Russian invasion of Ukraine

She’s a fascist, no?

I came for the speech, stayed for the music

Good stuff though, nice to see someone just spelling it out

Edit: read up on who she is. Not supporting any of that. Keeping the above for reference.

I think what Fox is trying to say is that things are more non-binary that 'good for ukraine now or bad for ukraine now' and that people that are saying the right things now, might not have before and might not again.

She is a far right nationalist. It is conceivable that her thoughts or agenda could easily align with Putin's in the not too distant future.

Some more random, down to earth stuff
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igor_Mangushev

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Ruzzia has funded far right political movements in Europe in an effort to destabilize the continent, but I see nothing wrong with being a nationalist. Preserving ukrainian culture and society is sort of nationalism, isn't it? Only one calling others nazis these days is Ruzzia and the far left internationalists that have also been funded by Ruzzia.

Echoing that sentiment. Seems to me that the English speaking world often uses the word nationalist as interchangeable with racist, xenophobe, fascist and so on.
It's just not the case. To be a nationalist means wanting your people to have a sovereign nation of their own, i.e. not being subjects of the Russian federation, the British Empire, the Austro-Hungarian whatever.. and so on. It's a sentiment that can overlap with racism, but can just as well be the agenda of inclusive, left leaning movements – depending on circumstance.

"Nationalism" as a word has meaning beyond just being proud of/defending your country. It implies a hatred and rejection of those beyond your country or seen as an other. She's a nationalist in that sense and a fascist leading a fascist party.

Just google her

Is there a good word for the positive sides of the above? Would Americas "patriot" work?

just being proud of/defending your country.

The word for that would be patriot/patriotism.

It implies a hatred and rejection of those beyond your country or seen as an other

African National Congress, Scottish National Party etc. Not movements based on hatred, but on a sense that your country/people would be better off as independent and sovereign. There are people on Greenland who would like their country to separate from Denmark, there are those who would like to be part of Denmark. The ones who want independence are no more likely to be driven by hatred than the 'remainers' are likely to be racists who look down on the Inuit.

What everyone else said - her Wikipedia sums her up well - but she is homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic, anti-refugee, you name it really. If she posted on here she'd get banned for her views so I'm pretty uncomfortable with people posting her speeches and calling them great, however innocuous they may seem. I'd agree that fascist is a better word than nationalist. She's not Nicola Sturgeon.

A remix of one of her speeches became a big meme in Italy though, lol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhwUMDX4K8o&ab_channel=MEM%26J

Backpedalling on my positive words having looked her up

African National Congress, Scottish National Party etc. Not movements based on hatred

This is quite debatable. The ANC are known for their opposition to apartheid, something which I feel it was quite justifiable to hate. And you could argue the same for the SNP and the 'Westmonster' government. In reality - although they'd deny - it the movement is partly drive by (an entirely understandable IMO) hatred of the Tories. At least that's certainly true of my Morningside-dwelling Mother-not-in-law.

👍

Italian politics gets virtually no coverage here so that's entirely understandable. I didn't get how fucked up it all is until I lived there for a bit.

If you follow the money flow from RuZZia, you'll probably find some has ended up in her hands too...

So if you lived that for a bit, you probably understand better than some above what it means to be a sort of nationalist as she is. When you family members have been killed, persecuted, incarcerated in fascist camps (no, nazis were not the only ones having those), homes destroyed etc. you can't say it any other way but f....g nationalist.
For some reason 99% of Italians completely forgot what happened until 1943, my friends included.

"In 1992, Meloni joined the Youth Front, the youth wing of the Italian Social Movement (MSI), a neo-fascist political party founded in 1946 by former followers of Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. She later became the national leader of Student Action, the student movement of the National Alliance (AN), a post-fascist party that became the MSI's legal successor in 1995 and moved towards national conservatism. She was a councillor of the Province of Rome from 1998 to 2002, after which she became the president of Youth Action, the youth wing of AN. In 2008, she was appointed Italian Minister of Youth in the Berlusconi IV Cabinet, a role which she held until 2011"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giorgia_Meloni

Doesn't scream "I'm not a fascist"

Yep, lovely lady. Probably Lazio supporter too. With a holiday home in Verona 😶

Verona is lovely in summer. Just a shame that there’s a lot of people that long for the Mussolini days to come back.

Exactly the reason I mentioned it above.

I don't know much about Meloni's politics but if Ukraine had refused help from every country that has controversial policies on immigration, Islam and LGBT rights then Putin would likely have been in Kyiv drinking tea (preferably laced with Polonium-210) long ago.

Probably Lazio supporter too.

My Italian other half's brother got our boy a Lazio strip, She knows nothing about football other than that Lazio are scum and she won't even let him wear it in case any at 5 yr old football thinks we're fascists. tbf we live in Kent (oh hai GC), so it'd be more likely to make us friends.

tl;dr - offers accepted for a 5-6 yr-old's Lazio strip, BNWT.

Good one, what's you lad's name?

It was Verona I was living in, how did you know?!

(While I was living there the city council voted to ban abortion - luckily as you probably know there's a federal law which prevents this, but still proper WTF)

Feel like we're all being very grown up here and not referring to the fact her surname is melons, lol

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