Politics Left Wing Authoritarianism in Eastern Europe

Angela

Elite member
Messages
21,823
Reaction score
12,325
Points
113
Ethnic group
Italian
See:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0967067X11000493

"A sometimes heated debate between authoritarianism researchers takes place on the issue of authoritarianism on the left. Some researchers argue that authoritarianism is typical for right-wing political orientation while other researchers assert that authoritarianism can also be found at the left side of the political spectrum. The aim of this paper is twofold. First, we aim to contribute to the ongoing discussion on left-wing authoritarianism. Using representative samples, the relationship between authoritarianism and political preferences is examined in 13 ex-communist Eastern European countries. Employing six different indicators of left-wing/communist political orientations make clear that, despite cross-national differences, left-wing authoritarianism is definitely not a myth in Eastern European countries. Second, it was aimed to survey whether authoritarian persons in Eastern European countries might be a possible threat for the transition to democracy. Based upon five items it was demonstrated that in general the Eastern European population seems to hold a positive opinion on democracy. However, it becomes also clear that authoritarian persons in the ex-communist countries are significantly less positive towards democracy."

This article says that Poland has passed a law prohibiting IVF implantation unless a couple signs documents taking financial responsibility for a child. Single women are no longer eligible, and may lose access to any frozen embryos.

https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/when-the-government-seizes-your-embryos

And women here think the government controls their bodies.

Meanwhile, in Bulgaria...

Bulgaria is close to passing a [Neo-Nazi] law called “Roma Integration”.• It limits how many children Roma can have.• Roma children will be sent to work camps.

I saw that on twitter. Can it possibly be true?
 
Because of the neoliberal consensus between Republican elites and the Clinton-moderate wing of the Democratic party I have, for at least most of my adulthood (which legally began at 6:19 am June 25, 1996) seen right-left conflict more in the prism of social/cultural views as well as foreign policy rather than economics, so I tend to view things like the IVF affair as being right-wing, given that it is most likely supported by the Catholic Church (Francis' two predecessors being widely viewed as more friendly to the right-wing, especially in cultural affairs). But I think that there is a fairly stark dichotomy between the old Warsaw Pact states and 'the west of Europe' in that the middle and upper classes have been affected since the 50s with, in Germany, war guilt for starting World War 2 and trying to kill all the Jews, and the other countries of the core West, colonialism-guilt. So whereas in the West all but the far-right will gladly absorb economic migrants/refugees from non-European ethnicities, the East suffers not the self-hate complex and has the view of 'why should we allow thousands of foreigners in here? What have they to offer us?'
 
^^This idea of ethnic pan-europeanism, is more an American misconception of reality. Nationalists in Europe, are more nationalistic for their own particular ethnicity, really. I was actually just at the Topography of Terror (Built on the former Gestapo HQ), and they show images of the public humiliation of a German woman, and a Polish man, with their heads shaved, holding signs explaining that they were being punished for consorting (romantically) with each other. Nazis viewed the Poles to be as inferior as Jews.

But also, in the eastern countries, during the soviet era, Russians were being moved into different countries, in an effort to ethnically replace the inhabitants. The people there didn't embrace them, as their "European brothers".

I think this idea of ethnic pan-European-ism is a thing in the USA, because most white Americans are a mix of many different European immigrant backgrounds.

Speaking of left wing-authoritarianism, one should visit the Berlin Wall museum for a good example of it.
 
Because of the neoliberal consensus between Republican elites and the Clinton-moderate wing of the Democratic party I have, for at least most of my adulthood (which legally began at 6:19 am June 25, 1996) seen right-left conflict more in the prism of social/cultural views as well as foreign policy rather than economics, so I tend to view things like the IVF affair as being right-wing, given that it is most likely supported by the Catholic Church (Francis' two predecessors being widely viewed as more friendly to the right-wing, especially in cultural affairs). But I think that there is a fairly stark dichotomy between the old Warsaw Pact states and 'the west of Europe' in that the middle and upper classes have been affected since the 50s with, in Germany, war guilt for starting World War 2 and trying to kill all the Jews, and the other countries of the core West, colonialism-guilt. So whereas in the West all but the far-right will gladly absorb economic migrants/refugees from non-European ethnicities, the East suffers not the self-hate complex and has the view of 'why should we allow thousands of foreigners in here? What have they to offer us?'

