Europe - The Barbarian Invasion has Begun.

[angelo]

I believe the differences are that I take news items from say, Al Jazeera with a huge handful of salt. In my old age , I can see a biased news item a mile away whether it's from a left or right leaning source.

 

[bilby]

I believe the differences are that I take news items from say, Al Jazeera with a huge handful of salt. In my old age , I can see a biased news item a mile away whether it's from a left or right leaning source.

Because it doesn't agree with your pre-existing opinion, right?

 

[angelo]

I have a fairly good example of media bias right here in Australia. Which media is reporting on the Royal Commission into union corruption? Every day of it's running it is finding deep corruption in most unions, but especially the AWU.
Yet most mainstream media is either ignoring it or may have a small report buried somewhere on page 20-30. Yet this is vital to weed out those responsible for the corruption and either jail them or make them pay back the money they have fleeced from unsuspecting workers in their unions.

 

[angelo]

Example...........from a left leaning rag. ............http://www.smh.com.au/federal-polit...al-commission-appearance-20151112-gkxc73.html

From what many perceive as right leaning rag, The Australian..............http://www.theaustralian.com.au/new...nsactions-probed/story-e6frg6nf-1227595677628

 

[Jokodo]

While the pathological altruists of Germany allow their country to be over-run with a Muslim underclass demanding billions in aide, the put-upon German population is ignoring its own needs for economic security. An article in the Christian Science Monitor points out a reality that the Germans could not afford, BEFORE the mass migration.

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Euro...ven-Germany-crumbling-bridges-and-aging-roads

COLOGNE AND BERLIN, GERMANY —...Crumbling bridges, lengthy detours, snarled traffic on an aging autobahn: This is the news that has captured headlines at home, raising questions about the state of Germany's infrastructure and its willingness to whip it into better shape.

The concern runs deeper than hardware and frameworks, schedules and scaffolding. Some pessimists are starting to see physical decline as a sign of larger strain on – and vulnerability in – the German economy.

“What we see now is the calm before the storm,” says Olaf Gersemann, who authored the recent book "The Germany Bubble: The Last Hurrah of a Great Economic Powerhouse." It’s a conclusion he says would have raised eyebrows just six months ago, and one that is still mostly falling on deaf ears. “It still doesn’t feel bad, you don’t feel the consequences yet.”

"From the outside everyone thinks Germany is clean, efficient, and everything works well,” says Steffi Klotz as she crosses Cologne's Leverkusen Bridge, a cable structure spanning the Rhine that is part of her daily commute. “I’m sorry to say that’s not the case anymore.”

Her commute pits her daily against Germany's chronic underinvestment. The Leverkusen Bridge was a prime example of Germany’s desperate need for investment in a 2013 government report. Built in the 1960s, it was closed down to heavy traffic in 2012 because of cracks that required immediate repair. It is now under continual construction and patch-up, meaning its six lanes are merged into fewer, backing up traffic for miles.

For Ms. Klotz, that turns a drive that should take 25 minutes into one that regularly takes 90 minutes. It’s so bad that she says the traffic reports on Monday mornings don’t even bother with back-ups that are less than five kilometers (three miles). Traffic is what is on the minds at dinner tables, and late arrivals, not the norm in Germany, are easily forgiven.

“We lose time every day because of our infrastructure,” she says.

Jurgen Berlitz, from the German automobile association ADAC, says that in in 2014 there were 475,000 traffic jams totaling 960,000 km (600,000 miles), up from figures in 2013 that showed 415,000 traffic jams totaling 830,000 km (515,000 miles), with a sixth of roadways congested daily.

That’s because some 46 percent of bridges, 41 percent of streets, and 20 percent of highways are currently in need of repair, according to a report by the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) in Berlin. That group is headed by Marcel Fratzscher, the author of another new book called "The Germany Illusion."

...The IMF, in its global outlook report in October, had singled out Germany for “much-needed public investment in infrastructure.”
industry leaders worry that the country is slipping, especially in western Germany where business booms but infrastructure lags. ...

“It is now high noon to say we have to defend our infrastructure. It’s also a question of efficiency, and the German way of thinking and doing,” says Volker Treier, managing director of international economic affairs at of the German Chamber of Industry and Commerce.

...But at the same time, Germany has been constrained by its own drive to balance its budget, and a population not interested in infrastructure spending. As Mr. Treier puts it: “We see ourselves in a strait-jacket.”

Germany underwent painful reforms in the 1990s, when it was considered the “sick man of Europe,” to get where it is today. There is a prevailing attitude among Germans that now is the time to be rewarded for that sacrifice. In addition, there is a deep resentment about the role the EU is playing in German affairs, pushing the country to act in foreign conflict or pay for the troubles in other European nations.

... what he says is a population not willing today to pay for the projects of tomorrow. They disproportionately represent the so-called Wutburger movement, after a German word that translates into “enraged citizen.” The Wutburgers have been leading voices protesting big infrastructure projects in Germany.

“They want the country to stay the way it is,” he says. But, he stresses in his book, if Germany stays as it currently is, it is destined to decline.

Gernot Sieg, a transportation expert at the University of Muenster, says that the public wants money put toward pensions or schools, and not toward big public works or infrastructure projects. “Most politicians talk not about efficiency but about fairness and social spending,” he says.

