Authoritarianism?? Can’t believe it, look at history how fascism rises. It enters a vacuum where political parties fail in their responsibility. See also Marx and communism in the 19th century, socialism in the 20th century and social revolution in the 21st century. Making corporate power “people” and taxation/flight to tax havens leads to greater inequality of income and wealth concentration. The rise of Trump & others in Europe is to preserve the white “culture” and the religious component of Judeo/Christian “moral values”.
The project “Islamophobia” is bearing fruit across the western world. The attack of 9/11 and the violent reaction by the US and allies to invade and occupy Iraq has furthered the cause of “Clash of Civilizations.” Neither the Islam of Saudi Arabia, the Orthodoxy in Israel, universal Catholicisn of Rome, Putin’s “authoritarianism” or fundamental evangelicals of the US are a “civilized” people and well represented by its democratically elected leadership. George Bush was clear when he [mis]spoke of a Crusade against violent Islam with supercharged devastation and abuse of every human right normally expected from a world leader adhering to International law and universal principles of mankind.
Most interesting which European political leaders send congrats to the election sweep by Donald Trump on Super Tuesday on March 1st …
Congratulations @realDonaldTrump ! by Geert Wilders (PVV)
« click for Wilders' US speech
Wilders: "Eigen volk eerst!" [Bashing Islam - Holland for the Dutch]
- Si j’étais américain, je voterais Donald
TRUMP… Mais que Dieu le protège !
[If I were American, I’d vote Donald
TRUMP … but God bless him!].
○ Geert Wilders @geertwilderspvv on Dec. 7, 2015
- I hope @realDonaldTrump will
be the next US President.
Good for America, good for Europe.
We need brave leaders.
○ UKIP tweets about Trump by UKIP webmaster
- . @Channel4News doesn’t even disguise
its bias against @realDonaldTrump
‘Brace yourself’ for more of their crap
when he becomes President.
Turnout down in Democratic Super Tuesday contests
Most of the Democratic primaries were not very competitive on Super Tuesday and predictably the turnout was far below previous high marks, which were almost all set in 2008. However, in Massachusetts, where both Clinton and Sanders ran a vigorous race, the turnout was not that far off the state’s 2008 Democratic presidential primary record. But in most of the southern states, where voters could cast ballots in either party’s primary, more were drawn to participate in the GOP contest.
« click for more info analyzing social media
Turnout by Democrats down in non-competitive states. (PBS)
Nigel Farage: I share concerns with Donald Trump
Nigel Farage has said that he shares concerns about an out-of-touch political class with the controversial Republican Donald Trump, during a speech in the US in which the Ukip leader also warned about the security risk posed by immigrants.
Farage made the comments [on July 2015] at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative thinktank in Washington DC.
He added: “I do think some of the things he’s picked up on in the last few weeks are very similar to the kind of things we’ve picked up on in British politics – the feeling that there is a centralised bureaucracy in Washington, maybe not connecting with some of the concerns of ordinary people.”
○ Farage, unlike Trump, is not an out-and-out racist thug
Trump, who is running to be the Republican presidential candidate, attracted comparisons with Farage after causing controversy by suggesting that Mexican immigrants include rapists and that they bring drugs and crime to the US.
Love of Geert Wilders for Netanyahu
○ Dutch MP in Tel Aviv: Palestinians Should Go Home to Jordan
Funding for the one-member party PVV of Geert Wilders from the US pro-Israel community:
○ Geert Wilders a Likudnik sponsored by Daniel Pipes
○ Has Islam-bashing tarnished ‘tolerant Britain?’
○ This monster called Europe
○ Hannah Arendt’s critique of human rights – The Origins of Totalitarianism
See American Fascism in the hotlist of this blog.
More than two decades of demeaning and undermining the social good of democracy; the Republicans created a warm, nourishing petrie dish for fascism in America.
Good imagery!
Yes. Of course.
And…
There is more than enough blame to go around, Shaun.
More than enough.
AG
I’m actually more worried about Europe than the US; parties like Labor in the UK and PP in Spain seem to weak to fight back at this stuff (and yeah, there’s Corbyn, but he’s pretty much fighting alone… and Podemos is very interesting, but it’s too young and lacks institutional strenght)
General pattern in austerity Europe (UK from choice, most others from ECB-enforcement) is the collapse of both leftwing and rightwing traditional big parties. First one loses an election over the economy, then the other, while the first party barely beats its numbers from the lost election. Rinse and repeat until you have weakened them enough for challengers to step in.
What rises instead differs, but in Europe it is as a rule new parties rather then take-over of the old ones. In Spain it is socialist Podemos that has benefitted most, in Italy populist M5*, in Greece socialist Syriza (with openly nazi Golden Dawn as runner up in terms of increase), in France fascist National Front (LePen is running first or second in polls for next years presidential election), etc.
What party is replaced is also not a given. While in Greece Syriza has relegated the traditional leftwing party PASOK to fighting to stay in parliament and traditional rightwing New Democracy lives on as the alternative, in Italy it looks like now more likely to end with traditional leftwing big party vs M5* and in France (unless PS dumps Hollande and corrects course sharply leftwards) it looks like it could end with rightwing vs fascism as main choices.
Interesting times, as the Chinese curse calls it.
What worries me is that, if it comes down to Syriza vs Golden Dawn, or Corbyn vs UKIP, etc, the elites are going to roll the dice with fascism…
○ Noam Chomsky, geen spat veranderd [Age hasn’t changed him] by Mirthe Berentsen
{Quite interesting interview I read today in paper version Vrij Nederland, will try to get digital copy this weekend – Oui]
Say it again. Often.