Well, there seem to be a lot of elections going on all over the world and a lot of you seem to want to discuss it. Personally, I don’t like to say much about other countries’ politics because I’m afraid I understand them about as well as Sully and Hitch understand ours. But bowing to the will of the people, let’s get started.
Iran:
The leading candidates are accusing each other of corruption, bribery and torture.
I guess they’re becoming Americanized more quickly than I thought.
Lebanon’s pro-Western coalition declared victory early Monday, as local television stations reported the faction had successfully fended off a serious challenge by the Shiite militant group Hezbollah and its allies to grab the majority in parliament.
When pro-western coalitions won elections in the Middle East while Bush was president, it was usually called something like a Cedar Revolution. Shouldn’t this victory have a catchy name too?
Yurp:
Center-right parties emerged Monday from European Parliament elections claiming triumph over left-of-center groupings that failed to draw political advantage from their adversaries’ handling of the global economic crisis.
It’s not just a center-right country, now, it’s a center-right world.
Maybe I will say something here. My impression is that European politics is radically different from American politics because everyone is so much farther to the left on social programs and because there is much more overt racism. On the other hand, the similarities between Berlusconi, Sarkozy, and Bush fascinate me. The constant gaffes, the “I’m the man” stuff. They seem to me to encapsulate some (possibly outdated) notion of each country’s ideal of masculinity. In the US, that means being a tough-sounding Jesus-loving buffoon. In Europe, it means being a high-living, skirt-chasing buffoon. Is that about right? Is that what a lot of conservatism is really about, preserving masculinity from the assault of modernity?
Let’s make this a world election open thread and feel free to cut all the stupid things I’ve written above to pieces.
Update. I forgot about Virginia. But remember, it’s a Democratic primary, so very few of the people voting live in real Virginia. Do other people dislike Terry McAuliffe as much as I do?
cleek
dingdingding!
Laura W
You forgot Virginia.
ninerdave
DougJ, what’s going on in NY? I’d love to see a post about the coup.
Dude in Jersey
high-living, skirt-chasing buffoon
Europe wins.
kid bitzer
“Is that about right? Is that what a lot of conservatism is really about, preserving masculinity from the assault of modernity?”
yes. but not exclusively.
you need to leave a little room for the misogyny.
oh–did i forget the racism? there’s some of that, too.
but, yeah: conservatism is now primarily an aesthetic preference for behaving like village people who are not in on the joke.
Death By Mosquito Truck
I cast my Virginia Democratic primary vote for Creigh Deeds today. I’ve done all I can do to get Terry McAuliffe off my teevee and answering machine.
jl
I think your comparison for Sarkozy is a little too rough. I fear is is A-OK for Berlusconi.
Also agree with your take on European politics. The ‘liberal’ parties in Europe that would most closely correspond to US economic center-righters stay firmly in third place. They are like that very gracious and nice old man from the British Parliament I see when I watch clips of Question Time, who everyone is polite too, is never ever booed and speaks to hushed audience, and says high minded things, but has no influence on policy whatever. That is their role. But they do have a thinktank (OECD).
Seems the Christian Democrats made some gains. But they are not conservative in the US GOP or even centris in the DLC sense on economic policy. More state capitalists who either agree with, or resigned to, social insurance.
I am no expert either, so other commenters feel free to correct me.
KRK
How can you start an election open thread with musings about the appeal of buffoonery and then fail to mention Terry McAuliffe?
Aaron
one of the crazy parts about breaking down world elections is in trying to shoe-horn every political battle into the right-left dichotomy we are used to here in the states.
For example, the manifesto of the cetner-right in Europe, [url]http://www.eppwarsaw.eu/images/dbimages/docs/en-epp-manifesto-european-elections-final_copy_3.pdf[/url] would not be something you would see the right in the U.S. publish
mistermix
More.
admiralh
Nice Arcadia (Duran Duran side project) reference in the post’s title.
