@Laika While it makes perfect sense what you say, there is the other side of the coin. Too often people who are not politically correct get labeled as Fascists, Nazis or Nationalists (this is the mildest label) just because they point out the bull**** while others prefer sweeping it under the rug. That was exactly the case with no-go zones and this is the case with the increasing number of rapes committed by Muslim immigrants. In Germany, women are regularly raped in the refugee camps by male pseudo-refugees, who are in the majority. But of course, we must help all those "poor people" even if we can't control what's going on in the refugee camps, right? So it's better to pretend that the problem doesn't exist. Multiculturalism simply doesn't work. Many Muslim immigrants aren't just going to assimilate, hence the ghettos. LePen simply highlights the problem and says that something must be done about it. Whether she would manage to deal with it if she gained power is another question. It's easy to say, hard to do, but from what I know, she doesn't propose the "final solution" for all the Muslim immigrants, just stricter control of the borders and deporting those who break the French law. While I think she simply calculates and tries to capitalize on the fear of terrorism, it's obvious she's also demonized by the media.
The same is happening in my country. The party that now rules Poland is called nationalist, far right, even Nazi because it points out the bull****. The party that ruled before just can't come to terms with their defeat. Can you imagine what press Poland now has? All the newspapers worldwide keep screaming that Poland is on its way to dictatorship, that democracy is in danger, the government breaks the constitution, ignores citizens' rights and what not. But I live here and see people organize demonstrations from time to time, some media support the government, others keep *****ing against it, nothing is censored so am I missing something? The same was when some politician claimed that the refugees can bring some diseases to Poland. That caused the moral outrage coming mainly from liberal journalists and politicians and he was immediately compared to Hitler. Was he wrong? Didn't the immigrants drag cholera to Greece at one time?
When Viktor Orban started building the fence on the borders, the moral outcry followed and he was accused of being inhuman and not caring about European solidarity. Now the whole Europe is talking about the necessity of strengthening the borders. Besides, most nationalist parties of today tend to go soft once they get power. It's mainly due to the fact that they must appeal to the mainstream electorate in order to win the elections and, if they win, they often have to form coalitions. The National Front of Marine LePen is much milder than the National Front of her father. Polish nationalists also used to give a Heil Hitler salute at parties but when they got into the European and national parliaments, they started singing to a different tune. Power and money can spoil even the most naively idealistic and silly young people. Some of them are now damn celebrities driving expensive cars. They have no interest of fighting capitalism and liberal democracy.
You have my respect for challanging me on this, as I felt my last post was fairly ferocious. Sorry, the unpleasant feeling I get realising what communists did still gets me. it's like the ground opening up and falling into oblivion when you realise
you are on the same side as the "bad guys".
I'm angry because I really wish I could turn the tide and just try to protect people from supporting the far-right. the truth is, is that there supporters are as much victims as they people they hurt. the same is true for the far-left. they want change, they want to feel better about the world, make their lives better and have become frustrated and want "radical" solutions. they have legitimate greivances, and they aren't going to get heard on TV. that's true of the people who join ISIL. but neither of us are going to get the change we
really want by a "vote first, ask questions later" approach. I'm pretty happy to say that even after 26 years since the fall of the berlin wall, the communists are still cowardly stalin wannabes. I shouldn't be surprised. we've been told over and over again, "keep voting, it will be different this time". do we really want to take the risk with the far right? have things gone that far that human rights abuses don't bother us anymore?
it is fair to say that the "moral outrage" is often demonstrated by people who have little reason to. They just pick sides and repeat the party line and submerge their conscience with a particular ideology and don't look at the facts. it feels safer than "waking up". that's true on both sides (and I'm happy for you to include me in that as it has been true for many years, and still is to some extent). I didn't know about the Rapes in Refugee camps. the context I picked for understanding it was, is that Syria is really the opening salvo of a problem that will continue for much of the century. Climate change will lead to massive population movements and the amount of venom that gets poured over this issue, often with little or not relveance to statistics in the tabloid press, is a "storm in a teacup" compared to what will probably develop later on. the Syrian refugee crisis is really the first time that thousands of people have been crossing the borders into otherwise stable european countries. we are being rudely awakened from our complacency and of course, people lurch to the far-right because they think it is the refugees that are the threat. yes, it is possible for them to bring over disease. yes, it is possible some of them are terrorist undercover for ISIL. But this is stuff that is all eerling close to talking about them as the "surplus population" and that there is not enough "living space" to cloth, house these people or give them jobs. we are, collectively, some of the richest people on the planet, turning away some of the poorest. poverty is brutialising, so is war and dictatorship, so is fleeing from everything you know. they aren't going to be saints. I can't phrase it in some inspiring poetry about our "humanity" because that's bull****. most of us couldn't care, and even if we did- as individuals our ability to do anything about it is very limited. I am deeply concerned about how comfortable we are becoming with things that once belonged in the fringes.
To be honest, I am fed up with the "moral outrage" by people who use the mass media and public opinion as a weapon by which to judge others, but then do absoutely NOTHING about an issue. its naracassitic, self-righteous and renders every freedom that people ever fought for to a state of utter futility because how they feel is more important than what actually happens. go to a concert, make hand gestures in a vast crowd with a celebrity nonenity about how we're going to get "change", wear a wrist band, buy a t-shirt, feel better about it, go home, turn on the TV and nothing happens. **** all. it's not surprising the far-right is flourishing given the state our democracies are in. or for a moment the fact that ISIL wants to blow **** up; its looks good and probably feels a hell of alot better than the gutter "democracies" where we are staged managed by the "opinion formers" who sell us excuses for why they didn't live up to the empty promises of the last election. of course, for me it be the far-left; same story- different t-shirt. but when you start to be honest about the amount of violence involved in either, it gets uncomfortable. I really don't want to enter the kind of hell hole where people like Stalin and Hitler stop being in the history books and we are doing an excellent job of making that happen. I can barely justify to myself defending liberalism or thinking of how it might survive given that it's only selling point is "it could be worse", but I wish people put some thought into what they are actually voting for before they waved the flag and wear the t-shirt. even that would make it a little bit harder. its getting too easy to be an extremist of any kind for this to end well. you'll have to forgive if I am not eager to see where this is going.
And on the subject of Vicktor Orban, how did we go from Hungarians trying to flee their own country because the soviet built a wall to keep them in so they can run tanks overthem, to hungarians building a wall to keep the "muslims" out?
if this sounds like incoherent babble, my apologies, but I'm practically frothing with rage that things have got so bad, voting for the far right is even considered credible. I don't know who to be more pissed at the voters or the establishment.
