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computer parts
Nov 18, 2010

PLEASE CLAP

A Buttery Pastry posted:

That's not about race though, that's about the extreme lack of development in certain areas of the country.

Oh, so white supremacism is okay if you have a good pension system, good to know.

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ReV VAdAUL
Oct 3, 2004

I'm WILD about
WILDMAN

computer parts posted:

Oh, so white supremacism is okay if you have a good pension system, good to know.

All Western nations are bad in their own similar but unique ways, trying to score points about how your nation is differently bad seems pretty redundant?

computer parts
Nov 18, 2010

PLEASE CLAP

ReV VAdAUL posted:

All Western nations are bad in their own similar but unique ways, trying to score points about how your nation is differently bad seems pretty redundant?

Given that this thread is about fascism it's fairly relevant to identify why some developed nations (Europe) are more sympathetic towards it than others ( mostly in North America), or even why developing nations do not appear to be terribly susceptible to it either.

R. Mute
Jul 27, 2011

computer parts posted:

Given that this thread is about fascism it's fairly relevant to identify why some developed nations (Europe) are more sympathetic towards it than others ( mostly in North America), or even why developing nations do not appear to be terribly susceptible to it either.
Every country is susceptible to this kind of thing - the only difference is how it gets channelled. Europe has its openly extreme right wing parties, in the US they probably vote Republican or join the Klan or a militia or something, pretty much every region has its own variant, even developing regions. But ultimately, it's all the same. I guess you could talk about why Europe has this type and the rest of the world doesn't really, but that's not all that interesting or telling, really.

A Buttery Pastry
Sep 4, 2011

Delicious and Informative!
:3:

computer parts posted:

Oh, so white supremacism is okay if you have a good pension system, good to know.
What the hell are you talking about? I'm just pointing out that there's very little relation between the idea that "America is a third world country", and the fact that Europeans hate Romas. The former is a mix between a conscious rejection of America as #1, and genuine disbelief at how willing America as a whole is to ignore whole regions that live in abject poverty, while the latter is Europeans being racist as gently caress. The origin of the sentiment, and the sentiment itself, has practically nothing to do with each other, so I don't see your point at all. Yay, America and Europe suck in different ways, hurray?

computer parts
Nov 18, 2010

PLEASE CLAP

R. Mute posted:

Every country is susceptible to this kind of thing - the only difference is how it gets channelled. Europe has its openly extreme right wing parties, in the US they probably vote Republican or join the Klan or a militia or something, pretty much every region has its own variant, even developing regions. But ultimately, it's all the same. I guess you could talk about why Europe has this type and the rest of the world doesn't really, but that's not all that interesting or telling, really.

Why is it not interesting or telling?

Ian McLean
Sep 9, 2012

statpedia.org
Post Stats on Anything
https://www.facebook.com/notes/divine-pharaoh/a-scenario-for-a-utopian-society/939453186184

Mans
Sep 14, 2011

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

Fados posted:

I get that stating that 'gypsies truly are awful people' when someone is discussing politics regarding their deportation is down right tasteless but postmodern communist posturing aside it's still a fact up to a point, not as a racist statement but as a cultural one. I live in Portugal and most gypsies families I've lived in proximity of display lots and lots of antisocial behavior. In the 'projects' as you call it you can see how, at least in this country, when compared with other minority groups of similar poverty they get noted for an extreme alienation from society. When this reveals itself truly as a fact in most interactions it is impossible not to give some credit to the stereotype. What this means is that where I come from they have a really loving difficult time getting integrated in society. This should be acknowledged, studied and integrated in policy making but and is something that I see lost in the 'poor poor, gypsies' liberal discourse. So in this way I understand what he's saying.
I understand where you're coming from. Gypsies' relation with the state has turned a lot of their communities into an ostracized and marginalized group, which results in a "us vs them" mentality that gives a lot of young roma kids the mindset that robbing anyone non-roma is fair game because they don't give a poo poo about them. I have at least four gispy families in my neighbourhood and they all took their kids away from school early to work for them in the flea markets and whatever else they get their incomes, yet they do gently caress all crime against their neighbours. Paradoxically the roma are still considered to be the perfect example of wellfare queens! Still, they do no crime, they have friends and they're effectively regular folks who, basically, are really frontal.

Romas are really hard to tackle because of that separation between them and the state. They don't want to participate in a society that seems set against them and wants to crush a lot of their social customs, which are based on very misoginistic conditions. Their lack of interest for sending kids to school or treating women equally makes them "rejects" on the eyes of many liberals and leftists, which results in a weird alliance between right, center and left not caring about them.

