As a British person, I had a few awkward conversations with other British people when I've asked them to explain the difference between a royal or a higher level aristocrat and an oligarch.
It seems to be something to do with the length of time society had to endure their bastardry. Well, it's either that or that they're not from the Oligar region of Russia. Its one of the two.
Would you still feel that way, about the very first part, if I was to remind you that some of the Russian oligarchs were crime bosses who took power and wealth by force?
Admittedly, it doesn't have the hereditary rule part but that, for me, would simple fall under "the difference is the passage of time." I see it much like the difference between a cult and a religion.
While balance can be good some times, the idea that a group of business interests and oligarchs coming together for the sole purpose of lowering their tax bills and buying the nations assets for peanuts, maskerading as a political party, could provide said balance is a strange one.
Conserving the established power and wealth as well as keeping everyone else down is the only thing they look to conservatives look to conserve. The rest is the lies they tell, in order to get in to do it.
On the other hand even trying to level everyone to the lowest level is wrong.
If only there was a third option. Somewhere between "a doctor and a kitchen hand earning the same money" and human greed, expressed in economic form. Oh well, never mind I guess.
True, the correct balance would be conserve the power and let everyone else to rise, but I undestand it is an utopian vision (the established power would never allow it).
Its not so much that. Its that their power is power over other people. Its the power to charge a levy (exactly like a tax) on the money people earn for using their things etc. The idea that one can be lifted while the other is retained is a contraction in terms.
but the conservatives are now starting to talk to them again while the progressives are still talking only to themself in an ivory tower.
Considering the conservatives are about to be whiped out at the next election, I hope that was meant to be ironic.
However, if we are to talk about Italy, its always had a problem with fascism, being its birthplace and all. A millenniam long hangover from Romes slave economies and Christianity is to blame for what makes it very much the outlier and not the norm here.
The point is: don’t trust the polls, especially if there is a social stigma associated with one of the options.
Its true, most right wingers are selfish cowards. Although, lets be real, the polls are never that wrong.
The reason people will vote right wing is because Italy has a problem with fascism? Well, thats an interesting take.
I mean, if anyone is upset at their purchase power dropping, having to live with their parents or lines at the food kitchen and chooses to vote right wing because of it, they're beyond stupid. Nothing anyone could say to them would work, as you can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into.
"I know, I'll vote for the people who are directly funded by the groups who directly profit from those problems! I'm so smart!"
What do you even say to that kind of "thinking"?
"No, its not that you're stupid, its just that, actually, when your house is on fire, its generally considered more sensible to reach for the fire extinguisher instead of the flame thrower. I know, I know, I've heard the term fight fire with fire before too. However, I'll tell you what I told my friend, shortly after they lost their job. No, you can't always fight fire with fire. Especially when you're a firefighter, you doughnut."
To me, you described a cowardly act that we agreed is carried out by most right wingers.
Oh well, the one about Trump was
Fair enough "never" was too far.
No, the reason people in Italy vote right wing is because the left wing has nothing to offer.
Thats just an overly sweeping, thought terminating, cliché thats only ever said by people who would never vote left of Reagan anyway. You'll excuse me if I don't bother arguing that "da left" policies =/= zero, I'm sure.
agree. But you are missing the point, which is that they voted for the only side that at least acknowledges there are problems.
I think you would struggle to show me anything with "the left" saying there are no problems. They might not agree with made up problems that don't contribute to the difficulties people face but that's not the same thing.
Wrong, the choice is between a side (the left) that consider you as part of the problem and a side (the right) that promise you to solve the problem. What do you think a person will vote ?
Of course, I must be wrong. Its not wealthy business interests who benefit from the housing crisis or falling wages. No, clearly its the left! Sorry, I'm not going to fall for the "considers you part of the problem" rhetoric. Youre either lying to push some "you can't even be white these days" trope or are genuinely part of the problem and deserve it.