BenA
@mistermix:
What he said…
Aaron
Gah, butchered that link attempt. My apologies :-(
schrodinger's cat
What about the general elections held in India in May? Also DougJ, did you hear Burkean bells when you read Douthat’s NYT column today?
The Other Steve
You forgot to mention the Pirate Party won enough votes in Sweden to get a seat at the EU parliament.
bjacques
More or less on the money. There are rightwing and outright fascist parties that moan about political correctness and Brussels gettin’ in their bidness, but might suddenly find the latter more palatable were the Europarliament to vote unamimously to build a giant wall to keep the darkies out and to send the citizen children of immigrants back to where their parents came from.
But despite infamous fascists like Nick Griffin of the British National Party and merely racist rabble-rousers like Geert Wilders of the PVV in the Netherlands, the screwhead vote remains at about 10%. Nixon said one-third of the voters are nuts, so the Europeans are still relatively sane.
It does suck that the left couldn’t make any gains over the center-right parties that presided over the recent economic troubles, but the center-right knew enough to STFU about slashing the social safety net or going further on privatization (anyway, the damage is done on the latter).
The Other Steve
I believe the results in Lebanon are a clear repudiation of Obama’s speech last week.
Little Dreamer
I have to ask, regarding MN, I haven’t heard any good reason why Al Franken hasn’t been seated yet. Is there one? I should probably google it, but, I’m waiting for quantitative proof that the world knows that Coleman lost (like, you know, everyone would be discussing it), and so far I haven’t seen it. WTF happened?
Doctor Science
MY favorite items from the EU elections:
Bunny explains the ballot. Note that what Bunny calls the “UK Indiglow Party” came in second. This is really the “UK Independence Party”, which a Britfriend summarized as they want their kippers smoked, and want to continue buying them with British Spoonds rather than Euro Space Dollars. And they want their 85% sawdust in a plastic tube with a sniff of pork meat to be allowed to be called sausages. So nyer! (Apparently the stricter EU standards for what can be sold under the name “sausage” are a bone of contention. I call this the Dibbler Policy.)
Also, they found the folded ballots confusing.
Meanwhile in Germany, the Bavarian separatist party ran this ad in the *other* parts of German — basically, “don’t you want to see the back of all those Bavarians? Vote for us, for a Bavaria-free Germany!” I expect the Parti Quebecois to imitate this campaign, with devastating results.
Marc
With the white-hot heat of a thousand suns.
freelancer
Mind meld. (with subtle Fredo reference)
Drew
Yup! Is he related to the Clintons?
I was the 2nd voter this morning at my precinct… it was 6:45 or so, so it was early in the day, but still not a good sign of the GOTV.
I voted for the only Virginian in the primary…
Drew
Brick Oven Bill
The problem with modernity is that it spends money like a chick at the shopping mall. Tick tick.
DougJ
Yeah, I saw that.
Little Dreamer
@Doctor Science:
I spent several months in Bavaria in the early 80’s (Nurnberg) and I was amazed at the number of men and women who would ride their bicycles past the military barracks my ex was attached to with their arms straight out in the air yelling “Heil Hitler” everyday.
jl
I thought the EU-UK banger wars were settled. How is it on the Belgium beer front?
Now that John Cole has established his one-liner snappy analysis cred, he would be able to make a go on the corporate news as a pundit. Except for the fatal flaws that his comments had content and were connected to reality -if he could solve that little problem, he would be ready for an audition.
Think about it. It will be heck blogging from now on, since this post establishes his international politics credentials, and he will be know about and give informative comments on All Elections Everywhere, from now on.
LD50
Are you standing athwart?
Bill E Pilgrim
There’s really no way to make any kind of correspondence. Nicolas Sarkozy is a “conservative”? Well, check this out:
Universal Health care: Check. Wouldn’t dream of touching it.
Death Penalty: Absolutely against it.
