For me such a letter is like somebody who has wipped you across your back your whole life offering you some bandages.

Not only is it profound hypocrisy that the people fucking up young people’s lives are passing themselves as good guys, it’s also an attempt at offsetting the side effects for those very people of their own nasty behavior towards others with a self-serving “solution” for the behavior changes all that nastiness causes on others, to avoid the real solution which is to stop that nasty behavior.

“You’ll keep on fleecing you but here’s a way reduce the side effects for us by letting you keep on having kids for us to fleece”.

If one looks at it from a grander strategical point of view, this shit is profoundly insulting.

People can’t have kids earlier because living costs are so high relative to salaries, so to afford merelly the 2-bedroom appartment for a 1-child (much less the 2-3 needed to maintain population levels) family even a couple of two university-educated full-time workers has to work years.

Even if people stay in schooling for longer now and start working older, even somebody with a degree finishes studying at the age of 20 or 21.

Further and for women specifically, the lack of availability of quality and cheap kindergartens often means that childbirth will totally torpedoe a woman’s career because often and due to local cultural expectations the woman is the one who ends up staying home for a couple of years to raise a child and that has been show to majorly delay career progression in a way that is seldom possible to later recover from.

Both of these things can be address with appropriate government policies to make housing and kindergartens cheap, but successive neoliberal governments actually do the opposite (insane house prices are great for realestate investors and you can’t have cheap public kindergarten provision competing with private businesses) and instead push forward solutions like this so that couples can have children later, something which should not have been necessary in the first place.

The problem is far more upstream and these “solutions” from the very people who are guilty for the root causes of the problem are just political theatre and hypocrisy.

If France is anything like my native Portugal, people aren’t having kids mainly because housing is so stupidly expensive - how exactly do you expect people to have the 2.something average number of kids needed to maintain population levels when they can’t leave their parents home until their mid 30s and even just going from a 1-bedroom to a 2-bedroom to have a room for one child costs many years’ worth of a couple’s after-tax income?

Meawhile salaries in real terms have stagnated for a decade.

Even with the best of intentions, even in the middle class people are entering their 40s by the time they can afford to have a second child so most stick to 1 or even don’t have any children.

What’s required is not flashy bullshit letters like this one which very pointedly ignore the housing bubble and the politicians’ blame in pumping it up, but instead measures to make housing affordable, such as building lots of public housing to increase the Supply side of the Market and limits on multiple house ownership and non-resident ownership to stop (local and foreign) investor speculation in Housing and thus weaken the Demand-side price pressure.

Of course, what the Neolibs in power have done instead is increase immigration claiming that “we have a lack manpower” (after decades of making it unaffordable for people to have children and give them a good life, what else was to be expected?!) and then the Neolibs’ Fascist mates can use that to claim that it’s really all the fault of immigrants (rather than fatcats and the corrupt politicians in their pockets) that life is getting worse.

Sure mate, some “ethnicities” are special and different from other people hence none of the rich people of those etnicities are Fascists.

Also your expectation that they’re different from the rest of mankind and couldn’t possibly have Fascists in their midst hence anybody that claims they do must be against their race, ain’t at all you revealing yourself as Prejudiced and Racist.

They’re the most successful Fascists at the moment and in parts of Europe have massive influence because they’re often supported by those amongst the power-hungry rich people who happen to be Jewish. This helps further normalized the tools of Autoritarianism in the countries were they have influence.

(For avoidance of doubt I’m not saying "Rich = Jewish, I’m saying “Very Rich Jewish = Very Rich Non-Jewish = Fascist Supporting”)

Mind you, I myself think Neoliberals are far more guilty of pushing for the implementation of tools of Authoritarianism in Europe than Zionists, mainly because Neoliberalism is an anti-Democracy ideology (it desires that the State - which is what is controlled by the voters - does not exerce its power in those domains that matter the most for Money - the neolibs call it “interfere in the Market” - i.e. for that which the vote controls to be a power second to Money, or in other words, make the power of voters secondary, the opposite of Democracy).

