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Wohoo!

Unread postPosted: Sun Sep 19, 2010 4:39 pm
by ChristianC
Fuck yeah!

Sweden just got our very own racist, homophobic, xenophobic party in our government! The Swedish Democrats was, thanks to a bunch of likeminded rednecks who can't be arsed to learn the first thing about anything besides what these radical haters tell them, managed to give them a total of 5,7%, which is enough to get into the Riksdag.

That's bloody brilliant.

Anyone of you have a couch I can crash on for the next 4 years? I don't think I want to live here anymore. I am so fucking disappointed in my fellow Swedes.

Re: Wohoo!

Unread postPosted: Sun Sep 19, 2010 4:46 pm
by Capntastic
You need to find some of their slogans and propaganda and post it up here with translations, pointing out any misspellings.

Re: Wohoo!

Unread postPosted: Sun Sep 19, 2010 5:23 pm
by Kai
I don't think that coming to the midwestern USA is going to solve your problems.

Re: Wohoo!

Unread postPosted: Sun Sep 19, 2010 5:28 pm
by KingOfDoma
... Dude, let's you and me go get a place in Montreal. That way you're in Canada, but NOT in Alberta, aka Canadian redneck central.

*buys the SweDems a case full of tea bags, just to drive the point home*

Re: Wohoo!

Unread postPosted: Sun Sep 19, 2010 9:13 pm
by BrainWalker
Jesus. Are these people taking over the world?

Re: Wohoo!

Unread postPosted: Mon Sep 20, 2010 9:01 am
by ChristianC
After a day of cold sweat, disbelief and mild anger I've decided that the only reasonable way to deal with these democratically elected nazis is to take them seriously, let them join in the fun and, most importantly, prove them wrong through real rhetorics every step of the way.

It's a sad fact that they got in, but hopefully they won't cause too much damage in these 4 years to come.

I'm still saying Sweden out to cut away Skåne; initially danish and the festering hive of racist scumbags and villains ever since we stole them from Denmark. These days we don't need their fertile soil, so let's sell them back. No one can understand what they're saying anyway.


(In case you're wondering, the SD, Swedish Democrats, got 11,6% of the votes in Skåne, slightly less in its neighbour Blekinge. Miles ahead of the rest of Sweden, 'though we aren't free from blame either)

Re: Wohoo!

Unread postPosted: Mon Sep 20, 2010 9:06 am
by ChristianC
Oh, and to explain my theory on why this party came in.

There's been SO MUCH media coverage of the SD for the entire year. They've been in headlines, they've had square-meetings stormed by angry demonstrators. If history has learned us anything, trying to force someone to shut up only makes them stronger... or at least more determined to win.

So basically, the reason they got elected was because they played on both sides of the fence, even winning ground with many of the foreign-born communities in Sweden (and second generation immigrants) by playing religions and cultural groups against each other. They've promised a Social Democratic wellfare society with a moderate (the blue, 'capitalist' party) reduction in taxes. They have grossly 'mis'calculated all their economic budgets and have basically cheated their way into the Government through a combination of lies and sly playing...

Which, you know, isn't all that unusual when it comes to politics anyway.

Re: Wohoo!

Unread postPosted: Mon Sep 20, 2010 10:09 am
by pd Rydia
I can totally see why you want to come here, what with the rise of the Tea Party and its sterling champions (like Carl Paladino and Christine O'Donnel)...oh wait, no I don't.

Sorry, dude. All countries got their issues that call for civil participation on the part of their citizenry. :/

Re: Wohoo!

Unread postPosted: Mon Sep 20, 2010 10:51 am
by Jak Snide
Welcome to democracy. Everyone gets a say. Even those guys.

Re: Wohoo!

Unread postPosted: Mon Sep 20, 2010 7:46 pm
by Idran1701
pd Rydia wrote:I can totally see why you want to come here, what with the rise of the Tea Party and its sterling champions (like Carl Paladino and Christine O'Donnel)...oh wait, no I don't.

Sorry, dude. All countries got their issues that call for civil participation on the part of their citizenry. :/


Hey, to be fair, while O'Donnell is awful, the only effect her winning the primary will have is to take a sure-thing GOP election and turn it into a sure-thing Democrat election. Castle would have been a shoo-in if he'd gotten the candidacy, but there's almost no chance for O'Donnell to win the actual election; she's polling 10-15 points behind Coons in every recent poll since the primary. And Coons seems to be a pretty good guy from everything I can find about him.

