The decency of the Brits will win through

I cannot imagine what cataclysm would have to happen for a far-right party not only to be able to grow but to win power in the UK. This is an extremely old country with old mores, and the great rump of the people are not going to be attracted by a far-right party. What we have seen is the sort of protest vote that often happens midterm, and it won't occur at the general election, when real power is at stake.

Michael Burleigh - Wikipedia

Recently his books have become controversial and accused of showing a marked dislike for all things Islamic. In his Guardian review of Sacred Causes, on 28 October 2006, John Gray wrote: "Burleigh is at his most unbalanced when discussing Islam. Much of his analysis is presented in a graffiti-like style that makes the tabloids look effete and precious. A photograph of the World Trade Center in flames is captioned with the statement 'This act of mass murder announced the onset of unlimited Islamist aggression against western civilisation', and there is much demotic rant against multiculturalism and what Burleigh describes as 'the grim prospect of "Eurabia"'. In this atmosphere of feverish emotion, facts tend to get lost and longer historical perspectives forgotten. [...]"^[1]

Michael Burleigh serves on the advisory board of the new conservative magazine Standpoint and is a regular contributor.

It's been a great campaign because we have finally combed out a few knots, we have exposed various lies that Berlusconi has been telling us. The Noemi scandal showed up his lies and confirmed what his wife has been telling us, namely that he is not well in the head, he is completely off-balance, and he goes about with under-age girls. The matter of the State flights gave a lot of electors, from among the survivors of a right-wing that believes in the rule of law, pause for thought - people who had been indignant when Rutelli and Mastella used state flights to go to the Grand Prix [at Monza]. But even more became indignant seeing dwarves, dancing girls, minstrels and leeches being put on state flights by the dozen to the private residence of, and for the amusement of, the prime minister. The lies about the earthquake are coming out, and will probably explode in some kind of demonstration at the up-coming G8 meeting. The lies about rubbish in Naples have led to a new inquiry about deception involving that dangerous bit of nonsense, the incinerator at Acerra. Then there's the explosion of rubbish at Palermo, which Berlusconi has blamed on the previous centre-left governments under Orlando, which have not held power since 2001 - it must be fossilised rubbish by now. Milan has been described by Berlusconi as the new Africa, when Milan is governed by the centre-right practically since 1992 when Formentini came in, followed by Albertini, Moratti, Formigoni who since 1995 has always been the regional governor. Without mentioning that AC Milan seems much more like Africa than the city of Milan, as the team is mainly coloured. One of the few who wasn't, Kaka, has just been sold to Real Madrid, but they will announce it today because up till yesterday it was necessary to con the football fans into voting without letting them know what everyone knew, namely that Kaka had already signed up to Real Madrid.

There were even the lies contradicting the Governor of the Bank, Draghi, who had said something true, namely that there are 1,600,000 Italians who risk finding themselves completely up the creek if they lose their job, because there is no social safety net to soften the blow. Probably the number is even more than 1,600,000, but the fact that the Governor said this was already an interesting fact. Berlusconi, who was evidently asleep during Draghi's speech, as often happens, afterwards said: Draghi made an excellent Berlusconian speech. Later he found out that Draghi had said that there were 1,600,000 people who stood to lose everything while the government was doing nothing, and at that point Berlusconi says: the data are not true. Actually the data are true, and may even be underestimates.

Finally there are the lies about law and order. Two days before the election, two women were victims of rape attempts. One was actually raped and the other was saved by the providential arrival of a passer-by. The Questura covered up the fact for 40 hours, and was only forced to confirm it after a journalist, who came to know about it indirectly, had publicised it on You-Tube. The Questura were probably waiting to announce it after the elections. If they had announced it before, maybe even the Romans would have understood that it was not the case that the rapes were the fault of the previous City Council under Veltroni, and that all rapes had ceased once Alemanno had become mayor. Probably the problem of unpunished crimes is a rather complicated one, involving an impunity that has spread out like an oil stain by this infamous and illegal political class, which, of course in order to save itself, has completely ruined the justice system, and in this way authorised many others to commit crimes, in the near-certainty that they will never be punished. I dare say there would be fewer crimes if, instead of a justice system that is being completely destroyed by the politicians, we had one that was better financed and cared for. But they can't let that happen.

