Far-right parties rattled the traditional powers in the European Union and made major gains in parliamentary elections Sunday, dealing an especially humiliating defeat to French President Emmanuel Macron.

On a night where the 27-member bloc palpably shifted to the rightItalian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni more than doubled her seats in the EU parliament. And even if the Alternative for Germany extreme right party was hounded by scandal involving candidates, it still rallied enough seats to sweep past the slumping Social Democrats of Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

Sensing a threat from the far right, the Christian Democrats of EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen had already shifted further to the right on migration and climate ahead of the elections — and were rewarded by remaining by far the biggest group in the 720-seat European Parliament and de facto brokers of the ever expanding powers of the legislature.

  • FlowVoid@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    None of those are among the most important causes of the First World War.

      • Carrolade@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        No, he’s describing the second. The first was when the old entrenched powers like the British Empire, the German Empire, the Russian Tzar, the Ottomans etc got into a big kerfluffle after an archduke from the Austro-Hungarian Empire was assassinated and everyone’s big alliance rings got triggered.

        It was a war between strong empires that had been entrenched over centuries trying to play big power politics basically.

        The second was about nationalism and strongmen. The first already had a bunch of strongmen and huge empires jockeying for position, and it was more about weakening perceived rivals. After it ended, many people wanted to return to that sort of status quo, which helped fuel nationalism and the rise of strongmen in the interwar years.

        • Madison420@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          The assassin of Franz Ferdinand was literally a Bosnian nationalist immigrant in Austrian controlled Bosnia convinced by economically displaced serbians to kill the archduke of Austria.

          Nationalism ✓

          Flailing economy ✓ the ottoman empire would quite literally not last the war.

          Rise of a charismatic strongman ✓ dude literally joined an ultra nationalist group led by a planted charismatic strongman.

          • FlowVoid@lemmy.world
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            5 months ago

            The assassin of Franz Ferdinand was not an immigrant. He was born and lived in Bosnia, and he killed Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo. There was no “fear of immigrants”.

            He was not inspired by a “strongman”. He was a member of Young Bosnia, a group of socialist/anarchist students with no political power.

            Similar groups had existed for decades, there was no “rise” in nationalism.

            The Ottomans did not industrialize with the rest of Europe, this meant they were still agrarian in the 20th century not that they were “unable to afford to live”.

            The Ottoman Empire lasted through the war. It was abolished in 1922, four years after the war ended. Thus, it outlived Austria-Hungary.

            The dismantling of the Ottoman Empire, like that of Austria-Hungary, was not a cause of the war. It was a result of losing the war.

            • Madison420@lemmy.world
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              5 months ago

              Bosnian serbs weren’t full citizens, and he identified as Bosnian or serbian not Austrian.

              Crown Prince Alexander was their financial backer and their ideological guide in large part.

              They’re quite literally was, “nuh uh” without evidence is nothing.

              I didn’t mention industrialization, someone else did similarly industrialization did have an effect on countries that didn’t industrialize, namely for the ottoman empire they lost their ass to cheaper mass produced ceramics.

              No one said it was the cause bud, nor did I in fact say those are the “most important” factors. You added that for reasons unknown, honestly the argument in general is an exercise in obstinacy. You know they’re factors, maybe not in your mind the most important but no one in good faith can argue they were irrelevant and you’re certainly implying.

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                5 months ago

                Bosnian serbs weren’t full citizens

                So, not immigrants. Immigration was not a factor, at all.

                was their financial backer

                Someone who finances an organization that tries to influence a group of students is not a “strongman”. Merely a rich man, like David Koch.

                • Madison420@lemmy.world
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                  5 months ago

                  He considered himself an other in a country that wasn’t his own, he’s an immigrant.

                  No one said they were, I Said each cell had a strongmen. History shows the charismatic strongman is involved in most conflicts just not generally on the same level as conflict post 1870. More often than not theres a handful of them starting dumpster fires to push into crowds, the rare ones are people like Hitler or Mussolini who manage to actually gain power and not immediately catch the kadaffi treatment.

                  Bad example, David Koch is an economic strongman. In this age money =power money =speech, you’re not likely to see a Hitler again, you’re more likely to find a small group of shitty people doing shitty things that make it shitty for everyone else.

                  • FlowVoid@lemmy.world
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                    5 months ago

                    He considered himself an other in a country that wasn’t his own, he’s an immigrant.

                    No, he’s not an immigrant. By definition, immigrants and emigrants migrate, ie they move somewhere else. It’s right there in the word.

                    If you live in the same place you were born, you aren’t an immigrant.

                    History shows the charismatic strongman

                    “Strongman” is defined as a “one who leads or controls by force of will and character or by military methods”. That does not include David Koch or anyone else who merely finances a political movement.

                    shitty people doing shitty things that make it shitty for everyone else

                    Well, if you’re arguing that wars tend to be preceded by the actions of shitty people in general then I won’t dispute that fact.

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        5 months ago

        Prior to the First World War, the standard of living in Europe was rising due to industrialization and immigration was not a particular concern.

        In Germany, the left had just retaken control of parliament and the leader was actively trying to use diplomacy to preserve the balance of power. Unfortunately his efforts had the unintended consequence of igniting a war.

        For the actual causes of the First World War, see the other reply.

        • Madison420@lemmy.world
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          The same is true now and the same was true for WW2, perception of reality is much different than reality. Your not making the point your thinking you are, we’ve literally never lived in a safer world and you’d think that aren’t true given the far rights screeching about jobs and crime.