Whilst Propaganda is the primary Neoliberal tool of control, Surveilance is the second one and Force Disguised As Fair and Legitimate (i.e. as “Justice”) is next, which is how we end up with Chat-Control, insanelly overbroad Anti-Terrorism Legislation and Anti-Demonstration Legislation.

But yeah, there is reason to believe that the influence of Zionism in Europe mainly via the subset of the Jewish People here who are pro-Fascism, has probably helped a bit the expansion of authoritarianism in Europe.

Oh yeah, I got it.

Those people are people like my parents, my uncles and aunts.

The thing is, from my own experience being involved in a small leftwing party in Portugal and with my own family, it’s pretty much only those who were politically aware back in Fascist days (and Fascism had things like Censorship, so most people were not politically aware and thought of Fascism that “it’s the way things are”) that still hold strong to traditional Leftwing values. Further, the level of Education of people seems to be positivelly correlated with how much they understand and value Democracy, and back in the days of Fascism most people were either illiterate or had about 4 years schooling as that was the mandatory level of schooling until the late 60s.

Meanwhile young people’s politics are the product of growing up during the Neoliberal era, with no real strong well structured ideologies beyond Neoliberal-Capitalism providing a framework of thinking and policy making and instead with tactical, one-problem-at-a-time, “moderate” politics with no clear vision for the future or strategy, so they don’t really have top-down thinking hence even their Principles are easilly misdirected and subverted (such as how the fight for Equality For All has been transformed by Neoliberalism into a “divide and conquer” version were people are grouped by characteristics they were born with and then treated as differently deserving of their “equality” being fought for depending on such characteristics - so, an unequal form of equality, thus not really Equality - which very purposefully avoids talking about the greatest inequality of all - Wealth Inequality - and is called Identity Politics).

So yeah, the old guezers still in leftwing parties whose political awareness came during Fascist days plus quite a bunch more of their age cohort are still a strong bullwark against Fascism, but party of those people have already been converted towards Fascist ideas (mainly because of immigration, as Portugal used to be an incredibly uniform country and in maybe 2 decades immigrants became almost 10% of population, which is extra hard to older people who grew up in those days when everybody shared the same cultural background are thus are nowhere as socially and culturally flexible) whilst the younger generations often think Neoliberal Capitalism “is the way things are” since that’s all they’ve known their whole lives and even the ones with Leftwing principles, having confused messaging pushed by the not-quite-as-righting neoliberals from places like the US and UK with leftwing ideas and are busy pushing the divisive “Equality” of Identity Politics that pits parts of the Left against other parts of the Left AND against the mainstream depending on which Identitarian Group they feel should be more protected which fuels the kind of environment were Fascists can pedle their ideals (the subject immigration has been especially useful for Fascists in this, especially given that as studies have shown Immigration lowers salaries for unspecialized occupations, which is exactly were the poor and the poorest working class sits, so they’re naturally drawn to anti-immigration discourse).

TL;DR

In summary:

• Only the old people with higher education and political awareness dating back to Fascist days still hold strong against Fascism.
• Most old people have low education or did not have political awareness back then. They’re also naturally inflexible and have trouble dealing with things like the rise of multi-culturalism from immigration so more easilly fall prey to people preaching a return to the “old days”.
• Young people whilst having much higher levels of formal education know nothing else but Neoliberal Capitalism. Even those who have leftwing principles usually follow political frameworks from anglo-saxon countries which are de facto not leftwing (i.e. not seeking pure “Equality For All”) and instead are divisive equality-but-not-equally constructs which naturally pit some people against other people purelly based on genetic characteristics they were born with or the geographical location of their birth, thus both dividing the left AND at the same time antagonizing the poorest segments the many since the “groups” those liberals-thinking-they’re-lefties fight for are minorities hence by definition “the few” and they don’t fight as hard, if at all, against that which plagues the weakest amongst the majority - wealth inequality.

So the bullwark against Fascism was never as strong as it might seem, is naturally eroding as those people die and due to imported supposedly “leftwing” political frameworks which are really just a Neoliberal perversion of core Leftwing ideals it’s not actually being rebuilt but actually is being eroded even faster.