Maybe they're just more racist in the east. It was the east of Germany that voted in Hitler.

As for "guilt", I think it gets a bad rap. :)

Guilt is instilled in children in order to civilize them. It's the bedrock of morality, even in people who have no religious beliefs.

Germans have felt and should feel guilty to some extent. Their parents and grandparents either participated in or turned a blind eye to one of the most monstrous examples of barbarity and inhumanity in human history. Why not? If you found out your father was a serial killer, or a pedophile, you wouldn't feel guilt? Or perhaps guilt isn't the precise word. Wouldn't you feel "tainted", somehow? How could it not affect your sense of identity, how who and what you are? What is it in him that caused him to act this way? Genetics, home dynamics? If it were me, I'd carefully examine those things. It's why, even when I was a religious person I knew that if I'd ever been raped or brutalized by a man I'd never have been able to give birth to his child.

As I said, there was a lot to feel "guilty" about...

A woman who survived the Warsaw ghetto uprising. There aren't many people like her in any ethnicity.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHGYd_e9UbY

An unusually poetic and intelligent witness
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbaSloeu-WQ

One of the most thoughtful, intelligent witnesses to it by a man, once one of the "wild children", who went on to become a gynecologist. He doesn't sugar coat even his parents, or his relationship to them.
It was a "gift" not to look "Jewish" in some countries.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbBqOibdIfU
watch


From Belgium: a child survivor who was hidden...a slightly less grim story, as she was lucky in her saviors.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrlWU0I9QmE

I chose these because they've been edited from the original sometimes two hour length, and also because for one reason or another the person spoke to me in a more profound way.
 
The problem with guilt is that it is imposed so unevenly. The Germans should feel guilty about Nazism, but the Chinese get a pass for Maoism? The English should feel guilty about the slave trade, but the Arabs get a pass for their role in east Africa (and southern Europe)? The French should feel guilty about colonialism, but the Russians get a pass about their conquests east of the Urals?
 
''Bulgaria is close to passing a [Neo-Nazi] law called “Roma Integration”'' Possibly. As soon as it is written in Twitter. '' But also, in the eastern countries, during the soviet era, Russians were being moved into different countries, in an effort to ethnically replace the inhabitants.'' Very interesting . And who are these countries.
 
The problem with guilt is that it is imposed so unevenly. The Germans should feel guilty about Nazism, but the Chinese get a pass for Maoism? The English should feel guilty about the slave trade, but the Arabs get a pass for their role in east Africa (and southern Europe)? The French should feel guilty about colonialism, but the Russians get a pass about their conquests east of the Urals?

I don't know who's giving them a pass, shissem. Not me, I assure you.

The Japanese should be in there too, for the Rape of Nanking, and their treatment of prisoners of war.

Some Arabs are still participating in the slave trade. Then there's the treatment of migrant workers in the other Gulf states. There's the treatment of the indigenous peoples in the Americas, and slavery as well, and on and on.

However, I do think that what happened in Europe prior to and during World War II stands apart. None of these atrocities are on the same kind of scale as what the Germans did, and had things gone differently, they planned to do the same to the Poles, Russians and other Slavs. Plus, this was done by a supposedly civilized European country barely 70 years ago. It was a regime of death. They weren't satisfied with taking advantage of people, or enslaving people, or starving them; they wanted to annihilate not only Jews but any political "enemies", gypsies, homosexuals, the infirm, and eventually, the Slavs. How could the people who produced Bach and Mozart do these things, and in the modern era? The only thing which I can think of which is comparable is the depredations of the Mongols. They depopulated whole swathes of the Near East and Central Asia.

If this hadn't caused a lot of soul searching, one would really have to wonder about them as a people.

Ed.@Jovialis,
The truth bothers a lot of people. :)

I even asked if it was indeed possible that Bulgaria was contemplating these kinds of laws. I got no answer.
 
@Angela,

You have the wrong Pugliesi.

Can you imagine that it took me two minutes to realize what you meant?

I'm going to blame it on this terrible ear infection and not early alzheimer's. :)

So sorry.

