How Europe could face its own shutdown | Jan-Werner Mueller | Comment is free | theguardian.com

How Europe could face its own shutdown | Jan-Werner Mueller | Comment is free | theguardian.com

Far-right's surge could paralyse Europe, warns Hollande as NF passes socialists | World news | theguardian.com

Far-right's surge could paralyse Europe, warns Hollande as NF passes socialists | World news | theguardian.com

Austrian elections - quick look

quick impressions from looking at the party webpages...

FPO - usual populist "we'll give you more money", "we'll give scummy others less", "look after ourselves and screw the rest (love your neighbour, for us that's other Austrians"
Interestingly apart from posters, hard to find their positions, need to go several links down, and then just find PDFs of party grounding documents.

http://www.fpoe.at
http://www.fpoe.at/dafuer-stehen-wir/
http://www.fpoe.at/fileadmin/Content/portal/PDFs/_dokumente/2011_graz_parteiprogramm_englisch_web.pdf

SPO - relying heavily on the "things are better than in most other EU countries, we've done a good job, let us continue" . Probably safest tactic, and in fairness situation is very good, and people should appreciate that.


http://spoe.at/
http://spoe.at/positionen

OVP - since in Government can't complain, but also seem to want to push themselves forward. Though also quite populist with '7000 tax allowance', "420,000 new jobs" - more free stuff, great!
But, and some kudos due, do have a link to convince people to bother to vote.Even if framed to support their platform, does combat apathy (though cynic could argue it's them and SPO would gain most from the apathetic middle getting involved, and balancing the revved up right wing, which is probably more motivated to vote)
Again apart from some slogans, after brief navigation of the page couldn't find any list of principles, policies.

http://www.oevp.at/Kanzlerwechsel.psp

Greens
As someone pointed out - the ones with the posters of lambs!
Most dramatic webpage, opens with video of traffic, logging, rubbish and melting glaciers...and some lots of ex-government ministers from the other parties in courtrooms!
Once get past that - there's the lamb! Am almost wondering if the lamb is runnig for office....

http://www.gruene.at/
http://www.gruene.at/2013-start
 
At least they, (or the lamb) has an easy to find election programm (main slogans, clean world, clean politics) - but again links to a pdf, which doesn't even open up automatically in the browser (as other pdfs do).
one has to wonder is it technical incompetence that makes it hard to quickly  get the facts (surely an important factor in webdesign in the digital scant attention age) or do they just want to gloss over the details!


In Summary :
Socialists : we're doing grand, let's keep going on together
Conservatives : more jobs, less tax, more family.
Rightwinger : Right-whingers more like. More for us, less for 'them'. all of them.
Greens : Lambs.

Jesse Owens : “Hitler didn’t snub me – it was FDR who snubbed me.

From Quora : http://www.quora.com/Olympic-Games/What-is-the-most-phenomenal-moment-in-Olympics-history.

I definitely think at school I learned of the Hitler snub, but definitely also never learned of the FDR one.

  

Andy Lee Chaisiri, Writer. Artist. History fan.

1886 votes by Shirley Lu, Hongwan Liu, Viki Saigal, (more)

1936, Berlin.

'A Black American athlete defies Adolf Hitler's propaganda of the Aryan ideal'
Jesse crosses the finish line in first. Arch-racist Hitler is so infuriated that he storms out the stadium, refusing to greet him. A bold tale of personal heroism triumphing over hatred, Freedom overcoming Tyranny.

That is what the newspapers reported.
But... that is not the account Jesse gave:

"Hitler had a certain time to come to the stadium and a certain time to leave". "It happened he had to leave before the victory ceremony after the 100 meters. But before he left I was on my way to a broadcast and passed near his box. He waved at me and I waved back. I think it was 'bad taste' to criticize the man of the hour in another country".

"When I came back to my native country, after all the stories about Hitler, I couldn't ride in the front of the bus. I had to go to the back door. I couldn't live where I wanted. I wasn't invited to shake hands with Hitler, but I wasn't invited to the White House to shake hands with the President, either."

