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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

Senate European ultranationalists!

Discussion in 'Community' started by Lord Vivec, Feb 23, 2014.

  1. Lord Vivec

    Lord Vivec Chosen One star 9

    Registered:
    Apr 17, 2006
    As one of the leaders of the opposition to the evil ukrainian president, the glorious Social National party "Svoboda" represents the best hope against the jewish and russian threat to glorious ukraine.

    Also all hail Golden Dawn.

    I swear I'm not drunk. And to prove it, we go to the serious stuff.

    The past few years have seen the rise of various ultranationalist/far-right parties in Europe. The Golden Dawn in Greece, The Hungarian Dawn in Hungary. And now Svoboda in Ukraine has gained more prominence as part of the poosition to the Ukrainian government.

    So what's causing all these anti-immigrant far right parties to gain seats in legislatures these years? I know German backed creationism, er, I mean austerity, has fed the Golden Dawn, but what about the other places? Do you guys think they'll continue to gain traction or will they fade to irrelevence?
     
  2. LAJ_FETT

    LAJ_FETT Tech Admin (2007-2023) - She Held Us Together star 10 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    May 25, 2002
    Can't speak for those places but I know here in the UK a lot of people are fed up with immigrants from Eastern Europe coming here and taking jobs or getting benefits without having worked here. The immigrants have free movement within the EU since their countries are EU members. The latest countries to gain access were Romania and Bulgaria at the beginning of this year. (There had been controls on people from those countries but they expired in January). Last year there were press reports about Romanians sleeping rough in London parks and begging or committing crimes during the day. Some were sent back to Romania only to show up back in London. We had the same job issues with the Poles when they first got access but a lot have gone back home. UKIP (UK Independence Party) are campaigning on leaving the EU and they might get votes from people who would normally vote Tory. Local elections here are in May and the next general election is in May 2015. The fear is that if a lot of Tories vote for UKIP in 2015 it might let a Labour government in and they did enough economic damage the last time.
     
  3. duende

    duende Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Apr 28, 2006
    these elements tend to pop up during economically troubled times. i don't know what to tell you buddy - i don't think they're going away anytime soon.

    slobadova
     
  4. beezel26

    beezel26 Jedi Master star 7

    Registered:
    May 11, 2003
    The problem is you are allowing so many countries to go back and forth between countries that you can't control what is going on. They should have controls on immigration to avoid issues with jobs.
     
  5. LAJ_FETT

    LAJ_FETT Tech Admin (2007-2023) - She Held Us Together star 10 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    May 25, 2002
    Unfortunately the free movement of EU nationals is enshrined in EU law. Legally the UK can't keep them out. The best we could do with the Romanians and Bulgarians was defer the issue and that deferment ran out this year. It isn't so much of a problem if the countries are roughly equal economically - like with France and Germany, for example. But nationals of the less fortunate countries like Romania, etc, know their quality of life will be better if they can get to a richer EU country. It's not just the UK having problems with them - other countries are as well.
     
  6. Rogue_Ten

    Rogue_Ten Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Aug 18, 2002
    fascism is probably the inevitable successor state after collapses of liberalism (capitalism). sorry brah. they're dirtier streetfighters than socialists, that's really all it comes down to

    that and the seeds of it are already so embedded in the prior culture. i mean look at the response you've gotten so far in this thread. duende accepts and expects fascist insurgency during capitalism's cyclical periods of wealth destruction/"recession". laj and beezel are like "i dunno about all them fascists, BUT LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT THE DAMN ROMANIANS!!" to a prior generation of brits the expression was "ol' enoch had a point, innit?"

    fascism has a natural leg up on the liberal reformers and the socialists. id stop short of calling it human nature and just say its something extant in the prior system that's easy to fall back on and magnify in times of struggle. its all they know
     
    Abadacus likes this.
  7. Ender Sai

    Ender Sai Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Feb 18, 2001
    Yeah I remember starting a thread for this too; and you're a liar, Vivec. You are drunk.
     
  8. slightly_unhinged

    slightly_unhinged Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jan 28, 2014
    Eastern Europeans are helping to keep our (UK) economy afloat.

    It's basically an old tradition that started during WW2, when experienced Polish pilots who'd seen action in Poland and France fought in the RAF. Bluntly, we would never have won the Battle of Britain without them. With air supremacy achieved, Germany would've invaded and there's nothing to suggest that their Blitzkrieg strategy would've been unsuccessful. Meanwhile, Poles working at Bletchley Park were instrumental in the code-breaking activities that helped us to win the war in the Atlantic. Without them, the U boat wolfpacks would've all but cut off supplies coming to us from the US. War-hardened Polish troops also fought fiercely in the Italian campaign. We demonstrated our gratitude for all this at the end of the war by effectively handing Poland over to Stalin.

    Much as it irritates me when people argue on an international scale based on their small personal experience, I'm going to go ahead and do so. In most of the organisations I've worked for, things have effectively been run by a relatively small number of bright, hard-working, well-educated (incl. autodidacts) people who keep things together while a majority of people fluff around achieving very little. In every case, over the last decade, folk from former Eastern Bloc made up a fair percent of that cadre. It's also something I see in day-to-day life all the time in coffee shops, restaurants, pubs; slick competence (by and large) from Eastern Europeans and flapping and/or surly incompetence from our home-grown talent.

    The huge influx of talent from Eastern Europe over the last 15 years or so has been a massive boon to our economy. Nearly all of those who've come to our shores have done so to work, and brought a good work ethic with them. Tarring them with the same brush as the tiny minority of folk who've come here to claim benefits of cause trouble (basically a handful of Armenian mafiosi who started coming over in the 90s and another tiny handful of disruptive Roma gypsies quite recently) is, in my opinion, a bit churlish, old chap.

