8 ms·

Just as one example, the FPö, which just very narrowly lost the Austrian elections, was literally founded by nazis. They explicitly promote an ethnic-nationalis

by m_fayer 10y ago

Just as one example, the FPö, which just very narrowly lost the Austrian elections, was literally founded by nazis. They explicitly promote an ethnic-nationalist Austrian identity at the expense of any notion of cosmopolitanism or post-nationalism. Their frequent talk of Heimat is not all that different from the blut und boden of earlier times. If this isn't right-wing identity politics, I don't know what is.

RGamma 10y ago
So? Doesn't mean they plan a genocide or aggressive expansionist policies... Japan has been doing something similar for years, only there it's apparently not called "right-wing politics"
- vidarh 10y ago
  Since when was planning genocide a pre-requisite to be considered right-wing?
- kristopolous 10y ago
  Lebensraum was about unifying a diaspora of German speaking people into one collective country. These people want racially based geopolitical partitioning. The ones with a diaspora and victimhood narrative certainly advocate for an aggressive "homeland of the x people" where racist law keeps it that way.
  - emp_zealoth 10y ago
    TOOT-TOOT! Fact-checking police: (...)Lebensraum was an ideological element of Nazism, which advocated Germany's territorial expansion into Eastern Europe(...) As the very name says - "living space"
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - kristopolous 10y ago
      You seem to be correct! My mistake! I know what I described was a Nazi policy but after reading wikipedia, Lebensraum wasn't the name of it. Thank you for the education and correction
- m_fayer 10y ago
  We're not talking about possible genocide or expansionism, I was simply responding to: > The "moving to the right" analysis is wrong both in Europa and in the US. As for Japan, Shinzo Abe and his Liberal Democratic Party are widely regarded as nationalist/center-right/right both within Japan and without. There's nothing controversial about this characterisation.
- bovermyer 10y ago
  "Right-wing identity politics" does not automatically equate to genocide or expansionism. However, historically, nationalistic states usually exhibit a widespread "if you're not one of us, then you're at best a nuisance" attitude. Mid-20th-century Germany, Japan, and Italy are just the most obvious examples.
ThomPete 10y ago
The unified Europe was originally a nazi idea. Can we please move the intellectual level up a bit?
- pluma 10y ago
  The European Union was pretty much created to prevent Germany from starting another war (or more generally: to maintain peace in Europe). The nazis wanted to "unify" Europe only in the sense that they wanted to annex all European nations and exert unlimited control over them. They weren't interested in creating a European identity, they merely wanted Germans to rule all of Europe (but not make Europeans Germans -- after all Europe was full of untermenschen they wanted nothing to do with). In other words "unifying Europe" under the doctrine of Lebensraum basically meant conquering more territory for Germans to settle (and enslaving, deporting or exterminating the local population as necessary). Unless you're saying the EU wants to literally do that, the comparison is hyperbolic at best (and defamatory at worst).
  - ThomPete 10y ago
    Yes you are completely right. It wasn't meant as a serious argument. It was a reaction just as silly as then one it was answering.
    - pluma 10y ago
      You say that, but I've seen this argument presented as serious criticism of the EU before, so Poe's law aside I guess it's worth refuting.
      - ThomPete 10y ago
        Yes I have seen that to. Just as I have seen serious arguments trying to turn current voters for right-wing companies into nazis. Thats what I was reacting to by putting just as ridicules a claim out there.
- danmaz74 10y ago
pluma 10y ago
It's important to realize that while Germany went throughout an extensive period of "Denazification" after WW2, Austria did much less so. This process is probably the main reason even today Germans tend to be rather averse to warmongering and nationalism. It's only been a few years since Germans have become comfortable with publicly displaying German flags in support of German sports teams again -- the phenomenon was so strange to us Germans that it actually gathered a lot of media attention within Germany. I'd even go so far as to say that the differemce om Denazification in the American zone compared to the Soviet zone is one of the reasons far-right parties are doing better in former East Germany than in former West Germany to this day (although the economical consequences of the fall of the German Democratic Republic and the lower population density likely play a bigger role). While Austria was subject to Denazification its role has always been seen as more of a conspirator: it wasn't Austria that created the Third Reich, Germany annexed Austria and made them subject to the Third Reich. That Hitler himself was Austrian is treated as nothing more than an interesting factoid -- after all his rise to power started in Munich, which is in Germany (or at least Bavaria -- which btw has been politically dominated by the right-of-center Christian Social Union for decades) after all. As a German I can't possibly say what Austrians think of their role in the Third Reich but from a German perspective it seems to boil down to "that thing Germany did and got us involved in". There certainly doesn't seem to be the same level of cultural guilt and political paranoia.

