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2004-12-10 Europe
EU far right aims anti-'Islamization' coalition
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Posted by Steve 2004-12-10 10:10:03 AM|| || Front Page|| [11133 views since 2007-05-07]  Top

#1 i think it varies, a bit. The austrian freedom party includes Haider, a Nazi apologist,and Le Pen is an antisemite and Vichy apologist. The Italian Northern League is, IIUC, more libertarian and antiimmigrant, without the antisemitism - but then Italians (even in fascist times) were always more sane (and less antisemitic) than their neighbors north of the Alps. The Belgian group Ive heard mixed things about.

So not quite Brown shirts, but definitely NOT our friends. And avoiding extremists like these, is one of the good reasons why centrist and liberal euros MUST deal more effectively with Islamic radicalism, and with unassimilated immmigrants.
Posted by Liberalhawk 2004-12-10 10:39:05 AM||   2004-12-10 10:39:05 AM|| Front Page Top

#2 LH
Since there is no good way to deal effectively with Islamic radicalism other than reduce immigration and tighten security, wouldn't the best way to combat the goofy right be to essentially steal the best part of their platform?
Posted by mhw 2004-12-10 11:57:30 AM||   2004-12-10 11:57:30 AM|| Front Page Top

#3 Amen.
Posted by Secret Master 2004-12-10 12:42:07 PM||   2004-12-10 12:42:07 PM|| Front Page Top

#4 I stopped reading after the 3 'extreme's in the first sentence. This isn't news. It's ideologically driven propaganda.
Posted by phil_b 2004-12-10 2:29:06 PM||   2004-12-10 2:29:06 PM|| Front Page Top

#5 err, right medicine, maybe, but wrong doctors. Many of these guys are smelly little racists who not long ago (Le Pen, esp) were trashing Israel and the US.

The point re the Islamist threat is not their religion but their politics, which is fascist. Which is why liberals should be front and center in opposing and denouncing it. You don't defeat fascism with fascism.
Posted by lex 2004-12-10 2:53:12 PM||   2004-12-10 2:53:12 PM|| Front Page Top

#6 You don't defeat fascism with fascism.

You do if it's the only force fighting fascism.
Posted by Mrs. Davis 2004-12-10 3:36:00 PM||   2004-12-10 3:36:00 PM|| Front Page Top

#7 I don't want Le Pen's people on my side. Because they're not on my side-- they hate the US and Israel as much as they hate the muslims-- and also because, like the Russian Army, they're a group of incompetent hacks with no real staying power or capability. Their support isn't worth it.
Posted by lex 2004-12-10 3:45:07 PM||   2004-12-10 3:45:07 PM|| Front Page Top

#8 Oriana Fallaci and Chris Hitchens, sure. Willen (?sp), that courageous Dutch legislator now under police protection-- absolutely. But not Haider or Le Pen. They won't make us any safer or prove effective partners in the long run.
Posted by lex 2004-12-10 4:32:48 PM||   2004-12-10 4:32:48 PM|| Front Page Top

#9 lex, yours is a very typical American/Anglophone response- assimilate - Americans/Angloculture as the Borg, and why not, it works for us. But you have to keep in mind that large parts of Europe, ethnicity, language, race is institutionalized. Take Belgium as an example. In 200 years Flemish and Walloons have lived largely separate existances. To suggest they take an assimilation approach with their muslims immigrants is ludicrous when after 200 years they failed to assimilate their existing cultures. These so called extremists are people who want to go back to they way things were and not get assimilated into a global culture, which is the only alternative on offer.
Posted by phil_b 2004-12-10 4:40:35 PM||   2004-12-10 4:40:35 PM|| Front Page Top

#10 If they really are brown shirts, I doubt they can gain all that much power. I don't really understand parlimentary systems. But... if flyby night competition puts your globally entrenched Enron competitor out of business...is everyone better or worse off?
Posted by 2b 2004-12-10 4:47:53 PM||   2004-12-10 4:47:53 PM|| Front Page Top

#11 phil b, i tend toward the anglo assimilationist approach, but im not closeminded - shutting immigration MAY be the right thing for some countries. But these guys arent JUST antiimmigrant (well other than the Italian Northern League, IIUC) theyve got other baggage along as well.
Posted by Liberalhawk 2004-12-10 4:50:36 PM||   2004-12-10 4:50:36 PM|| Front Page Top

#12 Haider, Le Pen anti-US and Israel

Vlamm Blok and Lega Nord pro-US and more pro-Israel.