    In terms of the OP... hard times have always led people towards political/cultural extremes. The last 6000 years of history are strewn with examples of this. I find it disappointing that we never seem to learn from this, that there's always something that makes us feel that the present is totally qualitatively different from the rest of history, but hey.
     
  9. beezel26

    beezel26 Jedi Master star 7

    Registered:
    May 11, 2003
    How about good faith visas. They need to the skills and the talent to get the jobs and then they are required to have a good faith that they will not do anything wrong and more importantly charge them more taxes. Make no bones if they want to come to the UK, make them pay if the country they come from is doing worse then you are.
     
  10. Jabba-wocky

    Jabba-wocky Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    May 4, 2003
    Can you expand on this a little more? I'm not really sure what the immigrants are supposed to do. You've found fault with them for both being employed and for being unemployed. Volunteer work?
     
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  11. GrandAdmiralJello

    GrandAdmiralJello Comms Admin ❉ Moderator Communitatis Litterarumque star 10 Staff Member Administrator

    Registered:
    Nov 28, 2000
    It might not just be because they're dirtier fighters, but also because it's more palatable? It's easier to place blame on others for your country's hard times than it is to look yourself in the mirror. Golden Dawn sort of rose up in response to austerity -- and whether austerity was a good or bad solution, it was an attempt at a solution, while fascist movements tend to say "THOSE GUYS, it's their fault!"

    I tend to ignore anything related to economics, so I am not sure what the liberal response to the economic crisis is aside from stimulus and injection of liquidity (I think?) but that seems a lot less attractive to an angry person who lost their job or something.
     
  12. Ender Sai

    Ender Sai Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Feb 18, 2001

    He's done no such thing; he's captured a well publicised sentiment in the UK. If you're unsure or want to know more, I would suggest looking into UKIP's manifesto?
     
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  13. Rogue_Ten

    Rogue_Ten Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Aug 18, 2002

    well yes i went into this in my own opaque way in the rest of that post. the dirtier fighters thing was (partly) a joke
     
  14. FatBurt

    FatBurt Sex Scarecrow Vanquisher star 6

    Registered:
    Jul 21, 2003
    Depressingly UKIP is making inroads largely in the more Northern area's where there is little work and the perception of high migration (perpetuated by national media e.g. Daily Mail and their ilk)

    Historically the UK has always had issues with migrants when economic times are tough but no one ever highlights to the grumblers about the amount of people that we have who leave our shores to go and get work in Germany/France etc...


    The thing is, in the UK there is enough work out there, the problem is that the migrants are happy to do the lower paid work whereas we are educating our own kids to believe that certain types of work are beneath them and as long as this myth is perpetuated by the governments push on keeping kids in school longer (leaving age of 18) and yet another restructure of our education system that focuses solely on examination capabilities rather than catering for a mix of testing types is just going to disadvantage some individuals even further.

    We also have a habit of looking down on some members of our society but also celebrating these same types of people in the media

    In short, we confuse ourselves in the UK with all our media outlets decrying one thing one day and then building those same people up the following day before ripping them down again. This confusion in our own nationality drives those who are being ripped to shreds to pick on their own "enemies" and migrants are an easy source for them to vent against.
     
  15. duende

    duende Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Apr 28, 2006
    that's pretty much it.
     
  16. beezel26

    beezel26 Jedi Master star 7

    Registered:
    May 11, 2003
    Just don't pray they turn into the teaparty conservatives
     
  17. duende

    duende Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Apr 28, 2006
    i'm pretty sure that's exactly what they are, from what i've been told.
     
  18. Rogue_Ten

    Rogue_Ten Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Aug 18, 2002
    you're forgeting austerity and protectionism
     
  19. Ender Sai

    Ender Sai Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Feb 18, 2001

    Arguably they should be letting companies and the economy fall over from time to time. The more you try to insulate against a crash, the worse you make the inevitable crash later on. Creative destruction and all that.
     
  20. Ender Sai

    Ender Sai Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Feb 18, 2001
    Austerity measures are, for the most part, needed. You look at the insane levels of public spending on entitlements that can best be described as "something for nothing" and they're not sustainable. Take it away and encourage people to work to support themselves and bam! Riots in the streets.

    Plus in Greece's part, when people go to such lengths to not pay taxes...
     
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  21. duende

    duende Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Apr 28, 2006
    re allowing falls, yes. the problem is we interrupted the liquidation in 2008, leaving the rotting foundations in place for another go later.

    re austerity - we did the tax hiking part, but the attempts to curb spending have been laughable thus far, and have now basically been abandoned with the 2014 budget. oh well.
     
  22. beezel26

    beezel26 Jedi Master star 7

    Registered:
    May 11, 2003
    Rag on America all you want but we don't go the links to support everyone that Europe does. If we didn't have such a large military and gave lots of money away to other countries I am sure we would end with so much more.
     
  23. slightly_unhinged

    slightly_unhinged Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jan 28, 2014
    Totally agree with Ender. Most of Europe borrowed heavily through the boom. The only way you can do the whole Keynsian spend through a bust thing is if you also do the Keynsian save during a boom thing.

    Greece is just crazy. Only the stupid and the deeply conscientious paid taxes, while the government went on a spending spree with their new EU member credit limit. Now they seem to think the Germans owe it to them to bail them out because of ze war. Insanely exaggerated sense of entitlement.
     
    duende likes this.
  24. duende

    duende Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Apr 28, 2006
    i've discovered how to crack the "middle knuckle" on each of my fingers without having to pull or painfully "fold in". pretty jazzed about this.
     
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  25. slightly_unhinged

    slightly_unhinged Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jan 28, 2014

    That is awesome