Mannerheim
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| - | + | American leftists, or "liberals" as you call them, are nihtong at all like traditional leftists in Europe. This is a constant source of confusion when communicating across the Atlantic.I grew up not far from a steel mill town in Finland. The workers there voted mostly Social Democrat or Communist. Union men every one. In their family and social life they were very conservative. Minority rights, gender rights or recycling garbage did not concern them much. They were not revolutionaries.They were often serious in their political engagement, as they viewed is as the best way to get what they wanted in terms of pay, job security, safety, education for their kids, etc, etc. They were not a uniform leftist bloc holding hands while singing around the campfire. The rivalry between Communists and Social Democrats was intense. Indeed, to prevent Communist advances in Finland, the CIA took to covertly funding and helping the Social Democrats. It worked well.Today all our parties on the left are losing votes to populist parties. The US-style leftism spreading across Europe has left previous supporters out in the cold. A worker today look at his former party's agenda and asks "what's in it for me?" The answer is "not much". | |
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Current revision as of 12:12, 22 March 2013
American leftists, or "liberals" as you call them, are nihtong at all like traditional leftists in Europe. This is a constant source of confusion when communicating across the Atlantic.I grew up not far from a steel mill town in Finland. The workers there voted mostly Social Democrat or Communist. Union men every one. In their family and social life they were very conservative. Minority rights, gender rights or recycling garbage did not concern them much. They were not revolutionaries.They were often serious in their political engagement, as they viewed is as the best way to get what they wanted in terms of pay, job security, safety, education for their kids, etc, etc. They were not a uniform leftist bloc holding hands while singing around the campfire. The rivalry between Communists and Social Democrats was intense. Indeed, to prevent Communist advances in Finland, the CIA took to covertly funding and helping the Social Democrats. It worked well.Today all our parties on the left are losing votes to populist parties. The US-style leftism spreading across Europe has left previous supporters out in the cold. A worker today look at his former party's agenda and asks "what's in it for me?" The answer is "not much".
