How can progressive "European patriots" protect Europe from the right-populists who want to destroy Europe as we know it?
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That is what I wonder. Don't know about you guys, but I feel like a European patriot, even though this maybe does not make sense to some.
Being a true European patriot means to me is caring about our freedom and democracies, is to value the open pluralist societies we developed since WW2, wanting to protect what the reactionaries want to take away from us all and want to lock us all up, back in small closed-minded nation-states we all come from, which will ultimately lick the boots of either US or China/Russia.
They are well organized, but what is the organization, the movement that fights against this ongoing attack on our shared values and mode of existence?
The post-WW2 Europe is an oasis of bliss in a world which is on fire, and we are all under attack. How can we fight against this destruction from the inside as well as from the outside ?
Fight hunger, fight drug addiction, fight the destruction of the European values. If you want to destroy something then you have to pinpoint a target that can be destroyed. "Destruction from the inside" is not a target.
However, do you really want to destroy something or don't you rather want to build something?
It doesn't come with the thrill of fear, but uniting people to build something is more sustainable.
In any case, take a close look and check if the oasis is not already burning or even spreading fire all over the world.
If you choose construction, make sure that the values you are going to implement are consistent and operational. Progressive means nothing but promising everybody that the world will develop according to the progess they envision. That won't happen. There can only be one direction.
My personal opinion is that Pluralism makes it difficult to unite people. People follow their leaders. If the idea would be enough, this post would explode, there would be discussions until people agreed on what to do and then do it. In a pluralist society you have to convince all leaders, and they have to agree to get active at the same time.
So start with finding the leaders and let them convince their communities.
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That is what I wonder. Don't know about you guys, but I feel like a European patriot, even though this maybe does not make sense to some.
Being a true European patriot means to me is caring about our freedom and democracies, is to value the open pluralist societies we developed since WW2, wanting to protect what the reactionaries want to take away from us all and want to lock us all up, back in small closed-minded nation-states we all come from, which will ultimately lick the boots of either US or China/Russia.
They are well organized, but what is the organization, the movement that fights against this ongoing attack on our shared values and mode of existence?
The post-WW2 Europe is an oasis of bliss in a world which is on fire, and we are all under attack. How can we fight against this destruction from the inside as well as from the outside ?
Being a patriot is quite dumb if I may say so. And even dumber if you are a patriot for a imperialist and neoliberal organisation that even compared to a so-called liberal "democracy" is undemocratic. Instead of calling yourself a patriot you should read a book. And then call yourself something based on that.
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Fix wealth inequality. Rich people accumulate so much money that there's hardly any left for average people. Rich people hoard assets like houses and increase their prices and the cost of living. As long as we don't fix this, things will get worse. As long as politicians don't fix this other parties will get more popular no matter what they offer.
Migrants are just scapegoats. They have no lobby, they are easy to blame. They are one piece in a bigger equation. They are used as a ruse to distract from bigger problems. If the housing market was functional it could handle the influx of Ukranian refugees and the way smaller number of refugees from countries like Afghanistan or regions like Africa.
If countries had funds from wealth and inheritance taxes they could fund a working administration, faster justice systems, working infrastructure and so on. It would be absolutely beautiful and I cannot say why there isn't a bigger movement for that solution.
It's not about taxing 100.000€ in stock, or you inheriting your mum's cottage, but about taxing people who have been living off intergenerational wealth for decades without ever working at all.
That's quite reformist. But I would agree. It would be an ok step to start constructing a socialist state.
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Fight hunger, fight drug addiction, fight the destruction of the European values. If you want to destroy something then you have to pinpoint a target that can be destroyed. "Destruction from the inside" is not a target.
However, do you really want to destroy something or don't you rather want to build something?
It doesn't come with the thrill of fear, but uniting people to build something is more sustainable.
In any case, take a close look and check if the oasis is not already burning or even spreading fire all over the world.
If you choose construction, make sure that the values you are going to implement are consistent and operational. Progressive means nothing but promising everybody that the world will develop according to the progess they envision. That won't happen. There can only be one direction.
My personal opinion is that Pluralism makes it difficult to unite people. People follow their leaders. If the idea would be enough, this post would explode, there would be discussions until people agreed on what to do and then do it. In a pluralist society you have to convince all leaders, and they have to agree to get active at the same time.
So start with finding the leaders and let them convince their communities.
Good Points in general. But where did you read about me wanting to destroy something? The only thing I actively think we need to destroy is fascism and imbalance of power, which is slowly corrupting everything like mold.
Pluralistic democracy in that regard is a more abstract concept than a concrete agenda and it is hard to unite people for such an abstract value. This value should only be a proxy value for other concrete outcomes/values, ideally. But let's turn it around. Only because it's free and democratic does not guarantee it is effective and doing good. But without it, there will be no chance for good outcomes.
I agree with your general message, it probably would be better to have a cause "for" something good and not against something bad. Only sadly it seems that in practice people are easier to unite against something or out of fear of something.
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Being a patriot is quite dumb if I may say so. And even dumber if you are a patriot for a imperialist and neoliberal organisation that even compared to a so-called liberal "democracy" is undemocratic. Instead of calling yourself a patriot you should read a book. And then call yourself something based on that.
Are you one of those "tankies" everyone is talking about here on Lemmy?