It is really simple: the left had its chance, they failed and so people vote for the alternative. To continue to vote for the same people that create the problem is not that intelligent either.
The right have been in power in Italy and the UK and have been for years. When will you lot grow up and admit your own mistakes and abject failure to do anything other than make already very rich people far richer? The right wing are the ones who had their chance and their time is over, for now, and much deserved. They only ever have one goal which is why they only ever achieve one thing: that.
Again, fair enough. They can think that it is a made up problem. But what should be the correct answer ? Because if I say “look, there is too many illegal immigrants around in this area of Milano (Stazione Centrale) and it is not safe because of the petty crimes”, the answer could not be “you are too ignorant to understand why it is not a problem”, you should explain to my how having thousands of illegal immigrant around living by petty crimes is not a problem, if you can (just an example btw).
"The left" aren't pro illegal migration, never have been and never will be. Thats a right wing trope and anyone who falls for it is a moron, sorry. Not allowing in vast amounts of cheap labour, to bring down wages, benefits the people funding the right wing parties, not anyone remotely left leaning. I'm also willing to bet that the bigger problem is the legal migration system the right wing allowed business interests to fuck into the ground, to stop wages from rising.
Or if I ask for more kindergartens so I can have children you cannot answer to me that we are already too many and the next week say that we need to welcome more immigrants because the population is declining.
How do you think tax cuts for the rich are paid for? All the money that should be going towards those things are going into the wealthy pockets of the people who then convince you the problem is anything but them.
Ok, assuming you are right, where is the benefit of a housing crisis where young people could not buy an house
The housing crisis for you and me is the record profit boon for landlords and property developers. Very few groups support the right wing more than they do. They'll have to switch to topping it up with public money going into their pockets soon enough, for a longer term solution, like they do in the UK.
Given that the left was in power (in one way or another) for more than 20 years of the last 30 years,
Youre saying they haven't been in power for 6 years but its still all their fault? That seems a stretch.
Continuing to call me “part of the problem”
I never said that once let alone continued. Please drop the victim complex and some people do stupid things. I do stupid things too. However, believing the right wing will save people from themselves is a stupid thing i don't do. But sure, keep acting the victim and blaming everyone else. See if that makes me vote for you.
Ok, then a brutal question: why are they opposing the mass deportation of illegal immigrants ?
Theres probably a lot more to it than that. I certain you could even answer your own question. It might be along the lines of "not deported there or not like that etc."
Where are all these empty houses? Even then, they appreciate in value, even empty and propery price appreciation is the best place for a trust fund based in the caymans to obscure ownership of earnings. There isn't a bigger effect from a few empty properties than house prices exploding 2 of 300% in a couple of decades.
I don’t understand this idea that the rich are the source of all the problems. Yeah, they may not pay that much taxes but they are also a really small number.
There dont need to be many of them. Their source of power is their wealth, not their number. If it was about numbers, you and I would have that power.
The question is: can we really blame someone that have (or think to have) a problem when he vote for the side that at least acknowledge the problem ? Yeah, most of the time he would not belive in what that side promise but what’s the alternative ?
Thats a fair point. To me, one is clearly the lesser evil. I can agree that lesser evil arguments suck but its the best I can find, personally. I choose the one I see as the side who won't deliberately make it worse for us and better for the people they represent. Personally, I'm a post structuralist and I don't think anyone can be trusted enough to allow mechanisms of power and hierarchy to exist.
Probably not.
I'm just saying, I think you and I are past rhetoric, by now.
However, short of a utopian, philosophers revolution, the best I have to offer is a lesser evil argument. Thats where I'm at. The way I see it, maybe wrongly, is that people on the right share my same frustration but that's been captured by the very powers that force it on them in the first place. They have our neighbours looking down to find the solution and not up, where the problem has always been.
So people prefer to keep the houses empty and take the cost, knowing where renting it lawfully could led.