In fact, the investment plan Ms. Merkel announced in November has already been scaled back to 7 billion euros over three years, representing just 0.1 percent of GDP annually. And federal investments are just part of the solution, as states play a major role in the infrastructure within their jurisdictions.

And when a single bridge is shut down, an entire chain of production is impacted, says Kurt Bodewig, who headed the government commission in 2013 tasked with prescribing remedies for Germany’s infrastructure woes.

“That is a big problem for an industrial country like Germany,” Mr. Bodewig says. “It calls into question our place in the world, where we have good production, qualified workers, but not a functional transport system.”

The dilemmas of the welfare state is not guns or butter; but infrastructure or social benefits for Germans or welfare for millions of immigrants.

They can afford one, just maybe two, but not three.

Bye bye Germany.

I thought you guys were complaining that there aren't enough jobs for lowly qualified immigrants, which is why you predict most will end up on welfare in the first place? And now you're saying that Germany is in urgent need of a major overhaul of its infrastructure - with large infrastructure projects being the best way to create jobs for people with low qualification, that sounds like it means they won't actually need to rely on welfare anytime soon.

Could you please make up your mind?

 

[KeepTalking]

While the pathological altruists of Germany allow their country to be over-run with a Muslim underclass demanding billions in aide, the put-upon German population is ignoring its own needs for economic security. An article in the Christian Science Monitor points out a reality that the Germans could not afford, BEFORE the mass migration.

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Euro...ven-Germany-crumbling-bridges-and-aging-roads



The dilemmas of the welfare state is not guns or butter; but infrastructure or social benefits for Germans or welfare for millions of immigrants.

They can afford one, just maybe two, but not three.

Bye bye Germany.

I thought you guys were complaining that there aren't enough jobs for lowly qualified immigrants, which is why you predict most will end up on welfare in the first place? And now you're saying that Germany is in urgent need of a major overhaul of its infrastructure - with large infrastructure projects being the best way to create jobs for people with low qualification, that sounds like it means they won't actually need to rely on welfare anytime soon.

Could you please make up your mind?

No, no, that's not the point. The point is that the millions of refugees who walked and used public transportation to get to Germany are putting an enormous strain on Germany's roads and bridges because they all get free VW's as soon as they get there. Or something.

 

[DrZoidberg]

The Germans who voted for the NSADP were not in favour of concentration camps either. They were merely unconcerned about them - in the beginning, because they seemed an unlikely outcome of voting for Herr Hitler's party; and later because they were for sub-humans and traitors, and Good Germans had nothing to fear from them.

And that's exactly the reason why it's important to be on guard. The Nazis didn't turn up and say "We will establish a totalitarian state with concentration and extermination camps"; they said "We will get rid of these others, who are stealing your jobs and dragging down our nation, and we will make you once again proud to be a citizen of the most civilised nation on Earth!"

In short, they said all the same reassuring and ennobling things that you are saying, about how with strong leadership that would stand up to the threat posed by non-citizens, everyone can become happy and prosperous. It was a lie then; it remains a lie today. But it's no less attractive to those who believe the bullshit than it ever was.

So tell us - in the opposition parties, which has a leader who has written his/her Mein Kampf and spent 13 pages of it denouncing syphilitic Muslims worthy of such measures?

So tell us - what opposition party has held Nuremberg rallies with para-military units, complete with hundreds of thousands of brown shirts?

So tell us - which opposition party favors demanding more land and territory (colonies) for the maintenance of the German people and the settlement of their surplus population?

So tell us- which opposition party favors removal of citizenship for historic German populations?

So tell us- which opposition party demands that a ruthless war be waged against those who work to the injury of the common welfare. Traitors, usurers, profiteers, etc., are to be punished with death, regardless of creed or race?

All these were a part of the NAZI party platform since 1920. THAT was what the German people voted for.

The "danger from the right" mantra has been a fixture of Soviet Communism and the fellow-traveling "progressive" left since before I was born. Long after fascism was dead the drum beaters continued to ascribe every conservative initiative as a "proto-neo-crypto" fascism or Nazism. It was a tiresome and bogus mantra, serving the propaganda needs of communists and fellow-travelers (and still in lavish use in places like Venezuela).

Its the 21st century Bilby. Time to give up 1950s and 60s left rhetoric.

I think you both need more context. Plenty of Jews voted for Hitler, knowing full well that he was an anti-semite. Democracy and the democratic ideals was in crisis. Individualism and liberalism was seen as a threat to stability and prosperity. Like Hegel said, history is dialectic. In people's perception democracy and liberal free market policies led to WW1. It wasn't true. But that was the perception.

Also worth keeping in mind is that any country or culture in the midst of a transition between an agrarian economy and an industrial economy has all it's traditions in flux. The basic fabric of society has been ripped open and people are trying to find some sort of stable point and connection to the past. To find their place and role in the society. This creates great insecurity. In every country that goes through this we see people turning to strong leaders and the promise of stability. For Germany this transition took place 1850 - 1950.