(Most of that 50 year extra period after Fascism for countries like Italy and Germany over countries like Portugal, Spain and Greece was during a time were the Leftwing was far more effective and created things like universal healthcare, universal education and social security, things which generally have been slowly destroyed in the last 4 decades)

IMHO, just like American-style “Liberals” are de facto facilitators of Fascism, the ideas they have exported during their period of cultural dominance in the West are also weaking the capability of being a bullwark for Fascism of the newer Leftwing generations elsewere.

I wouldn’t be so sure.

Look at Germany, not just the obvious part with AfD but also the unwavering support for a certain middle-eastern nation dominated by an extremely racist ethno-Fascist ideology whilst they were committing Genocide in Gaza.

(Also look at Italy which currently has a far-right government).

Given enough time that protection against a certain kind of authoritarianism because of a nation having been through it, fades away.

Unlike in Germany were it was foreigners that kicked the Fascists out, in Portugal it was actually the Portuguese that freed themselves from Fascism, so hopefully that protection will last a bit longer in Portugal.

I think it’s a very important power relative to all the powers he has, but that’s mainly because he has so little power and is mainly just the top diplomat of the nation.

But yeah, he can’t solve Portugal’s problems, not even close.

Yeah, well, in the first round of the Presidential Elections the Fascist candidate had the 2nd largest number of votes and the one from the Hard Neoliberal Party (who in their early days wanted to privatize the National Health Service until they discovered that was incredibly unpopular) had the 3rd largest number of votes.

The Revolution was over 50 years ago and a lot of people have forgotten how things used to be before that or simply don’t value genuinely Leftwing conquests like the National Health Service and Universal Education (which have been slowly undermined in the last 2 decades or so) from the short post-revolution power period when Leftwing ideals were much more dominant (before things slid into the “2 main parties dominance” system that voting systems with electoral circles and no proportional vote invariably create).

He can refer to the Constitutional Court any legislation coming from Parliament that he thinks might be unconstitutional.

This is important because Justice in Portugal is slow as shit (really, truly, world-beating, stupidly slow) so rather than some unconstitutional shit (probably designed to make some well-connected fatcats even richer) actually coming into effect as Law and spending 10+ years fucking people’s lives whilst it gets challenged in court and works its way up to the top court of the land with the Government spending taxpayer’s money to doggedly defend it all the way until that court finally throws it down, it can go directly from Parliament to the President to that court before it ever affects anybody’s life.

(Having lived in Britain which has no written Constitution, I have learned to value having a Constitution as a second line of defense against political abuse by parties which with a minority of cast votes have parliamentary majorities because the voting system is some undemocratic shit that does not give the same weight to all votes rather than Proportional Vote)

Personally, even though the President has flashier powers such as being able to bring down a government, I think that this specific more technical power of referring legislation directly to the Constitutional Court before it becomes the Law in effect can be far more important in terms of impact in people’s lives, especially in this day and age when politics is pretty crooked and money-driven.

The guy who just got elected, even though he hails from one of the two mainstream parties which have dominated politics in Portugal almost since the start of Democracy in 74 and are pretty rotten, comes from a faction of that party which is actually left of center and is not connected with the crooks that led that party for that last 2 decades, so I have great hopes that he will be more consistent than the last one in using these less flashy powers to stop the kind of unconstitutional shit that screws the many for the good of a few that the neo-liberals who dominate those mainstream parties have often pushed in the last 3 or 4 decades.

Whilst my point about The Guardian still stands, it’s a well known saying that the greatest enemy of the Left is the Left :/

The Guardian is very openly pro-Lib Dem, actively participated in the slander campaign against Corbyn including the one where a Jewish Holocaust Survivor was deemed an anti-semite to try and taint Corbyn by association and its columnists very openly say of themselves as being “Opinion Makers”.

These people are the very opposite of a trustworthy and unbiased news source when it comes to left-wing politics in Britain, with the notable exception of Monbiot and Owen Jones.

Sourcing your “information” about internals of left-wing parties from traditionally propagandist hard-neoliberal news media is almost as bad as sourcing it from fascist tabloids.