Information has played a decisive role in this election. Information via internet, but also through some newspapers. Why did the newspapers talk so much about the Noemi scandal, about the State flights, about the under-age girls and above all about the Mills case? Because the European press has its eyes on Italy in the run-up to the G8, and when the European press looks at Italy it asks the right questions. Even the Italian papers are obliged, if only by translating articles from the foreign press, to take account of what others think of us - even though we could say it ourselves, given that we ourselves are the protagonists in this drama going on under our noses.

Thank heavens that we have El Pais, the Economist, the Financial Times, the German press, even the Wall Street Journal, an ultra-free-market paper of the right, to tell us what we have learned not to notice. When information works properly, blood flows through the veins of democracy, and the results, as we can see, are that we have had a lucky escape!

Berlusconi was expecting a plebiscite that would give the last blow to the declining democratic forces in Italy, and he only got to 35%. That is still a massive number, but not one that will allow him to have his wicked way unpunished.

go read the rest, please, it's really good.

"Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do." Jim Hightower

It's not a banalisation of hard right ideas, it's a victory of pro-capitalist parties, of course!

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

Mussolini and Hitler did IIRC fall out regularly over Hitler's designs on Austria (then also ruled by a fascist regime), which only ended as Italy became the clearly weaker state and sought a formal alliance with Germany to provide support for its failing wars of expansion.

I. The danger from the far-right

First of all: the NPD did not run in the current EP elections.

As for the danger emanating from the far-right (and I'm replying here to nanne too), that must be considered on at least three levels.

1. There is the question of whether they have the potential for directly endangering democracy itself (and thus all of us) by a full takeover, like their ancestors did in the thirties.
   
   This question must be subdivided further. One question is: is there an immediate danger? (This, in effect, also translates as: is there a strong Europe-wide increase of the far-right?) Here I agree with you in answering no. (As for Europe-wide rise: as I wrote in a Salon last month, growths in some countries are offset by contractions elsewhere, not to mention that some of the growths [Austria, France, Romania] followed collapses and did not reach the onetime peaks.)
   
   The other sub-question is: is it possible that one day, the growth of some far-right parties doesn't stop at 10, 15, 30% but swaps over into a majority? In this, I vehemently disagree with you: I think arguments denying this possibility all rest on an extrapolation of current trends. But public opinion can change, can be changed. (That did happen during the fascist takeovers between the wars, too.)

2. The second level of danger from the far-right is indirect influence corroding democracy and rights. Methinks there can be no question that that exists.
   
   One way this indirect influence can emerge is if the far-right is a junior partner in a coalition, or if the survival of a minority government rests on its vote. There are four examples for the former: the previous ÖVP-FPÖ/BZÖ coalition in Austria, the previous PiS-LPR-Samoobrona coalition in Poland, Berlusconi's coalitions in Italy, and the current Smer-HZDS-SNS coalition in Slovakia. Examples for the latter: Rasmussen's first government in Denmark, Barroso's first government in Portugal, Balkenende's first in the Netherlands.
   
   The other form of indirect influence is the adoption of far-right rhetoric and policies by mainstream parties even when those hold majorities on their own -- a move of the Overton Window. Examples are aplenty; I will just refer to the example cited upthread, Sarko adopting Le Pen's xenophobic discourse in France.

3. The third level is whether the far-right endangers some people directly. Again, methinks the answer is a clear yes.
   
   Everywhere, the far-right endangers people identified as members of minorities they rail against. [Note: what matters is not whether you are actually member of a minority, but whether a racist believes your appearance fits the bill.] For these endangered people, the critical mass is not a government majority: you are bound to meet upon a discriminating asshole every day even if they aren't more than 5%.
   
