General Chat

speaking of Hitler, and I'm someone who lived through WW2 - it is my considered opinion that he did not have a good bone in his body - he was born evil and he died evil - unfortunately not soon enough

JoonieCloonie - yes, that has been well documented and thank you. But the point I was making was that being pro-Palestine does not automatically mean anti-Zionist.

As for Hitler and/or National Socialism, I do wish people would read what I actually said instead of what they narrow-mindedly want to read (and subsequently try and report me for). I think I have seen your link before but it is not a "set in stone" scenario because there are so many different factors, some subjective and some objective.
I still maintain that despite the more talked-about aspects of Hitler's life, he did do a lot of good, and certainly perceived good, for the German public in the 30s.
In fact, if he had not helped to pull the nation out of the post WWI quagmire it found itself in, Europe today could be a very different place indeed.
As I said earlier, I am by no means applauding the evil he perpetrated.
The terms "left" and "right" are not necessarily exact, measurable terms - they are more relative terms.
You can say that an object is three inches to the left or three inches to the right but you cannot say that a political party or belief is three notches either way.
By modern standards, Hitler could very much be termed as left wing (comparably speaking) and is certainly not as right wing as, say, our current Labour party, for instance.

JoonieCloonie is absolutely correct in mentioning the 'anti semitic' lobbyists. They wish to include ALL Jewish sects who are anti Zionist and label them anti semitic. That smacks of desperation to justify acts in Palestinian territories which no right minded person should be comfortable with.

I lived in Germany for 2 years and even 30 years post war I still met some Germans who loathed the UK and our allies and weren't afraid to express their opinions.

Does any country really move on? or do they continue conflict if they believe they were wronged?

As for the EU I don't wish to be any part of it for many reasons but mainly loss of self government and having our laws (some of the most longstanding in the world) challenged and overturned for absolutely no good reason other than the often misused Human Rights Act.

Errol Sheep (you may know this) for several years now there has been a very concerted effort by some Israeli and pro-Israel factions to identify pro-Palestine and anti-Zionism as 'anti-Semitic' and in fact they are achieving some success in shutting down dissent against Israeli policies ... for instance at academic institutions ... very sad day for truth and free speech

as for Hitler and the whole left/right thing this chart is very eloquent ... the one at about the middle of the page with the red blobs on it

http://politicalcompass.org/analysis2

Hitler was more 'left-wing' than Thatcher :-)
(because that refers to how they wanted ownership and markets to operate)

he was also more authoritarian ... although not by a lot ...

Stalin was very 'left-wing' because of state ownership, but very authoritarian at the same time

Gandhi and Thatcher were near-opposites

Tricky term 'racist' SuperCrutch, you are pro-Palestinian, anti-Zionist, but I would imagine you are not anti all Israelis or anti all Jews. It is the policies ( or ideology) of a cetain number of a certain nationality that you object to, that doesn't make you racist.

We all look for someone to blame when things go wrong ( edit , not quite what I want to say, we all find someone to blame is closer, that could be the system, or a person, or a group of people who have significnt influence ) , ...but I am not sure I would term that 'racism' , I would reserve that for labelling a whole race as 'inferior' or 'threatening' based only on ones experience of a small number or even just one person of that race.

Being pro-Palestine does not mean having to be anti-Zionist, surely?

I believe the majority of human kind has the tendency for racism if something impacts upon them personally. Everyone NEEDS someone/something to blame for perceived injustices. It is human nature.

I can cite injustices in my own and my family's lives which I can point a very firm finger at bias towards immigrants for. When a medical services provider has to have on call interpreters in 50+ different languages in one London health authority that impacts on their ability to serve more patients. You wait ages for a referral and look for someone to blame!

I am pro Palestine, therefore anti Zionist but not anti semitic. Not every shout of 'racist' means the person it's aimed at is a bad person, there are degrees.

AnninGlos - my original (reported) post said (I do wish people would read carefully)...

"um just a small point...people often use the term Nazi incorrectly. It actually is a term that comes from the words Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, in other words National Socialist Party, the political party of which Hitler was eventually leader.
It does not mean German, or thug, or secret police etc etc
Hitler actually achieved a great deal of good (of course I am not saying that he also was not behind a good deal of evil) and it could be argued that he was somewhat left wing.
National Socialism in its various forms does tend to be somewhat left wing."

Thank you Sheila :-D
Have edited. That's what you get for 'trawling' rather than finishing off the decorating :-\

I'm not saying that anybody is making this accusation; but can I just point out that not liking the EU does not make you a racist. I don't like the EU; but I don't have anything against people who live in other european countries. I have nothing against my next door neighbours; but I wouldn't want to move in with them.

which is it

"Green spaces should be protected - we oppose excessive
housing development, wind farms and HS2"

or

"develop shale gas"

I am not certain by any means that you protect green spaces by developing shale gas!