          Correct, the right wasn’t happy about that weren’t they? Similarly Germany WW1 and Germany ww2 are quite literally the poster children of far right nationalism given that their sole reason for entering the war was to rid themselves of their neighbors and gain territory.

          Unintended? All these people were writing letters to each other pantomiming their intentions, like 90% were family Members and the rest might as well have been.

          • FlowVoid@lemmy.world
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            Perception is much different from reality. It’s true, but not how you think. You are perceiving, or at least trying to portray, the causes of WW2 as similar to WW1. But in reality they can’t be shoehorned into your framework.

            Again, the left, not the right, was ascendant in that period. The left was in control of the German and French parliaments. The left was on its way to overthrow the government of Russia. After the assassination of a leftist leader, the Second International, a leftist organization, made pro-war statements. This was immediately followed by the entry of France and other countries into the war. The right as we know it did not exist yet.

            Immigration was not a major concern in Europe in the period before WW1. People were not immigrating to Europe. If anything, they were emigrating from Europe to America.

            Germany and other countries were not scheming to gain territory. The geopolitics of the time were aimed at containment, not expansion. The goal was to preserve the balance of power. This was supposed to be achieved by a network of alliances that would deter war. If you must draw an analogy, the politics of the time were far closer to the nuclear detente in the 1970s between NATO and the Warsaw Pact.

            Finally, Germany entered the war because they were obligated by treaty, just as America would have been dragged into a war if someone had invaded Portugal in 1970. Kaiser Wilhelm was notoriously uninterested in military affairs, and he realized almost immediately that war would be pointless. Hence his lack of involvement in Germany’s war effort, earning him the nickname “Shadow Kaiser”.

            • Madison420@lemmy.world
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              They are, you’ve as of yet not offered a single shred of evidence otherwise aside from your opinion. Cite it, I’m referring to Dan Carlins vast commentary on both WW1 and WW2.

              “Left” you know the left that supported Germany’s colonial efforts… The left that supported excluding polish immigrants… https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelminism Don’t confuse winning an election with winning the population. Biden won, the rise of right wing christofascism is still accelerating because they’re two separate things.

              Yeah except all the contemporary compliants and attempts to expel polish people in germany…

              In 1908, Germany legalized the eviction of Poles from their properties under pressure from pan-German nationalist groups who hoped this law would be used to reduce the number of Poles in the East.[4]

              Sounds like it wasn’t an issue huh?

              Germany was literally caught scheming to gain territory, it’s historical record. There’s quite literally no good faith argument about it.

              Sure, that doesn’t change my point or strengthen yours. It’s just information for informations sake.

              Please provide a single reference once ever.

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                5 months ago

                excluding polish immigrants

                I think you’re confused. Prussia had annexed regions of Poland in the 18th century. The Poles in question were born there. They weren’t immigrants, just as Native Americans and Hawaiians are not immigrants.

                “Left” you know the left that supported Germany’s colonial efforts

                Yes, the “left” that supported organized labor and opposed capital. Which was the original goal of leftism. In Germany, the left was led by August Bebel who was described as a “model worker’s leader” by none other than Vladimir Lenin.

                Anti-colonialism is a relatively new project for leftists. Old school leftists, including Marx, defended colonialism as a necessary step from feudalism to communism. Marx himself described the colonization of India as a “tool of history” in ending the “Oriental despotism” of the caste system and other “traditional rules”:

                we must not forget that these idyllic village-communities, inoffensive though they may appear, had always been the solid foundation of Oriental despotism, that they restrained the human mind within the smallest possible compass, making it the unresisting tool of superstition, enslaving it beneath traditional rules, depriving it of all grandeur and historical energies. We must not forget the barbarian egotism which, concentrating on some miserable patch of land, had quietly witnessed the ruin of empires, the perpetration of unspeakable cruelties, the massacre of the population of large towns, with no other consideration bestowed upon them than on natural events, itself the helpless prey of any aggressor who deigned to notice it at all. We must not forget that this undignified, stagnatory, and vegetative life, that this passive sort of existence evoked on the other part, in contradistinction, wild, aimless, unbounded forces of destruction and rendered murder itself a religious rite in Hindostan. We must not forget that these little communities were contaminated by distinctions of caste and by slavery, that they subjugated man to external circumstances instead of elevating man the sovereign of circumstances, that they transformed a self-developing social state into never changing natural destiny, and thus brought about a brutalizing worship of nature, exhibiting its degradation in the fact that man, the sovereign of nature, fell down on his knees in adoration of Kanuman, the monkey, and Sabbala, the cow.

                England, it is true, in causing a social revolution in Hindostan, was actuated only by the vilest interests, and was stupid in her manner of enforcing them. But that is not the question. The question is, can mankind fulfil its destiny without a fundamental revolution in the social state of Asia? If not, whatever may have been the crimes of England she was the unconscious tool of history in bringing about that revolution.

                • Madison420@lemmy.world
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                  5 months ago

                  Yes yes, let’s exclude the evidence showing you’re not correct. Similarly native Americans were considered immigrants not entitled to us citizenship. Do you not remember the whole “they’re savages” let’s exterminate them thing?

                  No you’re simply confusing left leaning with left and taking a weirdly myopic view based on that.

                  Wrong again, marx said it was necessary for capitalism and benefited the world. That doesn’t imply support it just didn’t imply vehement distaste.

                  • FlowVoid@lemmy.world
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                    5 months ago

                    Non-citizen and immigrant are not the same. Plenty of immigrants are citizens. In fact, the opposite of “immigrant” is … “native”.

                    The next time you meet a Native American, tell them they are considered immigrants. Please post their reaction on YouTube, your video will surely go viral.