It's interesting how it's a similar phenomena now. When our economies are transitioning from industrial economy to information economies. A similarly revolutionary cultural shift again conservatism is coming on strong. The main body of members of all the European right wing parties consists of rural young men who don't have the skills to make money in the new information age. So they go blaming an external enemy. Today it is immigrants. It's exactly the same thing in Germany 1920. Scores of unemployed men who, all they knew, was how to work in a farm. Due to effectivisation of the farming sector their skills were now worthless. Just like the skills of specialised factory workers are now worthless.

This was the source of Hitler's popularity. All he really did was just list all positively loaded words to people and then just repeat them. Especially things that would help inflate the self-esteem of a generation of men with crushed self-esteems.

No, people didn't vote for concentration camps. The truth is that they didn't know what they wanted. All they knew is that they had a hard time finding work, or they knew lots of people who did, and they just wanted some stability.

As for totalitarianism. It was actually popular back then. It's hard to believe.. or even explain. It was the Zeitgeist. Even Martin Heidegger was on board that ship, and he was an exceedingly intelligent man. Maybe it was an effect of psychology as a science was big then? We sincerely believed that anybody could be brainwashed into being a happier person. As long as everybody was brainwashed the same way? And because of the church people were already fine with being brainwashed. It was already part of the culture. If the church could do it to makes us Christian, then .... could do it to make us .... Both Nazism/Fascism and 1920'ies Communism operated on this premise. It wasn't just in Germany. This was international. A distressingly large proportion of the famous writers of that time were in favour of totalitarianism Virginia Woolf, James Joyces, to name a couple. Not stupid people.

But even now we can see the same pattern emerging. The right-wing racist political parties of today have no concrete agenda. They're not for anything. All they're doing is list stuff they're against, can't explain why and you better agree or else. As if, if we get rid of this bad thing then If any of them actually get into power... Well... these are all proto-fascist parties. We know from history how a proto-fascist party will naturally evolve to a full-blown fascist party. Since these parties are so devoid of content only totalitarianism remains if they're to stay in power.

I think we can see the developments today and draw parallels to why the Nazis became what they became in the 30'ies.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Credibility check: This is basically from Moscow. Think it's true and not propaganda??

The headline shouts German. I have no reason to doubt it after seeing many similar stories.

So what if the headline shouts German? They're just reporting what a Russian government controlled "news" source said.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Christian Science Monitor? Seriously?? :laughing-smiley-014

Don't be mislead by the name.

While they will choose the Christian position right or wrong they are otherwise a pretty good source.

It's not "Christian Science" Monitor, it's Christian "Science Monitor".

 

[Bomb#20]

Christian Science Monitor? Seriously?? :laughing-smiley-014

Don't be mislead by the name.

While they will choose the Christian position right or wrong they are otherwise a pretty good source.

It's not "Christian Science" Monitor, it's Christian "Science Monitor".

No, it really is the "Christian Science" Monitor -- founded by Mary Baker Eddy and everything. And yet, against all odds, it's a highly reputable publication, not at all the crank source one would expect from its background. They've received seven Pulitzer Prizes for journalism over the years, including one for on-site reporting on the genocide against Muslims in Bosnia. Not everything that comes out of nutbar religions is crap.

 

[arkirk]

I believe the differences are that I take news items from say, Al Jazeera with a huge handful of salt. In my old age , I can see a biased news item a mile away whether it's from a left or right leaning source.

You can see a right wing biased news item from a mile away and it draws you to it like a magnet. Right?

 

[repoman]

 

[maxparrish]

So tell us - in the opposition parties, which has a leader who has written his/her Mein Kampf and spent 13 pages of it denouncing syphilitic Muslims worthy of such measures?

So tell us - what opposition party has held Nuremberg rallies with para-military units, complete with hundreds of thousands of brown shirts?

So tell us - which opposition party favors demanding more land and territory (colonies) for the maintenance of the German people and the settlement of their surplus population?

So tell us- which opposition party favors removal of citizenship for historic German populations?

So tell us- which opposition party demands that a ruthless war be waged against those who work to the injury of the common welfare. Traitors, usurers, profiteers, etc., are to be punished with death, regardless of creed or race?

All these were a part of the NAZI party platform since 1920. THAT was what the German people voted for.

The "danger from the right" mantra has been a fixture of Soviet Communism and the fellow-traveling "progressive" left since before I was born. Long after fascism was dead the drum beaters continued to ascribe every conservative initiative as a "proto-neo-crypto" fascism or Nazism. It was a tiresome and bogus mantra, serving the propaganda needs of communists and fellow-travelers (and still in lavish use in places like Venezuela).

Its the 21st century Bilby. Time to give up 1950s and 60s left rhetoric.

"... In people's perception democracy and liberal free market policies led to WW1. It wasn't true. But that was the perception.

Also worth keeping in mind is that any country or culture in the midst of a transition between an agrarian economy and an industrial economy has all it's traditions in flux. The basic fabric of society has been ripped open and people are trying to find some sort of stable point and connection to the past. To find their place and role in the society. This creates great insecurity. In every country that goes through this we see people turning to strong leaders and the promise of stability. ...