A marriage of anti-islamic convenience.
Posted by anon2 2004-12-10 5:51:48 PM||   2004-12-10 5:51:48 PM|| Front Page Top

#13 In Europe, being either pro-capitalism, pro-Israel, anti-UN, or anti-EU automatically makes you a right-wing extremist in the eyes of the mass media as well as a "fascist" in the words of the communists, socialists, and eco-fascists.

Not to speak of the names thrown at those who uphold the death penalty, the right to self-defense, or the right to keep and bear arms.

At college I was regularly called "fascist" because I denounced communism (even when I was denouncing fascism...).

I know first-hand that decent classical liberal parties in Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Switzerland were called right-wing extremists within and across borders by the mass-media.

Le Pen is a racist who mixes a few arguments for economic freedom in his speeches -- which makes it complex to argue against him when you're a confused leftist or centrist. Remember that he was the only alternative the French people had when they last elected Chirac...

The European problem is that there is no national dream similar to the American Dream, thus no motor of integration for immigrants. And then, there are the millions of anti-Western Moslems they've let in. Anyone who speaks up against the Moslem invasion is immediately called racist or fascist, thus strangling any rational, public debate on the topic of immigration and Islamofascism.

In my eyes, there is no way out for Western Europe -- it's fast leading to a violent civil war. We'll see Europeans expel the Moslems the way the Greeks did in the 19th century. And it won't be pretty. The only alternative would be to make the Moslem world (e.g. Morocco, Algeria, Turkey) more attractive and prosperous than Western Europe -- which is not going to happen anytime soon.
Posted by Kalle (kafir forever) 2004-12-10 6:46:09 PM|| [http://radio.weblogs.com/0103811/categories/currentEvents/]  2004-12-10 6:46:09 PM|| Front Page Top

#14 Kalle, civil war is never good, but at least we know how well Islam does in real war lately....
Posted by Frank G  2004-12-10 6:53:09 PM||   2004-12-10 6:53:09 PM|| Front Page Top

#15 In Europe, being either pro-capitalism, pro-Israel, anti-UN, or anti-EU automatically makes you a right-wing extremist in the eyes of the mass media as well as a "fascist" in the words of the communists, socialists, and eco-fascists.

Don't be ridiculous. Communists hate the EU, and so do the most left-leaning socialists. Being anti-EU is indeed to a far greater extent the province of the *leftist* parties, with only the most moderate of the leftists supporting the EU. (for example in the French Socialists' referendum for the European Constitution, it was the leftist side that opposed it, it was the moderate side that supported it. Similar examples from my own nation exist and the socialist parties there.)

It'd be much more accurate to say that moderate right-wing and moderate left-wing both support the EU, and it's both the extreme right-wing and the extreme left-wing that hate it.

Which makes sense.
Posted by Aris Katsaris  2004-12-10 8:02:35 PM||   2004-12-10 8:02:35 PM|| Front Page Top

#16 Don't be ridiculous. Communists hate the EU, and so do the most left-leaning socialists

Not as I see it, Aris - this is the perfect bureaucracy place to infiltrate, take over and conquer. Good luck
Posted by Frank G  2004-12-10 8:20:35 PM||   2004-12-10 8:20:35 PM|| Front Page Top

#17 Not as I see it, Aris

Too bad that, unlike me, you can never share the factoids you supposedly see, nor the data-points that lead you to said conclusions. Makes your smug and fact-free posts a complete waste of time.

Find me a single Communist party that supports the European Constitution in any parliament of any European nation. *Then* dispute my facts.

Unless as usual, you don't care about facts, you only care about your preconceptions.
Posted by Aris Katsaris  2004-12-10 8:45:31 PM||   2004-12-10 8:45:31 PM|| Front Page Top

#18 my point was, unlike you, I can see this clay being molded into something terribly familiar....
no, I don't have a quote, and never said that I did, strawman
Posted by Frank G  2004-12-10 10:30:42 PM||   2004-12-10 10:30:42 PM|| Front Page Top

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