Specially in the dire social, political and economic conditions that we're in it's really hard to openly talk about gypsies since you'll be immediatly attacked for defending criminals and not caring about the misery that a lot of "regular" citizens (whites) live in.

That's why i said the Roma issue is so loving complicated because they really aren't treated like other minorities, there seems to be a really difficulty in approaching the Roma, acting along side them, make them change the negative aspects of their family ties and have them be politically active. A communist friend of mine told me in very cold terms that the best way he had to talk with gypsies is to simply talk about economic and political issues, get them active in their local community. Basically, don't try to act like you're attempting to take their kids away into public schools or their women from their own circles.

It's a hard issue to tackle because to a lot of people they're mostly things they read about and never actually talked to (or have idealized notions of roaming gipsies playing guitar and rigging boxing matches to win massive bets) and to others they just see or hear about the rampart crime and misoginy.

R. Mute posted:

Goku actually has a good point and it's much more relatable to the public than most other solutions. While you can berate people for being racist when they complain about Roma crime, it's much more productive to say: While the level of criminal activity of the Roma is greatly exaggerated, there is a problem with crime in their community. This problem isn't caused by them being Roma, it's caused by the systematic oppression they've experienced for centuries and the failure of the nation state of giving a framework to their lifestyle. Thus the solution to these specific problems of crime won't be to remove the Roma from your country or by having law enforcement target them specifically, it'll be by fighting those forms of oppression and by providing them a framework within which they can thrive.
You'd be immediatly stopped and attacked by any open crowd if you said this. When we talk about difficulty talking about Roma we mean it. Honest white folks live in poverty and do no wrong, why are you defending gypsy criminals? Say, i hear the nationalist party of choice wants to force them to "work" or kick them back to their own country!

computer parts posted:

No, but it is funny in light of the "America is a third world country" blather that has been ongoing for the past decade.
It is not Europe that has prison rates comparable to Stalinist Russia, cops murdering people at will or a democracy of two parties.

We have shitloads of problems, very very very serious problems, but the majority of them look like they can be solved or at least talked about without a feeling of hopelessness and knowledge they'll never change. Have fun with Obama.

Berke Negri
Feb 15, 2012

Les Ricains tuent et moi je mue
Mao Mao
Les fous sont rois et moi je bois
Mao Mao
Les bombes tonnent et moi je sonne
Mao Mao
Les bebes fuient et moi je fuis
Mao Mao


Get a roma prime minister then feel free to be dismissive about electing a black president.

A Buttery Pastry
Sep 4, 2011

Delicious and Informative!
:3:

Berke Negri posted:

Get a roma prime minister then feel free to be dismissive about electing a black president.
Black people represent a much larger proportion of the American population than Romas do in Bulgaria, the country with the largest proportion of Romas in Europe, and in most countries the proportion doesn't even come close to matching the proportion of the US population which is Native American. (In the UK and Germany for example, the Romani proportion of the population only represent a sixth of what the single-race Native American population does in the US, in the case of Portugal, a third.) On top of that, prime ministers aren't elected like American presidents, they're the leader of the (usually) largest party in parliament, so it's not even really up to a popular vote.

Finally, I don't think you got the point. Great, you elected a black president, what has he done to improve things for other African-Americans? Or the American population in general. Obama is just another rich man, even if not as rich as some other presidential candidates. Sure, it's great that American demographics have changed enough that him being black didn't prevent his election, but it's basically still a case of just reducing racial barriers to a position where economic barriers are far and away more important.

Nektu
Jul 4, 2007

FUKKEN FUUUUUUCK
Cybernetic Crumb

A Buttery Pastry posted:

What the hell are you talking about? I'm just pointing out that there's very little relation between the idea that "America is a third world country", and the fact that Europeans hate Romas. The former is a mix between a conscious rejection of America as #1, and genuine disbelief at how willing America as a whole is to ignore whole regions that live in abject poverty, while the latter is Europeans being racist as gently caress. The origin of the sentiment, and the sentiment itself, has practically nothing to do with each other, so I don't see your point at all. Yay, America and Europe suck in different ways, hurray?
Criticiseing Hating america is racism. And probably communism.

