What a difference a few months can make.
Ahead of Italy’s election last fall, Giorgia Meloni was widely depicted as a menace. By this summer, everything — her youthful admiration for Benito Mussolini, her party’s links to neofascists, her often extreme rhetoric — had been forgiven. Praised for her practicality and support for Ukraine, Ms. Meloni has established herself as a reliable Western partner, central to Group of 7 meetings and NATO summits alike. A visit to Washington, which takes place on Thursday, seals her status as a valued member of the international community.
But the comforting tale of a populist firebrand turned pragmatist overlooks something important: what’s been happening in Italy. Ms. Meloni’s administration has spent its first months accusing minorities of undermining the triad of God, nation and family, with dire practical consequences for migrants, nongovernmental organizations and same-sex parents. Efforts to weaken anti-torture legislation, stack the public broadcaster with loyalists and rewrite Italy’s postwar constitution to increase executive power are similarly troubling. Ms. Meloni’s government isn’t just nativist but has a harsh authoritarian streak, too.
For Italy, this is bad enough. But much of its significance lies beyond its borders, showing how the far right can break down historic barriers with the center right. Allies of Ms. Meloni are already in power in Poland, also newly legitimized by their support for Ukraine. In Sweden, a center-right coalition relies on the nativist Sweden Democrats’ support to govern. In Finland, the anti-immigrant Finns Party went one better and joined the government. Though these parties, like many of their European counterparts, once rejected membership in NATO and the European Union, today they seek a place in the main Euro-Atlantic institutions, transforming them from within. In this project, Ms. Meloni is leading the way.
Since becoming prime minister, Ms. Meloni has certainly moderated her language. In official settings, she’s at pains to appear considered and cautious — an act aided by her preference for televised addresses rather than questioning by journalists. Yet she can also rely on colleagues in her Brothers of Italy party to be less restrained. Taking aim at one of the government’s main targets, L.G.B.T.Q. parents, party leaders have called surrogate parenting a “crime worse than pedophilia,” claiming that gay people are “passing off” foreign kids as their own. Ms. Meloni can appear aloof from such rhetoric, even suggesting unhappiness with its extremism. But her decisions in office reflect zealotry, not caution. The government extended a ban on surrogacy to criminalize adoptions in other countries and ordered municipalities to stop registering same-sex parents, leaving children in legal limbo.
[…]
Journalists, too, are under pressure. Sitting ministers have threatened — and in some cases pursued — a raft of libel suits against the Italian press in an apparent bid to intimidate critics. The public broadcaster RAI is also under threat, and not just because its mission for the next five years includes “promoting birthrates.” After its chief executive and leading presenters resigned, citing political pressure from the new government, it now resembles tele-Meloni, with rampant handpicking of personnel. The new director general, Giampaolo Rossi, is a pro-Meloni hard-liner who previously distinguished himself as an organizer of an annual Brothers of Italy festival. In the aftermath of his appointment, news outlets published scores of his anti-immigration social media posts and an interview with a neofascist journal in which he condemned the antifascist “caricature” hanging over public life
This is not his concern alone. Burying the antifascist legacy of the wartime Resistance matters deeply to the Brothers of Italy, a party rooted in its fascist forefathers’ great defeat in 1945. As prime minister, Ms. Meloni has referred to Italy’s postwar antifascist culture as a repressive ideology, responsible even for the murder of right-wing militants in the political violence of the 1970s. It’s not just history to be rewritten. The postwar Constitution, drawn up by the Resistance-era parties, is also ripe for revision: The Brothers of Italy aims to create a directly elected head of government and a strong executive freer of constraint. No matter its novelty, Ms. Meloni’s administration has every chance of imposing enduring changes in the political order.
[…]
Success is hardly inevitable. Ahead of last week’s election in Spain, Ms. Meloni addressed her nationalist ally Vox, declaring that the “patriots’ time has come”; in fact, its vote share fell and right-wing parties failed to secure a majority. Even so, Vox has become an enduring part of the electoral arena and a regular ally for conservatives. Despite their growing success, such forces have for years been painted as insurgent outsiders representing long-ignored voters. The more disturbing truth is that they are no longer parties of protest, but increasingly welcome in the mainstream. For proof, just look to Washington on Thursday.
Ahhh fascism. Is this 1923 or 2023? Fucking people
People freely choose to vote fascists to power, and then wonder why their country has turned into hell.
:(
They don’t wonder, they blame immigrants. See Brexit.
In India, they blame religious minorities (Muslims & Christians) and the oppressed castes (Dalits, Adivasis (Adi = first, vasi = resident, Adivasis are India’s indigenous tribals), & Bahujan)
The educated middle-class & upper-middle class who are mostly upper-caste take the lead in this villification.
:(
“So are you vegetarian by birth or by choice?”
Is a question I’ve heard that Indian engineers hear a lot in big US tech companies that hire a lot of H1B engineers. I’m not from India myself, but even I can see where that’s going.
That’s such a “What caste are you?” sneak question. Usually they are more direct and ask “So, what’s your full name” and persist in trying to know the newcomer’s lastname/ surname. Because the surname/ lastname is a caste marker.
Another trick men from the upper/ oppressor caste do is to casually & in a friendly manner put their arm across the new colleague’s/ classmate’s shoulders to sneakily check whether they’re wearing the Brahmin-caste thread. Or they invite the new guy over for a swim, to visually confirm presence of the Brahmin caste marker.