Separation of Church and State: Absolute. People in France are appalled that we swear Presidents in on a Bible, for instance.
And so on. So, where does that put him? If that’s a conservative, then Bill Clinton being pro-death penalty makes him an extreme right winger, which is how that position would be seen in France. And then some.
It’s all a muddle when you try those sorts of one-to-one translations. When people call Sarkozy from “the right” or “conservative” you have to be very careful what you mean if you’re thinking of the US definitions. He is, of course, in France, and certainly shares some traits with US right wingers. But as you see above, a couple of the positions of “the right” here would make them far left in the US.
The men chasing women thing is sort of another story, and more Europe versus US than right versus left. Although, there aren’t older guys who chase young women in the US?
Again, sort of hard to make those blanket statements.
Craig
I’ve been planning to cast an “anyone but McAuliffe” ballot for as long as I can remember. I think I’ll vote for Creigh, everyone else I know is.
Trinity
@BenA: I co-sign!
Cat Lady
I don’t want to check the PUMA sites – does Hillary love extend to McAuliffe?
Brick Oven Bill
Standing athwart with an occassional adult beverage yelling ‘Oil Shale’. Tick tock tick tock.
Mayken
@Doctor Science: Considering how many of my German friends make the comment that Bavaria is not really part of Germany, this is a shrewd strategy. LOL! I’ve never quite been able to understand why, really. Is it like some of us wishing we’d let the South go on its was a back in Lincoln’s day? ;-)
Little Dreamer
@jl:
I thought he might have a problem because anyone hearing the url for BJ on the air would visit here and find out we say fuck a lot and talk about doing bad things to little kitties.
MattF
WRT the Virginia primary, it’s interesting that once the WaPo endorsed Deeds, McAuliffe’s support in the polls sank. Very fast, & with extreme prejudice.
low-tech cyclist
“Do other people dislike Terry McAuliffe as much as I do?”
I don’t hate him; I’m just more than ready to be rid of him.
KG
the European conservatives won because they were the parties not in power. Funny how that works, things go to hell and the voters choose not to reelect the party that got them there. Somethings are universal.
As for the buffoonery of conservativism, I don’t think that’s what is at the core. That is how it gets packaged and sold because it’s much easier to say, “Look, I’m what we all think men should be” then it is to explain why prudence and reason dictate not doing things for the sake of doing things. Of course, those who have co-opted the conservative mantle don’t really believe in that second part anymore, either. So I guess conservativism has, for the most part, descended into buffoonery.
Library Grape
“Do other people dislike Terry McAuliffe as much as I do?”
I LOATHE terry mcauliffe. very few politicos come off as such a perfect smarmy lying hack
burnspbesq
@DougJ:
And the National Party, which is explicitly whites-only, won two of the British seats in Brussels.
KG
@22: “the problem with modernity”…
It is the worst political philosophy, except for all the others. Or something.
AhabTRuler
Not really the point, but does anyone else think this when they see Sarkozy?
LD50
‘It will be heck’? Is that like hell but not as bad?
I’ve often wondered if ‘going to heck’ when you die is like going to a place that’s really shitty but not really torture. You know, like a crappy apartment where the neighbors make too much noise, the roof leaks, the plaster’s rotting, the heater doesn’t work, usually no hot water, etc.
Bill E Pilgrim
@KG:
How do you figure?
Not in France.
There are lots of other reasons. The people are actually fairly conservative, for one thing. On the other hand, that means something entirely different from what it means in the US. And you have to figure that what was being voted against was Socialism in many cases, and not the kind where some right winger in the US imagined it, but the kind where they actually call the party by that name.
Socialism may be fading in Europe but you have to realize that the “conservative” alternative is probably further left than our Democrats are in some aspects.
LD50
No. I mostly just think of Carla Bruni.