“Hitler didn’t snub me – it was FDR who snubbed me. The president didn’t even send me a telegram.”

In recognition of his gold medal performance, Hitler sent Jesse Owens a commemorative photograph of ... himself (I guess narcissism comes with being a ruthless dictator)

Margaret Thatcher was loved and hated – both for sound economic reasons | Business | The Guardian

Margaret Thatcher was loved and hated – both for sound economic reasons | Business | The Guardian

Titans of tech raise millions to enter the political arena: but what is it they want?

Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg is to launch a lobby group. But critics warn their values differ from those of most Americans

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/30/facebook-google-twitter-political-lobbying

Is Cyprus a country? | Searching questions | News | guardian.co.uk

Is Cyprus a country? | Searching questions | News | guardian.co.uk

Ed vulliamy on Syria

I've seen the horrific result of western paralysis. It mustn't happen in Syria | Ed Vulliamy | Comment is free | The Observer

Neither [ side ] has the answer in Syria. Indeed, why should there be an "answer" in Syria? Whatever happens, it will be a mess. But what kind of mess do we opt for, what is the least worst mess?

If Britain and France get their way, they will have to accept that the opposition in Syria contains a jihadist current; it includes warlords and people who are not trying to emulate our supposedly model democracy and capitalist enlightenment. And it is also driven by genuine freedom fighters and militias that – whatever their political programme – defend a civilian population under apparently limitless attack.

We know that, post-Iraq, intervention can only have calamitous results, and that its motives are as disingenuous as they are dangerous. We know how toxic the heady rhetoric is from those who have never heard a shot fired or a shell crash, but who from the liberal and conservative salons of London, Paris and New York urge others to war.

But we also know from recollection of the rape camps, Srebrenica, Gorazde and Sarajevo that those who advocate doing nothing can never look the desperate or the dead in the eye. And we know their inactivity is part of what sends hundreds of thousands into the refugee camps along Syria's borders and fills the mass graves, that their dry calculations are in themselves murderous.

Having spent all those nights in trenches, forests and cellars and along treacherous mountain roads with the resistance fighters of betrayed Bosnia and the people they sought in vain to protect, I'd find it hard to look a young Syrian militiaman, or his murdered

People Aren't Smart Enough for Democracy to Flourish, Scientists Say | Why the Best Candidate Never Wins | Psychology | LifesLittleMysteries.com

People Aren't Smart Enough for Democracy to Flourish, Scientists Say | Why the Best Candidate Never Wins | Psychology | LifesLittleMysteries.com
  
While this headline sounds elitist and paternalistic, the main point is simply again that democracy is the worst possible system, except for all the others. And while democracy may not produce the best leadership, it should protect against the worst (for me the key feature of democracy is the feedback mechanism, by which bad leadership is ultimately removed by the system itself, at the next election). Ideally anyway :-)
Some extracts from this article :

• The democratic process relies on the assumption that citizens (the majority of them, at least) can recognize the best political candidate, or best policy idea, when they see it. But a growing body of research has revealed an unfortunate aspect of the human psyche that would seem to disprove this notion, and imply instead that democratic elections produce mediocre leadership and policies.
• Mato Nagel, a sociologist in Germany, recently implemented Dunning and Kruger's theories by computer-simulating a democratic election. In his mathematical model of the election, he assumed that voters' own leadership skills were distributed on a bell curve ? some were really good leaders, some, really bad, but most were mediocre ? and that each voter was incapable of recognizing the leadership skills of a political candidate as being better than his or her own. When such an election was simulated, candidates whose leadership skills were only slightly better than average always won.
• Nagel concluded that democracies rarely or never elect the best leaders. Their advantage over dictatorships or other forms of government is merely that they "effectively prevent lower-than-average candidates from becoming leaders."

Europe's democracy dilemma – how and when to step in?