Babasaheb Ambedkar (Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar who is called Babasaheb with love & respect) had visualized this situation. He had written that if Brahmanism (Hinduism) goes abroad, casteism would become global problem.
The UK Primi Minister Rishi Sunak’s mother-in-law, Sudha Murthy, is openly & proudly casteist proclaimig that when she travels abroad she carries her own spoon, because she doesn’t want to use cutlery that could previously have been used by a non-vegetarian/ meat-eater.
My ex-gf was Indian and she got rid of her surname legally because she hated the caste system so much. And she was from the upper castes.
Why would US companies care about caste? Or does that question only come up because of Indian hiring managers/HR people?
It’s other Indians at work deciding if you should be kept or stabbed in the back.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Populism
Populism refers to a range of political stances that emphasize the idea of “the people” and often juxtapose this group against “the elite”.
This has been a prime weapon in politics lately.
The approach is a bit more mixed in India.
Populism is used in India to turn Hindu supremacists against educated Hindus who oppose Hindu supremacism. The rest of the hatred is fuelled by religious extremism under the guise of nationalism/ patriotism and ever famous “Hindus are in danger” (in a land where 85% of 1.4 Billion people are Hindus and where Hindus hold all the power) to turn them against religious minorities.
To turn people against those from oppressed castes who oppose Hindu supremacism is easier since caste-oppression is ingrained in India. No action gets taken against those who inflict any kind of violence or dehumanization or violence against oppressed castes. Only when any videos of such an atrocity become viral, is there any lip-service about ‘punishing the guilty’.
If fascist are put into power trough Democratic means then the people get the fascist government they deserve. Turkey had to chance to get rid of Erdog yet they overwhelmingly re-elected him.
But when voting happens in a society that is misinformed, usually maliciously so, like in Turkey, it is not democratic, democracy works and is true to itself only when a vote is informed.
Turkey is a big examples of that, but this extends to many countries as well, it’s usually the uneducated and historically illiterate that fall for fascism
In India, most Hindus from the educated middle-class & upper-middle class are huge fans of Hindu supremacism and Modi’s fascism. They have the means & oppurtunity to access information but choose to follow and believe the misinfo, disinfo, & propaganda churned ut by the Hindu upremacist RSS & BJP IT cell and godimedia (mainstream media that is Modi’s lapdog).
:(
In our society social media have destabilized our methods of communication and I think our communication has been broken and we still don’t know how to fix it. The public square is now private, even if the change might seem subtle, it’s a big disruption in society (Meta, Twitter, Google, TikTok).
Hindu supremacist BJP has an IT cell which is tasked with creating and spreading disinfo, misinfo, and propaganda using all possible channels; mainstream media and all forms of social media. I keep waiting for one of them to pop up on the fediverse and either spread thir filth or start cursing me out.
In Nazi Germany it was the wealthy that voted him in. The establishment feared the left and colluded with Hitler.
Usually fascism stems from the bourgeoisie, not the lower class. But through disinformation from the class that controls information it manages to get promoted from the lower class too.
The caste at the topmost of India’s super-shitty caste pyramid (who are very good at playing victim while actually victimizing everyone else) created the Hindu supremacy ideology and the wealthiest merchant communities and corporates have funded it and dispersed it via their in-home mainstream media.
There are people from Turkey, though who voted although they were able to inform themselves since they do not live in Turkey currently. Conservatives will vote and uphold conservative parties even when they know exactly what they are voting for. They do it because it benefits them personally.
But conservative views are not the problem themselves, even though I don’t always agree with those, authoritarian views are.
And as I said in another comment, having the means to inform yourself doesn’t mean that you will do it, because it’s a chore, at least that’s how it is in our society. If it was different, if the public square (which is social media atm) wasn’t controlled by private companies, I think it would be a bit better.
India too, Hindu supremacist and fascist Modi’s 2nd term is almost up and the country is down the shitter.
They’re not even fascists, they don’t believe one word they say. I’d have more respect if they did. They are adverting space plastered with what sells at the moment. Right now the root of all evil is the stranger, come (and you let him enter) to take your jobs (you didn’t want those anyway) and your women (hopefully, you’re too busy with soccer). Silly tricks for a population (I’m Italian, so I include myself) of idiots.
Well… Not that i voted for her nor will I ever… But trust me, the alternatives were garbage…
I stopped voting last 2 election because it was getting embarrassing…
All promises in campaign, then they internally fight over position and roles then make the government collapse and so on…
Nothing is stable, nothing gets done, every situation is just “something the previous government left and that we have to face” over and over again.We did not choose her…she was just the only one who didn’t yet have a go at it.
It’s stupid, not ideal, but the standard around her is just trash
I stopped voting last 2 election
I understand your concerns but whoever does not vote, votes for the winner of the election. By not voting you implicitly say that you’re fine with the winning candidate.
Rather than blaming the individuals for the doom of the entire country, i’d point the finger at the institutions that let this happen.
Several european govs never truly dealt with their dictatorships from ww2, be the nazis, the fascists, or whatever the spanish and portuguese were doing. Throw in all the collaborators as well. These ideologies never really went away. If you’d like to dive more into the topic, Bes D. Marx and Yugopnik have some excellent material on yt, with additional sources in the video descriptions
Spain and Portugal both had fascist dictatorships.
The main difference between both is that Portugal had a revolution which overthrew the fascists whilst in Spain the fascists passed laws to give themselves immunity and keep all their plunder and then “surrended” power.
they werent.
anything, even garbage, is better than AKP people.