AhabTRuler
[yells] MESSAGE [/yells]
AhabTRuler
@LD50: You think of a women when you look at a man? Interesting head you have there, cause that would just about kill me half the time.
Bill E Pilgrim
@KG:
My response to this is in moderation heck because I used the S word, so who knows when it will be free of its shackles, but in brief:
That’s not true in France. The right is in power and won the Euro elections.
There are lots of reasons, which my missing post goes into but you may never see it.
Cyrus
@kid bitzer:
This is vague. Do you mean “village people” in the traditional sense of bumpkins and salt-of-the-earth American Gothic models and all that, or do you mean the YMCA Village People?
Or both? I guess it wouldn’t take too much work to squeeze Rusty DeWeese in there, some guy in bib overalls and a Caterpillar or John Deere cap in between the fireman and the cowboy…
KRK
Doctor Science: That sausage stuff is still going on? It was 25 years ago that Jim Hacker’s calculated defense of the “British sausage” led to him becoming Prime Minister.
omen
re europe, moon of alabama points to an interesting bar graph:
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2009/06/biased-election-reporting.html
the iranian election feels really monumental. juan cole has some good stuff up.
LD50
@AhabTRuler:
What does not kill me only makes me stronger. Or so I’m told.
It may just be the contrast, given what a homunculus Sarkozy is.
Brachiator
Since Sarkozy has the babe-licious Carla Bruni as a spouse, I doubt that he needs or wants to do much skirt-chasing.
More seriously, in the UK, prime minister Gordon Brown is being knocked about by enemies and allies. And ominously, the racist and nationalist BNP won 2 European Parliament seats, a first in this dismal little faction’s history. This is a very bad sign.
On the other hand, in the recent elections in India, which took over a month to complete because of the massive size of the country, nationalists and religious fundamentalists were kicked to the curb.
R-Jud
Yep, over here in Blighty the racist, anti-EU BNP won two seats to the European Parliament. Then their leader was pelted with eggs and called “Nazi scum” by some demonstrators.
Gordon Brown is under pressure to call a general election ASAP. I think he will try to hold out as long as he legally can (until 2010). The Tories would win today, even though they have no actual ideas.
Ron
@ninerdave:
What’s going on in NY is a good question. The story seems to be that as of right now who is in control of the NY senate is unknown. The GOP did have a vote that ousted the dem majority leader, but it seems to have happened after adjournment. If that’s true, then presumably the vote is meaningless. However, unless things change then as soon as the Senate reconvenes they can do the same thing. The 2 democrats who defected in the vote would be people I would file under “good riddance to bad rubbish” but I don’t know how this will affect redistricting in 2010.
Elroy's Lunch
Yes. Which is why I’m swinging by my polling station after work (guess that makes me a 3-percenter) and casting a vote for Mr. Deeds.
I have some friends deeply involved in VA politics (Moran) and they were pretty much resigned to McAuliffe taking the nomination based on the size of his campaign war-chest. Interesting how things seemed to have turned out. Not so well for Terry it would seem.
omen
sarkozy has horrible poll numbers, last i heard.
Trinity
@DougJ
Is it too much to think that the post title is a shout out to Arcadia’s Election Day?
(Me = HUGE Duran Duran fan!)
LD50
@Brick Oven Bill:
BOB stands athwart history, shouting “back in my day, silver dollars had pictures of bumblebees on them!”
Brachiator
By the way, unless I miss my guess, a nice nod to The Who in the title to this thread.
omen
that fucker thought it was better idea to refurbish DNC headquarters than the spend money on actual elections during the midterms. angels will sing when this smug bastard goes down.
Tom65
Yes, and I will enjoy pissing on the ashes of his campaign this evening.
LD50
@omen:
It tickles me, tho perhaps the GOP won’t like being compared to Ahmadinejad:
DougJ
Actually, it was Duran Duran (“Election Day“).