Oh, and as you so wisely point out, let's not forget the millions and millions, many of them his own people, whom Stalin killed. Just think of the deliberate starvation of the Ukraine, the show trials, the massacre of prisoners of war, and on and on.
 
maybe many don't realize that empathy and the feeling of guilt are basically the same thing?
germans AS A GROUP should feel guilty but when someone does something bad we say: "you SHOULD feel guilty...(if you had empathy )" and not "feel guilty". don't get me wrong a feeling of guilt must be there but it comes from empathy. the difference is just that guilt is empathy for someone who was victim of your own actions. showing this feeling of guilt is to show, we know our "group" did something bad and we are sorry.
most nations or otherwise constructed identity groups in europe have blood on their hands only because the last few hundred years. germany, spain, france, britain, russia and i think it's important to also mention italy here. especially considering the current political situation in europe.
if we go further back there is lots of more murder and rape we don't even have to talk abou that everyone of us has rapists and murderes as ancestors. the celts, the germanics, the romans, the mongols they all murdered raped tortured enslaved stole and destroyed.
today we should just realize how bad all of this was. but not by telling someone to feel guilty for doing something he didn't do he'll just say i didn't do it. it must be through empathy. only because a people didn't commit atrocities in the near past and has arguably "no guilt" doesn't mean they have more moral immunity.
and you start to hear silly arguments like "but they did that and feel no guilt, so why should we..."

when should guilt stop and turn into empathy? imo once the groups stop to identify with the groups of the past and change, grow new identities. when they cut the ties.


if you say they should feel guilty because the carry the genetics of those who really are guilty, but otherwise have no connection with the crime, what should they do different than the others with no guilt?
someone who has a a rapist as father should feel guilty even if he does not identify with him?
and why should he identify with the rapist and why should others identify him with the rapist. probably unconciously because of genetics but here it gets critical for obvious reasons.
the daughter of mussolini still does politics and doesn't like when others joke about her dead hanging father. the children of a certain high rank nazi criminal, had themselves neutered. what should individuals, maybe even populations do if they just get identified through genetics?
 
maybe many don't realize that empathy and the feeling of guilt are basically the same thing?
germans AS A GROUP should feel guilty but when someone does something bad we say: "you SHOULD feel guilty...(if you had empathy )" and not "feel guilty". don't get me wrong a feeling of guilt must be there but it comes from empathy. the difference is just that guilt is empathy for someone who was victim of your own actions. showing this feeling of guilt is to show, we know our "group" did something bad and we are sorry.
most nations or otherwise constructed identity groups in europe have blood on their hands only because the last few hundred years. germany, russia and i think it's important to also mention italy here. especially considering the current political situation.
if we go further back there is lots of more murder and rape we don't even have to talk abou that everyone of us has rapists and murderes as ancestors. the celts, the germanics, the romans, the mongols they all murdered raped tortured enslaved stole and destroyed.
today we should just realize how bad all of this was. but not by telling someone to feel guilty for doing something he didn't do he'll just say i didn't do it. it must be through empathy. only because a people didn't commit atrocities in the near past and has arguably "no guilt" doesn't mean they have more moral immunity.
and you start to hear silly arguments like "but they did that and feel no guilt, so why should we..."

when should guilt stop and turn into empathy? imo once the groups stop to identify with the groups of the past and change, grow new identities. when they cut the ties.


if you say they should feel guilty because the carry the genetics of those who really are guilty, but otherwise have no connection with the crime, what should they do different than the others with no guilt?
someone who has a a rapist as father should feel guilty even if he does not identify with him?
better question might be why should he identify with the rapist and why should others identify him with the rapist. probably unconciously because of genetics but here it gets critical for obvious reasons.
the daughter of mussolini still makes politics and doesn't like when others use pictures of her dead hanging father. the children of i think it was goering, had themselves neutered. what should individuals, maybe even populations do if they just get identified through genetics?

I take your points; they are good ones.

As I said, maybe "guilt" is the wrong word, but, as in my example, if my father were a serial killer I would personally feel terrible, and wonder about my own identity, proclivities, etc.

As to Italy, believe me, I hold it to account for its behavior as well, as in Ethiopia, for example. However, again, you can't begin to compare it to the behavior of the Nazi regime. One of the proudest moments I ever experienced as an Italian was when I read accounts of discussions among the German high command as to whether to let the Italians know about the concentration and extermination camps, and the conclusion was that they wouldn't let them know because "they'd never stomach it." I'm also proud of the fact that there was not a single deportation to concentration camps from Italy until it was under German occupation, although that doesn't excuse the adoption of anti-semitic laws.