Being a long-time acolate of Eric Hoffer (e.g. True Believer and Ordeal of Change) I agree that any major change in a short time frame (economic, social, cultural) breeds insecurity. But insecurity alone was not the cause of Nazism. In the case of Germany, it was the bloodshed and loss of WWI, followed by hyperinflation, and then followed by the great depression which generated a feeling that their economic lives, especially that of the agrarian farmers, skilled workers, and petty bourgeoisie were "irredeemably spoiled". And it was the newly impoverished discontented German, the middle and working classes, who supported Hitler after years of economic hardship (hyper-inflation followed by the depression). To them, it must be others that caused their troubles: Jews, big business interests, communists, large land holders, etc.

Hence, such "true believers" seek to be a part of something larger, something to validate themselves by subsuming their disappointing individual lives into a larger collective - a mass movement.

A majority of Germans never voted for Hitler, but a plurality did.

It's interesting how it's a similar phenomena now. When our economies are transitioning from industrial economy to information economies. A similarly revolutionary cultural shift again conservatism is coming on strong. The main body of members of all the European right wing parties consists of rural young men who don't have the skills to make money in the new information age. So they go blaming an external enemy. Today it is immigrants. It's exactly the same thing in Germany 1920. Scores of unemployed men who, all they knew, was how to work in a farm. Due to effectivisation of the farming sector their skills were now worthless. Just like the skills of specialised factory workers are now worthless.

Yes, years of economic sacrifice after the reunification of Germany, combined with the recent recession, has generated a fed-up movement of discontent - but it is neither 1920 nor 1930. The Nazi's were not popular in 1920 in spite of hyperinflation, they were considered cranks with a published agenda. Nor is this 1930, a nation in the throes of a great depression and extremely high unemployment.

Germans now have some of the most skilled work forces in the world, and have the lowest unemployment rate in Western Europe, hence your characterization of the main demographic cause of the increasingly popular anti-immigrant movement is dubious (and many countries have changed with technology since 1990 and prospered.) But if there were a little truth to your claim, it were just the opposite, that the smaller cohort of least skilled Germans competes most directly with immigrants and are, therefore, naturally resentful.

So not only do they blame immigrants, they would have the advantage of being correct.

This was the source of Hitler's popularity. All he really did was just list all positively loaded words to people and then just repeat them. Especially things that would help inflate the self-esteem of a generation of men with crushed self-esteems.

No, people didn't vote for concentration camps. The truth is that they didn't know what they wanted. All they knew is that they had a hard time finding work, or they knew lots of people who did, and they just wanted some stability.

As for totalitarianism. It was actually popular back then.

Well, totalitarianism is not popular now. So Bilby's blather about "danger from the right" is a tired left canard. The revulsion of what happened in the NAZI era is deeply engrained in the German psyche, so much so that the possibility of a real Nazi like party becoming a plurality is nil.

And a reminder, there are no Heideggers, Joyces, or Woolfs proposing Nazi-like totalitarianism. The only remaining totalitarian ideologies are on the left, although greatly weakened by the fall of the Soviet Union.

But even now we can see the same pattern emerging. The right-wing racist political parties of today have no concrete agenda. They're not for anything. All they're doing is list stuff they're against, can't explain why and you better agree or else. As if, if we get rid of this bad thing then If any of them actually get into power... Well... these are all proto-fascist parties. We know from history how a proto-fascist party will naturally evolve to a full-blown fascist party. Since these parties are so devoid of content only totalitarianism remains if they're to stay in power.

I think we can see the developments today and draw parallels to why the Nazis became what they became in the 30'ies.

Your opening comments contain some half-truths but your closing comments are delusional. As I demonstrated previously, the right-wing parties are nothing like the Nazis or Fascists who, by the way, did have a concrete list of stuff they were for (look it up). And contrary to your claim, we do not know from history that right of center parties "evolve" to become fascist parties because these historical parties STARTED as fascist parties. Again, read the NAZI platform as early as 1920 (which I quoted).

Finally, they were, what they were, because they reflected the desires and values of their founding leaders...such as those values clearly stated in Mein Kampf.

If the anti-immigrant movement has no such leader, no platform other than the immigration policies they oppose, then you've only confirmed that they are not proto anything. In other words, they oppose Muslim immigration...period.

If that is your point...we agree.

 

[arkirk]

"... In people's perception democracy and liberal free market policies led to WW1. It wasn't true. But that was the perception.

Also worth keeping in mind is that any country or culture in the midst of a transition between an agrarian economy and an industrial economy has all it's traditions in flux. The basic fabric of society has been ripped open and people are trying to find some sort of stable point and connection to the past. To find their place and role in the society. This creates great insecurity. In every country that goes through this we see people turning to strong leaders and the promise of stability. ...

Being a long-time acolate of Eric Hoffer (e.g. True Believer and Ordeal of Change) I agree that any major change in a short time frame (economic, social, cultural) breeds insecurity. But insecurity alone was not the cause of Nazism. In the case of Germany, it was the bloodshed and loss of WWI, followed by hyperinflation, and then followed by the great depression which generated a feeling that their economic lives, especially that of the agrarian farmers, skilled workers, and petty bourgeoisie were "irredeemably spoiled". And it was the newly impoverished discontented German, the middle and working classes, who supported Hitler after years of economic hardship (hyper-inflation followed by the depression). To them, it must be others that caused their troubles: Jews, big business interests, communists, large land holders, etc.