Nektu fucked around with this message at 08:25 on Mar 7, 2014

Berke Negri
Feb 15, 2012

Les Ricains tuent et moi je mue
Mao Mao
Les fous sont rois et moi je bois
Mao Mao
Les bombes tonnent et moi je sonne
Mao Mao
Les bebes fuient et moi je fuis
Mao Mao


A Buttery Pastry posted:

Black people represent a much larger proportion of the American population than Romas do in Bulgaria, the country with the largest proportion of Romas in Europe, and in most countries the proportion doesn't even come close to matching the proportion of the US population which is Native American. (In the UK and Germany for example, the Romani proportion of the population only represent a sixth of what the single-race Native American population does in the US, in the case of Portugal, a third.) On top of that, prime ministers aren't elected like American presidents, they're the leader of the (usually) largest party in parliament, so it's not even really up to a popular vote.

Finally, I don't think you got the point. Great, you elected a black president, what has he done to improve things for other African-Americans? Or the American population in general. Obama is just another rich man, even if not as rich as some other presidential candidates. Sure, it's great that American demographics have changed enough that him being black didn't prevent his election, but it's basically still a case of just reducing racial barriers to a position where economic barriers are far and away more important.

My point wasn't intended to be "don't criticize us until you get x minority leading your country" but Obama getting elected president wasn't just white guilt catapulting someone into office (if anything I think his re-election kind of killed that narrative which right wingers pushed heavily). It's not something to just go "how's that black president working out American's :smug:"

Obama himself is by American standards an okay but no means genuinely incredible, but there is a lag to all the effects. I think the actual results of having a person of color leading the country has still yet to be seen.

Zohar
Jul 14, 2013

Good kitty

computer parts posted:

Given that this thread is about fascism it's fairly relevant to identify why some developed nations (Europe) are more sympathetic towards it than others ( mostly in North America), or even why developing nations do not appear to be terribly susceptible to it either.

Neither of those statements is true

A Buttery Pastry
Sep 4, 2011

Delicious and Informative!
:3:

Berke Negri posted:

My point wasn't intended to be "don't criticize us until you get x minority leading your country" but Obama getting elected president wasn't just white guilt catapulting someone into office (if anything I think his re-election kind of killed that narrative which right wingers pushed heavily). It's not something to just go "how's that black president working out American's :smug:"
I never claimed it was just white guilt, just to be clear. Also pretty sure Mans' point wasn't "How's that black president working out Americans :smug:", but more "How's that president, who was hyped up to be a real reformer but ended up just being another lovely imperialist rear end in a top hat, working out Americans." Basically, race wasn't the issue, his politics were.

Berke Negri posted:

Obama himself is by American standards an okay but no means genuinely incredible, but there is a lag to all the effects. I think the actual results of having a person of color leading the country has still yet to be seen.
Sure, opening up the presidency to people other than white males is a good thing, and I'm sure it's going to give some minority kids a bit more hope for the future, but it's still freebie from the point of view of rich people. It's no real skin off their backs whether the guy serving their interests in the White House is black or white, or even a guy at all.

A Buttery Pastry fucked around with this message at 10:28 on Mar 7, 2014

Mans
Sep 14, 2011

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS
Jesus yes i was talking about Obama as in the fact that Obama , in political terms, is literally the only choice Americans have in that hosed up political system. The U.S. system makes it impossible for small parties to exist and pressure the top ruling parties and is pretty much a million dollar contest over whose cult of personality wins. Obama and Biden's victory and Al Gore's defeat were all based on how much millions could be pumped into improving the PR of the individuals to the point where actual political ideology meant gently caress all.

The U.S. didn't elect a black president, they elected a millionaire. He's not a victory to African Americans like Tachter isn't a victory to British women.

fafish
May 10, 2012
How do extreme right wing people in the US perceive democracy? Is it an integral part of america as they see it? I mean the way its exercised, the constitution the elected president and all.

OwlBot 2000
Jun 1, 2009

fafish posted:

How do extreme right wing people in the US perceive democracy? Is it an integral part of america as they see it? I mean the way its exercised, the constitution the elected president and all.

Their favorite catch phrase is, "It's supposed to be a Republic, not a Democracy!" and talk about how the founding-fathers never wanted the Senate to be directly elected because that would allow poor people to vote away the property of the rich. But unlike the European far right they don't have any "democracy is rotten and depraved" rhetoric and would never (consciously) support a Leader as the embodiment of The Eternal Nation and the Will of the People or anything really fascist.

Pope Guilty
Nov 6, 2006

The human animal is a beautiful and terrible creature, capable of limitless compassion and unfathomable cruelty.