As eastern European countries become more autocratic, Brussels must build a legal and political toolkit for intervention
Europe's democracy dilemma – how and when to step in? | Jan-Werner Mueller | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

Reason and politics

So, you think reason guides your politics? Think again | Simon Jenkins | Comment is free | The Guardian
Extract: " To Jonathan Haidt, reason is not how people wrestle with a problem to find a path to the right answer. That was for the Greeks (the ancient ones). Reason is rather a weapon we deploy to persuade others that we are right, and they use to prove us wrong. It is not a coming together but a driving apart. As David Hume observed, reason is subordinate to the passions. It rides into battle on the elephant of intuition. Hence the advice of modern political tacticians, that politicians should always "talk to the elephant first". Conservatives are good at talking to elephants."

Populism in Europe

European elections: the false promises of populism | Jan-Werner Mueller | Comment is free | The Guardian
Abstract:
"
- Here's the key characteristic of populism: populists contrast an image of a pure, homogeneous people with that of a corrupt or at least, uncaring elite that colludes with those who are not properly part of the national body politic. That can mean both those at the very top of the social ladder and those at the very bottom: in the populist imagination, elites work hand in hand with "global finance capitalism" but also pay too much attention (and money) to the poor who do not really belong to us and yet somehow live off us.
- They do not think they are the 99%. They think they're the 100%.
- So how to relate to populists? Pandering never works in the long run: Sarkozy took votes from the Front National in 2007, but also legitimated the LePeniste perspective. And that perspective is ultimately always more credibly embodied by a Le Pen. But neither will it do for elites to dismiss populists with a Thatcherite (and now Merkelite) claim that "there is no alternative" to what they are doing. In fact, technocracy curiously mirrors populism: only one possible policy here, only one possible voice of the people there; nothing really to talk about.
- In fact, technocracy and populism reinforce each other: liberal elites become ever more distrustful of democracy; illiberal people seek to defy them. Instead, politicians need to acknowledge that there are alternatives, justify the one they have chosen as best they can and argue that ultimately politics is about issues and institutions – not about pure identity, as populists insist."

Marine Le Pen's success reveals populists' appeal to European voters

The Front National is the big winner in the French elections as 'far right' parties capitalise on immigration and eurozone fears
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/23/marine-le-pen-populist-appeal

• what the assorted leaders and parties have in common is a deep rightwing cultural conservatism suffused with nostalgia for an always better and often imaginary national past – the era before mass immigration, globalisation, Europe, and international finance destroyed, they believe, the old, white, illiberal, homogeneous nation states of Europe.On economics, however, the populists tend to be anything but rightwing. They are further to the left of European social democracy in supporting generous welfare states, early retirement ages, pensions – a strong state munificent in its public spending. 
• Islamophobia has become the new antisemitism for the current generation of rebels, while the age of austerity decided by Europe's leaders as the answer to runaway debt, soaring deficits, and a failing euro supplies fertile ground for the populist campaigners.
• Although they do not achieve their maximalist demands, these campaigns are successful in setting the agendas in national politics and forcing the mainstream parties to accommodate the extremists by meeting them halfway. 

The European Citizen's Initiative

"The European Citizens' Initiative (ECI),  -  Hailed as the first transnational instrument of participatory democracy in world history, it allows members of the public to call for new European laws on issues of their choice, provided they have a million supporting signatures from at least seven member states. But despite its stated aim of bringing the EU closer to its citizens"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/apr/09/eu-citizens-initiative

BUT - while there is obviously a risk that a body such as the EU ends up being ruled by a kind of 'elite' of bureaucrats, I am also slightly sceptical about referendum/petition based politics. On the one hand they do provide help raise ignored issues, and give a voice to a perhaps too often paternalistically ignored public, but on the other they are very prone to populism, and the 'tyranny of the majority'. The problem is, apart from those affecting disenfranchised minorities (which by definition cannot result in such tyranny), often the topics which get people most exercised about, are those which are aimed at the behaviour of others (moral issues, social friction issues), and this is what is most dangerous about populism. And of course there is the risk of manipulation by well funded special interests. So overall while the EU needs more public involvement, I am wary of such initiatives unless properly balanced and controlled.