I think you need to consider the Human Rights act as a whole, rather than the obviously silly uses to which it is sometimes put. We don't really think that we need a human rights act I suspect , because we are a democracy and generally have a reasonable record of fair treatment of our citizens ( and others) . Not all the countries in Europe have that perhaps? and so the human rights act is needed?

What are the directives that have benefitted us? I am not able to name them but there must have been some?

UKIP seems to attract councillors who are sexist racist and homophobic amongst other things. They've fought the campaign largely on immigration, aided by a media which highlights any negative Muslim or immigrant stories it can. People have chosen to vote for this party. Don't know if that can all be all put down to protest voting. The far right wing is appealing to people (look at France) and I just hope this is a temporary blip.

Just read through this interesting thread. Pity a couple of posts have been RRd as maybe they were part of the discussion but we won't know now. However, I was going to say what Sue said about the EU. It is not just about immigration that people are fed up with the EU. I think most are disillusioned because of the seemingly irritating directives that come out of it which gives the impression that we are not responsible for our own laws etc. The overuling of our own judiciary, the instructions of paying out claims for 'infringeing' the 'Human Rights' of prisoners for example.

I also think the votes gained by UKIP were partly due to the frustration at the main parties not understanding how the electorate feel. More or less what OFIG said.

It's not about 'immigration' what about the constant EU directives that are churned out. From personal knowledge the WAG allocates a multi million pound budget to a Welsh organisation. This would probably be just sufficient with judicial use of the funds.

The EU throws out new directives which have to be implemented and BANG goes the budget. Targets become unattainable and the organisation is heavily criticised for failing in their duties. The majority of the directives only benefit a couple of member states but all have to comply.

Where is the sense in that?

Maggie - it's £98 million :-D

I must say I would be astounded if it was £98 billion!!!!!

Well, doing a bit of trawling, I found the following, and was rather shocked::

2011/2012,£42 billion corporation tax was unpaid. £11billion of that by foreign firms such as, Google, Starbucks, Amazon etc.

2012/2013, £98 million was spent on MP's expenses. (edited thanks to Sheila)

2011/2012, £35 billion tax (as in earnings) was unpaid due to fraud or error and off shore accounts

Last year the UK paid £14.7 billion into the EU. We appear to get back under half of what we pay in.

2011/2012, £159 billion spent on benefits, of which, £74.22 was pensions (to my mind pensions shouldn't be part of 'benefits')
Housing benefit £16.94billion,
Disability living allowance £12.57billion
Jobseekers' allowance benefits - £4.91billion
The rest was spent on Tax credits (as wages are so low), child benefit (given to everyone - even those who don't need it ) and various other 'small' benefits.

So the unemployed actually take a small proportion in jobseekers, but are probably on housing benefit, as are many (most?) low paid people in employment.

The very wealthy managed quite nicely, to avoid paying their due, and, to be honest, I can't work out HOW MP's can claim £98 million in expenses!!!
This id ON TOP of their salary......and Cameron had the audacity to refer to those not as wealthy as him as the 'Feckless Poor'

The wealthy are screwing the people of this country much more than the unemployed or the EU. All Cameron has done is to enable the wealthy to get even richer and caused discontent by blaming the poor, (and as pensions are included as a benefit) - pensioners, and the unemployed.

Perhaps somebody should have a word in (Call Me Dave,s)Ear and tell him that Charity begins at home not in some Despots Bank account while our own people are relying on Food Banks Etc because of Polititians Misguided ideas.

What I consider "ordinary" hard working people to be are those people who are on low wages, who don't squander their hard earned wages,

Many pf these people, through no fault of their own struggle to make their wages stretch from one pay day to the next, just to keep a roof over their head, feed & clothe their family, and pay their energy bills, a fish supper once a month would be a luxury for them, they earn just a few pounds above the threshold that would entitle them to some help from the state. There are thousands in that predicament - at least in the world I live in there are.

I agree that government, no matter what their political persuasion, can only spend or re-distribute what it takes in taxes or raises from borrowing, having said that, the wealth this country generates favours the few not the many, the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer, as one of the richest counties in the world and as a so called civilised democracy, that can neither be fair or right, it makes a mockery of the well worn phrase "we are all in this together" unless you interpret that as "some of us are in clover and the rest of you are in the mire" ;-)

Nobody has answered InspectorGreenPen's post, I would like to ask the same question.

No party or politician is going to make everything 'OK' for everybody. Some complain that leaders and parties now are wishy-washy and sway with every breeze that blows. Well, we had 'strong' governments and leaders in recent history (anyone remember Mrs T?) and many didn't like that either. Old die-hard toryism and labour both became unelectable so we have what we have now! And as for accusations of pandering to media, and knee-jerk politics, what about the outcry there always seems to be when something 'awful' happens and the government (whoever it is) is pressured into reacting?

Perhaps the swing to UKIP is a warning, I would agree that the EU needs reform, but are they going to be effective at this, as they just want out of it?