"The fact that the price of petrol has greatly increased, while incomes are shrinking to an unbearable extent, creates a vast problem with heating in Greece," said lawmaker Thomas Psyrras from the Democratic Left party — a junior partner in Greece's conservative-led coalition government. "People who live abroad imagine that we have sunshine all year round, but that's not the case."
A member of a Left Party, yet conservative led? Am I misreading this?
A member of a Left Party, yet conservative led? Am I misreading this?
No. The Greeks have elected far-left and right parties, but the Center-Right New Democarcy party is leading the ruling coalition (they have the most seats, but not enough for a ruling majority, hence the left-wing members of the coalition).
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"The things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openess, honesty, understanding and feeling, are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meaness, egotism and self-interest, are the traits of success."
Why would you expect capitalists to simply rely on government for protection when they can just as easily infiltrate and take control of the government, which they can then use to destroy their competitors and rule over society unhindered? Think about how easy that it is to do in our open system of government. All the capitalists have to do is cooperate with each other, buy up control of the media, finance their own candidates, and market them to the pubic through their controlled media as "men of the people" when they're really just corporate puppets.
It's interesting to see a modern civilization collapse. Progressive thought is really just "progress" in reverse, people going back to doing things the way they were done in the past and finding out why they no longer do it that way.
I recall my grandmother, who was born in 1896, telling me once that "ANYONE who wants to go back to the good old days is a FOOL."
And of course, that's exactly where we are heading.
And those who are taking us there are much worse than my grandmother realized.
Isn't conservative philosophy based on "the good ol' days"?
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"We want to be the fastest team in America, fast teams win."
"This is why we spend so much time recruiting because you need playmakers. You need difference makers."
Blacks?
Women?
USSR?
And, definitely Red Sox fans. Definitely.
How 'bout Gator fans? I certainly wouldn't want to wait nearly 30 years to sniff an SEC title and damn near 40 for a NC. But it would be fun to see SOS play in person.
"Capitalists" who use the govt to gain advantages, etc., are not capitalists. They are fascists, a variety of socialists.
It doesn't really matter what you call them - fascists, former capitalists, crony capitalists, Fabian socialists, monopoly capitalists, corporatist-collectivists - they used their *capital* not to just buy up control of property, resources, and companies, but government as well.
Why passively rely on government for protection when, with the right mix of money and media, you can own government and put it to work for you? The most valuable monopoly on the planet is a legal monopoly on the use of aggressive force, which people like you demand the existence of.
So is it any wonder why some people, especially a rich, vulnerable minority, would scramble to get control of it?
Hey, one country might be temporarily successful under socialism. One small country with a non-diverse population and a economy based around some fairly simple exports Everywhere else, socialism has failed.
Hey, one country might be temporarily successful under socialism. One small country with a non-diverse population and a economy based around some fairly simple exports Everywhere else, socialism has failed.
Hmmm....wonder why?
I always wonder why the diversity of the population is the first explanation that people go to when discussing Scandinavia. Greece isn't exactly the most diverse place in the world.
So why would diversity make that form of government less attractive the a lack of diversity?
It strikes me as an inability to explain the success combined with an undercurrent of racism (well Northern European white people can handle socialism but other races can't).
I don't follow European politics closely, but lately I've been getting the impression that none of them are too happy with how their economies have been going.
With Google I find this, for example:
"Denmark’s economy is out of balance and in need of fine-tuning to put it back in the black again, according to the European Commission.
"On Tuesday, the EU authority released its list of 12 countries, including Denmark, Sweden, Finland and the UK, where, according to the commission’s analysts, economic meltdown could ensue if reforms are not made and budgets are not balanced."
So why would diversity make that form of government less attractive the a lack of diversity?
The people in a homogenous society, in race and in culture, tend to have common goals.
The success of socialism and communism depend heavily on the kind of behavior where the vast majority of people have common goals, common culture and common values.
Question, for every Dutch form of socialism, there are vast numbers of socialistic experiments that failed. Many of them failing even today.
Why do you think that has happens so often with socialism and communism?
Second point, if socialism empirically worked to create the conditions where the most humans do the best, I would sign up tomorrow. Can you show empirical evidence where it does?
How come the "homogenous society" argument only gets applied as a qualifier to the success stories? I've never seen conservatives add that caveat when saying the US is on course to be like Greece or Spain.