Kılıçdaroğlu should have won but turkey is weak like the people.
History repeats itself… in 100 year cycles apparently.
In that case it’s quite positive. We still have a decade until the world war
Perfect! My kid would be just old enough to get drafted!
Even more! Just ten years until Hitler takes over whichever country (Ukraine? Lol) and 16 until ww3 starts
I hope they learn from the last time reality looped that trenches don’t tend to work very well against machine guns and gas attacks.
Trenches work very well against those things. There’s a reason that the western front was relatively immobile for almost all of WWI
Oh, sweet! I’ll have a chance to have my own Woodstock.
Fuck, i will be so old if i make it to 2069
Fuck. This means we will have a coup attempt this year
What’s missing is what a huge difference the media makes. Once you control the media, you basically control the country, as can be seen in Hungary, Poland and Russia. All of these states have put in massive efforts to install their own cronies as media leadership, and you can see this happening in other countries too. Now it’s Italy.
Then on the other hand, you have billionaires that flood the people with cheap tabloid bullshit, of course to paralyze honest debates around things that actually matter (climate change, wealth inequality, etc) and instead refocus the populace on scape goats (LGBTQ rights, abortion, etc).
Far too often, „serious“ media fails to defend against the bullshit, and at some point will also report on these „issues“ as „this is what the country is talking about“. What they are ignoring is that this conversation is deliberately led by bad actors, and by picking it up they are legitimizing their positions.
Then they invite complete lunatics to discussion to provide a „balanced viewpoint“, when there is no balanced viewpoint to be had for certain issues: the earth is round, climate change is happening, and it is our fault. Period. There can be no further discussions on the facts.
The misinformation campaigns are massive, the astroturfing is massive, and is probably happening even here. It is too cheap and works too well to not do it.
The misinformation campaigns are massive, the astroturfing is massive, and is probably happening even here. It is too cheap and works too well to not do it.
Yes, the power of stories is incredible - and human’s likeliness to believe stories over facts, setting aside critical thinking over immediate feelings. Ref. Yuval Noah Harari.
Also:
“the earth is not round”
Flat. The earth is not flat.
I can’t believe I mistyped that 🤦🏻♀️ you are right of course.
Thank you for your write up. It’s becoming harder and harder to stay up to date on all the new wannabe fascists in Europe.
I’ll drop in with my thoughts on it in Germany. In Germany, the far right party is at 20% in recent opinion polls. Scary. But 60% of the potential right voters say they just vote them out of protest. It wouldn’t be that hard for the other parties to turn that ship around, but I don’t see anything happening. The big parties are following their utterly liberal ultra capitalist line, which of course makes people poorer, which generates a lot of displeasure in these uncertain times. People are looking for simple answers. And while “smash capitalism” would be the simple correct answer for 98% of people, sadly there is no party that propagates that. So “it’s because of the immigrants, it’s because of the dictators in the EU” from the right that gets fed to the people as a simple answer, and they get the vote.
But IMO, this protest vote only goes to the right because of a lack of alternatives. The problem is our left party is too busy with wokeness topics (which are important, sure, but they still just don’t resonate in most people) and in fighting among themselves. So nobody votes for them as a protest as they absolutely lack any substance right now. And our left still has a “Russia problem” as they mostly emerged from the letters of eastern Germany. This is course doesn’t help. So people vote for the right.
I still hope a new left party would emerge, but as long as there isn’t, and as long as the big center-“left” party doesn’t change course, I see the rights just getting stronger. Especially since the center rights adopt talking points from the far right, as they see it gets them votes.
Another interesting (and scary) fact is, that the several right parties in Europe formerly were totally against Europe. They still are, just not openly anymore. Now they learned that in order to destroy the EU, it’s easier to get voted into it, closing ranks with all the other nationalists, and starting to dismantle it from within.
I’ll just repeat what @[email protected] said, build networks, maybe we gonna need them soon!
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Yeah, but those are allies with “strong authoritarian Putin”, while the lefts are still allies with communist Russia somehow. Mental gymnastics at its best.
But 60% of the potential right voters say they just vote them out of protest.
voting for nazis “out of protest” is just a thin veiled excuse for voting nazis
It wouldn’t be that hard for the other parties to turn that ship around, but I don’t see anything happening.
Yes it would be, because what the Naziparty offers is simple solutions and scapegoats to complex problems. That is also why the conservative party CDU is happily joining in on it. Both parties represent neoliberal business practices, the AfD even more so, while blaming the fallout on minorities. The people that vote for them are brainwashed to think that anything not capitalist is pure evil. The AfD went on a “it feels like in east Germany” platform with great success in the eastern parts of Germany, despite most of their elites never actually having lived in East-Germany.
In the same wake the Left party is not too busy with wokeness. They represent these topics while primarily representing economic alternatives to the right. But the Right wing media propaganda as well as the “anti communist” propaganda from our state media is focusing on the “woke issues” to undermine the economic platform of the left.
Note that the issues aren’t just in the political space. It is a concerted effort by capitalist elites to shift the responsibility and blame away from them and onto immigrants, LGBT people, people protesting for measures against climate change etc.
It is the same as in Italy and the other countries. Fascist playbook 101 where the Naziparty is pretending to care about social issues, while assuring the economic elites, that they wont touch them and instead blame the worsening situation on scapegoats. The former conservatives are now turning proto-fascists happily radicalising among the Nazis to help them into power to secure the power of their members and benefactors.