OwlBot 2000 posted:

Their favorite catch phrase is, "It's supposed to be a Republic, not a Democracy!" and talk about how the founding-fathers never wanted the Senate to be directly elected because that would allow poor people to vote away the property of the rich. But unlike the European far right they don't have any "democracy is rotten and depraved" rhetoric and would never (consciously) support a Leader as the embodiment of The Eternal Nation and the Will of the People or anything really fascist.

Other than Dubya pre-2007, of course.

fafish
May 10, 2012
Exactly, many people in Europe, their percentage differentiates by country like 5-10-15%, do not see democracy as something obvious. They are not ready nor able nor willing some would argue, to toss the constitution away overnight or something, they don't just see their country nation sticking forever with it.

fafish fucked around with this message at 11:16 on Mar 7, 2014

OwlBot 2000
Jun 1, 2009

Pope Guilty posted:

Other than Dubya pre-2007, of course.

Even then it was just, "he's a good man with good values and you shouldn't make fun of him during war time :( ", I don't think anybody said that George Bush was literally America Itself or thought he should get rid of the constitution and remain an absolute ruler until he died. American conservatives are prejudiced, not fascists.

Torrannor
Apr 27, 2013

---FAGNER---
TEAM-MATE

OwlBot 2000 posted:

Their favorite catch phrase is, "It's supposed to be a Republic, not a Democracy!" and talk about how the founding-fathers never wanted the Senate to be directly elected because that would allow poor people to vote away the property of the rich. But unlike the European far right they don't have any "democracy is rotten and depraved" rhetoric and would never (consciously) support a Leader as the embodiment of The Eternal Nation and the Will of the People or anything really fascist.

On the other hand I cannot even count the number of times I have read US right wingers write comment under Politico articles and the like, with the content about this: "If you don't pay taxes you should not be able to vote, if you get more money from the state than you pay in taxes you should not be able to vote, etc." Not to mention the fact that it is actually possible for the minority to win the presidency, House and Senate. How democratic is a nation anyways in which the party with less votes controls the lower house? And of course, Republican attempts at voter disenfranchisement should not be ignored either. And gerrymandering strikes me as pretty undemocratic as well.

Pope Guilty
Nov 6, 2006

The human animal is a beautiful and terrible creature, capable of limitless compassion and unfathomable cruelty.

OwlBot 2000 posted:

Even then it was just, "he's a good man with good values and you shouldn't make fun of him during war time :( ", I don't think anybody said that George Bush was literally America Itself or thought he should get rid of the constitution and remain an absolute ruler until he died. American conservatives are prejudiced, not fascists.

That was not my experience of living in rural and smalltown Indiana at the time.

computer parts
Nov 18, 2010

PLEASE CLAP

Zohar posted:

Neither of those statements is true

Would you like to elaborate? Which developing nations would you say are particularly friendly to fascism? Would (e.g.) Egypt be one since they are essentially a totalitarian military state?

Pope Guilty posted:

That was not my experience of living in rural and smalltown Indiana at the time.

Living in Idaho I can confirm that experience.

Torrannor posted:

And gerrymandering strikes me as pretty undemocratic as well.

Gerrymandering (and those weird districts you see) are actually fairly often used in order to prop up minority candidates. For example, the infamous Illinois's 4th Congressional District is a heavily hispanic district that has been going at least 75% Democratic since 2000.

computer parts fucked around with this message at 13:26 on Mar 7, 2014

OwlBot 2000
Jun 1, 2009

Torrannor posted:

On the other hand I cannot even count the number of times I have read US right wingers write comment under Politico articles and the like, with the content about this: "If you don't pay taxes you should not be able to vote, if you get more money from the state than you pay in taxes you should not be able to vote, etc." Not to mention the fact that it is actually possible for the minority to win the presidency, House and Senate. How democratic is a nation anyways in which the party with less votes controls the lower house? And of course, Republican attempts at voter disenfranchisement should not be ignored either. And gerrymandering strikes me as pretty undemocratic as well.

Undemocratic is not the same as Fascist. And their objections to full democracy is from an Enlightenment and Liberal perspective, "tyranny of the majority" and "mob rule." Fascists oppose democracies because they think it is weak, watered down and decadent, and that voting can never actualize the will of the people in the same way a Leader can. Also, the American right talks constantly of 'individual rights', whereas Fascists view individuals as meaningless except in the context of being sons, fathers and soldiers of the Nation.