Same thing with Paladino and Cuomo. I can't remember what the projections had been, but Paladino polled almost 30 points behind Cuomo in the only recent poll taken of the race.

These guys are awful folks, and they're winning primaries well enough, but overall very few of them have any actual shot at the elections themselves. I can only think of one or two Tea Party folks that are having any success in the polls leading up to November.

Re: Wohoo!

Unread postPosted: Tue Sep 21, 2010 5:22 am
by ChristianC
Dia: My couch-crashing remark wasn't exactly intended to US only, 'though I understand that the situation is hardly better anywhere else in the world. I haven't exactly been politically engaged these last years, but it's looking like I'm going to have to get a better grip on what's going on in Sweden anyhoots, and like I said in my later post it's just a matter of accepting the facts and making sure these doofuses get plenty of airtime to dig their own graves... or at least, one can hope.

There are some parts of Sweden I'd just like to exclude from the nation, however.

Re: Wohoo!

Unread postPosted: Tue Sep 21, 2010 6:06 am
by Kelne
You have my condolences, Christian. We have a few bad eggs here, but no party's ever made it into parliament on an actual platform of being racist or religious lunatics. I can't really offer you any reassurance, since those few individuals can be pretty damn near impossible to dislodge so long as they have a solid core of support.

As long as they don't hold the balance of power, you should be alright. Of course, that does nothing to get rid of them, since they'll probably be more popular in opposition than they ever would be in power. After all, they get to criticise and grandstand to their hearts' content without ever having to produce coherent policy of their own.

Re: Wohoo!

Unread postPosted: Tue Sep 21, 2010 8:20 am
by Seethe
Count your blessings. I wish we had a party over here that could suck the worst 5.7% of the voting public away from our mainstream parties and ensure that the policies they would support never saw the light of day.

I'll admit it sucks to have them acknowledged as a slightly legitimate group, though.

Re: Wohoo!

Unread postPosted: Tue Sep 21, 2010 12:21 pm
by ChristianC
Indeed! It seems I have to explain some stuff about the Swedish Parliament, which is the actual constitutional body that we, as a people elect.

The Parliament, or the Riksdag, composes 349 seats, of which each party that gets more than 4% of the votes are given a proportional amount. Although we have a multi-party system in Sweden, where anyone can form a political party (I think there might be some requirements if you wish to get state-funds for your party, but I'm not sure about this part), generally things are divided into the Red-Greens (Social Democrats (S), Founded by the Union Movements at the beginning of the 20th century and has traditionally been the biggest party in Sweden, although in recent elections they've been dropping significantly, Left Party (LP), the most socialistic and feminist party if you don't count the fringe, used to call themselves the Left Communist Party, but that has since been dropped as they wish to distance themselves from the Soviet image of Communism, and the Environment Party (EP), who originally branched off from the LPP due to differences in opinions regarding environmental questions. Today, they are a strong part of the Red-Green union and have drifted to a more leftist political agenda, although they still primarily focus on matters regarding the environment and solutions to pollutions) and the Alliance, composed of the Moderates (M) (basically they are a Liberal party, but in Sweden they are one of the more right-aligned parties), the Center Party (CP) (traditionally perceived as a market-liberal party, historically composed mostly of farmers although in recent days this has obviously shifted, they would like to call themselves environmentally conscious, but that's debatable), the Liberal People's Party (LPP) (traditionally the most liberal party, but recent events seem to indicate that they are, ironically, the most fascist one in the parliament) and the Christian Democrats (CD) (sadly, not my party), who traditionally have been counted as some of the most right-winged, although in a nice, grandmotherly way. They've stood for good, solid, traditional family values (i.e. ban homosexuals and abortions) and are, by most people, considered a somewhat embarrassing remains from ye olde tyme when people went to church so trolls wouldn't eat their kids.

So, those are the two big blocks.