Mussolini fashioned fascism, a fact of which I'm not proud, but the Germans added the racism, anti-semitism, mass enslavement and killing. So, I suppose it's easier for his daughter to try to whitewash him.

I'd heard that about Goering's children, and I know that the men who are part of Hitler's extended family (his nephews, perhaps?) decided also to never have children. I wouldn't either. I can know myself, and that I'm not remotely capable of such things, and that what creates such people is not just genetics but also a confluence of events. Still, I would always worry, that I might pass it on unwittingly. Schizophrenia runs in families, and depression, and bipolar disorder, why not, to use your well chosen words, the lack of empathy that could lead one to behave this way given the right circumstances?

Anyway, that's how I see it.

It's also a little different for me because my family were anti-fascists, some joining the partisans, and paying for it with their lives. Unlike in Germany, there was a deep divide in Italy, and it devolved into a virtual civil war. During the war a cousin of my mother's was assigned to try to organize work stoppages and sabotage in the factories in Torino, which were making war materiel, was caught, and wound up dying of typhus in Natzweiler-Struthof. It was quite jolting to see his name, which was also precisely my maternal grandfather's name, on the certificate. I'm very proud of him.
 
I don't know who's giving them a pass, shissem. Not me, I assure you.

The Japanese should be in there too, for the Rape of Nanking, and their treatment of prisoners of war.

Some Arabs are still participating in the slave trade. Then there's the treatment of migrant workers in the other Gulf states. There's the treatment of the indigenous peoples in the Americas, and slavery as well, and on and on.

However, I do think that what happened in Europe prior to and during World War II stands apart. None of these atrocities are on the same kind of scale as what the Germans did, and had things gone differently, they planned to do the same to the Poles, Russians and other Slavs. Plus, this was done by a supposedly civilized European country barely 70 years ago. It was a regime of death. They weren't satisfied with taking advantage of people, or enslaving people, or starving them; they wanted to annihilate not only Jews but any political "enemies", gypsies, homosexuals, the infirm, and eventually, the Slavs. How could the people who produced Bach and Mozart do these things, and in the modern era? The only thing which I can think of which is comparable is the depredations of the Mongols. They depopulated whole swathes of the Near East and Central Asia.

If this hadn't caused a lot of soul searching, one would really have to wonder about them as a people.

Ed.@Jovialis,
The truth bothers a lot of people. :)

I even asked if it was indeed possible that Bulgaria was contemplating these kinds of laws. I got no answer.

So I take it you're not a fan of Italians either eh? I mean the ones in Italy.

Like this girl:
Watch from 5:43
https://youtu.be/mffBvHLOE3E?t=343
 
Please read post number 13.

You tell me a country where every single, solitary, human being is a wonderful person, and I'll move there.

Well, if the food is decent.


Stop being a t-roll. Ailchu and I were having an adult, nuanced conversation.
 
I don't know who's giving them a pass, shissem. Not me, I assure you.

The Japanese should be in there too, for the Rape of Nanking, and their treatment of prisoners of war.

Some Arabs are still participating in the slave trade. Then there's the treatment of migrant workers in the other Gulf states. There's the treatment of the indigenous peoples in the Americas, and slavery as well, and on and on.

However, I do think that what happened in Europe prior to and during World War II stands apart. None of these atrocities are on the same kind of scale as what the Germans did, and had things gone differently, they planned to do the same to the Poles, Russians and other Slavs. Plus, this was done by a supposedly civilized European country barely 70 years ago. It was a regime of death. They weren't satisfied with taking advantage of people, or enslaving people, or starving them; they wanted to annihilate not only Jews but any political "enemies", gypsies, homosexuals, the infirm, and eventually, the Slavs. How could the people who produced Bach and Mozart do these things, and in the modern era? The only thing which I can think of which is comparable is the depredations of the Mongols. They depopulated whole swathes of the Near East and Central Asia.

If this hadn't caused a lot of soul searching, one would really have to wonder about them as a people.

Ed.@Jovialis,
The truth bothers a lot of people. :)

I even asked if it was indeed possible that Bulgaria was contemplating these kinds of laws. I got no answer.

