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From the New York Times’ op-ed page:
How the Far Right Became Europe’s New Normal
It was a scandal when a far-right party entered government two decades ago. Now it’s just routine. What happened?By K. Biswas
Mr. Biswas is a critic.
But does Mr. Biswas have a house?
Feb. 4, 2020, 1:00 a.m. ET
… But far-right parties don’t need to win elections to see their agenda carried out. After the financial crisis, the governments of Europe almost universally adopted bullish positions on immigration
Bearish positions on immigration
, binding the issue with concerns around
Back in the 1980s, everything was about the word “about.” Performance artists like Laurie Anderson were always saying things like: My art is about art that is about art. But now the word “about ” is being phased out in favor of “around.” In 2055, it will be hip to replace “around” with “among.”
security, crime and benefits spending. In an age of austerity, “Natives First” policies are widely seen as economic common sense, championed by everyone from Denmark’s Social Democratic prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, to Italy’s previous deputy prime minister and leader of the League, Matteo Salvini. Against a cultural backdrop of virulent hostility toward the continent’s Muslim communities, campaigning on the ability to deny new arrivals essential privileges — from housing and health care to child care and welfare — can prove electorally beneficial.
Essential Privileges would be a good name for a Roxy Music tribute band.
English
Arabic
Chinese (Simplified)
Dutch
French
German
Hebrew
Hindi
Italian
Japanese
Korean
Persian
Polish
Portuguese
Russian
Spanish
Swedish
Turkish
Vietnamese
Oh really, Mr. K. Biswas.
It’s about injecting adjectives, is it not.
“Against a cultural backdrop of virulent hostility”
– A CULTURAL backdrop. A standard backdrop is no longer sufficient.
– Some VIRULENT hostility. Standard hostility is no longer sufficient.
Mr K. Biswas, a critic, certainly has heard of the many-million immigration march. And, had he been to Europe, would be able to notice that there are no signs of “deny new arrivals essential privileges — from housing and health care to child care and welfare”. In fact, the very contrary is the case.
While the ECB destroys the economy.
But these are moans of the immi-muslimic side of the equation. The moans on the emi-jewish side of the equation apparently is “we gonna leave, we gonna leave, any moment nooow because of anti-semitism 🎶”. It’s as if Europe were a lousy Indian train station, possibly with Bubonic Plague in the waiting room.
‘ … The governments of Europe almost universally adopted bullish positions on immigration…’
Bullshit positions, more like.
The phrase that just kills me is: ‘we are dealing with issues around . . . XXX’.
I just can’t, can’t, can’t even anymore.
Q: What's your name?
A: So, my name is Frank.
Q: Where do you live, Frank?
A: So, I live in San Francisco .
Q: What do you do?
A: So, I am a computer engineer employed by Google
And "so" on.Replies: @Ozymandias
In that environment, if you had said 'issues involving x' it would have sounded weird.
I wonder the cost to fly Biswas to some place like Chad & pay the govt there to let him write his nonsense in the local rags…
Around is more common in the U.K. I think that the synonymity of about and around in the sense of “approximately” helped to grease the rails of around also taking on about‘s alternate sense of “concerning.” This kind of semantic transfer is not uncommon in linguistics.
Remember: most people are illiterate idiots, and at the end of the day, “majority rules” in language change.
They really ARE avoiding reality, aren’t they?
“Essential Privileges” would be a good name for a lavender-scented douche.
Just sayin…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Og7JS8mcp3cReplies: @Achmed E. Newman
I can’t even …
Essential Privileges would be a good name for an expensive oil hawked by Gwyneth Paltrow. It would smell like her essential anatomy, of course.
“Mr. Biswas is a critic.”
Aren’t we all.
In other news, turning Scandinavia into Lebanon has political implications.
Go figure.
“performance artists like Laurie Anderson were always saying things like, My art is about art that is about art.”
Laurie Anderson and her cohort made their artistic bones circa 1981-83, which was in retrospect a sort of heavenly sweet spot for critters like her. The Vietnam war was in the rear view mirror and AIDS had not yet been openly identified as a threat that would decimate the artistic world. In 1983, except for some sentimental pro forma grumbling about Reagan, there was nothing for your average SoHo boho to really worry about. So, why not make art about art about art? In retrospect, what a luxury.
And now how suits it but we spend the time
With stately triumphs, mirthful comic shows,
Such as befits the pleasure of the court?
Sound drums and trumpets!
Farewell, sour annoy!
For here, I hope, begins our lasting joy.