Hence, such "true believers" seek to be a part of something larger, something to validate themselves by subsuming their disappointing individual lives into a larger collective - a mass movement.

A majority of Germans never voted for Hitler, but a plurality did.

It's interesting how it's a similar phenomena now. When our economies are transitioning from industrial economy to information economies. A similarly revolutionary cultural shift again conservatism is coming on strong. The main body of members of all the European right wing parties consists of rural young men who don't have the skills to make money in the new information age. So they go blaming an external enemy. Today it is immigrants. It's exactly the same thing in Germany 1920. Scores of unemployed men who, all they knew, was how to work in a farm. Due to effectivisation of the farming sector their skills were now worthless. Just like the skills of specialised factory workers are now worthless.

Yes, years of economic sacrifice after the reunification of Germany, combined with the recent recession, has generated a fed-up movement of discontent - but that it is neither 1920 or 1930. The Nazi's were not popular in 1920 in spite of inflation, they were considered cranks with a published agenda. Nor is this 1930, a nation in the throes of a great depression and extremely high unemployment.

Moreover, Germans now have some of the most skilled work force in the world, and have the lowest unemployment rate in Western Europe, so I am highly skeptical of your characterization of the main demographic cause of the increasingly popular anti-immigrant movement - many countries have changed with technology since 1990 and prospered. But if there were a little truth to your claim, it were just the opposite, that the smaller cohort of least skilled Germans competes most directly with immigrants and are, therefore, naturally resentful.

So not only do they blame immigrants, they would have the advantage of being correct.

This was the source of Hitler's popularity. All he really did was just list all positively loaded words to people and then just repeat them. Especially things that would help inflate the self-esteem of a generation of men with crushed self-esteems.

No, people didn't vote for concentration camps. The truth is that they didn't know what they wanted. All they knew is that they had a hard time finding work, or they knew lots of people who did, and they just wanted some stability.

As for totalitarianism. It was actually popular back then.

Well, its not popular now. So Bilby's blather about "danger from the right" is a tired canard. The revulsion of what happened in the NAZI era is deeply engrained in the German psyche, so much so that the possibility of a real Nazi like party becoming a plurality is almost nano-scaled nil.

And there are no Heideggers, Joyces, or Woolfs proposing Nazi-like totalitarianism. The only remaining totalitarian ideologies are on the left, although greatly weakened by the fall of the Soviet Union.

But even now we can see the same pattern emerging. The right-wing racist political parties of today have no concrete agenda. They're not for anything. All they're doing is list stuff they're against, can't explain why and you better agree or else. As if, if we get rid of this bad thing then If any of them actually get into power... Well... these are all proto-fascist parties. We know from history how a proto-fascist party will naturally evolve to a full-blown fascist party. Since these parties are so devoid of content only totalitarianism remains if they're to stay in power.

I think we can see the developments today and draw parallels to why the Nazis became what they became in the 30'ies.

Your opening comments contain some half-truths but your closing comments are delusional. As I demonstrated previously, the right-wing parties are nothing like the Nazis or Fascists who, by the way, did have a concrete list of stuff they were for (look it up). And contrary to your claim, we do not know from history that right of center parties "evolve" to become fascist parties because thses historical parties STARTED as fascist parties. Again, read the NAZI platform as early as 1920 (which I quoted).

Finally, they were, what they were, because they reflected the desires and values of their founding leaders...such as those values clearly stated in Mein Kampf.

If the anti-immigrant movement has no such leader, no platform other than the policy they oppose, then you've only confirmed that they are not proto anything. In other words, they oppose Muslim immigration...period.

If that is your point...we agree.

So I take it you are now saying we have nothing to worry about from the right wingers in Europe or even here in the good old U.S.A. Times have changed and the Neo Nazis are not like the old Nazis. How right you are. Now the killing is a lot more open and there are a lot more targets. I have seen your arguments always supporting the violent racist right wing and so I guess I just have to assume at this point you are using Nazi talking points. You deny that racism is at the bottom of this...racism and greed.

I think you are dead wrong about right wing parties, whether they be in Europe or here. They are dangerous and the Republican takeover of our government is to them a signal that it is okay to be corrupt. Our corporatist president killing people with drones overseas gives them the signal that it is okay to be violent. We will be seeing more violence in the future the longer the more of our constitutional rights are sacrificed to allow our leaders to conduct underground warfare. funding it with public funds and then not accounting for it and claiming national security. This all is leading to more lynchings in the good old U.S.A. and it will be done by good old boys who have never stopped being racists...just waiting for our corrupt society to fall apart.

 

[angelo]

I believe the differences are that I take news items from say, Al Jazeera with a huge handful of salt. In my old age , I can see a biased news item a mile away whether it's from a left or right leaning source.

You can see a right wing biased news item from a mile away and it draws you to it like a magnet. Right?

Most probably just like a leftard news item draws you like a moth to a light!

Don't be mislead by the name.

While they will choose the Christian position right or wrong they are otherwise a pretty good source.

It's not "Christian Science" Monitor, it's Christian "Science Monitor".

No, it really is the "Christian Science" Monitor -- founded by Mary Baker Eddy and everything. And yet, against all odds, it's a highly reputable publication, not at all the crank source one would expect from its background. They've received seven Pulitzer Prizes for journalism over the years, including one for on-site reporting on the genocide against Muslims in Bosnia. Not everything that comes out of nutbar religions is crap.