   It is true that xenophobic rhetoric doesn't always swap over into violence. However, you can't separate the current series of murders of Gypsies by molotov cocktail and gun in Hungary from Jobbik's anti-Gypsy campaign, nor LAOS's campaign in Greece from what happened in the last two weeks, and so on.

It is not simply the historical memory of Nazism (which, BTW, is lacking to an apalling extent from the youngest generations, and also for older ones in formerly 'communist' countries) that keeps their heirs in check: it is just those thousands who are willing to make a stand against them, protesting, arguing, throwing eggs, campaigning, or digging up all dirt that exposes them for the scum they are. (Something in which, I note, the Left Party and the PDS before it had a good part.) It was the activism of a previous generation that got a dissection of Nazism into the education of the children of the sixties-seventies in the first place.

So I advise against stopping being vigilant about the far-right just because this vigilance was successful before; against dismissing all warnings as a call on ghosts to make sensational headlines, just because previous warnings were successful in putting the ghost back into the bottle.

II. The FDP and neolibs in Germany

I don't disagree that the present FDP is a bunch of loons advocating a dangerous utter-cloud-cuckoo-land ideology. However, they are by far not alone in doing so.

There are just as (if not more) dangerous neolibs on the pro-market wing of the Union parties. In particular, let's remember Friedrich Merz of the CDU; and also the previous boss of the CSU, Erwin Huber (and, arguably, the previous federal economy minister from the CSU, Michael Glos). Just as or even more important are advocates outside party politics: think-tanks and economic institutes, bankiers, Bertelsmann and its foundations and media, columnists (f.e. Wolfgang Münchau); most of whom are CDU voters BTW. Though he mixed his message with the critique of market fundies lately, a special mention is deserved for the just re-elected Bundespräsident, former IMF boss Horst Köhler, who was a CDU member.

Now, one would be justified to claim that this is analogous to the indirect influence of the far-right -- would the FDP not have been a relatively recent convert to neoliberalism itself; that is, would it have been the source of the malaise.

The FDP's neoliberal turn dates to the nineties, and the faltering of the social liberal wing was gradual. In 1994, one of them, Hildegard Hamm-Brücher, was the FDP's candidate for Bundespräsident. Another left-liberal, Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, is still prominent in the party as law specialist and Bavarian boss (though with no influence on economic policy; but see what I quoted her with in this diary).

III. Neoliberalism and the far-right

As a final note: the dangers of neoliberalism and the far-right aren't necessaryly independent from each other. I see two forms of this:

1. Neoliberalism and the far-right take turns
   
   It is a relatively well-known notion that far-right parties can bloom on the ruins of society created by neoliberalism; e.g. masses of desperate people. In effect, that also happened in Thirties Germany: the Great Depression was born from the irresponsible boom years of the Twenties. However, it can happen in the other direction, too: after the collapse of extremist nationalist populism, people may put parties advocating 'mainstream' policies and conformity to 'sane' 'Western' economic concepts into power.
   
   You'll find a good example of a move in both directions in Poland. In 2005, desperation in the wake of a series of governments with neolib policies (the last of them a corrupt and disintegrating post-communist centre-left one) boosted the votes of right-wing populists. The ideas and policies of the hard-right main party in the new coalition government, PiS, would count as far-right in some more advanced democracies; while the junior partner LPR (League of Polish Families) was just insane. Then this government disintegrated as they lost all credibility internationally and nationally -- and was succeeded by a PO government, elected by a majority of urban voters, and advocating even more radical neolib reforms than before.

2. There can be symbiosis between neoliberalism and the far-right.
   
   Again, there is an example right at the start: Pinochet's Chile. In Europe, though the original fascists stole from Socialism, some of the current extremists are also tax-cut radicals. Examples include Austria's Haider (well, at least in rhetoric, even if not in Carynthian practice) and his parties, and the present Dutch 'anti-Islamist' formation, PVV, and the Republikaner in Germany (as opposed to the DVU and the NPD).