. Orban's Fidesz party in Hungary is another example, along with the rise of the alt-right movement/QAnon in the USA, Trump's divisive presidency, and the politics of characters like Putin, Bolsonaro, and Duterte.
One way to look at this development is in terms of denial (including denial of the fact of climate change).
In our post-fact society, the narrative would go something like this:
The need for facts in politics is predicated on a vision of a better future. They are required to underpin an aspiring politician’s vision, to demonstrate that it is achievable and will not collapse. But what happens when the notion that free markets can deliver prosperity collapses, as it did in 2008? What do you turn to when you start to realize that this project has only increased economic inequality globally?
When that future disappears, what is the point of facts? Why would you want them when they tell you that your children will be poorer than you, or that climate change will have maybe the last word? Why should you trust the purveyors of facts, namely, 'left-wing' academics or that cabal of scientists who work for the IPCC (or for SAGE if you are an anti-vaxxer)?
Here's a possible answer: you might turn to politicians who make a show of disparaging facts, who liberate us from any appeal to an evidence-based future. Instead, you turn to what Yale historian Tim Snyder has referred to as 'the politics of eternity', and Svetlana Boym as 'restorative nostalgia'.
If you are Putin, you get your troll farms and media to promote a nostalgic vision of a restored Russian empire. If you are Trump, it involves making America great again. Turkish and Hungarian media promote similar phantoms, and with us in the UK it's about marching brightly into a future in which we have taken back control of something or other, as part of a process of levelling up.
Of course, there's nothing wrong with getting a bit nostalgic now and again. It only becomes dangerous when it entails the striving to recover a lost past in a manner that substitutes an unreflective emotivism for critical thinking, and the denial of an unpalatable future.
For anyone interested in delving into all this more deeply, I would recommend the following books:
Here's Snyder explaining the contrast between the politics of eternity and the politics of inevitability. Been a while since I read his book but from what I recall, it's a good place to start.
Note that Snyder's thesis has attracted its fair share of criticism. This can usually be found by Googling for reviews of the above publication.
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Saddleworth2
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Reform rather than leave.
That sounds vaguely familiar ;-)
Rascal
El Presidente
Flags everywhere, calls for the national anthem to be played at schools/on the BBC
Patels new Borders Act, leaving the ECHR
People in dinghies
Older white men worrying about their waning influence,
The Mail.
Dinghies bringing in terrorists, Russians,
This is missing. The Catholic Church supported the Nazi's, The Catholic Church in Ireland gave its blessing to people who went and fought for Franco.
And given contracts that are ridiculous for Things like PPE
Been happening since the days of Thatcher. Destruction and/or restriction of Union power is anti democratic
Gove said " we have had enough of experts" Prof Whitty is dismissed as a crank.
See Patel.
We have possibly the most corrupt government in British history. Cronyism is rife, so rife that i think it was Hancocks pub landlord got a contract.