 

[angelo]

Amazing!!! I came to this thread just now expecting the moslem apologists in full flight explaining the Paris atrocity.
Not a word, what's happening!! A report I just heard says that at least one of the terrorist was a refugee who only arrived recently from Syria.

 

[DrZoidberg]

"... In people's perception democracy and liberal free market policies led to WW1. It wasn't true. But that was the perception.

Also worth keeping in mind is that any country or culture in the midst of a transition between an agrarian economy and an industrial economy has all it's traditions in flux. The basic fabric of society has been ripped open and people are trying to find some sort of stable point and connection to the past. To find their place and role in the society. This creates great insecurity. In every country that goes through this we see people turning to strong leaders and the promise of stability. ...

Being a long-time acolate of Eric Hoffer (e.g. True Believer and Ordeal of Change) I agree that any major change in a short time frame (economic, social, cultural) breeds insecurity. But insecurity alone was not the cause of Nazism. In the case of Germany, it was the bloodshed and loss of WWI, followed by hyperinflation, and then followed by the great depression which generated a feeling that their economic lives, especially that of the agrarian farmers, skilled workers, and petty bourgeoisie were "irredeemably spoiled". And it was the newly impoverished discontented German, the middle and working classes, who supported Hitler after years of economic hardship (hyper-inflation followed by the depression). To them, it must be others that caused their troubles: Jews, big business interests, communists, large land holders, etc.

Hence, such "true believers" seek to be a part of something larger, something to validate themselves by subsuming their disappointing individual lives into a larger collective - a mass movement.

A majority of Germans never voted for Hitler, but a plurality did.

This was the version I was told in school when I was young (the bolded bit). I think it's apologetic. This version exists and was accepted as the main explanation for several reasons:

1. It let people in the post-war west blame something that wasn't going to come back. Nazism was the result of a one off extreme situation that we can make sure will never come back if we just play our cards right politically, and above all just show each other a little love and understanding.
2. It made it look like this was a problem concentrated in Germany. And the rest of the West had nothing to be ashamed of.
3. It allowed Germans to shift blame on the Entente (and USA), in a way which the members of the Entente were comfortable with.

But the version is a lie intended to protect the feelings of post-war Europeans/Americans. And we wanted, oh so desperately, that this was true. But the war ended over a half a century ago. The people, who's feelings we're trying to protect, should be old/mature enough now to handle the truth IMHO. Which is important if we're ever to learn from history.

Yes, I'm aware that most of what you wrote agrees with me. It's the bolded bit I'm reacting against.

Nazism, fascism, totalitarian communism were huge trends all over the west. The only reason these movement in France, England and USA didn't threaten to topple the government is because they industrialised earlier. When their societies underwent this cataclysmic and traumatic shift to industrialisation it was evangelical Christianity that was the Zeitgeist. The result of that was a chauvinistic type of Christianity which ended up antagonising their colonial citizens and causing the French and British empires to collapse. Not the only reason. But a major reason.

USA's KKK reached it's peak membership, 6 million, following the great depression. That seems to corroborate Nazism as the result of economic hardship. But the KKK reached 4 million members in the years before the great depression. In a time when the economy was perceived as doing great and people were prosperous. That is harder to explain. If we explain that, I think we will have the real reason to how the Nazis could take power in Germany. And the fascists in Spain and Italy.

It's interesting how it's a similar phenomena now. When our economies are transitioning from industrial economy to information economies. A similarly revolutionary cultural shift again conservatism is coming on strong. The main body of members of all the European right wing parties consists of rural young men who don't have the skills to make money in the new information age. So they go blaming an external enemy. Today it is immigrants. It's exactly the same thing in Germany 1920. Scores of unemployed men who, all they knew, was how to work in a farm. Due to effectivisation of the farming sector their skills were now worthless. Just like the skills of specialised factory workers are now worthless.

Yes, years of economic sacrifice after the reunification of Germany, combined with the recent recession, has generated a fed-up movement of discontent - but it is neither 1920 nor 1930. The Nazi's were not popular in 1920 in spite of hyperinflation, they were considered cranks with a published agenda. Nor is this 1930, a nation in the throes of a great depression and extremely high unemployment.

Germans now have some of the most skilled work forces in the world, and have the lowest unemployment rate in Western Europe, hence your characterization of the main demographic cause of the increasingly popular anti-immigrant movement is dubious (and many countries have changed with technology since 1990 and prospered.) But if there were a little truth to your claim, it were just the opposite, that the smaller cohort of least skilled Germans competes most directly with immigrants and are, therefore, naturally resentful.

So not only do they blame immigrants, they would have the advantage of being correct.

That's not what I said. It's not the well educated, winners in this market, who are resentful. It's the Europeans who can't compete. In their minds they're competing against immigrants. As if "they took our jobs". In reality what took their jobs are computer systems. Smarter logistics and more efficiently used time. But it's hard to pin it down, because it's only about incrementally shaving workers time here and there.

The solution is of course simple. Go back to school. Study harder and longer. The problem is that being a nerd and studying hard is not considered manly or cool. There's a cultural shift that needs to happen.