I don't fully agree.
The holocaust and Nazi excesses should be acknowledged and remembered. They are. Denying it is even considered a crime.
But that it is unique is not correct.
To many genocides are being ignored and forgotten for many different reasons.
What about the Armenian genocide? Turkey ignores it. Turkish people are taught it never happened. Turkish nationalism is alive and kicking and minorities are ignored and discriminated.
What about the genocides that are ignored by the leftists?
You couldn't tell anything wrong about Stalin and Mao. Who remembers the genocide on the Ukrainiens by Stalin?
And what about Pol Pot? He was the pet for the leftist 'revolutionairs of 1968' in Paris. He lived among them and was fostered by them and then he moved back to Cambodja to commit all his crimes over there.
Visit Auschwitz, but also visit the Killing Fields. You'll feel the same horror, even more.
You say it is unparallelled?
Tell me what happened only 2 years ago in Syria and Iraq. What would thay have done if they were victorious? And they had plenty of supporters coming from all parts of the world.
 
I don't fully agree.
The holocaust and Nazi excesses should be acknowledged and remembered. They are. Denying it is even considered a crime.
But that it is unique is not correct.
To many genocides are being ignored and forgotten for many different reasons.
What about the Armenian genocide? Turkey ignores it. Turkish people are taught it never happened. Turkish nationalism is alive and kicking and minorities are ignored and discriminated.
What about the genocides that are ignored by the leftists?
You couldn't tell anything wrong about Stalin and Mao. Who remembers the genocide on the Ukrainiens by Stalin?
And what about Pol Pot? He was the pet for the leftist 'revolutionairs of 1968' in Paris. He lived among them and was fostered by them and then he moved back to Cambodja to commit all his crimes over there.
Visit Auschwitz, but also visit the Killing Fields. You'll feel the same horror, even more.
You say it is unparallelled?
Tell me what happened only 2 years ago in Syria and Iraq. What would thay have done if they were victorious? And they had plenty of supporters coming from all parts of the world.

I mentioned Stalin. Pol Pot is definitely on the list of infamy. A woman on one of the tapes, all of which were recorded in the 90s, starts weeping when she talks about seeing video of the atrocities perpetrated on the people of Cambodia, because it was all so familiar, and of the pain and empathy she felt for them.

So, I do take your point. Still, those were political crimes, not a deliberate attempt to eradicate whole ethnicities out of a belief that one's own ethnicity is superhuman and all others are animals. It wasn't even just Jews, but also gypsies, homosexuals, mentally or physically ill people, and eventually it was to be the Slavs as well. In those other atrocities people weren't put on the "to eradicate" list for a simple accident of birth, for things totally beyond their control. Well, except for the Armenians.

Again, however, for me it's different. This was in Europe, and perpetrated by a highly advanced culture barely 70 years ago, and the vast majority of the people involved paid no price. It offends my sense of justice as well as searing my heart and soul.
 
..............................

Again, however, for me it's different. This was in Europe, and perpetrated by a highly advanced culture barely 70 years ago, and the vast majority of the people involved paid no price. It offends my sense of justice as well as searing my heart and soul.

Edwin Black is an American syndicated columnist and investigative journalist.

American Society of Journalists and Authors Best Nonfiction Investigative Book of the year for , 2003.

& The California connection...

https://www.sfgate.com/opinion/article/Eugenics-and-the-Nazis-the-California-2549771.php
 
Edwin Black is an American syndicated columnist and investigative journalist.

American Society of Journalists and Authors Best Nonfiction Investigative Book of the year for , 2003.

& The California connection...

https://www.sfgate.com/opinion/article/Eugenics-and-the-Nazis-the-California-2549771.php

I know, Silesian. There's Chamberlain and all the English racists too, and they could also be found in Scandinavia.

The point is that nowhere else was it put into practice with the complicity of the entire population, a complicity of silence for many of them perhaps, but complicity nonetheless. It couldn't have happened here, or even in some countries in Europe.
 
the vast majority of the people involved paid no price. It offends my sense of justice as well as searing my heart and soul.

on that Israel is as hypocrite as Germany

check the story on Salomon Morel

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salomon_Morel

A reply sent to the Polish Justice Ministry from the Israeli government said that Israel would not extradite Mr. Morel as the statute of limitations had expired on war crimes.
 

This thread has been viewed 27090 times.

Back
Top