Wow, you would think all that market pressure would make house prices fall. Surely people would want to sell those properties, as renting sounds like a death sentence. Its almost as if they're lying and making a killing as they're doing it.
and have the message delivered.
How did the message delivery work out for you?
I think that both your lesser evil approach and mine “vote for someone else just because” approach are not good enough to offer a stable solution.
The houses price would fall if all these houses would be put on the market at (roughly) the same time......
It seems that you answered your own question. You didn't need me at all. I was just getting in your way.
Well, if only the left wing would understand the message it would be better, but at least they are not in any position to make more damages.
Why is the problem not that the message is from people who have been deliberately miss informed, through no fault of their own, or even that the right haven't made their message good enough? Why does it have to be someone else's failing?
Yeah. And I am afraid that there seems not to be an alternative
By design of course. I mean, who would choose to live in an employment based, market fundamentalist society where its socialism for the rich and rugged, free market wage slavery for everyone else, if there was any alternative? You can see it from American foreign policy. "Socialism must fail everywhere its tried." Not "socialism will fail" or that it will probably fail because its sooooo rubbish. No, they have to ensure it does, as official policy. In that statement they admit that nearly any alternative would be preferable.
Therein is the hypocrisy of the position. Its the lefts fault for not listening and for not being heard. I mean, could it possibly be because a large group of very stubborn and fact resistant people have declared their the lefts policies literally equal zero? Could it be that people refuse to listen, regardless of what the left says? No, that would be crazy talk. Its everyone else's fault......
How do you get through to someone who has just declared not-zero to be zero and refuses to accept that what they made up is factually untrue? Is it my fault they do that?
The ones that saw how the supposed alternatives (socialism and comunism) worked out. I don’t know how old are you, but I am old enough to.....
That was fascism with red trim and nothing close to what socialism was meant to aim for.
So I much prefer the actual system, it seems to be the least bad of all the other
You don't seem to like that argument when "the other ones are bad" comes from the left and not trying anything else is the mentality of a depressive who views hope as a dangerous illusion.
Nah, I think USA have a very peculiar definition of socialism, they are too much “me centered” to understand everything else.
And while it is true what you say about the American foreing policy, you would have found the opposite in the socialist and comunist states foreign policy.
Youre missing the point. The point is, by their own policy, they admit that socialism doesn't just fail of its own accord, as they claim it does. The point isn't that an equivalent doesn't exist.
Well, for not listening is obvious, they are the ones not listening.
Obvious to who? To the person declaring that no one is listening to them? What would the difference between them not listening and you being ignored, as you were wrong look like?
For not being heard is a little more complex. Maybe they are heard but simply their message is irrelevant to the listener, or maybe is wrong or targeted to the wrong audience. I mean, you can try to talk about cricket to me and I will not get your message since I don’t care about cricket. Is it your fault ? No, you cannot know everything I am interested in. But it become your fault if you don’t understand that I don’t care about cricket and you continue to talk only about it.
The problems come when people such as yourself claim the problem to be due to football, despite being caused by cricket, and then when you try to explain to them the problem is actually cricket they tell you they don't care about cricket. Therefor, the problem must be football.
A too simple example but I get the gist. Short answer: you cannot and it is not your fault.
With the greatest respect, you're doing that exact thing now.
But the problem with politics is not that until today people are leftist and from tomorrow they suddently become fascists, even if this is what some part of the left like to think, but that it is a process. And since it is a process it is a fault of each parties if they don’t understand it: it is a fault from the left if they don’t understand the process that drive their voters to vote for the right and likewise is a fault of the right if they don’t understand the process that drive their voters to vote for the left.
Lol stalin was always a fascist. Simply declaring oneself to be a socialist doesn't make someone a socialist. For example, even the nazis claimed to be socialists. I agree with the latter part though.
I am afraid that trying something on a State level is way too dangerous, especially if the “something” already failed more then one time.
Capitalism has failed the 99.9% every single time, yet you're okay to stick with that. It failed the planet and our our grandchildren. Please don't come to me with that.
