Fascism doesn't arrive in fancy dress...

[Batmanisaplaceinturkey]

"I sometimes fear that
people think that fascism arrives in fancy dress
worn by grotesques and monsters
as played out in endless re-runs of the Nazis.

Fascism arrives as your friend.
It will restore your honour,
make you feel proud,
protect your house,
give you a job,
clean up the neighbourhood,
remind you of how great you once were,
clear out the venal and the corrupt,
remove anything you feel is unlike you...

It doesn't walk in saying,
"Our programme means militias, mass imprisonments, transportations, war and persecution."

By Michael Rosen

michaelrosenblog.blogspot.com/2014/05/fascism-i-sometimes-fear.html?m=1

The biggest coverups, and the one that involved a friend of mine and her two daughters, were Pakistani.

I’m getting to the point where I’m hoping we get this amazing Reform government with Rupert as Chancellor and Nige as PM.
God I can’t wait to see it all go tits up when they have to put their money where their mouth is. The economy crash when their Truss like budget goes through and all the great things to look forward to. Shooting at the dinghies. Cutting benefits, including pensions. Dismantling the NHS and replacing it with a US insurance version so we all have to suffer. Schadenfreude here we come 😂

I am sorry to hear about your friend and her two daughters.
I suspect the biggest cover up is actually of the rick and powerful men around Epstein. Many of them abused and raped children and sex trafficked teenagers, but because the men are all rich and powerful, nothing has happened to them.

@maxplanck It will be awful for us. They will simply asset strip the country and cause lots of suffering.

Well if you read that poem - REALLY read it - you are left questioning:

What removed your honour,
Who made you feel shame,
Who failed to protect your house,
Why are so many unemployed,
Why is the neighbourhood a shithole,
What happened that you are no longer great,
Who failed to clear out the venal and the corrupt?

There is no good reason why Socialism, the Left in general, cannot do what that poem identifies as being what people want, is there? They can clear out the venal and the corrupt, can't they?

When the Left fails, it opens the door to the Right. If they will not serve the people, why should the people stick with them? If there is a Right-wing resurgence, it is the Left who are responsible. They failed.

@WhereYouLeftIt There are parties left and right. Right wing democratic parties have been in power for many more years in the last 30 years in both the US and UK than any left wing party.

But it is alarming you seem to be defending Fascism if it gets out streets clean and reduces crime? To hell with anyone tortured, murdered, starved or aby other inhumane treatment. Wow.

I do know what you mean. But I would have to emigrate first and watch from afar.

Yes I agree. Hollywood, the music industry and wealthy men are a huge can of worms!

I hope in my lifetime it’s all exposed and justice is served.

Any system that puts the wealthy in positions of power needs to go IMO.

Interesting mental gymnastics there. If people on the right do terrible things, it will all be the fault of those on the left.

Right-wing, or Fascist? Are they the same to you? Make your mind-up. Why can't the Left keep our streets clean and reduce crime?

But you are euphoric on your own right-on righteousness, dizzy on casting aspersions. Wow, yourself.

Mental gymnastics yourself.

If the Left fail to do their job, people will become disillusioned and seek someone who will. If the Left then blame the electorate for abandoning them, they are wrong to do so. They should look to their own failings, correct them, and reseek the trust of the people (and their votes).

The logs from Epsteins Lolita flights are public. But there seems to have been no real investigation of the people who flew on these flights.

What about the right wing parties? What are they doing wrong that voters are attracted to fascism instead of mainstream right wing politics?

Oh, so you DO acknowledge the difference between the two then?

Do tell.

Because I suspect you're so Far Left that you see everything right of yourself as fascism.

I feel the world is becoming less kind, less tolerant, less understanding of difference and instead more welcoming to aggression, self-interest and hate.

I feel so sad and quite frightened about the future, particularly for my child.

Epstein was American. Which British authority do you think ‘covered up’ for him?

There are British men named in the Epstein logs. Why are the British government not investigating them?

Yes, it’s hilarious - I’ve not slept more than a couple of hours a night since he was ‘elected’ and it gets worse every day.

Absolutely, the left should look at its own failings and try to do better.

But in the UK, at least, it has been the failure of "centre right" governments over the last 14 years that have pushed people much further towards the far right. Arguably, it might more accurately be described as the failure of the capitalist system, and the failure of successive governments - both centre right and centre left - to take sufficient action to shield populations against the harsher impacts of global market forces and to enable them to thrive in modern societies.

The left have certainly failed in many ways to put forward credible alternatives, and indeed to persuade voters that their offer would be infinitely better than anything that the far right might have to offer. But to lay all of the blame at their door is absurd. The centre right have done nothing to "fix" the problems that you have outlined either - quite the contrary, things have got infinitely worse on their watch.

We have never discussed this. You are mixing me up with someone else.
Of course there are mainstream left and right wing parties. Fascists are different.
Mainstream right and left wing parties tend to see the same issues e.g. unemployment, homelessness, crime, but have different ideas about how to solve issues, and what are the priority issues. They act democratically.

This explains what fascism is. But fascism has a strong leader who suppresses any dissent or opposition, over rides democracy, and subordinates individual interests for what they say is the good of the nation.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism

@WhereYouLeftIt To expand. Left and right wing parties would both notice street homelessness. But a left wing party might respond by building social housing and setting up homelessness projects. A right wing party might fund hostels and work coaches. A fascist party might simply round up the street homeless and put them in prison or transport them to a work camp.

The fascist party would not care about the rights of the individual homeless people. They just want them off the streets.

Nigel wants us all to start producing more babies … those damn women not having children or only having one.

Also (according to him)we need to return to our Judeo-Christian values, that made the country great, and allowed our industry to grow. Weren’t many Christian values in the slums the working classes live in, in the factories that people slaved away in, in the coal mines.. with men dying in thier 30s from lung disease. Nothing Christian in our dark satanic mills.

This is what he wants .. workers stripped of rights, and women breeding.

It's not a very good poem; it doesn't even rhyme!

(Misses point of thread)

My take away from it is that far left ideology is every bit as bad as far right. Go too far one way and it gives rise to the opposite. Both tory or labour should be roughly centric policy wise. Not sure recently either have been.

What do we want from our leaders? Somebody to do what the majority of the population wants. That is to give us the quality of life and services we came to expect.

@ARealitycheck Starmer is a centrist. The right hate him, the left hate him. You really can not get any more centrist than him.