spartan
8th October 2008, 04:52
The two things I see most from far-right parties getting bigger shares of the vote in Europe are Nativism and Populism.
The Nativism is used to create opposition to immigrants from "native" (hence the Nativism) working-class people who are *turns into a Nativist* "losing their jobs, having to accept lower wages because of the influx of cheaper labour, and having their public services (which they, and not the immigrants who use them anyway, prop up with their taxes) suffer under the strain of the increase in population which immigration naturally produces."
The Nativism allows these once avid racists a chance to play at "socially acceptable" Xenophobia without any dire consequences, indeed even being applauded by people sick and tired of political correctness and pussy footing around issues which they deem important.
The Populism is used to create an "us" and "them" atmosphere against their own country's ruling elite and traditional parties who they say are "alike" and "not representing our intrests" which to be fair they are right about that.
The Populism also allows them to appear "Socialistic" (especially with their worker friendly economic policies such as cooperatives and nationalisation) and is a good way to shut the left out from the working-class.
These far-right parties are tapping into genuine (misdirected) anger from working-class people and it's proving quite beneficial as they are getting more and more votes (just look at Austria where the two far-right parties collectively got the highest share of the national vote in the recent elections!).
How do we as Socialists combat this growing threat?
Working-class people don't seem intrested in what we have to say and our solutions to their problems, and are more intrested in blaming the immigrant and electing people who used to go around with Nazi flags about a decade ago before they "wised-up" and started offering easy to implement solutions to working-class people and their country's problems.
One of the things that scares me the most about these far-right parties is that they are doing things legitimately and Democratically, and are getting more votes and potentially into positions of real power with the majority of people's support!
Most normal people don't like violence and the far-right know this and play the victim card whenever anti-Fascists shoot themselves in the foot by attacking these people at their events which have been approved by the police and local government and mean that the far-right are thus doing nothing wrong in the public's eyes (which gives us a bad name for attacking "peaceful law-abiding people at a legal event" blah blah blah, etc, etc).
We have to change tactics on these smart break-away racists as ironically violence aimed at them by us is actually helping them and hurting us!
Nativism:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nativism_(politics)
Populism:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Populism
The Nativism is used to create opposition to immigrants from "native" (hence the Nativism) working-class people who are *turns into a Nativist* "losing their jobs, having to accept lower wages because of the influx of cheaper labour, and having their public services (which they, and not the immigrants who use them anyway, prop up with their taxes) suffer under the strain of the increase in population which immigration naturally produces."
The Nativism allows these once avid racists a chance to play at "socially acceptable" Xenophobia without any dire consequences, indeed even being applauded by people sick and tired of political correctness and pussy footing around issues which they deem important.
The Populism is used to create an "us" and "them" atmosphere against their own country's ruling elite and traditional parties who they say are "alike" and "not representing our intrests" which to be fair they are right about that.
The Populism also allows them to appear "Socialistic" (especially with their worker friendly economic policies such as cooperatives and nationalisation) and is a good way to shut the left out from the working-class.
These far-right parties are tapping into genuine (misdirected) anger from working-class people and it's proving quite beneficial as they are getting more and more votes (just look at Austria where the two far-right parties collectively got the highest share of the national vote in the recent elections!).
How do we as Socialists combat this growing threat?
Working-class people don't seem intrested in what we have to say and our solutions to their problems, and are more intrested in blaming the immigrant and electing people who used to go around with Nazi flags about a decade ago before they "wised-up" and started offering easy to implement solutions to working-class people and their country's problems.
One of the things that scares me the most about these far-right parties is that they are doing things legitimately and Democratically, and are getting more votes and potentially into positions of real power with the majority of people's support!
Most normal people don't like violence and the far-right know this and play the victim card whenever anti-Fascists shoot themselves in the foot by attacking these people at their events which have been approved by the police and local government and mean that the far-right are thus doing nothing wrong in the public's eyes (which gives us a bad name for attacking "peaceful law-abiding people at a legal event" blah blah blah, etc, etc).
We have to change tactics on these smart break-away racists as ironically violence aimed at them by us is actually helping them and hurting us!
Nativism:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nativism_(politics)
Populism:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Populism