I get the point: there are two opposing blocks and each one is actively trying to make the other fail. So ?
So, by their own admission, it doesn't fail of its own accord, like capitalism.
To everyone with critical thinking. There is a part that ask about a problem and the other part never talk about the problem, it is open to be seen. And I have no problem to say that this is true to some extend both for the left and the right.
I agree that it can be both but it wasn't clear to me at the time that you meant both. Maybe we just got out wired crossed there.
There would not be any difference in the end result, which is why people feel they are ignored. Personally I can get that I can be wrong but if you don’t even try to explain to me the reason, the only conclusion I can make is that you are not listening to me.
I feel like the other side would say that they have explained it to you and you rejected what that said and didn't listen to them.
I don’t think you are right. For example, if people claims that a part of the city is dangerous because all the (documented) petty crimes committed you cannot answer that the problem is that there are not enough bike paths in the city, people could rightfully say that they don’ t care about bike paths if they cannot walk on the street without being robbed.
Sure but its not their foreign-ness or their being from a different race that makes it happen. It's general poverty. The way the right frames it is as if they wouldn't care if the crimes were committed by italians or that italians would never do those things. Its simply that the poorest do those things. Those types happen to be the poorest. Not saying you, personally of course or that they actaully think that but thats how they frame it.
Then I suppose that you can make an example of a actual nation where socialism (or any other system) works better.
Can you name an example of a socialist country that wasn't attacked as much as possible, by the worlds only super power, specifically to ensure that socialism failed? Of course, you can't. No one can. It would be like me tripping you up and then claiming you can walk properly.
Define you use of "better" here. Better in what way and for whom?
And, btw, it is not only capitalism that supposedly failed the planet.
For sure, it's not only capitalism. However, when you have the same economic outlook as cancer, you can't act surprised when you kill the hosts ability to sustain life. We can't logically justify an economic model thats incompatible with not having to demand perpetual growth on a finite planet.
It was a fight. The strongest won. If socialism was that better, it should have won.
No, one side wanted to fight. The others wanted to he left alone. The problem is, capitalism can't tolerate any alternatives, as people will choose them over capitalism. Your other option HAS to be to starve on the street. Isnt it weird that no one sees a problem with those being your only two choices?
Also, capitalism had over a century's head start. I mean, its very true to capitalist form that you refuse to admit the outrageous advantage some groups start with, lest you accidentally acknowledge the fundamental problem with capitalism. However, let's be fair here. I mean, even without that, the number of people living under each is vastly different.
It is an option, of course. And sometimes it happen. But many more times did not. What it seems is that the left wing lost their ability to talk to the common people on the street, which historically was their voters. It is an open discussion here that the right basically win over the left taking over the arguments the left had until 5/10 years ago. As i said, it was a process.
I put it to you that its not that they dont listen, its that they (despite having listened) disagree. As a group, its been decided that it must be that they didn't listen because who could disagree with something so True^^^^tm ? I would also add that the UK labour party which is the closet thing we have to a left just won nearly the greatest landslide in their history, forcing the tories to the lowest seats since thd 1830s, specifically because the right lost the common people in the street. How do we reconcile that with such a broad term as "the left wing" when talking about the ability to talk to the common person in the street?
True, but they can easily frame this way because is what people see. In these areas people don’t see Italians, they see migrants because the migrants are there, not Italians. They see that are migrants that commit the petty crimes (I’ve seen more than one myself), not the Italians. True, maybe the right exaggerate this, but the people see this.
I'm not saying they don't see this. I'm saying they're wrong to associate it with their foreign-ness which I'm glad we seem to agree on. But you simply can't counter that kind of weaponsied ignorance. The only way to is to sink as low as the people making it out to be due to their foreign-ness and not their being poor. But then you're not the good guys anymore. So, its pointless. To me, I have to just accept that some people simply don't even care what the truth is too. I mean, its what they see but they're an adult and its a simple explanation.
