It's getting uglier by the day

[Alex K]

And leftist extremists are currently a comparable problem in Europe? I must have overlooked them.

Read my post again, or as many times as you need. Now quote the part where I said they were a comparable problem. They're not, as it stands the far-right are worse. I was merely saying I see them both as threats.

Hm ok, I had to misunderstand that - if you're merely talking about abstract threats, the statement is kind of pointless. Like, bad things are bad!

[YahwehIsTheWay]

And here we have more horrifying consequences of the left's unfortunate and perplexing embrace of Islamophilia. 

When the right wing is the only side that's talking sense about the violence and rape culture that Muslims bring with them, people are going to gravitate to it. The longer the left wing keeps its head buried in the sand over the problems with Islam, the worse the problem with the right wing is going to be.

[abaris]

There was this rightwinger video taking a migrant out of context saying "to portugal, never". Even if the video was true, I wouldn't blame him. Things are hard here ATM. Because we portuguese are lazy as greece and Ireland and the rest of the PIIGS.

Which is exactly what the right wingers fed us back then. Slackers the lot of you, so please let's all join hands in hating the Portugese, the Spanish and of course Greece.

Now the new target are refugees. Obviously a better market for that kind of fear mongering.

[abaris]

When the right wing is the only side that's talking sense about the violence and rape culture that Muslims bring with them, people are going to gravitate to it. The longer the left wing keeps its head buried in the sand over the problems with Islam, the worse the problem with the right wing is going to be.

Don't know if you're serious, but if you happen to be, take that as an insult if you please: Stupid is as stupid does. Arguments from anus don't get any truer because some fearmongers believe them to be true. Or change some political dime on it.

And by the way, it's not only muslim refugees. Even if they are, there might be some consideration of why people decide to leave their livelihood behind. A look at Syria might provide an answer, but I realize, looking at reasons is too much to ask for certain people.

But maybe you were just attempting to paraphrase Trump. One can never be certain.

[Alex K]

You're right, abaris! Not long ago the rubes all hated Greece etc., but now you barely hear anything about that anymore bc of the new target

[Brian37]

I cannot state this enough, this is global corporatism. Far too many are stuck on party labels and political ideology.

Just last month on CSPAN I watched a press conference with the Chinese Premiere, and he used the same economic right line our GOP does, "Now is not the time to tax the rich".

This is yet another reason I hate people claiming that capitalism is a form of government, it is not, China allows private business too. There is not one government, friend or foe that does not invest in the global market. It is the economic right for sure, but an economic right exists in every country. A monopoly of wealth can exist in even a political party or ruling family or even despots like Kim Jong Un.

Workers worldwide and the poor worldwide are allowing a few uber billionaires to control the entire global market. Now you cant stop all of it, but in the west we can make more people aware of this.

[Minimalist]

"Now is not the time to tax the rich".

They said that in France, too.  In 1789.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Yeah, there seems to be a lot of polarization going on in Western society nowadays. How quickly we forget!

Frankly, I don't see it as polarization. The extreme right is gaining and all the others try to preserve what we achieved in the last 70+ years. There's no extreme left to speak of, apart from a few strays surfacing at certain demonstrations and trying their hands at some violence of their own.

I haven't got the exact numbers without looking them up, but rightwing violence has increased by a few 100 percent only in the last year. They published the results and they're in the public domain. It's a frightening increase.

I guess I'm speaking from the American perspective. The refusal of the two wings to work together usually results in the bird falling to earth.

[abaris]

I guess I'm speaking from the American perspective. The refusal of the two wings to work together usually results in the bird falling to earth.

The European problem is, there are no longer two wings. Conservatives and Social Democrats are pretty much the same. The extreme right plays in it's own ugly league. Since they are the ones promising the easy solutions, they are also attracting the one being disenfranchised by the global economy. I mean the ones buying their narrative, which usually takes some serious lack of education. Which, sadly, isn't hard to come by in this day and age.

In our last elections, you got a pretty good picture. The larger hubs voted moderate, the rural areas voted extremist. And within the hubs, the known problem zones also voted extremist. What really gives me reason for concern is the fact that there are housing complexes for cops. These districts have voted rightwing populist in their vast majority.

[YahwehIsTheWay]

When the right wing is the only side that's talking sense about the violence and rape culture that Muslims bring with them, people are going to gravitate to it. The longer the left wing keeps its head buried in the sand over the problems with Islam, the worse the problem with the right wing is going to be.

Don't know if you're serious, but if you happen to be, take that as an insult if you please: Stupid is as stupid does. Arguments from anus don't get any truer because some fearmongers believe them to be true. Or change some political dime on it.

And by the way, it's not only muslim refugees. Even if they are, there might be some consideration of why people decide to leave their livelihood behind. A look at Syria might provide an answer, but I realize, looking at reasons is too much to ask for certain people.

But maybe you were just attempting to paraphrase Trump. One can never be certain.

I'm a liberal who doesn't understand the fetish some on the left have for Islam.

Let me put it another way, after 9/11, some sensible voice talked about the problem of "blowback". This discussion of the failures of US foreign policy and the backlash it was creating was mistaken as being a defender of either Islam or the jihadi mentality that led to the terrorist attack. Far from it. But just because we find a group of people despicable doesn't mean we shouldn't also look at what's driving otherwise good people into their ranks. 

The same blowback is happening in Europe. As the left wing keeps shouting the mantras of "religion of peace" and "terror has no religion" in the face of increasing problems with violence and rape, people are going to be turned off by the lies and more will be driven into the camps of the radical right.