Religious not necessarily conservative

Religious people are more likely to be leftwing, says thinktank Demos | World news | The Observer
new research suggests they would have been preaching to the converted: people with faith are far more likely to take left-of-centre positions on a range of issues, including immigration and equality.
The research, revealed in a new report by the thinktank Demos, undermines the widely held view that members of religious groups are more likely to have conservative tendencies.

A Tour of the New Geopolitics of Global Warming

Climate change is already shaping conflicts around the world--and not for the better
A Tour of the New Geopolitics of Global Warming: Scientific American
"Some scientists have linked the Arab Spring uprisings to high food prices caused by the failed Russian wheat crop in 2010, a result of an unparalleled heat wave. The predicted effects of climate change are also expected to hit developing nations particularly hard, raising the importance of supporting humanitarian response efforts and infrastructure improvements."

Something rotten in the state of Austria

Although from last year, an illuminating series of articles on the recent corruption scandals in Austria.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,791113,00.html
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,791113-2,00.html
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,791113-3,00.html

inequality and privitization - how very Tory...

Two elements that annoy me most in politics are actions that further inequality, and an ideological commitment to privatization. While not necessarily related, these issues often are, since inequality is often a result of excessive market forces without sufficient state involvement, and privatization (if done inappropriately) often fuels this.

So depressing to read two articles in the Guardian today on each of these topics. Though, I suppose one would hardly expect anything else from the Tory party.
Polly Toynbee on how Osborne's budget will accentuate inequality : here
Aditya Chakrabortty on the folly of privatizing roads : here

the golden muddle...

An interesting article on the complacency of electorates. This reminds me of those psychology studies that show that people have a base level of happiness to which they inevitably, and surprisingly, return to, no matter what life changing events befall them. Thus, no matter how terrible they miht imagine some event being, even something like losing a limb, if it actually happens it is not only never as bad as expected, but eventually their rating of their happiness eventually settles back around their 'norm'. There is something of this in politics too, in that no matter how much people may on one hand be concerned and even angry about a situation, on the other there is a very strong tendency to trust the system despite this and assume can 'muddle along'. On the one hand such resilience is a good thing, on the other hand it makes politicians less held to account, and under less pressure to reform things, than they should be.

The mood in Britain is to muddle along | Martin Kettle | Comment is free | The Guardian

"People are fatalistic. Once they get used to the initial shock and fear of hard times, it seems, they hunker down and find that life, generally, carries on tolerably well.
Put these things together and you get much closer to a truer explanation of a great paradox. People may resent economic distress and have little confidence in governments or politicians, yet they still expect to get through, and so they are generally unattracted by radical change. As the Cambridge political scientist David Runciman put it recently, the overriding temptation is to muddle along. That's the mood in Britain; but it is also the mood, so far at least, in places such as Spain and Greece, where conditions are much more stark. Kicking the can down the road isn't as glamorous as revolution, but it isn't as destructive either.
If this is right, then the implications matter for all politicians and for those who write about politics. The truth is that most people seem to want the system we have got, not some other system. That may not go down well in the grandstand, but it works on the field. Sure, we would like the system to work better in various ways, and we are open to sensible and fair suggestions that don't put what we have at risk. But we also know that things are rarely as bad as they look."

Whatever about the US "right", the European one is much more worrying

Enthralling as the GOP primary race is, even the most ultra conservative republican isn't as scary as some of the European far right parties..and worryingly popular at the moment...

"Poll after poll places Le Pen third with 21.5%, hovering just behind Sarkozy at 23.5%, and with the Socialist party's François Hollande well in the lead for the first round of the presidential vote in April. If the opinion polls are accurate, it is perfectly feasible, allowing for the accepted margin of error, for Le Pen to reach the second-round run-off a fortnight later. Some surveys show support for the FN candidate to be considerably higher, topping 30%"

Marine Le Pen and France's Front National sense their time has come | World news | The Observer