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"The things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openess, honesty, understanding and feeling, are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meaness, egotism and self-interest, are the traits of success."
I always wonder why the diversity of the population is the first explanation that people go to when discussing Scandinavia. Greece isn't exactly the most diverse place in the world.
So why would diversity make that form of government less attractive the a lack of diversity?
It strikes me as an inability to explain the success combined with an undercurrent of racism (well Northern European white people can handle socialism but other races can't).
Maybe I missed something, but how is Greece not diverse? It has been, for centuries, a crossroads of civilization, a meeting place of Europe and Asia.
The people in a homogenous society, in race and in culture, tend to have common goals.
The success of socialism and communism depend heavily on the kind of behavior where the vast majority of people have common goals, common culture and common values.
Question, for every Dutch form of socialism, there are vast numbers of socialistic experiments that failed. Many of them failing even today.
Why do you think that has happens so often with socialism and communism?
Second point, if socialism empirically worked to create the conditions where the most humans do the best, I would sign up tomorrow. Can you show empirical evidence where it does?
But people only make that point when discussing Scandinavia. Greece is fairly homogeneous racially and culturally. And yet it didn't work there. Shouldn't you have argued that since it works so well in culturally homogeneous nations, that it should have worked well there? Or is there something else going on here, but it is easier and less challenging to just think it is all about racial diversity?
I think socialism as practiced in much of Europe needs to be heavily differentiated from Communism, as they have two separate forms of governance.
Empirically, the first question you have to ask is what is success? Economic development? Happiness? Positive social statistics, such as low child mortality and high living expectancy?
Then the question becomes defining "socialist" countries. I would argue that most of Scandinavia and Western Europe display a hybrid system between capitalism and socialism. So, for example, Ericsson, the largest maker of cellular telephones and a publicly traded for-profit firm, is headquartered in Sweden, which also has one of the most robust social safety nets in the world and very evenly distributed income.
If you look at happiness, which I would argue is probably the best measure, hybrid socialist/capitalist, high involvement democratic countries do the best. Legatum Institute, which is pretty Pro-Capitalist, releases happiness rankings every year. This year, the rankings looked like this:
1. Norway
2. Sweden
3. Denmark
4. Australia
5. New Zealand
6. Canada
7. Finland
8. Netherlands
9. Switzerland
10. Ireland
11. Luxembourg
12. United States
13. UK
14. Germany
15. Iceland
Each of these economies are hybrid economic systems, in which government recognizes certain markets in which profit does not drive socially optimal results. Most would be considered "socialist" by American Conservatives.
Maybe I missed something, but how is Greece not diverse? It has been, for centuries, a crossroads of civilization, a meeting place of Europe and Asia.
Greece does not report racial breakdowns, but the vast majority of people are ethnically Greek (well over 90%).
All the caveats about Wikipedia (although the quote is sourced to a text book):
Quote:
Minorities in Greece are small in size compared to Balkan regional standards, and the country is largely ethnically homogeneous.[1] This is mainly due to the population exchanges between Greece and neighboring Turkey (Convention of Lausanne) and Bulgaria (Treaty of Neuilly), which removed most Muslims (with the exception of the Muslims of Thrace) and those Christian Slavs who did not identify as Greeks, from Greek territory; the treaty also provided for the resettlement of ethnic Greeks from those countries, later to be followed by refugees. The 2001 census reported a population of 10,964,020 people.[2]
The main officially recognized "minority" (μειονότητα, meionótita) is the Muslim minority (μουσουλμανική μειονότητα, mousoulmanikí meionótita) in Thrace, which numbered 97,604 people or 0.95% of the total population according to the 1991 census,[3] and mainly consists of Turks, Pomaks and Roma. Other recognized minority groups are the Armenians numbering approximately 35,000,[4] and the Jews (Sephardim and Romaniotes) numbering approximately 5,500.[5]
Maybe I missed something, but how is Greece not diverse? It has been, for centuries, a crossroads of civilization, a meeting place of Europe and Asia.
93% of Greece is ethnically Greek, and 91% Greek Orthodox. That's really not diverse at all.
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"The things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openess, honesty, understanding and feeling, are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meaness, egotism and self-interest, are the traits of success."
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