You can have the best policies and focus on these topics, but with a mediascape dominated by right wing propaganda and a false “red scare”-responsibility feeling in public broadcasting, where the left is still met with the same false stereotypes like in the 1970s there is only so much they can do.
I think a big issue is that very few people are interested in actively participating in politics/democracy. Membership in political parties is decreasing and it becomes more and more difficult to fill seats in local government. What we are left with are a set of politicians in it to line their pockets, or crazy zealots. If you want to change join the party that most closely aligns with your preferences, and make sure your friends do too.
This comment and the fact that it’s also massively upvoted perfectly demonstrates the problem. Not an analysis of the problem or an solution, but THE problem: You are brain-washed by propaganda and living in some opposite-world were right is left and left is right.
So let’s start at the top:
“But 60% of the potential right voters say they just vote them out of protest.”
Nope, that’s bullshit. That’s an excuse. And that quota will decrease with “voting fascist” becoming socially accepted behavior.
(Also, just like the last time the fascists will not get more votes until they come to power. They will be elevated to power by other parties, the ones pretending to refuse any cooperation today. That’s another 70-80% -those proclaiming to never form a government with the AfD- that is completely imaginary and just cheap talk. For some parties this might be actually true. For a lot of people it isn’t. And the weakest link right now is the political failures for decades now leading the biggest/conservative party with his own brand of right-wing populism.)
“It wouldn’t be that hard for the other parties to turn that ship around, but I don’t see anything happening.”
Because that’s also bullshit. There is no simple real life solution to imaginary problems and invented scape goats. Only if you believe the AfD’s propaganda already you believe in non-existing fantasy measures that the governing parties simply refuse to take.
“The big parties are following their utterly liberal ultra capitalist line”
And now you totally lost it. Yes, there is a party with an ultra capitalist line aiming for no social secuitry net, no taxes for the rich. It’s called the AfD. It’s in their program even, as they don’t need to lie when most people are too lazy to actually start reading it over the propaganda fed to you in easier form.
Not surprisingly, the people wanting this know. Or who do you think is financing the AfD? Billionaires, old remains of aristocracy, multi-billion “familiy business” pretending to be middle-class, rich land owners. Those are the AfD clients. You are just a tool.
“The problem is our left party is too busy with wokeness topics”
And the next right-wing narrative. “Woke” is a right-wing invention. There are also no “woke topics” heavily pushed by left parties. It’s the right that is doing all the talking. They again invented some imaginary issue -in this case things like “gender inclusive language pushed by the left”- to fight against. The problem as usual: The issue doesn’t exist. They fight against an imaginary forced use of certain language, while nobody is forcing anyone. They are also the only ones actually regulating how we are allowed to speak (AfD and CDU locally banned use of gender inclusive language in parliaments already).
The Afd (and to a lower degree the conservatives) are the ones pushing the issue to have something to rally their voters against. Here’s who is actually talking about Gender all day:
“And our left still has a “Russia problem” […] So people vote for the right.”
No, the Left is very fragmented and diverse, so they have probably still a few people individually more attached to Russia than the West. The actual Party with a “Russia problem” is the AfD again. They got partly financed by Russia, they parrot Kremlin taking points. But -as seen- you already live in a propaganda-induced alternative reality. So why should one more delusion matter, right?
“I still hope a new left party would emerge”
Let me guess? Some new left party, like that clown-show Wagenknecht is celebrating… parroting far-right talking points and Russian propaganda while pretending to be left? A.k.a. the living embodiment of the horseshoe or “far-right for pussies afraid to openly stand for their far-right bullshit”?
Congratulations. You are spreading AfD bullshit while either pretending or being so confused by propaganda to actually believing to fight against the far-right.
Sorry, to say that. But if you are an average example of the voters (and the fact that this piece of written diarrhea is heavily upvoted supports my fears here…) then we are truly and utterly lost and the fascists will win.
You sure write a lot for saying so little. I suggest to step out of your bubble for once and actually talk to people. Why do you think so many people upvoted? Because everybody is brainwashed except you? Oh lord.
Also, I know who the AfD is, but thanks for the lecture. I know about their ties to Russia, their capitalist views, and that Weidl is married to a Sri Lankan woman and yet yells “Festung Europa” and hates on gays. But all these facts don’t matter. People don’t vote AfD for their program, they vote them for their talking points, and because of the political climate, that they party create themselves. The other parties need to adress the points that AfD uses and dismantle them. There are ways how you can critically discuss immigration, climate change politics, and economic imbalance without a right wing perpective. That’s basically all I wanted to say. You misinterpreted way more in my answer then there actually was.
That graph with the gender mentions actually is really nice. But still, this doesn’t matter. What matters is what the public sees and hears about them. Sure, in part it’s the (social)media that fires against the left for i.e. the gender discussion, but the bigger part is that the left is totally aimless, leaderless and profileless, lost on it’s track.
Sadly, the tone in your reply is really hateful and annoys me to hell, otherwise I would really like to dicuss with you.
Also, just to have it said, I fucking hate Wagenknecht.
Good riddance!
Why do you think so many people upvoted?
Because populism works. You invent or change facts to create simple problems or simplify complex problems ad absurdum and then present easy solutions. People like easy solutions and tend to believe it when it would be to much work to actually fact check the whole premise.
Which is exactly what you did there. For this reason a lot of people just quickly read through it decided “yeah, sound logical” and upvoted. And for exactly the same reason I picked the most bullshit claims from your comment in order and described how and why they are bullshit.
