Comments on: Europe gets a new constitution — sort of

By: Charles Richardson

Charles Richardson — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 20:09:25 +0000

Thanks everyone for the feedback. Yes, I was aware of the other meaning of “teabagging”, but the crazies in the US applied it to themselves - evidently without first looking it up on urbandictionary.

Italy is interesting: the right is certainly racist, or at least pandering to racism. But I think the immigration issue is a bit of a special case in Europe - it plays into “national identity” issues in a differen way from anything in the US or Australia. Berlusconi’s government actually isn’t very right wing in other ways - he refused to send troops to Iraq, for example, until the invasion was safely over.

The distinction between left & right supposedly goes back to the French national assembly of the revolutionary period, where the more radical members sat on the left of the chamber. It’s one of those things that’s hopelessly muddled in theory but nonetheless still works in practice. I criticise it myself, but can’t help using it.

By: Tomboy

Tomboy — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 21:53:22 +0000

Can anyone please enlighten how the designations “left” and “right” came about? I mean, how come it isn’t the other way around? And furthermore, where to anarchists sit? Maybe the distinctions “left” “right” and “centre” are no longer appropriate - they are two-dimensinal. How can one describe political philosophies that are based on deconstructed versions of “left”, “right”, and “centre”? Maybe it’s time (no pun intended) to do away with two-dimensional views, and replace them with multidimensional perspectives…

By: Rick Cleverick

Rick Cleverick — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 10:02:44 +0000

You might want to look up the meaning of “teabagging”. Unless you meant that, of course. It’s entirely precise, but whether it’s appropriate…

By: Bogdanovist

Bogdanovist — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 08:51:11 +0000

This certainly does not reflect the situation in Italy. The mainstream ruling political parties of Berlusconi and his allies the Lega Nord (Northern League) would make Pauline Hanson blush! I’m living in northern Italy at the moment and the campaign posters put during the recent EU parliament elections were horrendous. Here are some examples of Lega Nord posters (they get around 20-30% of the vote in northern electorates and are as I say a coalition partner of Berlusconi’s party):

“They had rapid immigration and now they live in a reservation”. Complete with cartoon picture of a native American Chieftain.

“For the defense of radical christianity and for saying no to the Turkish in Europe”

“Enough Burqas”. This one was accompanied by photo of the candidate literally tearing a burqa off a woman he was holding down. That one was really scary, especially the cheesey shit eating grin he was wearing while doing it.

There are also plenty of eastern European mainstream political parties that hold some pretty scary views, so it’s not all rosey and enlightened in Europe.

By: Jim Reiher

Jim Reiher — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 03:55:08 +0000

Interesting observations. I lament the so called “middle” or “centre” in Australia.

Go back a couple of decades (just before Hawke became PM - around that time) and you had from left to right:

Labor / Democrat / Liberal / National

and with the appearance and growth of the Greens:

Green / Labor / Democrat / Liberal / National

The centre in those days was kind of Democrat - you know: economically like the Libs but socially progressive and reasonable on the whole…..

But then… under Hawke and especially Keating, Labor shifted:

Green / / Democrat / Labor / Liberal / National

And then with the demise of the Democrats:

Green / / Labor/ Liberal/ National

And now the so-called centre (shifting centre) is somewhere in the ?Liberal? camp!

But it is not really “centre” at all. It is right. We just don’t have much to fill the gap that has been left behind by movement of Labor and loss of Democrats.

And in the end, for someone with my bias and my lens that I see things through… who wants the middle anyway? Middle is a relative term. More power to the Greens I say.