Bill E Pilgrim
@omen:
That’s a good graph about Germany, and someone in the comments underlines what I saw in a chart this morning in the paper here in France: The first thing I noticed is that if you add the two main leftist parties they got more combined than the right did, 43% against 40%.
Of course, Anne Applebaum was immediately in the WAPO talking about people “turning away” from the left in massive and decisive ways, with the implication that they were turning toward a conservatism like ours. Which is patent nonsense.
That’s the real message here: Any interpretation that Europe has somehow validated or opted for US-style conservatism is disingenuousness of the highest order.
jl
OT, but GOP stays true to form. They are blocking Robert Groves, very respected and expert statistician, because he just has well-known expertise in just one too many fields. Apparently they fear he is liar, and will sneak some super sophisticated, but hidden, sampling based statistical adjustment to correct for undercounts in the 2010 census, even though he says he will not use that technique.
…he knows too much and is obviously tricky…
But I think Groves is best known for analysis of effect of non-response in surveys, and how to estimate the bias introduced by people who are missed in the sample, or cannot or will not respond, thereby thwarting the will of our statistician overlords.
This somehow concerns elections, so the host of this blog should have had a snappy one liner about it. IMHO.
GOP Blocks Census Nominee
…
Dr. Groves, director of the University of Michigan’s Survey Research Center and a former Census Bureau official, has raised concerns among mainly Republican lawmakers because he is an expert in sampling, the use of statistical adjustments to compensate for undercounted populations. Dr. Groves has said he won’t use the practice for the 2010 count.
…
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124450590106896197.html
nevsky42
Voted for Deeds this morning because he’ll be a damn fine governor, but I’d settle for McAuliffe failing miserably…
bago
5 bees for a quarter they used to say…
Brachiator
@DougJ:
Cool.
I had “I’ll get on my knees and pray … we don’t get fooled again” buzzing in my head so loudly I missed the other reference.
TenguPhule
They got it wrong.
“What does not kill you now will probably end up killing you later.”
Woody
I await only that first look of encouragement!
That is the treatment I think should greet every memeber of the discredited Bushevik regime anytime they appear in public. Cover them in rotten eggs and animal offal…
TenguPhule
There is no option but failure.
gnomedad
@LD50:
Run by Phil, the Prince of Insufficient Light.
LD50
I will believe that Europeans have chosen US-style conservatism when they embrace unbridled militarism, demand teaching Creationism in schools, and when they voluntarily give up their national healthcare with no alternative.
Alan
I’m not terribly up on it, but isn’t the European Parliament sort of, well, irrelevant? That is, it has little real power to affect peoples lives, most people don’t bother to vote on it so disproportionate influence goes to obsessive nutters, and generally, it’s like the political equivalent of the Eurovision contest? I have no idea, but that’s the impression I’ve gleaned. Is the fact that the British just put two fascists into it something I should actually be worried about?
LD50
@gnomedad:
Oh Jesus. In addition to all my other reasons to dislike Scott Adams, I see that he’s now ripped off an idea I’ve had for 20 years. Shithead.
Woody
I suspect, taking the whole 6.5 Billion population into account, it’s considerably further “right” than that, world-wise, unfortunately.
geg6
Since I never studied European political systems, I don’t pay much attention to them. And even when I do, I don’t feel qualified to analyze what is happening. I do, however, approve of any country that has a Pirate Party.
omen
@bago:
5 bees for a quarter they used to say…
never heard this expression. what does it mean?
TenguPhule
You forgot Taxcuts until their social services collapse and dragging gays to death behind gas guzzling trucks.
MikeJ
How do you feel about the Raving Monster Loony Party?
seonachan
You forgot Nova Scotia too. Good chance that the NDP (most to the left of the main parties) gets in there for the first time.
geg6
@MikeJ:
Isn’t that the GOP?
gnomedad
@LD50:
Sorry about that. I have to admit I love the idea of Phil carrying a spoon.
omen
@The Other Steve:
I believe the results in Lebanon are a clear repudiation of Obama’s speech last week.
how so?