Relative to the moral pit which is to have one’s military activelly targetting children with snipers in Gaza and intelligence services involved for decades in a massive child-raping ring, “merelly” razing a cemetery containing graves of allied soldiers is pretty much a moral high ground.

What’s a little grave desecration for a nation of child murderers deeply involved in systematic child rape?!

There is very little in the domain of Depravity that Israel could to that’s more shocking than what we already know that they’ve been doing.

The criteria of “significant achievement” is basically bollocks: for example Fred Goodwin who led RBS to pretty much bankruptcy (not quite as it was saved by the state) held a knighthood for “Services to Finance” which he got for merelly leading the bank he almost destroyed (though at least it was annuled after he almost destroyed it) and mandarins, politicians and public prosecutors get theirs for nothing more than doing their job without being brazenly incompetent, something which is only a “significant achivement” if one expects extreme incompetence for the vast majority of such people hence doing one’s job without ending up in the press for massive incompetent is a “significant achievement”.

From my point of view (as an immigrant who lived in Britain for a decade, and thus having not started with any respect or lack thereof for the Honors System), after a couple of years I concluded that whilst the folklore surrounding it was all about if being about honor (hence the supposed criteria of “significant achievement” and the very loud giving once in a while of one to a very visible public personality such as an actor for being a famous person who did their job in a competent manner), the reality of it was no such thing and de facto the criteria were highly skewed by the social class a recipient originated from and their level of contribution to “keep the boat steady and stop it from being rocked”.

Certainly when it comes to peerages the Honors System bares no relation to honor or any kind of achievement that goes beyond “having a specific job and not end up in the press for being exceptionally incompetent at it”.

I think that if one would blindly throw a stone in the middle of the Lords it would be far more likely to hit a person who is not good (i.e. with a personal moral better than “personal upside maximization”) than one who is.

More broadly for things like Peerages, outside artists it’s rich people, politicians and public-school attending scions of the upper and upper-middle class (even the Public Servants who get one are public-school educated). Notice how common people who are not in the public eye and committed enormous acts of bravery and self-sacrifice for the good of others (the above-mentioned “firemen and nurses”) never get peerages or above, and instead get at most OBEs.

You’re correct, similarly to Germany it has a President with limited powers which are far less than Parliament or the Govern, not a Presidential System (like the US or France) were the President actually has executive power.

I lived in Britain for a decade and the impression I got was that, outside people with genuine proven merit like artists and scientists, having a titles of nobility there was a pretty good indicator of the holder of the title being a complete total sociopath, the higher the title the worse the character of the holder.

They do quite a lot of whitewashing of the system by giving things like knighhoods and damehoods to well known and loved actors and actresses, plus a renowned scientist here and there, plus some lesser honors (NEVER a knighthood or damehood) to people like firemen or nurses who went above and beyond their duty in helping others, but the vast majoriyty of types with Peerages and above are either well connected career politicians who made sure the “right” people gained from the system, very wealthy nouveau riche or those from old wealth.

That will be right after they do it to Tony Blair for the war crime of Pillage in Iraq as detailed in the Iraq War Report …

Judging from all the sociopathic shit I’ve seen from New Labour both when I lived in Britain and when I didn’t, I fully expect that Mandelson is but the tip of the iceberg.

And this is without even going into the Tories, who are at least as devoid of empathy as New Labour types, though possibly more open about how they’re superior people for whom there is no need to verify that they obbey the ethical and moral boundaries that are supposed to moderate people’s social behaviors. (IMHO they mainly differ from New Labour types in their level of hypocrisy rather than in personal character).

Consider the possibility that a nation’s “support for Israel” is highly correlated to how many of the elites there were involved in the pedophilic honeypot that Epstein ran together with Mossad.

They’ve used threats instead, as well as the power of shaming and the influence they have in many places including the Press (for example, pretty much the whole Board of the BBC has a royal title, be it a Peerage or higher, and this is similar in quite a number of other places, both in the public and the private sector).

Look up the “black spider memos” from the time the current King was still a Prince.