Your response? Not only ignoring the facts I mentioned but explicitly saying that it “doesn’t matter. What matters is what the public sees and hears about them.”… Fine, so you reject reality for narratives and actually think the latter is what matters. Good to know.
That also explains why you feel attacked by facts and perceive me as hateful… you do know that there actually is a medical term for people choosing the fantasy they want to believe in over factual reality, don’t you?
Religio-Fascists led by a megalomaniac took over India in 2014. People ignored their fascism and voted for religion :(
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I worry about the seemingly inevitable Le Pen presidency even more. I don’t feel safe at all in this country anymore.
Doing my best to move to Canada but I really don’t have the money.
Even then, Canada might be in a better spot atm, but even there the fascist parties are gaining in influence; nowhere is safe.Removed by mod
Le Pen will not pass because of her past reputation and failures that no PR will erase, I’m more worried about the next generation she taught to look impeccable from the beginning, also worried about not being able to tell the difference between traditional right and far right anymore.
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Except the mainstream parties that still manage to hold on to power can’t upset the status-quo. Redistributing wealth is out of the question when the voting base simply does not believe it can or should be done, and all the mainstream media grooms that narrative.
I don’t see a way out. The elites protect themselves, and they own the media because news media simply isn’t profitable. With growing discontent, intensifying fascism is the only avenue left for elites looking to protect their assets at all costs by diverting attention. What can we do against such crushing systemic power to misdirect popular anger?
Germany’s neo-nazi party AfD is polling scarily well too. All of EU is turning into an authoritan hellscape. My wife and I are seriously considering leaving.
Where is it actually any better?
I’m in the US and was planning on bugging out to the EU if shit gets worse here. So I guess I need a new plan B as well. But if the US and a large part of the EU go full fash, will anywhere be safe?
If the US with it‘s powerful military falls, democracy won‘t survive anywhere in this world…
US military isn’t protecting democracy.
How about we all decide on one country to go to? Then that country will automatically be better. I vote Netherlands, they have a headstart.
No room. There’s already a shortage of housing. Plus there’s that below the sea level thing
A million dollar (drachma ?) question right here
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If everyone opposing authoritan hellscapes is leaving. Ofc it will turn out to become one. I wouldn’t worry that much about the afd yet, to gain power they need 51% in parliament since no other party will do a coalition with them. So for now the worst that can happen is them getting elected on a district level.
France is already a police State. The gov is doing what the cops want without asking.
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That up/downvote count though
Yes, it is. Well done for describing what’s happening. What do you think we should do about it, now we know it’s happening?
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Don’t vote fascists into power?
That seems a little too late, they’re already in power.
Sure, I just tell the people voting for them not to do it. They‘ll certainly be understanding
I’m sorry but does that say to weaken anti-torture? Did I read that right?
Yes, Meloni and Salvini see anti-torture laws as an unnecessary obstacle to the work of police officers. Here is an article (in Italian).
very very big yikes
The world is changing, the golden decades of our parents’ post-war reality are over, the sun is setting once again on European soil.
I don’t know exactly what kinds of nightmares await us in the darkness, but I do know that the bloodlust of the European populace will not be sated easily.
Expect extraordinary efforts to subdue, abuse and eventually exterminate people once again. The European populace will not be a bastion of humanitarian ideology in the face of climate migration. It will instead declare war on them, and brutalize them.
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I’d disagree with your first statement, because there will always be ways for private comunication, especially here, because of how (at least technicly) educated people are here.
And also unlike in China, if something like that’d come now, people already have the resources to set up their own comunication systems.
Tldr: even with Gestapo officers everywhere protest and change would still be possible, hard but possible
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Cables will be cut and satellites will deorbit, if necessary to shut you up.
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This stuff comes in cycles of about 100 years (interestingly there are similar sayings in many cultures about how wealth gets built and destroyed in 3 generations) and invariably when we get to the stage of things being shit for most and wealth being in the hands of only a few people, those “few people” naturally make sure there’s plenty of money for politicians willing to blame the worse off for the problems of the worse off (as otherwise the many would naturally get together and take the stuff that the few have hoarded).
This is when you get the far right (remember the 1930s?!), though in the present day (maybe because this is the first time the cycle has been at a low point in an Era when Marketing and PR are based in the science of Psychology) we also seem to have a lot of the divisive fake-left (you know the kind: “the path for Equality is to treat this group defined by their genetics differently than this other group”) which is doing a wonderful job of keeping the many fighting for crumbs amongs each other whilst “strangely” never, ever, EVER even mentioning the single biggest inequality there is and the pathway via which most other inequalities cause the most pain, that of wealth and the staggering differences in treatment depending on wealth.
So yeah, expect every single political idea that blames people that are not rich for the ills of society and doesn’t even mention that access to resources is extremelly uneven, to “somehow” get funding and find lots of airtime in privatelly owned Newsmedia were they blame entire groups of people based on their genetics or geographical place of birth for all the problems everybody else (but the ultra-rich) have and use a handful of individual cases to “prove” that everybody who looks like that or comes from places like that are “bad people” - there has never been this much investment in hypocrisy and leading useful idiots by the nose because there has never been this much wealth at stake.
Bloodlust? Try self-preservation. It won’t be long before countries will be willing to do whatever it takes to protect themselves from being overrun by migrants.
whatever it takes
like lusting for blood, for example
That makes no sense. Intentions are not actions.
The point is that you see genocide on the horizon, too. You just don’t object to it.
I don’t speak italian, could you tell me what stuff the article covers?