(Exeunt omnes. Enter Gloucester.)
GLOUCESTER: Now is the winter of our discontent…
The ongoing rightward shift is driven by the very “demographic changes” the Left imposed.
I’ll take, “Things that should not exist in Europe for $500, Alex.”
It’s not the new normal, it’s the back to normal.
And “far right” in this context is fallacious charged language for “non-suicide” .
“Essential Privileges would be a good name for a Roxy Music tribute band.”
Or a new line of Goop products.
What happened is people like Mr Biswas ensured all mainstream parties endorsed the very radical and minority view on immigration with a tight anti-democratic grip. The far-right was the only reserve left for policies that had a very natural home with the far and centre left prior to their embrace of the most anti-worker anti-social solidarity policy ever conceived.
Most people aren’t far right and didn’t vote for them for a very long time until the consequences of Mr Biswas and co’s ethnic displacement policies for the native peoples began to really sting or until the economies of those countries began to contract. Now a slightly larger amount of people than who would traditionally be called far right are voting for them and the decline of the neoliberal mainstream parties is allowing some of them to make transitions to coalition governments.
I didn’t read it, was my explanation shorter?
Not mentioned is the vast social success that Denmark continues to make despite the ‘horror’ of the far right Danish Peoples Party managing to gain influence over immigration policy in the late 90s/early 00s at a crucial time when mass migration kicked into high gear in Western Europe. That success has led largely to much smaller amounts of ethnic tension and overall happier more egalitarian society than neighbouring Sweden who took the exact opposite approach.
Both Sweden and Denmark had similar rates and kinds of immigration until the late 90s/00s so the current second generation causing the issues with crime are similar in size but we’re starting to see the first 2nd gens from the early 00s immigration come into their own and though both Denmark and Sweden have problems, Sweden’s is a much larger ones, a trend which will only intensify going forward as we will most likely see Swedes become more ‘racist’ and Danes mellow out about ethnic minorities.
Why don’t just be proud to be white?
“We are poor because you are rich.”
The March
Mr. Biswas, like everyone, is a critic.
Placing trend of nationalism back 12 years discounts (perhaps deliberately) effect of 2015’s genuine Merkel invasion. Before that, vibrant newcomers were attractive due to their absence. It seems to me real opposition to European open borders began after migrants became less desirable due to their presence.
This is the left at their “what the right does is never a consequence of (or reaction to) what the left does” best.
It’s none of your biswas. Stay out of it.
I am a SUPER-GENIUS! My art interrogates art that is about art.
What the NYT considers “far right” is essentially the natural norm everywhere, always.
Greater Israel hates Middle Eastern migration to “Fcking Europe” it’s a demographic 🤫 nightmare for German 🥚
I’m migrating to Monaco bcz I’m a migrant and that’s a big deal?
If there is one point on which it is totally justified and necessary to broadcast the vilest hostility to Asians it is when they presume to sneak in this “But surely it isn’t done to criticize the Emperor” filth. If there is one point on which an Asian should force himself to listen to a hairy innumerate milk-reeking roundeye it is on political freedom and “keeping open the pathways to knowledge.” If Asians had American ideas about speech freedom they never would have been behind Europe in anything for a day. Their temporary inferiority was chosen as a foolish test of Franklin’s maxim, and that’s exactly where we’ll be if we accept this.
“It used to be shocking when monkeys [not a racist metaphor: I refer to monkeys] overran the national legislature, now it’s just routine.”
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qgRaAA9AaF4
Don’t worry, Mr. Biswas–I’m sure if you keep berating the natives long enough, eventually they will vote the way you like.
https://twitter.com/PALE_Primate/status/1224750588837146627?s=20
Just sayin...Replies: @Dieter Kief
Add a little rosemary and thyme and call the thing “Essential Basics” and you’ll have a winner (avoid the poisenous term priviledge at any cost).
If you know the basic S&G repertoire, you still may not know this gem of a song. It's not on the famous greatest hits album. I really like the beautiful background voices during the instrumental portions. "Tom" in the song is Art, going off to be in the movies or a play or something.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5biEjyXNa2oReplies: @J.Ross, @Dieter Kief, @Reg Cæsar
Not the virus, but the antibodies.
I still like the word “so”–a word commonly used by millenials and whatever name the preceding generation is called i.e:
Q: What’s your name?
A: So, my name is Frank.
Q: Where do you live, Frank?
A: So, I live in San Francisco .
Q: What do you do?
A: So, I am a computer engineer employed by Google
And “so” on.