Deborah
Does anyone besides Bill Clinton like McAuliffe?
omen
how cool is it that iceland’s new prime minister is lesbian?
Charon
Along with the many other excellent reasons already given to loathe Terry McAuliffe, it’s important to remember that he is a founding member of the “rake in ridiculous amounts of cash from financial institutions and then pay them back by allowing them to wreck the national economy” wing of the Democratic Party.
Trinity
@DougJ: Actually it is Arcadia – a Duran Duran off-shoot band.
LD50
Pretty cool, except that I fear she might have only gotten the job since no one else wanted to run a country undergoing total financial armageddon.
R-Jud
@Alan:
Pretty much, which is why the BNP were able to get in.
Voter turnout is dismal even in a GE over here, and for the MEP, I would be amazed if 25% of those eligible went out to vote. I asked around, and of about 30 or so people, Mr Jud is the only one who voted. (I’m not eligible; I have “permanent leave to remain” but didn’t opt for dual citizenship.)
Sebastien
I might as well try and contribute a bit, so here is a little rundown of the European elections in France.
First of all, voting was abysmal, with only about 40% people bothering to vote for an election neither the media nor the parties took seriously. The campaign was a complete dud.
UMP (Union pour la Majorité Présidentielle, Presidential Majority Party): self-proclamed inheritors of the Gaullist political principles through several incarnations (little anecdote: the last name change came during Jacques Chirac’s presidency, to put an end to the avalanche of scandals plaguing the former party.). Jacques Chirac’s vehicle to the Elysée, then Sarkozy’s. More or less equivalent to Democrats, with the notable exceptions noted by Bill E Pilgrim at 28. They are the clear winners with 27,8% of the vote. Nicolas Sarkozy, stable at a mediocre 43% of positive polls (I recall he dipped in the high 30s), was quite happy.
On the other hand, the Soc i alists (who have taken in my opinion a despicable right turn since the times of people like Gambetta or Jaurès) have taken another beating with a ridiculous 16,47%. Plagued with Democratic Party-like internal divisions, they simply don’t have any serious ideas to oppose to Sarkozy. And do I hate to write that…
At this very moment, a reunion tries to sort what went wrong and rebuild their political project.
The greatest surprise of the vote is the third place of a coalition of Ecologists parties and movements, which managed to get together people as different as Daniel Cohn-Bendit or José Bové. They are less than 300 000 votes behind the Soc i alists at 16,2% but its doubtful they will constitute a force in national elections, because of their very nature of an alliance born of extranational preoccupations.
As bad as the Soc i alists fare, François Bayrou, longtime Centrist (which in France basically meant for a long time simply swing politicians, but in recent years Bayrou, long treated as a doormat for the right, showed surprising pugnacity and ambition) and his ad hoc party the Mouvement Démocratique (Modem) expected far better than a pitiful 8,4%. Things are heating up right now in the party’s direction.
At 6,3%; the Front National of old racist dirtbag Jean Marie Le Pen looks like his near-retreated founder and still leader: old and pleasantly easy to forget. Le Pen’s daughter Marine is groomed by his father to take over the party and both are the FN’s only elected representatives. They will feel a bit more at home with their newly arrived BNP colleagues.
Lastly, the far-left, with a newly founded Front de Gauche (6%) and the old workhorse Communists (6%) (yes, we still have some !) make an honorable result, but their attention is more on the social front at home.
Krista
Our provincial election is today, and due to various difficulties that my non-profit employer has had with our current bureaucracy, the very existence of my organization pretty much rests on today’s outcome, according to my boss.
I can’t get that excited. Of course they’re all going to promise the sun, moon and stars when they’re vying for power. And then once they’re in, nothing will change, and we’ll continue slowly circling the drain. It really sucks that I’m going to have to do a hardcore job hunt in an economically depressed region while I’m on my maternity leave.