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Being a patriot is quite dumb if I may say so. And even dumber if you are a patriot for a imperialist and neoliberal organisation that even compared to a so-called liberal "democracy" is undemocratic. Instead of calling yourself a patriot you should read a book. And then call yourself something based on that.
By the way, nice username. I got some of these recently.
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Are you one of those "tankies" everyone is talking about here on Lemmy?
Which part of what literature didn't you accept?
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By the way, nice username. I got some of these recently.
A product so good that only a socialist state sold them.
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Good Points in general. But where did you read about me wanting to destroy something? The only thing I actively think we need to destroy is fascism and imbalance of power, which is slowly corrupting everything like mold.
Pluralistic democracy in that regard is a more abstract concept than a concrete agenda and it is hard to unite people for such an abstract value. This value should only be a proxy value for other concrete outcomes/values, ideally. But let's turn it around. Only because it's free and democratic does not guarantee it is effective and doing good. But without it, there will be no chance for good outcomes.
I agree with your general message, it probably would be better to have a cause "for" something good and not against something bad. Only sadly it seems that in practice people are easier to unite against something or out of fear of something.
You have to destroy something when you 'fight against this destruction'. But you can't fight abstract things, not even Fascism or imbalance.
Yes, people are easier to unite against something. The famous outside attacker. But how to fight fascism if it promises to fulfill what people want? People have to see that democracy is better. Maybe fight corruption, so that democracy can be at its best?
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Which part of what literature didn't you accept?
Let's better say what I do accept. I have read Marx and accept his analysis of dynamics of capital as correct, it's hard not to see that it is spot-on. I accept the general paradigm that the foundation of all such dynamics is the underlying material conditions, i.e. wealth inequality, which leads to power inequality. He however never outlined a clear way out.
I read enough secondary literature about whatever people tried to build on Marx as ways out and have seen enough of evidence against "real existing socialism" and have first-hand family experience from this system. I know all the objections that it was state capitalism or whatever, but I am pessimistic about human nature.
Actual socialism emerging from a revolution and whatever leadership to stay uncorrupted instead of eventually seizing power seems very utopian and unlikely to me, just as utopian and naive as anarchists believe that self-organized structures will not degenerate back to capitalistic tribalism with a few extra steps that will just redistribute the power a little bit and new opportunists to win the next round.
You misunderstood my "European patriotism" (in quotes!), because I never said anything about loving or approving everything done by the organisation you criticize (EU). What I was talking about was the ethos of wanting to protect the least shitty system I see anywhere on earth right now, which is deployed most successfully around Europe-the-continent, the "real existing faulty bureaucratic democracy".
You seem to be of the opinion that it needs to be dismantled and replaced by something else. The right extremists say the same. The problem is that it's easy to call for destruction but it's difficult to build. All I see is "we need to tear it down... And then we'll somehow magically build something new from scratch".
I am a software developer by profession. You know how this works? You have to work with shitty systems other people you despise built over decades. I wish I could throw it all into the garbage and just build from scratch. But unlike politics, where talk is cheap, here I can see and quantify how much fucking work it is both technically and socially. It's just like wanting to "just build a different sky scraper" without understanding anything about engineering. You can try, and probably will end up with another flavor if ugly mess. You also need to (re)educate other developers, you need to convince people, and finally the users need to either not be bothered by your "improvements" and you cannot allow such a long down time or reconstruction phase because the outside world is not waiting for you to get your shit together.
Now, I think politics is exactly the same. Law is the code of society, and developers and users need to buy into different paradigms I.e. accept other values and standards and possibly form of organization. I don't see any proposed alternative being even close to have a clear realistic path, except of a strong faith that "it somehow will work out". I doubt that it works that way. History works incrementally, and complex systems become incrementally fucked up, does not matter where you start.
The radical left is losing against the fascists because the fascists learned how to incrementally win mind-share of the people and hide it's radical nature, while the radical left is continuing to engage in black and white thinking and pushing regular people away.
That leads me to the hypothesis that the only way to fix the system is actually good people low-key moving up in power and tweaking it from the inside, that means the reverse direction of what is happening right now.
Then I believe we need "pro-social propaganda", working in a subtle way like the capitalistic matrix, which means that you have to win back the media. If you have the media, you can win the hearts and minds of people.
The classic approach of the left only works in a society where the majority is in such distress that they are open to extreme changes and have nothing to lose. But the system we are in is a system of "good enough".
So I don't believe in the tactics of the radical left and I don't believe in the existence of a solid plan, there is at most a "concept of a plan", in the words of a well-known dictator. I doubt the practical experience and competence of radical left thinkers and intellectuals, who have never worked inside a complex system such as academia or a company and have a simplistic idea of "change management" for social, bureaucratic and technical structures. Being able to organize some demonstration or violent resistance to break something does not necessarily correlate with the ability to build something better in its place and possible damage done in between.
So what is the way forward? I have no idea. But that is why I hope for some genuine and smartly executed "reformist" movement and would not expect any good outcomes from naive "revolutionary" ambitions. The revolutionary left is ultimately also a collection of populist movements, in the sense of promising simple answers to complex problems.
What does that make me ideologically? No idea. I don't care about labels. Call it "pragmatic realistic left" or whatever.