Back in the 40'ies, and 50'ies scientists were sexy. No shit it lead to a couple of generations of brilliant scientists who gave us loads of cool stuff we're now reaping the benefits of. Now, not so much. Today we idolise celebrities, people who are famous for being famous. That's what.... I'll say most people, even though I have no numbers to back that up with... aspire to become. The next Kim Kardashian or Kanye West. That's the problem here. Not immigrants.

This was the source of Hitler's popularity. All he really did was just list all positively loaded words to people and then just repeat them. Especially things that would help inflate the self-esteem of a generation of men with crushed self-esteems.

No, people didn't vote for concentration camps. The truth is that they didn't know what they wanted. All they knew is that they had a hard time finding work, or they knew lots of people who did, and they just wanted some stability.

As for totalitarianism. It was actually popular back then.

Well, totalitarianism is not popular now. So Bilby's blather about "danger from the right" is a tired left canard. The revulsion of what happened in the NAZI era is deeply engrained in the German psyche, so much so that the possibility of a real Nazi like party becoming a plurality is nil.

And a reminder, there are no Heideggers, Joyces, or Woolfs proposing Nazi-like totalitarianism. The only remaining totalitarian ideologies are on the left, although greatly weakened by the fall of the Soviet Union.

But even now we can see the same pattern emerging. The right-wing racist political parties of today have no concrete agenda. They're not for anything. All they're doing is list stuff they're against, can't explain why and you better agree or else. As if, if we get rid of this bad thing then If any of them actually get into power... Well... these are all proto-fascist parties. We know from history how a proto-fascist party will naturally evolve to a full-blown fascist party. Since these parties are so devoid of content only totalitarianism remains if they're to stay in power.

I think you are wrong. Super wrong. The pretty extreme PC trend going on now is a symptom. We're more intolerant of dissenting views today than we have been since the 1930'ies. That's all totalitarianism really is. It's just political correctness enforced through law. I don't know if you've noticed, but this is happening all over the world. It's not just concentrated to the west.

It's a shame we call this liberalism. Liberalism is the enemy of political correctness. Or should be. That's what the word means actually.

We don't need a full-blown fascist party if we have laws to prevent people from speaking up. The result is the same. All communist countries are "democratic". So we know how the mechanism works, by which we make democracy into totalitarianism.

It's a generational thing. Those in their 20 or younger are terrifyingly intolerant of dissenting views. They say a lot of crazy shit nowadays. Just listen to what they're saying. You'll be as terrified as me.

Your opening comments contain some half-truths but your closing comments are delusional. As I demonstrated previously, the right-wing parties are nothing like the Nazis or Fascists who, by the way, did have a concrete list of stuff they were for (look it up). And contrary to your claim, we do not know from history that right of center parties "evolve" to become fascist parties because these historical parties STARTED as fascist parties. Again, read the NAZI platform as early as 1920 (which I quoted).

Finally, they were, what they were, because they reflected the desires and values of their founding leaders...such as those values clearly stated in Mein Kampf.

If the anti-immigrant movement has no such leader, no platform other than the immigration policies they oppose, then you've only confirmed that they are not proto anything. In other words, they oppose Muslim immigration...period.

If that is your point...we agree.

It isn't. The focus on the threat from immigrants and immigration is just used to hide the real problem. They're a scapegoat. The longer we focus on immigration as the main problem we're not focusing on what the real problem is, education and preparing for a world of greater wealth than ever before, but a world were not even 10% of the population will have a real job. Dealing with that... will be a challenge. And nothing a free market can deal with. I think we're at the end of the road of that one. At least if we cherish modern liberal democracy.

I think we have diametrically opposed views.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Amazing!!! I came to this thread just now expecting the moslem apologists in full flight explaining the Paris atrocity.
Not a word, what's happening!! A report I just heard says that at least one of the terrorist was a refugee who only arrived recently from Syria.

No, he was a Frenchman who trained in Syria and then returned via the refugee route as the government is watching for the guys who went to ISIS for training.

 

[maxparrish]

...That's not what I said. It's not the well educated, winners in this market, who are resentful. It's the Europeans who can't compete. In their minds they're competing against immigrants. As if "they took our jobs". In reality what took their jobs are computer systems. Smarter logistics and more efficiently used time. But it's hard to pin it down, because it's only about incrementally shaving workers time here and there.

The solution is of course simple. Go back to school. Study harder and longer. The problem is that being a nerd and studying hard is not considered manly or cool. There's a cultural shift that needs to happen. ...

But even now we can see the same pattern emerging. The right-wing racist political parties of today have no concrete agenda. They're not for anything. All they're doing is list stuff they're against, can't explain why and you better agree or else. As if, if we get rid of this bad thing then If any of them actually get into power... Well... these are all proto-fascist parties. We know from history how a proto-fascist party will naturally evolve to a full-blown fascist party. Since these parties are so devoid of content only totalitarianism remains if they're to stay in power. ...

I think we have diametrically opposed views.

Your editing seems to have accidently scrambled the identity of who wrote what. So rather than trying to untangle it, I quoted some of your points and here are my views:

First, the anti-immigrant movements are justly opposed to the current immigration policies. They fear that the historic German population, its culture, and its values will be either hybridized or replaced by millions of Muslims and their descendents. They understandably and rightly oppose the social, economic, and behavioral consequences of prior and future immigration.