Really, American Conservatism and Fascism are nothing alike. To get Fascism in America you'd need a much stronger Left and a total collapse in government authority and the economy. When you get that and street-fighting between right and left is when you'll see some real fascists show up, and that incidentally is why there's Fascism all over Europe but not in North America.

OwlBot 2000 fucked around with this message at 13:36 on Mar 7, 2014

Pyromancer
Apr 29, 2011

This man must look upon the fire, smell of it, warm his hands by it, stare into its heart

Torrannor posted:

On the other hand I cannot even count the number of times I have read US right wingers write comment under Politico articles and the like, with the content about this: "If you don't pay taxes you should not be able to vote, if you get more money from the state than you pay in taxes you should not be able to vote, etc." Not to mention the fact that it is actually possible for the minority to win the presidency, House and Senate. How democratic is a nation anyways in which the party with less votes controls the lower house? And of course, Republican attempts at voter disenfranchisement should not be ignored either. And gerrymandering strikes me as pretty undemocratic as well.

That system was shaped by technical limitations of 18th century, but US keeps holding onto it. Probably because the ones to change the law aren't interested in changing it - it got them into their seats in the first place.

Torrannor
Apr 27, 2013

---FAGNER---
TEAM-MATE

OwlBot 2000 posted:

Undemocratic is not the same as Fascist. And their objections to full democracy is from an Enlightenment and Liberal perspective, "tyranny of the majority" and "mob rule." Fascists oppose democracies because they think it is weak, watered down and decadent, and that voting can never actualize the will of the people in the same way a Leader can. Also, the American right talks constantly of 'individual rights', whereas Fascists view individuals as meaningless except in the context of being sons, fathers and soldiers of the Nation.

Really, American Conservatism and Fascism are nothing alike. To get Fascism in America you'd need a much stronger Left and a total collapse in government authority and the economy. When you get that and street-fighting between right and left is when you'll see some real fascists show up, and that incidentally is why there's Fascism all over Europe but not in North America.

I'm not saying that being undemocratic and being a fascist are the same, I was just replying to the posts that made it seem like democracy is something nearly every American supports, when there are quite a few people whose commitment to "true" democracy seems doubtful to me.

And the American right might talk about individual rights all day long, if they don't include a right to vote (or a right to have consensual sex in the privacy of one's home), then I think they are coming up short.


Pyromancer posted:

That system was shaped by technical limitations of 18th century, but US keeps holding onto it. Probably because the ones to change the law aren't interested in changing it - it got them into their seats in the first place.

Very true. It was groundbreaking when it was introduced but it is just dated now. And I really cannot understand that none of the three elections (House, Senate, presidency) has a guarantee for the majority to win.

computer parts
Nov 18, 2010

PLEASE CLAP

Torrannor posted:


Very true. It was groundbreaking when it was introduced but it is just dated now. And I really cannot understand that none of the three elections (House, Senate, presidency) has a guarantee for the majority to win.

The House elections are because the states run single member districts instead of being a cohesive party. This is to encourage regional support rather than having them be a faceless party from "the other end of the state" (this is an issue in geographically large or highly populous states, e.g. Northern Virginia vs the rest, East/West/South Texas, etc). The interesting thing is that this is not actually a system in the constitution - it's put up purely by tradition and the state legislatures (and maybe a federal statute sometime in the past 40 years).

The Senate elections are interesting because 1/3 of the Senate is elected every 2 years, so you never see a full election. This is why even after (e.g.) big victories for the Republicans like in 2010 you still see significant control of the Senate lying with the Democrats, because only 30% of the chamber is elected at any one time.

The Presidential elections are as such because each state gets a certain number of votes, correlating with their number of total Representatives (e.g., the 2 in the Senate and the proportionally designated amount in the House). Again, there's no constitutional requirement, but most states require that the person to win the popular vote in their state wins all of the electoral votes. This means that winning 70-30 and 51-49 in a state will net you the same number of electoral votes.

Long story short - If you think of the states as separate countries that want a granted minimum in representation, the system makes a lot more sense.

MeLKoR
Dec 23, 2004

by FactsAreUseless

Mans posted:

I understand where you're coming from. Gypsies' relation with the state has turned a lot of their communities into an ostracized and marginalized group, which results in a "us vs them" mentality that gives a lot of young roma kids the mindset that robbing anyone non-roma is fair game because they don't give a poo poo about them. I have at least four gispy families in my neighbourhood and they all took their kids away from school early to work for them in the flea markets and whatever else they get their incomes, yet they do gently caress all crime against their neighbours. Paradoxically the roma are still considered to be the perfect example of wellfare queens! Still, they do no crime, they have friends and they're effectively regular folks who, basically, are really frontal.