Basically a reform of the Italian penal code that would delete the dedicated articles in penal code and leave only an aggravating circumstance
Yes, but the those laws cover a lot more than banning waterboarding. Its stuff like how to search prisoners when they enter the prison system and so on. The full tile of anti-tortue institutions right now is something like “European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment”. For now the problems in the EU are something that should be filed under “degrading”, which is still bad but not as bad as outright torture. But if we stop caring fighting the lesser evils we might come back to a point where we actually have to fight torture.
The thing is, as long as they stay in the EU they can’t do that much about it. I’m pretty sure that the EU banned torture.
I can’t even remember the last time Italy hit the news for a positive thing, we’re doing pretty well with this streak tbh
I would like to see what Italians see and think, it is easy to have limited view from outside.
If someone has link where Italians discuss this issues, my deepl translate is ready.
Honestly I think the article is pretty fair, overall.
The biggest difference between having a massive right wing pseudo-fascist party in a government majority and that same party leading the majority is how little they feel the need to feign. Like now the right hand man of Meloni can totally bring up the craziest world conspiracy with no proof at all, say he didn’t know it was a bad thing only to repeat the same things a week after.
The politicians just don’t have to pretend anymore, and they’re slowly stretching the boundaries of what’s normal in favour of their own plans.As for the life of everyday people, I’d be hard pressed to find someone, anyone, actually praising this government in public, everyone I hear talking about whatever they come up with is either disgusted or concerned.
I believe what’s happening now is the same thing that was happening back in Berlusconi’s days: the ones voting for these people are aware that what they’re doing is wrong and they hide in shame until they’re sure they’re surrounded only by the right people.Can’t really be bothered to find it again, but I’ve had/seen some discussions on r/italy when she got elected.
“Oh fuck the fascists won”
“Come on, she’s not fascist, she’s just right-wing”
“Her party’s president of the senate literally has a Mussolini bust in his house”
“Yeah ok but she didn’t do anything fascist so far”
“…”
You can check out our lemmy instance, feddit.it, but it’s not super active.
I will, it was easier with r/italy since when I see topic of interest there were enough comments to understand different angles.
r/Italy
Ew
I’m Italian but living in UK atm. Another great country to be in at this time /s
As per everywhere, there are many that are concerned, scared or downright enraged but the vast majority will simply accept whatever happens because the vast majority of people, always, everywhere, just want to not have problems knock on the door.
Italy is living through a major social crisis since years and years. This is just the last events that caught the eye of the international public but this right / populist leaning have been happening already since 10+ years ago.
Already with the “5 star movement” it was obvious that there was some distress going on.
The reality is that the longest we stay divided as communities / countries, they easier we get influenced or simply get down the wrong road without nobody saying something because everyone’s busy doing its own thing.
Italian here. All politicians are fascists powertripping not just the ones who made it public. See Macron. Governments live behind a veil of lies and don’t get to show their true face unless needed, if there were serious protests in any “democratic” country in the world i can guarantee you that the reaction would be the same: they would unleash police on people and threat everyone.
This is the exact thing I am concerned about, they pick on some but not on others.
To me it looks like it is just medua game to push someone people controling the media don’t like. I don’t think Meloni is good by any means, but from my angle looks less or on same level of fascist like Macron, Anglela Merkel, Biden, Hillary… or most others top politicians (when you look at their influence in other countries and not just what media is promoting).
What I don’t understand is why Melony? She is not from the same school or something?
Italy sure does love fascism
If only it was Italy alone…
Italy sure loves its ignorance
It’s not something new that is spreading, it has been the case for over a century. We have always been ruled by corrupted politicians, they always lies during elections and then push for authoritarian measures that benefits the elites. People seem to realize this only when the party they don’t like gets elected, “left” and “right” is a trick to keep these two up in power in a cycle. This Meloni scum is nothing new, they are a puppet of people who have been ruling the country since 1945. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silvio_Berlusconi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Licio_Gelli
Saying that ALL politicians between the 1920s to the 2010s in Italy is wrong. You can search about De Gasperi, Berlinguer, Giolitti (I know, different eras) and others. I’m not saying everything they did was right, but they not all politicians are as bad as your comment is depicting.
This attitude of “all politics and politicians are equally dirty” is straight out of the russian propaganda playbook. This is the narrative they’ve pushed in my country for decades, and it’s chillingly effective. It closely resembles whataboutism, whenever you criticize a politician, people yell “AS IF THE OTHER SIDE IS BETTER.”
Why push this narrative, you ask? So that people become so disillusioned and apathetic that they don’t vote, so it takes less votes for Russia to get the parties it wants into power. It also breeds internal dissent, malcontent, instability, leads to low voter turnout.
Russia also pushes a version of this at home, and in allies like Belarus. The gist being, all politics is dirty and corrupt, don’t get involved, don’t vote, nothing matters, it doesn’t concern you.
So yeah, sorry about the rant, but when i see variations of that quote “if your vote mattered, they’d make it illegal”, i get really annoyed. If your vote mattered, they’d make you think it doesn’t so you don’t vote.
This is exactly how I think about this argument, thanks for bringing it up.
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Propaganda is most effective when there is a kernel of truth.
I made absolutely no mention of Ukraine and i would have written this comment with no changes ( and i probably have ) years before the invasion. It’s a strawman on your part to assume i uncritically support Ukraine ( or the US or EU for that matter ), just because i’m criticizing Russia. And if anything, i feel like we echo the same sentiment in both our comments, that just by criticizing one side doesn’t mean that the other doesn’t have flaws.