by m_fayer 10y ago

RGamma 10y ago

So? Doesn't mean they plan a genocide or aggressive expansionist policies... Japan has been doing something similar for years, only there it's apparently not called "right-wing politics"

vidarh 10y ago
Since when was planning genocide a pre-requisite to be considered right-wing?
kristopolous 10y ago
Lebensraum was about unifying a diaspora of German speaking people into one collective country. These people want racially based geopolitical partitioning. The ones with a diaspora and victimhood narrative certainly advocate for an aggressive "homeland of the x people" where racist law keeps it that way.
- emp_zealoth 10y ago
  TOOT-TOOT! Fact-checking police: (...)Lebensraum was an ideological element of Nazism, which advocated Germany's territorial expansion into Eastern Europe(...) As the very name says - "living space"
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - kristopolous 10y ago
    You seem to be correct! My mistake! I know what I described was a Nazi policy but after reading wikipedia, Lebensraum wasn't the name of it. Thank you for the education and correction
m_fayer 10y ago
We're not talking about possible genocide or expansionism, I was simply responding to: > The "moving to the right" analysis is wrong both in Europa and in the US. As for Japan, Shinzo Abe and his Liberal Democratic Party are widely regarded as nationalist/center-right/right both within Japan and without. There's nothing controversial about this characterisation.
bovermyer 10y ago
"Right-wing identity politics" does not automatically equate to genocide or expansionism. However, historically, nationalistic states usually exhibit a widespread "if you're not one of us, then you're at best a nuisance" attitude. Mid-20th-century Germany, Japan, and Italy are just the most obvious examples.

ThomPete 10y ago

The unified Europe was originally a nazi idea. Can we please move the intellectual level up a bit?

pluma 10y ago
The European Union was pretty much created to prevent Germany from starting another war (or more generally: to maintain peace in Europe). The nazis wanted to "unify" Europe only in the sense that they wanted to annex all European nations and exert unlimited control over them. They weren't interested in creating a European identity, they merely wanted Germans to rule all of Europe (but not make Europeans Germans -- after all Europe was full of untermenschen they wanted nothing to do with). In other words "unifying Europe" under the doctrine of Lebensraum basically meant conquering more territory for Germans to settle (and enslaving, deporting or exterminating the local population as necessary). Unless you're saying the EU wants to literally do that, the comparison is hyperbolic at best (and defamatory at worst).
- ThomPete 10y ago
  Yes you are completely right. It wasn't meant as a serious argument. It was a reaction just as silly as then one it was answering.
  - pluma 10y ago
    You say that, but I've seen this argument presented as serious criticism of the EU before, so Poe's law aside I guess it's worth refuting.
    - ThomPete 10y ago
      Yes I have seen that to. Just as I have seen serious arguments trying to turn current voters for right-wing companies into nazis. Thats what I was reacting to by putting just as ridicules a claim out there.
danmaz74 10y ago

pluma 10y ago

It's important to realize that while Germany went throughout an extensive period of "Denazification" after WW2, Austria did much less so. This process is probably the main reason even today Germans tend to be rather averse to warmongering and nationalism. It's only been a few years since Germans have become comfortable with publicly displaying German flags in support of German sports teams again -- the phenomenon was so strange to us Germans that it actually gathered a lot of media attention within Germany. I'd even go so far as to say that the differemce om Denazification in the American zone compared to the Soviet zone is one of the reasons far-right parties are doing better in former East Germany than in former West Germany to this day (although the economical consequences of the fall of the German Democratic Republic and the lower population density likely play a bigger role). While Austria was subject to Denazification its role has always been seen as more of a conspirator: it wasn't Austria that created the Third Reich, Germany annexed Austria and made them subject to the Third Reich. That Hitler himself was Austrian is treated as nothing more than an interesting factoid -- after all his rise to power started in Munich, which is in Germany (or at least Bavaria -- which btw has been politically dominated by the right-of-center Christian Social Union for decades) after all. As a German I can't possibly say what Austrians think of their role in the Third Reich but from a German perspective it seems to boil down to "that thing Germany did and got us involved in". There certainly doesn't seem to be the same level of cultural guilt and political paranoia.