How can you generalize this with a straight face? This is not at all the experience I have having lived all my life around gypsy families. When they are having their parties in apartment buildings and blasting music and singing all night long you better shut the gently caress up and keep quiet, if you dare complain you're taking your life on your own hands. Of course you can dismiss this as nothing more than anecdotes but pretending these things don't happen and that anyone that claims otherwise is a racist is a sure way to make people racist.

I don't begrudge the gypsy population for the welfare they get, welfare should be given to poor people regardless of race. What I do begrudge them for is taking their kids out of school as soon as they can. I begrudge them that when the government made school attendance mandatory for getting welfare you started getting teachers beaten up by the kids parents for reporting truancy. Teaching their kids that non-gypsies are fair game is not the way to improve their lot.
We have lived in democracy for 40 years now and they have been getting free housing, schooling and welfare for all this time, can you honestly say that the situation has improved significantly? We have black doctors, often children of completely illiterate immigrants, in the last decades we've had waves of muslim immigration, asian immigrants, people from all over the place and despite the systemic racism you mention all these other groups have reasonably integrated. Where are the gypsy doctors? It's not the government taking their children from schools or putting them in segregated classes. I had 3 gypsy kids from my neighborhood in my class when I was in elementary school, all of them were taken out before they were 12. The girl was married when she was 15.

Integration is a two way street, both sides need to cooperate. Putting your fingers in your ears and pretending that white racism is the only problem will solve nothing but will only further alienate people.


quote:

Romas are really hard to tackle because of that separation between them and the state. They don't want to participate in a society that seems set against them
And why does this problem seemingly only affect them? Would you say that society in general is welcoming of black immigrants?


quote:

wants to crush a lot of their social customs, which are based on very misoginistic conditions. Their lack of interest for sending kids to school or treating women equally makes them "rejects" on the eyes of many liberals and leftists, which results in a weird alliance between right, center and left not caring about them.
Does "caring about them" mean accepting that their girls will be married as soon as they are pubescent and that it is the lot of their kids to never finish high school?


quote:

That's why i said the Roma issue is so loving complicated because they really aren't treated like other minorities, there seems to be a really difficulty in approaching the Roma, acting along side them, make them change the negative aspects of their family ties and have them be politically active.


The problem with the gypsies is exactly the same problem with the irish wonderers in britain. You have a group of people (white in the case of the wonderers) that live in a closed community and actively resist any attempt to integrate them, instead resorting to petty crime and drug trafficking to make a living because they were raised in a way that ensures they can never do anything else.
How can you break this cycle without a desire from said community and how can you break this cycle when you paint anyone experiencing problems daily as simply racist people making poo poo up?


PS: I used the term gypsies in my post not in a derogatory way but to differentiate the native roma from the recent roma immigrants from eastern europe. Those are a whole different kettle of fish and being recent arrivals I have much less problem giving them a pass. It's harder to do that when you grow up watching one generation after another being ruined by their parents. There are several toxic aspects to gypsy culture that unless they are addressed will ensure nothing ever changes, no matter how much money you throw at it.

MeLKoR fucked around with this message at 16:25 on Mar 7, 2014

Zohar
Jul 14, 2013

Good kitty

computer parts posted:

Would you like to elaborate? Which developing nations would you say are particularly friendly to fascism? Would (e.g.) Egypt be one since they are essentially a totalitarian military state?

Talking flatly about the 'susceptibility' of countries to fascism as though they have some kind of essential affinity for it is methodologically missing the point completely: fascism, at least to the extent that it refers to a general ideal type and not just a specific historical phenomenon, emerges out of a particular contingent constellation of social, economic and political forces which can theoretically come into being anywhere in the world.

With regards to developing nations, many of the most successful explicit far-right movements today are in developing countries like Russia or Hungary, Arab nationalism had a significant historical basis in fascism (the most obvious example being in Syria, and yes potentially Egypt could be included in that), the Park regime in South Korea was heavily influenced by fascism, fascism had a major presence in China and arguably has a less explicit one today, there is a large far-right movement in India, and I could go on.

Nintendo Kid
Aug 4, 2011

by Smythe

Mans posted:

Jesus yes i was talking about Obama as in the fact that Obama , in political terms, is literally the only choice Americans have in that hosed up political system. The U.S. system makes it impossible for small parties to exist and pressure the top ruling parties and is pretty much a million dollar contest over whose cult of personality wins. Obama and Biden's victory and Al Gore's defeat were all based on how much millions could be pumped into improving the PR of the individuals to the point where actual political ideology meant gently caress all.