But, things could be worse. At least mat leave up here is a year, (albeit at 55% of my current salary), so I’ll have a good amount of time to look. And if anybody knows of any home-based jobs in communications, data entry, editing, customer service, or anything else that would require a high WPM typing ability and above-average writing skills, let me know.
Scott de B.
Hey, Hugh Grant cheated on Elizabeth Hurley. It’s not about the lack of attractiveness of one’s SO. It’s about swinging your dick around.
Charon
@omen:
I realize that it is folly to attempt to speak for another, but I had assumed that The Other Steve was engaging in snark.
More generally, it is worth noting that even had the opposition won a majority in the Lebanese elections it wouldn’t actually have been a win for Hezbollah. Hezbollah was always expected to do no more than retain its seats. The opposition gains were expected to come from a Christian party. While this party is indeed less Pro-West than the current governing coalition it would nevertheless look askance at Hezbollah attempting to construct a Shiite, Islamic fundamentalist state.
Little Dreamer
@Krista:
Krista, if you don’t remember my email, contact TZ and ask him to give it to you. I have lots of links to online data processing bidding sites.
On second thought, get it from TZ either way, because you may have the old hotmail addy.
DougJ
Yeah, you’re right.
Ash
Europe has always been sort of confusing to me, which is obviously a problem because I/you/people tend to analyze things through the left/right way it is in America. It’s always boggled me how free they are about sex and drugs, yet it’s still (somewhat) acceptable to wave around swastikas and throw banana peels at black soccer players. That may be because of the sex and drugs though…
Tom65
I’m so confused – first Europe is a socialist paradise, and now they’re “center-right”?
I can’t keep up.
Brachiator
@omen:
Ice cold. Duh!
Yeah, but Berlusconi imagines himself to be the Hugh Hefner of Italian politics. So, for example, we have this:
“At the end of April 2009, Veronica Lario wrote an open letter expressing her anger at Berlusconi’s choice of young, attractive female candidates—some with little or no political experience—to represent the party in the 2009 European Parliament elections.”
However, to be fair, Maria Rosaria Carfagna, appointed Minister for Equal Opportunity, who has been called “the most beautiful minister in the world” and who was ranked number one on Maxim’s “World´s Hottest Politicians” does actually have some legal and intellectual background to go with her hot-babe status.
TenguPhule
No it’s not.
Swastikas will get you arrested in at least two countries in Europe. And that’s if you’re lucky enough for the police to get to you before the angry mob does.
Krista
Thanks! I’ll drop TZ a line later.
Ash
@TenguPhule: http://deadspin.com/142565/
Of course most of this stuff happens at soccer games, that seems to really bring out the crazy in people. The point still stands though, that as liberal as they are about so many other things, the overt racism mystifies me.
R-Jud
@Ash:
Yep, all those countries invaded by the Germans in WWII just looooooooooooove showing off the swastikas.
bago
@omen: Imagine this at full speed.
Bill E Pilgrim
@Scott de B.: <blockquoteHey, Hugh Grant cheated on Elizabeth Hurley. It’s not about the lack of attractiveness of one’s SO. It’s about swinging your dick around.
If that’s your idea of a good time.
Not you I mean, but you know.
Just saying. Weird technique.
Calouste
@Ash:
Overt racism compared to what? At least in Europe the overt racism is limited to the fringe parties, and not a center position in one of the two main parties as it is in the US. I don’t think a Lou Dobbs or a Pat Buchanan would make it as a news show host in Europe.
MikeJ
To be fair to the US, the GOP is a fringe party. You just wouldn’t guess it from watching TV.
Johnny B. Guud
Bingo.
On the recent Berlusconi scandal:
Berlusconi’s government just won re-election. That should answer all of your questions about Italian politics.