Honestly, if I see that in a certain zone (Central Station for example) the majority of the petty crimes I saw was committed by foreigners or people from a different races, my logical conclusion could be that these people are a problem, which in itself did not exclude the Italians, but simply start from the more visible aspect. I agree that it could be limitating of course.
Violent crime per capita has fallen across the world for centuries now. You think its bad now, you should have see the state of it 100 years ago or even 30. Thats why we have to go with data analysis. That doesn't make it less intimidating or not a problem. But it also means that what the right is using for is a lie (blaming the economic situation on them).
Can you name an example of a socialist country that wasn’t attacked as much as possible, by the worlds only super power, specifically to ensure that socialism failed? Of course, you can’t. No one can. It would be like me tripping you up and then claiming you can walk properly.
All the comunist block before 1990.
But they were attacked all the time. They were excluded and cut off from the rest of the world too. There isn't an instance of it failing of its own accord or unmolested. Would you accept me tripping you over and using that to claim you fail at walking? I don't imagine you would.
Better for the common people. Back at the time, my parents had it a lot better than the equivalent parents in a comunist/socialist state.
And now their children and grandchildren will have less than them. Yes, I agree that socialist states are starved by the rest of the world. Even more so, if its not socialism for everyone, its not socialism at all. None of those countries were socialist.
Agree on that.
But I just described capitalism.
I distinctly remember that URSS tried pretty hard to destroy capitalism, like USA tried to destroy socialism. So URSS never wanted to quit the fight, they simply lost it.
Let's say that was true, how about Cuba and all the Latin American countries that tried to be socialist, until America "liberated" them from what they had democratically chosen? Even then, what has convinced you that anyone would choose to be dumb enough to cut themselves of from the counties that make up nato? Also, it was American policy of containment. Also also, the ussr was awful, just to be clear.
As I said, I do not know how old are you, but I am old enough to remember that at the time the end result of the socialism was the exact same result of the capitalism: few ultrarich and powerfull people and a lot of poor people. Difference was that poor people from the west were anyway richer than the poor people in the comunist block, even if it started a century later. For some aspect it was way better: they arrive at the same result starting way later.
If you genuinely beleive the USSR was socialist then you simply do not know what socialism is. I'm sorry to be blunt. I don't know how old you are either but I'm old enough to know what that word means and that simply declaring ones self to be something doesn't make someone that thing. If I paint something orange and declare it to be blue, its still orange.
They weren't poor because they were socialist. They didn't lose because they were socialist. They lost because the richest countries in the world they would lose. Firstly, they weren't socialist. Secondly, they could have had any model ever and they would have lost. Capitalism has to claim victory for the things it isn't responsible for and blame everything else for the things it is responsible for.
Heres a good thought experiment, try defending capitalism on its OWN merit. For that, a person can't just claim others to be bad or worse of course. They also can't claim the things that we have due to the passage of time, like medicine. Otherwise, you're claiming that those things would never have happened if capitalism didn't happen which would, on reflection, obviously be very silly.
To me, this smacks of the MRSA problem the NHS (UK) had.
MRSA is an antibiotic resistant bacterial skin infection people can get and people were getting them in UK hospital. It does happen in hospitals but the rates of infection were too consistently high at the time because they weren't catching outbreaks soon enough and when they did, they didnt act soon enough.
After the public and news groups became aware of the problem, reforms were promised. An investigation showed that new, improved reporting measures should fix the problem. When they implemented the policies from the investigation and improved their reporting practices, you'll never guess what, reported cases of MRSA went up!
What a surprise.
If you had continued the trend lines from that, then I'm sure you can guess the kind of inflated "top end" figures you'd end up at.
I mean, there might turn out to be a problem but you also have to account for improvements in reporting standards.
The real problem is, improvements in reporting standards and improvements in interdepartmental coordination is boring as fuck! Who wants to read about that?
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Also "parasite". ( lemmy.world )
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