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Election day today. So many parties from the extreme right wing performed well.. Front National in France, for instance. The Swedish Democrats is another example. Racists/nazies are on the march in Europe again. I'm genuinely afraid of where this world is heading at the moment.

No, don't tell me that. Us Americans need a place to flee to when the right wing tea party bible thumpers take over this country (it'll happen for one simple reason - they breed more and faster. Think Idiocracy).

it is pretty scary. the more ignorant followers that are born, the more prone they are to repeat the terrible decisions of the past.

It is certainly infuriating if not a little disheartening that so much of Europe seems to swing instinctively to the right when the economy hits the doldrums. This being said, Sweden's far right tendencies are nothing new and seem to run much deeper (ie. you already have the most right-wing government in Europe under the Alliance). And then in France, although it's shocking to realise it, some of the policies of the Front National are actually less frightening than those of the mainstream parties, eg. their opposition to the corporo-fascist TTIP, probably THE KEY ISSUE in Europe right now and indeed this decade. The election of Hollande seemed to offer hope and yet he showed his true colours when he downed Morales' plane for Obama - just another lapdog. There is some hope at least in the surge of the genuine left in Spain, Greece and Portugal, some of the countries worst hit by the Eurozone crisis. IMHO the real left, trade unions and the green party movement will need to come together across Europe if an effective democratic opposition to the status quo is to arise.

Well shit.

General elections last night. Sure, the three parties from the left block won by a narrow margin and now we'll have a change of government for the first time in eight years. But the swedish democrats (racists, with a history as a nazi party) crushed it, getting 13 percent of the votes. A very, very dark and troublesome development for Sweden. I walked around with a big knot in my stomach all day yesterday and that knot is still there...

Hey Marcus, forgot to say congrats on the election! Stop worrying about a few right wing nutjobs and celebrate the overthrow of the Alliance... How great is it that your country can go from American lapdog to recognising Palestine in just a few weeks?

That's something, I guess. But we now have a fascist as second vice-speaker of the house and the extreme right wing have the third biggest party in the country. Tough times to be celebrating.

Could be worse. Here in America the extreme right wing have the biggest party in America and are likely about to take over an entire branch of government. They already own the supreme court, so that'll be two out of three now.

Yeah, exactly. Current polls have 50% of this country voting either right or far-right (little difference between the two imho, some politicians have even switched allegiances) and the centre-left aren't much better. Only 1-2% of us voting Green... Sweden post-Alliance sounds good right now.

This racist bilge just made it to no.2 in the UK i-Tunes chart, on the way to no.1 before they pulled it... Sigh.



If these fuckers ever get in, coalition or otherwise, we're out of here...

So Marcus, can you explain what's going on in Sweden? If the Democrats + Greens didn't have the votes to pass legislation then how were they able to form a coalition in the first place? What's likely to happen in the recall election?

Well, it's all about the swedish democrats (our ultra-right, used-to-be-nazis-party). They went and became the third biggest party in the country and became what we call "vågmästare", meaning they could pretty much sit back and just downvote anything they didn't feel matched what they wanted.

So a couple of days ago, there was the obligatory vote on the budget proposal. Dems and greens, who became the biggest block (since no one wanted to count the Swedish Democrats as allies) budget against the right block. SD though, could bring it all down by not voting for the dems and greens budget, which they didn't. So now, we have a minority government with no approved budget. All the right block had to do was budge just a tiny smidge, vote for the red/green option and then we wouldnt be in this mess.

Meanwhile, SD has said they are going to downvote any budget that isn't pretty much tailor made for them. They are nothing but a rasist, litigious, power-hungry bunch of bastards.

So in this re-election, the red/greens are going to election as separate parties but with the budget as their common platform. They're hoping to get just those extra few percentages that's required to pass the budget without SD and the right block having a say in the matter. I don't know, man.... Some say it's a good thing, some say it's only going to strengthen the ultra-right even more... This country is all kinds of messed up.

trade you.

Well if the 'government' don't have the votes to pass legislation, a new election seems the only reasonable option unfortunately. Let's hope more folks vote Green - the only sensible option, Europe-wide.

Some people think the government should have stepped down, which would have allowed the right wing to seize control again, even though they didn't get the votes necessary from the voters. But they could have formed a government if they had SD on their side in the budget aspects AND if the current government would have stepped down. But my guess is SD would have wanted some real big chunks of the budget for their own racist agenda.

Politics, dude.