Johnny B. Guud
Apologies for the lousy block-quoting on #108
AhabTRuler
@Johnny B. Guud: Trust me, it’s not your fault. Just close your eyes and think of the edit feature (it rarely helps with blockquotes anymore, but think of all the dumb typos you can disappear!).
Calouste
Btw, there are pictures of one of Berlusconi’s parties published in the Spanish newspaper El Pais (www.elpais.com). Very NSFW.
There is one of a man in an extremely advanced state of undress sporting something that sounds similar to the name of a certain orange-colored Republican politician. That man is the former PM of the Czech Republic.
Johnny B. Guud
@AhabTRuler: Ha! Then it’s not my fault I almost punched a hole in my monitor…
Johnny B. Guud
And don’t forget, Italy had their Terri Schiavo moment earlier this year (emphasis mine):
The Grand Panjandrum
Al Giordano isn’t fond of him. His write up of the fetid swamp McAuliffe represents might be as good as anything he wrote during the 2008 election cycle.
chuck
“Center-Right World” my ass! You fergot South America, and El Salvador just inaugurated a left-wing President (FMLN) after the FMLN dominated the provincial & municipal politics for years. 21 years ago, this guy woulda been shot in the middle of a campaign speech, or worse.
Weasle
One thing that might’ve been mentioned above, but which I didn’t read, is that the turnout in this election was very low. In Germany for example, only 42-43% of voters turned out to cast a ballot – the lowest percentage in a vote in over a century.
Another thing is that the parties in Germany are much more socialistic than those found in the US. The SPD (Socialist Partei Deutschland) is Socialist and only to the Right of The Left Partei, which is what is left of the Communist Party – mostly in what was Eastern Germany – both gained seats. The Greens did very well. The Christian Democrats, or Socialist Christian Party in Bavaria gained the most. These are right for Germany, but would be off the radar in the US.
Also, this was a mid-term election, so it doesn’t really predict patterns too well, as conservatives are most likely to vote in these electiosn. Watch for the elections later this year to see real trends.
CalD
Thanks for posting the article on Iranian elections. The beating down of Iran’s (formerly) budding political reform movement in the opening created for hardliners by President Sh!t-for-Brains’ famous “Axis of Evil” speech had always struck me as one of the great unsung tragedies of Bush administration “foreign policy.” It’s really nice to see them starting to show signs of life again.
It occurs to me that the while PNAC’ers in the Bush administration may have failed pretty miserably (and predictably) in their half-baked designs on transforming the Middle East in our own image, the Bushies arguably did succeed in making the US look a lot more like a lot of the Middle East. In a region stereotypically characterized by hostile, paranoid, xenophobic theocracies, mistrusted by their neighbors and shunned by all respectable nations of the world, we’d pretty well fit right in by the time they were done.
slightly_peeved
The comparison of European centre-right to US centre-right is ludicrous. Universal health care and a social safety net are settled issues in the rest of the world, and they don’t even get wholehearted support from the Democratic party.
This is what scares the Republican party – at least those bits of it aware of a world outside the US. In Europe and much of the rest of the world, there is no debate that the government can help people – the debate is over which ways the government should help people. The Republican or libertarian idea that the government can’t do anything right doesn’t get much traction.
Wasn’t this the Republican ticket last year?
From what I’ve seen, the Republican stance on immigration – heck, the Republican stance on Latin America in general – isn’t particularly subtle. Not to say there’s no problem with racism in Europe, or even that it’s particuarly better than the US; just that the differences are a bit more complex than that.
In Terry Pratchett’s book Eric, he explores this concept a bit further. He really explores the concept of banal evil. I’d say more, but then I’d spoil it.
Tom65
McAuliffe got his ass kicked – hard:
60% reporting:
Creigh Deeds 85,600 (50%)
Terry McAuliffe 44,377 (26%)
Brian Moran 40,362 (24%)
so Terry does his usual – raise shitloads of cash and lose anyway.
Door, ass, etc. See ya, Terry.