The “around” thing is symptomatic of the way everything is now about “spaces.” There are “white spaces” (bad), “safe spaces” (good), and “male spaces” (bad).
The verbal innovations on the left are inevitably just new ways to convey moral judgment while being non-specific about the actual facts. For example, New York Times articles are now unreadable collections of adjectives, adverbs, and tortured sentences that do nothing but communicate a tone and attitude with no factual content or linear logic.
Emotions are at the winning team – factual content is old loser’s – – territory.
“housing and health care to child care and welfare”
Growth of the welfare state and spending in general is a wealth transfer to financial speculators, while the debts of the welfare state (and other ills) are born by ordinary citizens and their descendants.
Healthy, sane, rational Europeans don’t vote against their own group interests.
You cannot make writers for the New York Times understand this simple concept, because they live in a world where this idea is toxic.
Wow do the SWPLs look uncomfortable at 54:07, like the guy ripped a huge, curry-scented blast of wind.
Denying new arrivals [things]? What about denying new arrivals?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Og7JS8mcp3cReplies: @Achmed E. Newman
That’s one of my favorites, Dieter. Counterpoint-voice city! Thanks.
If you know the basic S&G repertoire, you still may not know this gem of a song. It’s not on the famous greatest hits album. I really like the beautiful background voices during the instrumental portions. “Tom” in the song is Art, going off to be in the movies or a play or something.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgA6cpPNXEkReplies: @Achmed E. Newman
Mr. Biswas is also unusually good at staying anonymous online. There is no biographical information I can find on him, whatsoever, despite his having about a dozen published articles online.
If you know the basic S&G repertoire, you still may not know this gem of a song. It's not on the famous greatest hits album. I really like the beautiful background voices during the instrumental portions. "Tom" in the song is Art, going off to be in the movies or a play or something.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5biEjyXNa2oReplies: @J.Ross, @Dieter Kief, @Reg Cæsar
I’m trying to remember why but there was a period of about a month where I played that at least once a day for over a month. A rare example of a song perfectly capturing a mood the way they’re all supposed to.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgA6cpPNXEkReplies: @Achmed E. Newman
Thanks, Mr. Ross. It’s a pretty good version, but it’s missing that great bass line with the slides. Maybe it’s just my computer.
Through IP number and cell-phone signals I’ve tracked him down to Mrs. Biswas’ house, his mother, but we can’t get confirmation due to radiofrequency attenuation of the basement walls, and noise from the sump pump.
Yes, exactly: ‘around … spaces’ is a more obscurantist and passive-aggressive way of communicating what is ‘appropriate’ vs ‘inappropriate’, terms that were au courant amongst the wokerati some years ago.
The NYT now defines “far-right” parties to be those that want to end unlimited mass immigration from the Third World. West of Ukraine these parties are hardly “far-right” by historical standards – they want nothing to do with fascism or anti-semitism. They merely reflect the majority view that a nation can only accommodate a limited number of Third World immigrants without wrecking its public finances and quality of life. Politicians of all the main parties seem to be incapable of learning this basic lesson, or of caring that they are out of step with a large majority of the public.
Also, despite the article’s subtitle, in most European countries the main parties still conspire to keep citizenist parties out of government. They will go so far as to form a “Coalition of National Unity” between parties that previously feigned rivalry. This sends the dangerous message not only that voters’ opinions are unwelcome, but that the main parties are simply different wings of a unified political elite.
There is no virulent hostility, except among a minority of natives in Eastern Germany (the old DDR).
Campaigning on the ability to send them back would prove even more beneficial, and would also discourage other migrants from following.
If the clueless K. Biswas and the NYT want to understand European trends, they would do better to read this iSteve article from 2017, reporting an interview in City Journal between Christopher Caldwell and Christophe Guilluy:
https://www.unz.com/isteve/chris-caldwell-on-a-new-french-theory-of-political-correctness/
The interview:
https://www.city-journal.org/html/french-coming-apart-15125.html
If French politicians had bothered to read Guilluy’s books, they might have avoided the protests of the Gilets Jaunes and the crippling strikes of recent weeks. Their continued indifference to the problems of France outside the major cities makes it very likely that the French will eventually vote for Marine Le Pen, if only because they have tried every possible alternative without success.
At that point, the NYT will start spewing printer’s ink like it’s 1933.
What is with the insanely high percentage of writers for elite media who are South Asian or Middle Eastern?
The duck should come down and give you a hundred bucks.
Vance is kind of a fake. Working class people in Middletown were never Republican until recently.