It just doesn’t mean they’re equally bad either.
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Sound like you are being brainwashed to stupidity, the thread is about Italy not Russia. Since you seem obsessed with it i suggest you to read Bakunin thoughts on Mazzini.
At the very start, i point out that this worldview of all politics and politicians are dirty and corrupt is being pushed by Russia in many countries. I didn’t think i need to mention that i’m including Italy.
Is it? I must have missed Russia advocating for freedom
I am not going to lie I don’t understand what is your problem with the discussion about Russia.
The context of the thread is the same, so it’s actually useful for the discussion
Well, that’s exactly the idea behind state’s propaganda.
Anyways, I keep my opinion that not all politicians are bad, in my case I only know well about Italy and the US.
Also, the discussion made from the other user references to the Russian history, but the argument is the same, so I don’t understand what the problem is, being the thread about the same concept.
name 2 politicians who have been in power in the past 20 years either in italy or US who you don’t think are bad
Not bad as in “ovverral good” or not bad as “never wrong”?
Anyways I’d say Marco Pannella and Mattarella. (not always good, but overall not that bad)
The US president in the 20 years are either racists, kill children’s with drones or they lie and starts war in Iraq, so no I don’t want to select any US politician for the role of “not bad”.
Don’t think the italians are any better. Mattarella is in charge right now, he’s part of the government the post is about
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Giolitti was literally an imperialist https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giovanni_Giolitti#Libyan_War
There may have been some politicians better than other but there’s not such thing as a good mafioso. Whoever wish to sit on the throne and rule with power on others is scum. We are all humans living in the same world, nations are invisible lines arbitrarily draw on a map.
Well, he also devided il Sud and il Nord. But this isn’t the discussion.
It’s about “not everything politicians make is bad”. I know that this is usually an argument made by people that sympatieyz Mussolini (“però i treni arrivavano in orario” - any far-right sympatizer), but I think that in some cases it’s actually not a bad argument (for example, Giolitti and MAYBE but maybe Berlusconi).
Not everything kings or popes make is bad, expect such figures shouldn’t exist in the first place. Police states are the same.
I actually agree on this.
The left has its responsibility in this. People are struggling with the bills at the end of the month. The left speaks of minorities and has a similar neoliberal economic view. The politics on minorities are important and the left have to keep them in their program/agenda. Adopt a real left economic view.
But, people don’t care about you if you’re talking about it in the news and debates. The left has to center their campaign around the daily struggles to speak to the people with the people language.
The greens parties have a similar issue. People know them for ecology and ? People don’t know the other parts of the program of the greens parties. They have to stop speaking about ecology and begin with the other topics so people knows how they can help them with the end of the month.
These all need to connect with people again with the people language.
That’s a typical fascist strategy, blaming other parties.
They do this shit in the UK, too - Conservatives have been in power for like 80% of the past 150 years, and the last time Labour were in power was nearly 20 years ago, and even then, they were run by neoliberals with no intentions to challenge the establishment even slightly, so nowhere near being actually left at all, yet somehow Labour and “the left” still get the blame for all of the wrongs in the country.
The fact that Blair back then, and Starmer now are clearly puppets working for the same master as the conservatives (capitalism and the status quo), rather than being an actual opposition, or looking out for the best interests of the people even a little, escapes them, just like the fact that when a socialist did run for PM, and was wildly popular, the establishment’s media went on an absolute rampage to discredit him and make him “unelectable” because he posed a real and actual threat to them.
Anyone who looks at the state of politics (always, though it’s especially obvious in recent years) and thinks genuine opposition could ever get in power, or that we could ever vote the existing power structure out, is being either wilfully ignorant, or has fallen for the propaganda hook line and sinker, and really shouldn’t talk on the matter, because they’re just making it worse by literally serving the interests of those they claim to oppose (by always shifting attention and blame somewhere else). (E: never mind the well established strategy of the right co-opting leftist ideas they never intend to follow, just to get the votes, while pointing to those who would actually follow those ideals and calling them “idealists” or just socialists as if those are negatives. and it works!)
And all of this is by design of course, the illusion of choice, the bread and circuses, all designed to make us feel like we have a say, without ever actually giving us one.
That campaign they ran against Corbyn was truly something else, for fucks sake
The fact the BBC got away with that sums it up nicely, People say Corbyn was unelectable but honestly, he was insanely popular until the attacks started. Speaking to people in person in my life what I noticed is everyone started to say Corbyn was bad but they had no reason to give other than " He’s promised too much he can’t do what he says " or " I just don’t like him "
Clearly the establishment knew what he was going to cost them with state run Electric, Railways & dialing back on the private healthcare
Yup, a disgrace all round. And it wasn’t just that he’s a vocal socialist, but that he’d been one all of his long and dedicated career, and had proven to stand by his morals rather than by what might seem popular, or profitable to him personally at any given time, like the rest of his colleagues.
I’m under no illusion that Corbyn on his own would have been enough to turn this country in to a full blown socialist one or toppled capitalism, but the fact that they were scared enough of what he could have done (like you mentioned the renationalisation, but also putting money back in to the existing national services like social and health that the rich have been stripping for profit, and taxing them and their corporations significantly more) proves just how big of a threat they really saw him as (and he really was, even in spite of the smear campaign he came so fucking close. For the uninitiated, I think his Glastonbury appearance - I linked to my favourite part which still gives me chills but the whole thing is worth watching just for the sad reflection over what could have been - really made them realise they could never ever possibly even come close be that kind of genuinely popular).