Now, as you can see, the Red-Green have a smaller amount of parties, only 3, versus the 4 parties of the Blues, the Alliance. However, historically the Reds, and later Red-Greens have been very, very strong, but recent elections have seen their results dwindle strongly, and right now the only party to win over the Alliance amongst the Red-Greens is the Social Democrats, who got a measly 0,9% more of the votes (30,9%) over the Moderates, the biggest Alliance party. This is DEVASTATING for that party, since traditionally they've been in the area of between 36-40something, and it's not better that the Left Party has suffered an equally tremendous decline. Only the Environment Party came out on top, with 7,2%, which made them the third biggest party (yes, you read right, 7,2% makes them the third biggest party, with the LPP coming in a strong fourth at 7,1%).

So, the election came out like this:

The Alliance : 49,3%
M: 30%
CP: 6,6%
LPP: 7,1%
CD: 5,6%

Red-Green : 43,7 %
S: 30,9%
LP: 5,6%
EP: 7,2%

So, in this regard, the Alliance got a victory of almost 5 percent above their opposition, the Red-Greens. This means that they get the larger amount of chairs in the parliament and can vote through most of their own motions. HOWEVER, there are still a total of 7% unaccounted for votes. Out of these, 1,3% went to other, fringe parties, meaning that they did not get any seats in the parliament. BUT, 5,6% of these went to the Sweden Deomcrats. This means that, if they so wish, the SD can vote against the motions proposed by the Alliance, thus giving the Red-Green, whether or not they want it, another 5,6%, resulting in a total amount of 49,4%, so an unanimous opposition would thus render the Alliance motion NULL.

Now, the Red-Greens are obviously not going to collaborate with the SD. Besides the obvious PR Disaster this would invoke, they are also ideologically very, very different. The LP, for example, traditionally represent socialistic ideas, and several members are outspoken communists. This does not go well together with a party that is generally Nazis Light. The SD are also going to try to form agreements with other parties in order to get their own agenda through, by promising to vote for what those parties want in exchange for them voting on what they want.

So there you have it, chaos.

Most likely the Alliance can run their own race as a majority, with SD being some kind of wild-card that play the role of weighmaster, i.e. they can sink motions or make them win.

Obviously, this is a gross simplification, as politicians are allowed to vote against their own 'team', but this generally doesn't happen. The LPP had a funny incident when the FRA law was voted through, as some of the more 'in the know' members considered this gross infringement of public privacy a breach of everything that is good and holy, but they were finally clubbed to agreement by revote after revote after revote.



TL;DR

Even though they're only 5,6%, they can still fuck shit up.

Re: Wohoo!

Unread postPosted: Tue Sep 21, 2010 5:09 pm
by Seethe
So, I see. Small parties there. That would make it more of a problem.

Re: Wohoo!

Unread postPosted: Wed Sep 22, 2010 2:22 am
by ChristianC
Indeed! I actually hadn't planned to make a long fucking message there, and apologies if I sounded like a lecturer, I just figured I should explain why it was kind of a big deal that they got into the parliament. Still though, it could've been much, much worse.

Re: Wohoo!

Unread postPosted: Sun Sep 26, 2010 4:30 pm
by Kai
An interesting read. I've often wondered what it would look like if the USA had more parties, since it's a little strange from what I'm seeing of other countries that we only (functionally) have two.

Re: Wohoo!

Unread postPosted: Sun Sep 26, 2010 11:27 pm
by Kelne
Interesting stuff. We have a representational system here, but the two big parties have more or less convinced the majority to vote for them if they want to influence the outcome of the election, so they tend to get around 35-45% of the vote. Then there are three minor parties at the moment who can in theory go into coalition with either side in exchange for policy concessions (though a couple of them have some fairly strong ideological leanings), thus wielding power out of all proportion with their share of the vote (I'm looking at you, Act).

Functionally, your system sounds as if it amounts to much the same thing, in that if the allegiances of almost everybody are fixed, you've essentially got two big parties, albeit ones which must have some interesting and ever-shifting internal dynamics. The major difference being that there's just the one free agent who nobody in their right mind should be making deals with.

Re: Wohoo!

Unread postPosted: Mon Sep 27, 2010 2:57 am
by Jak Snide
The UK has lots of little parties who can end up holding power on a more local level and hold seats in parliament but, for the purposes of the overall government, if functionally had two; Conservatives and Labour. The Liberal Democrats have recently become a 3rd contender but, currently, they're in a coalition with the Conservatives (combined their votes to get the majority) and are busy being sidelined instead of moderating the Conservative elements. So chances are that their ship is sunk now since nobody will take them seriously any more.