That was a subtle Dot Indian power move there. A good one – that dude would be a better ruler than most of the ones we have – but noblesse oblige is still noble and there can ultimately be only one.
As you note, his claims about voting patterns are objectively false. Vance needs to be bullied off of the public stage or we will have him around for decades advocating globalist policies while feigning concern for white workers.
Q: What's your name?
A: So, my name is Frank.
Q: Where do you live, Frank?
A: So, I live in San Francisco .
Q: What do you do?
A: So, I am a computer engineer employed by Google
And "so" on.Replies: @Ozymandias
Warren starts many of her sentences with “so,” usually when she’s trying to buy time or change the subject. Also, the only outfit she ever wears is black pants, black shirt, with either a granny sweater or a jacket. Chick is weird.
Avoidance requires awareness, so no.
Scott Adams says that’s a lying (to oneself) tell, so yeah would fit.
While I worked at ATT (from the 80’s onward), everyone spoke about dealing with ‘issues around ‘x”.
In that environment, if you had said ‘issues involving x’ it would have sounded weird.
If you know the basic S&G repertoire, you still may not know this gem of a song. It's not on the famous greatest hits album. I really like the beautiful background voices during the instrumental portions. "Tom" in the song is Art, going off to be in the movies or a play or something.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5biEjyXNa2oReplies: @J.Ross, @Dieter Kief, @Reg Cæsar
Thanks Achmed! Nice! Hadn’t heard it for long time!
If you know the basic S&G repertoire, you still may not know this gem of a song. It's not on the famous greatest hits album. I really like the beautiful background voices during the instrumental portions. "Tom" in the song is Art, going off to be in the movies or a play or something.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5biEjyXNa2oReplies: @J.Ross, @Dieter Kief, @Reg Cæsar
Don’t forget to post “So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright” on the architecture thread. Simon had never heard of Wright; Garfunkel, an architecture student, had to coach him.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cf0RrF6KsI8Replies: @Reg Cæsar
How could I forget, Reg, as I’d never heard of this one? Haha. Thank you for the suggestion. Here’s the blurb from the youtube poster:
This song is not as catchy as the Greatest Hits S&G tunes, but the chord progressions remind me of some of Simon’s stuff after he left the duo. That would make sense. I like lots of his single-artist stuff, especially every single song on the album “There Goes Rhymin’ Simon”.
Imagine the vocal styles of Simon and Garfunkel in the same person. You don't have to go very far-- their Swedish neighbor Harry Nilsson could be Paul on one track, and Art on the next. E.g., "Coconut", "Spaceman", and "You're Breaking My Heart" for the former, Fred Neil's "Everybody's Talkin'" and Badfinger's "Without You" for the other. The producers of Midnight Cowboy had a competition for their theme song. It ended in a tie-- they wanted Fred's song, but with Harry's voice.
Oh, yeah, this should have been on that other thread. Oops. I just haven’t read that one at all, as every 4th or 5th thread I’ve gotta skip in order to have a life or something! ;-} (My problem is I am kind of obsessive about reading through all the comments.)
Vance is a total fraud. He claims to be someone he is not. His grandmother moved from a small town in Kentucky to a middle class suburb of Cincinnati with her parents when she was a little girl. That is the closest Vance has been to Appalachia or poverty. He’s just a liar and moron with nothing at all to say. He’s from a multi-generational middle class family in a very flat area of the Midwest. Vance has explicitly endorsed white privilege ideology and is hostile to nationalism and populism. He’s every bit as much of our enemy as Bill Kristol.
As you note, his claims about voting patterns are objectively false. Vance needs to be bullied off of the public stage or we will have him around for decades advocating globalist policies while feigning concern for white workers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cf0RrF6KsI8Replies: @Reg Cæsar
Simon has a naturally dorky voice– for some reason, without a trace of an NYC accent– so what he can write for himself is limited. Randy Newman is the same way. Simon should have disciplined himself by writing for other singers. The only such case I can think of is the Cyrkle’s “Red Rubber Ball”.
Imagine the vocal styles of Simon and Garfunkel in the same person. You don’t have to go very far– their Swedish neighbor Harry Nilsson could be Paul on one track, and Art on the next. E.g., “Coconut”, “Spaceman”, and “You’re Breaking My Heart” for the former, Fred Neil’s “Everybody’s Talkin’” and Badfinger’s “Without You” for the other.
The producers of Midnight Cowboy had a competition for their theme song. It ended in a tie– they wanted Fred’s song, but with Harry’s voice.