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/UVGFi8balOM?t=164
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.
And in Germany the CDU being in government most of the FDR’s existence (and for 16 years before the last election) are loudly talking about being the “alternative” Germany needs (not coincidently choosing that term when the far-right AfD is the “Alternative for Germany”) to fix all the decade long issues… after less than 2 years in opposition.
Conservatives finally understood a simple truth. They only need the votes of their rich clients and the poor gullible morons for a majority and can ignore anyone between. And the populism used to achieve that is much easier and cheaper than an actual political program.
I’m not blaming the parties, neither the ideas. I’m evaluating the strategies of the parties, two radical, different things. The strategies are bad and inaccurate.
A party need to adapt the communication to the audience and the target groups. Some do it with populism, what isn’t right. Populism is never the answer. The communication of the left need to level up so people and voter are convinced. If the parties don’t have a majority, the parties didn’t convince the voter. When I speak to random people, they clearly speak about two topics. The first is how to pay the bills and the second is politics are disconnected. At the end, they don’t elect anyone. What should we on the left do?
Sure, we need to do some marketing and communication. But, I don’t think it’s a good strategy. We need to speak to the people, listen to them to target their needs. The ideas and the programs are the same. What changes is the strategy. It’s to weight the topics to match the needs of the population. After that, you can build others ideas on top of that. Saying “capitalism bad” and explaining it during an hour doesn’t work. Listening to the people, acknowledging and validating the needs, giving a short explanation, then people begin to think capitalism is bad even if the issue is neoliberalism. You adapt it to the audience.
Last week, during an anarchist meeting, we spoke about why capitalism is bad. Yesterday, at another meeting, we spoke about why we struggle with two words about capitalism. The audience was different, but the topic was the same. I sadly don’t see a lot of that.
The centre-left parties in Italy have been pushing for a minimum wage law since the early spring, when the biggest party (PD) finished its congress and a new direction was elected. The right wing majority has now voted to delay any kind of discussion on the law proposal for two months, and the right wing minister for external affairs has gone on record saying things like “minimum wage is a Soviet measure” and “we need a rich wage, not minimum wage”.
The greens parties have a similar issue. People know them for ecology and ? People don’t know the other parts of the program of the greens parties. They have to stop speaking about ecology and begin with the other topics
And right here you are falling for propaganda without even realizing it. It’s not the green parties failing to talk about other issues. It’s other (usually right wing - as basically all greens are also socially left) parties drowning this out, because they know they can divide people by pushing their noses into the ecological problems (and the economic hardships naturally linked to trying to reverse centuries of exploitation).
(Btw… Just like it’s also never actually the left parties talking all day about “woke” topics. That’s also the right-wing parties creating an imaginary discussion because it’s divisive.)
I would differentiate a little more:
At least in Germany, there are three “left” parties that are also reflected by European equivalents. The more traditional left, the social democrats and the green. The green are indeed what you are describing with neoliberals focused on disadvantaged minorities. For the social democrats, on the other hand, the problem is, that they still think of wealth as a question of salary, while it’s more a question of if you get a salary or gain your income from capital. In their eyes, somebody with a master degree is a wealthy person, which might have been true in the 70s but it doesn’t reflect the widening of the gap between high-paying jobs and wealth for people with large accumulations of capital. Nowadays, most of the economy’s productivity goes into the pockets of those high-wealth individuals and families. For the more traditional left there is the problem that they also try too hard to go woke, instead of focusing on the needs of people and they miss a lot of potential by adressing the lower classes and frustrated. So, my suggestion to those 3 types were:
- Social democrats, you have to refocus on the injustice between work and capital and recalibrate your definition of wealth
- Lefts, you have to learn more about the economy, leave the wokeness topics to others and adress the lower classes in a more populistic way
- Greens, you have to face the reality that a race where the fastest wins and takes all, will not become more just, by adjusting the start positions, especially when the real killings are made by big betters that don’t even participate in the race
At least part of the Lefts seem to reorganise as a central figure of the party is said to may start her own party that does exactly as what I and you propose for it. However, this was looming for a long time and I think she will chicken out.
Wagenknecht will not lead to a strong left in Germany. The people that voted left before voted left because Gysi and the reasonable opinions he portrayed. Wagenknecht is only a magnet for extremists, that would vote far right (AfD) if it wasn’t for the blatant racism/antisemitism/etc.
If anything the the leftist party will gain more mainstream approval, when Wagenknecht forks off her own party (except for east Germany).
You may be right with Gysi or may be wrong. I think you’re wrong, but that doesn’t matter because even if you were right and Wagenknecht would not start with a quarter of Die Linke, that like her, then you still understimate heavily the electoral shift coming from AfD voters. The potential of a Wagenknecht party is estimated at around 20%.
I fully agree. 60% of AfD voters say they are voting out of protest. It’s a time of massive voter transition, and the left is just busy with minority politics, instead of giving these protest voters a new home. It’s fucking annoying.
You can make politics for minorities once you are (strongly) in the Parliament, but you can’t win an election based on these topics.
I feel like I have written this way too often within the past year, but… fascists doing fascist stuff
It has been happening all around Europe and the rest of the world. It seems you missed what the fuck is going on in the last couple years in world politics.
I sincerely believe that the right wing populism in Europe is the inevitable backlash to Angela Merkel’s open door policy on immigration and “refuges” in the EU.