Second, there is no chance that a new Nazi party will arise. The antipathy to fascism is, after 70 years, so deeply ingrained in the German (and European) psyche that even legitimate and weak dissent (see Pegida Platform below) is routinely denounced as racist. If, after 70 years, the German people have not learned democratic values the most likely source of repression will be from the left, not the right. We've seen that in recent events.

Third, the state sponsored repression is obvious. For example:

German Chancellor Angela Merkel confronted Facebook Inc. Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg on how his company is progressing in efforts to curtail racist posts, after her government complained the social network wasn’t doing enough to crack down on recent xenophobic outbursts.
Attending a luncheon on the sidelines of a United Nations development summit in New York on Saturday, Merkel and Zuckerberg were overheard on a live transmission broadcast on the UN website as participants took their seats.
After Merkel briefly queried Zuckerberg about the hate-post affair, the Facebook CEO is heard responding that “we need to do some work” on the issue.
“Are you working on this?” Merkel asked in English. “Yeah,” Zuckerberg responded, before the dialog was cut off by introductory remarks to those present.
Earlier this month, Facebook said it would step up efforts to target racist content on its German website. The company said Sept. 14 it would join forces with a German Internet watchdog, a non-profit group called Voluntary Self-Monitoring of Multimedia Service Providers, to monitor suspected hate postings.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...acebook-s-zuckerberg-over-policing-hate-posts

AND:

Not satisfied with shutting down the debate on the political stage, German authorities are now taking on the dissent to its migration policy on internet and social media platforms. German government is pulling out all stops to ensure Facebook complies with its idea of acceptable speech. Wall Street journal reports:

German Justice Minister Heiko Maas said after a meeting with Facebook executives in Berlin that the ministry would coordinate the creation of a task force with Facebook and other Internet competitors to evaluate whether inappropriate content flagged by users falls under freedom of speech or is illegal under German law.

Furthermore, Facebook Inc. has agreed to fund activist groups to play vigilantes on the social media:

Facebook also said it would give financial support to organizations that collect complaints against online hate speech to help remove comments faster. The social network earlier in the day announced other measures, including a task force to encourage users to draft countermessages to hate speech on the Web and campaigns to generally strengthen antihate speech on the Internet.

In recent weeks, German authorities have shown zero-tolerance towards individuals posting critical or hateful comments on the social media and internet. Police have confiscated computers and courts have imposed heavy fines to the tune of thousands of Euros.

http://legalinsurrection.com/2015/0...-free-speech-refuse-debate-on-mass-migration/

Finally, here is the platform of Pegida:

At the beginning of December 2014, Pegida published an undated and anonymous one-page manifesto of 19 bulleted position statements.[43]

Pegida:

Approves the right of asylum for war refugees and politically persecuted people.
Advocates the inclusion of the right and duty to integration into the German constitution.
Advocates the decentralised acceptance of refugees and torture victims, instead of often poor quality refugee centres.
Suggests creation of a central refugee agency for a fair allocation of immigrants among countries of the European Union.
Demands a decrease in the number of asylum seekers per social worker from currently 200:1.
Suggests modeling German immigration policies after those of the Netherlands and Switzerland, and demands an increased budget for the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees, to speed up processing of applications.
Demands an increase in funding for the police.
Demands implementation of all asylum laws including expulsion.
Mentions zero tolerance towards criminal refugees and immigrants.
States that Pegida opposes a misogynistic and violent political ideology, but does not oppose assimilated and politically moderate Muslims.[44]
Supports immigration as in Switzerland, Canada, Australia and South Africa.

Pegida demonstration on 12 January 2015
States that Pegida supports sexual self-determination (opposes "early sexualization of children"[45]).
Argues for the protection of Germany's traditional Judeo-Christian culture.
Supports the introduction of referenda as in Switzerland.
Opposes weapon exports to radical and non-permitted groups, such as the PKK.
Opposes parallel societies and parallel jurisdiction, for example Sharia courts, Sharia police and peace judges.
States that Pegida opposes gender mainstreaming, and political correctness.
Indicates that Pegida opposes any radicalism, whether religious or politically motivated.
Says that Pegida opposes hate speech, regardless of religion.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegida

That platform in the US would be consider LEFT of center. It is weak, apologetic, and deferential. It lamely "suggests" that Germany adopt the policies of Netherlands and Switzerland, and supports immigration as used in Switzerland, Canada, Australia and South Africa.

So these are the BIG BAD BOOGEYMAN that have to be repressed? Is the German establishment insane?

 

[arkirk]

Amazing!!! I came to this thread just now expecting the moslem apologists in full flight explaining the Paris atrocity.
Not a word, what's happening!! A report I just heard says that at least one of the terrorist was a refugee who only arrived recently from Syria.

Angelo: It looks like the boat left the dock without you. This is a largely atheist forum. You won't find Moslem apologists here. That does not mean we are out for Muslim blood. Your knee was jerking and you were just looking for someone to irritate for their knee jerks. You did not find them because we are attempting to understand this thing and determine what an appropriate response to this would be.