The U.S. didn't elect a black president, they elected a millionaire. He's not a victory to African Americans like Tachter isn't a victory to British women.

The fact that small parties can't exist is also why there are no fascist parties in elected office, not even dogcatcher of Whiteprideville, USA.

Raskolnikov38
Mar 3, 2007

We were somewhere around Manila when the drugs began to take hold

Install Windows posted:

The fact that small parties can't exist is also why there are no fascist parties in elected office, not even dogcatcher of Whiteprideville, USA.

Didn't San Diego elect a literal nazi a few years ago to city board?

Nintendo Kid
Aug 4, 2011

by Smythe

Raskolnikov38 posted:

Didn't San Diego elect a literal nazi a few years ago to city board?

I'm not seeing any in any of the elections to city council since the 90s, which is the furthest back easily accessible info seems to go. Apparently there's been a whole buttload of city council member convicted on corruption charges though.

Incidentally, San Diego council elections are officially non-partisan even though it's obvious who's a republican and who's a democrat.

Berke Negri
Feb 15, 2012

Les Ricains tuent et moi je mue
Mao Mao
Les fous sont rois et moi je bois
Mao Mao
Les bombes tonnent et moi je sonne
Mao Mao
Les bebes fuient et moi je fuis
Mao Mao


Mans posted:

Jesus yes i was talking about Obama as in the fact that Obama , in political terms, is literally the only choice Americans have in that hosed up political system. The U.S. system makes it impossible for small parties to exist and pressure the top ruling parties and is pretty much a million dollar contest over whose cult of personality wins. Obama and Biden's victory and Al Gore's defeat were all based on how much millions could be pumped into improving the PR of the individuals to the point where actual political ideology meant gently caress all.

Better to have small parties like in Europe, where your choices are German-lead austerity or fascism?

quote:

The U.S. didn't elect a black president, they elected a millionaire. He's not a victory to African Americans like Tachter isn't a victory to British women.

I think this is too vulgar an analysis but I'll stop with that as I shouldn't have even started this derail last night.

Torrannor
Apr 27, 2013

---FAGNER---
TEAM-MATE

computer parts posted:

The House elections are because the states run single member districts instead of being a cohesive party. This is to encourage regional support rather than having them be a faceless party from "the other end of the state" (this is an issue in geographically large or highly populous states, e.g. Northern Virginia vs the rest, East/West/South Texas, etc). The interesting thing is that this is not actually a system in the constitution - it's put up purely by tradition and the state legislatures (and maybe a federal statute sometime in the past 40 years).

The Senate elections are interesting because 1/3 of the Senate is elected every 2 years, so you never see a full election. This is why even after (e.g.) big victories for the Republicans like in 2010 you still see significant control of the Senate lying with the Democrats, because only 30% of the chamber is elected at any one time.

The Presidential elections are as such because each state gets a certain number of votes, correlating with their number of total Representatives (e.g., the 2 in the Senate and the proportionally designated amount in the House). Again, there's no constitutional requirement, but most states require that the person to win the popular vote in their state wins all of the electoral votes. This means that winning 70-30 and 51-49 in a state will net you the same number of electoral votes.

Long story short - If you think of the states as separate countries that want a granted minimum in representation, the system makes a lot more sense.

I see this reaction often, and I find this quite problematic. I am sure you had noble intentions, but from my vantage this is an American explaining the US political system, because poor dumb non-Americans cannot understand it.

I know very well why the system is the way it is, and it is still bullshit. You have a constitution that reserves for the states every lawmaking and executive function not expressively granted to the federal government. You have extensive statewide elections, even for individual executive posts, a bicameral state legislature in nearly all states, and this repeats itself at the local level (you guys can vote for the local school board for god's sake), and you even elect many judges and other members of the judiciary/executive (and electing the district attorney -> need to seem tough on crime and good at solving cases -> suspect is most likely innocent but there is nobody else to convict -> DA worries about reelection, pulls every trick to assure conviction for somebody he doesn't think guilty -> gets conviction, wins reelection, and achieves justice!... well, the problems are obvious, same with electing judges). The USA gives incredible powers to local communities.

