Fascism!

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
Josef did NOT say the extreme right and left are the same thing, but that this was the story which was being put out in corners of the German media (for example, http://www.thelocal.de/national/20100430-26887.html) which he DOES NOT agree with.

yeah, I had a hard time believing that Josef would say that. thanks for clearing that up Zhao. no need to apologize.

& I note that it was, in fact, being used as a smear tactic...
 

Dr Awesome

Techsteppin'

You'll have to accept my delay in replying, I've been rather busy with real life drama llamas over the last few days.

What exactly are you getting at? All I said that one can't assume that either end of the political spectrum is really any better for it's subjects. Insinuating that you held Stalin as some kind of revered figure, or that you had any love for authoritarianism wasn't the aim.

I agree that it's dangerous indeed to simply label things as belonging to the "far" left or right, without defining either. However I think it's quite wrong to hold the line that there is no point of equating both ends of the political spectrum, or drawing comparisons between the two. I seem to be a bit more of a nihilist than you, but at the end of the day people suffer under both systems. Of course Pol Pot was different in practice to Franco, but the sad reality is that human misery occurred under each - there's little more relevant actuality than that in my mind.

You'll have to explain more about your so called smear tactic too, the 2 dimensional political continuum isn't perfect but it serves a useful purpose, and the those of "us" who commiserate about extremism must surely be justified?

(As for workers rights, it's not quite as clear cut as you make it out to be, quite a few important changes to employment law came about without anything very militant about them (Robert Owen, et al).)

Re: You're critique of Liberal Democracy being related to the outsourcing of hidden Nike sweatshops to the developing world, I think your beef there is with something called Globalisation, maybe you've heard of it? Suggesting that Liberal Democracies haven't protected workers rights because people suffer outside their boundaries is laughable. That's like holding car manufacturers accountable for car crashes. The cause and effect of the global economy is no more written into the foundations of democracy than it is any other political system (inbeforesomeonementionsCapitalismortheUSofA)

Anyway back to the topic at hand...

PS: You'll have to also forgive me for not reading though the entire 1100 posts in this thread. ;)
 
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Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
All I said that one can't assume that either end of the political spectrum is really any better for it's subjects. Insinuating that you held Stalin as some kind of revered figure, or that you had any love for authoritarianism wasn't the aim.

Well then why give us all a lecture on how the USSR was, like, really bad and stuff? What possible purpose does it serve to point out how terrible totalitarian communist regimes are when no-one here is defending them? Preaching -> choir.

I agree that it's dangerous indeed to simply label things as belonging to the "far" left or right, without defining either.

See Tentative Andy's remark on the previous page, viz. that the discussion was more about far-right and far-left groups operating in modern liberal democracies than about the relative "merits" of Nazi Germany vs. the Soviet Union. You might have realised this if you'd read some of the thread instead of jumping straight in with the bombshell that Stalin was, in fact, a bit of a shit.

I think your beef there is with something called Globalisation, maybe you've heard of it?

You're not going to win yourself any friends here posting facetious crap like that, mate. Or by exculpating developed economies that support exploitative labour practices in the third world. :slanted:

PS: You'll have to also forgive me for not reading though the entire 1100 posts in this thread. ;)

But you could at least have scanned backed through the last couple of pages, couldn't you?
 
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padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
What exactly are you getting at?

Tea already pretty well nailed it, but: when someone deigns to inform me of my "sad misconception", goes on with a lengthy exposition about how Stalin was, wonder of wonders, kind of a dick, and then patronizingly suggests I read a (bad) book to correct said misconception I, yunno, connect the dots.

something called Globalisation, maybe you've heard of it?

the worst part is that the smug condescension isn't even remotely warranted.

Anyway back to the topic at hand...

I like how you dismissively end with this, as if discussing what constitutes an extremist regime and how that relates to media coverage of an actual fascist event is something irrelevant to a thread entitled Fascism.

ps - you'll forgive me for not taking your ideas about "Globalisation" very seriously
 
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