And then you have the federal government. With the oft-maligned pork-barrel-spending allegedly eliminated by the Republicans, what reason is there to elect local representatives? You have the Senate to defend the interests of the states (though how good this works is questionable, I think the German system does a much better job in this regard). But even if you think you need the two parts of the legislature to represent local interests, there has to be at least one institution that is concerned with the welfare of the whole United States.

And here you have the electoral college, which is just ridiculous. It massively disenfranchises voters in many states (which reduces overall turnout for local elections as well), does not fulfill it's original function of having wiser elder statesmen choose the president instead of the uninformed mob and made it possible for Bush to win over Gore. There is no reason why the presidency is not decided by popular vote if the House and Senate can be won by the minority, and indeed I would consign every other nation to the "undemocratic/ of questionable democracy" states pile if the outright minority can win the legislature and executive over the majority. By way of probability it is just a matter of time until the stars align and House, Senate and presidency are won by the part which got fewer votes.

And I know of the origins of this arrangement, and that the Articles of Confederations left the United States an ungovernable mess, and that the founding fathers blatantly ignored the requirement for unanimous consent when they replaced the Articles with the new US constitution, but that is merely an explanation, not a valid reason for why these system still works as if the USA was a pre-industrial agrarian society.

Anyway, I probably wrote too much off topic here. Is there something like the sandcastle of the LP subforum for D&D? I think a thread for discussing political systems could be quite interesting.


To return to fascism and democracy: Read the Volokh Conspiracy and watch Ilya Somin argue that higher voter participation is not only nothing worth to pursue, but actually harmful for a functioning "democracy", because the unwashed masses are uninformed or misinformed (because they are not libertarians, you see), and think again about how fine the dividing lines are in some matters between fascists and the extreme right in the USA.

Mans
Sep 14, 2011

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

MeLKoR posted:

How can you generalize this with a straight face? This is not at all the experience I have having lived all my life around gypsy families. When they are having their parties in apartment buildings and blasting music and singing all night long you better shut the gently caress up and keep quiet, if you dare complain you're taking your life on your own hands. Of course you can dismiss this as nothing more than anecdotes but pretending these things don't happen and that anyone that claims otherwise is a racist is a sure way to make people racist.


I was talking about my gypsy neighbours :ssh:

I didn't ignore the crime problems nor the very serious way they take kids from schools and treat their women like poo poo in the post i made! That and their refusal to act within the general community makes it hard as balls to make them into a fully functioning minority. No one said otherwise.

What i said is that i don't know what to do about it because any open discussion of it will always result in "put them in work camps, take everything from them until they wise up".

The problem with the gypsies is exactly that they've been living apart from the European states from literal centuries now. I think crime in the gypsy community and integration was improving somewhat during the PS years before the crisis, can't imagine the crisis has made them much eager to integrate themselves into the shitpile.

BrutalistMcDonalds
Oct 4, 2012


Lipstick Apathy
I don't think fascism is much of a worry in the United States today, but going back and looking at the time when fascists were popular in the USA, it's surprising how similar they sound to the far right paleocon Ron Paul types:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzLMRAz5G_4

Also Gerald L.K. Smith:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXG-sQ7Ao1o

It's so insane. I can't believe people would follow him. But they did and a small fringe still do. (People still visit the giant and fascistic statue of Christ he built in Arkansas.) His speech is so over the top it reminds me of Sideshow Bob:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzRQ4QrZnXQ

BrutalistMcDonalds fucked around with this message at 20:10 on Mar 7, 2014

Miltank
Dec 27, 2009

by XyloJW

Omi-Polari posted:

I don't think fascism is much of a worry in the United States today, but going back and looking at the time when fascists were popular in the USA, it's surprising how similar they sound to the far right paleocon Ron Paul types:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzLMRAz5G_4

Is this how all old speeches used to be? He has so much :godwin: passion.

Nintendo Kid
Aug 4, 2011

by Smythe

Miltank posted:

Is this how all old speeches used to be? He has so much :godwin: passion.

It really wasn't a new innovation Hitler made to give the speeches he did in the way he did.

You also need to remember that back in those days, going to see people give speeches as a major entertainment form in a way that simply doesn't exist with modern media, even radio was still basically new then.

BrutalistMcDonalds
Oct 4, 2012


Lipstick Apathy
Coughlin goes full Hitler here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LJkNRHMnPc

Also that old-timey anti-Semitism.

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KoldPT
Oct 9, 2012

Mans posted:

I think crime in the gypsy community and integration was improving somewhat during the PS years before the crisis, can't imagine the crisis has made them much eager to integrate themselves into the shitpile.

I miss Guterres.

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