Lazy fucking communists.

[Vera]

Today we had to go to a youth seminar with my Civics class. At this seminar there were members from the youth groups of all sorts of parties and we were to ask them questions regarding local politics and find out how they stood on the usual issues (sort of educate the youth on what political parties are about, the differences between them and all that jazz).

Well, great idea in general, but when we arrived, we found out that only rightwing party members were there and the one Social Dem hadn't come and Greens and Leftwing Coalition weren't even invited. Fucking fantastic.

So I sat down and looked through the papers we were given, chucking the National Coalition youth paper (Kokoomus is the Finnish name of the party and Porvari was the name of the magazine) ceremoniously into the trash bin because the back cover just simply sickened me. I mean, I don't support communism but I would NEVER wear a shirt with a Coca-Cola like logo on it that says "Enjoy - Capitalism". I was really close to telling the leader of the National Coalition Youth that the joke was just tasteless just before leaving the whole thing but then he was all, "I'll just talk into my designer cell phone and pretend you don't exist" so I didn't do that.

Okay, so not a very good first impression. So there were four people, one guy from Keskusta (Centre Party, leaning slightly toward the right on certain issues but generally stands up for "farming values" or whatever), one guy from the Swedish Party and one guy from the National Coalition (in a suit) and a girl who I think he thought was just there as his secretary or something. Could just be my bias because the dude was an asshole.

The panel discussion gave me zilch. The National Coalition, Kokoomus guy really got on my nerves because his attitude seemed to be, on almost every issue, "if you disagree with me, it's just because you don't know enough". And the girl would pipe up after he'd finished: "Yes, that's true! I used to be anti-something but then I found out about things and now I'm pro it!" The Swedish dude had some pretty good points and the Centre guy was actually the one who I found myself most agreeing with but damn, I was just overall disappointed because there wasn't much to be learned when all sides came from the right.

Everyone pretty much agreed on all issues (except nuclear power) so it was pretty boring. And most of the blabber was sort of the typical politician talk. "Blah blah blah, saying this to avoid really answering, blah blah blah, ideals, blah blah".

Fuck communists for not showing up. I'm going to go burn some Lenin posters now.*

* Slight exaggeration, both the communist part and the Lenin posters part. Social Dems are not commies, I know. And I don't have any Lenin posters. I think I'll go burn the rightwing youth magazine thingy instead.

[the_GoDdEsS]

They should make seminars a little bit more exciting. :/

Digression but the end reminded me of how when I was 10 and played with some kids near an old house we actually found Lenin's head under the bricks. It was well funny. Then we kept it as a kind of a fake God figure for some games. Poor abused thing.

[wheelchairman]

I think it's poor that the Greens and the Left Coalition weren't invited, yet you had 3 parties from the right invited, yeah that makes a lot of sense.

The same problem happens in Denmark often though, 3 years ago I attended something of the samething you described, there came a member of the extreme right, a member of the extreme middle, and a right-wing social democrat. No one more to the left.

What was brilliant was the last elections we had here in Denmark, got to witness a debate between several members of parliament from all spectrums, that went extremely well for the extreme left.

[Betty]

At our school there was some sort of political thing and the right wing person didn't go because they were scared of all the crazy radicals and hippies! And they requested for there to be security just in case but the crazy radical/hippy organizers didn't want security and so the right wing candidate didn't show up since they knew they would be hated by most who attended. Sad story, but true.

I too think it's sad those parties weren't invited, BUT it is understandable if they are much, much less popular. They should still be invited, but like I said, I think it's understandable why they aren't. I just know that's the case here, but I'm not sure how popular they are there.

For example, at our elections, they have these big debates, and they had them between the Conservatives, the Liberals, the NDP (New Democratic Party), and the Bloc Quebecois, but the Green Party candidate wasn't invited to participate. Like, they are still much less popular (don't even have a seat) but they did have a representative in every riding and are gaining more and more popular vote. Oh well, maybe next year...

[Betty]

Oh yeah, and I also wanted to say that I hate how many politicians aren't upfront with their policies. Even the ones I support I get very annoyed with.

[wheelchairman]

The Left Alliance is the 4th largest party with 19 seats in the Finnish parliament, the Greens are the 5th with 14 seats in Parliament, the Swedish People's Party is half the size, yet it was invited.

and hippies....yes....the world's most aggressive people.

[Betty]

Funny you mention that... a few weeks ago there was this big protest at my school due to the fact that there are severe budget problems (not nearly enough funding from the government... cuts HAD to be mades SOMEWHERE) and the students didn't like it. So... those I refer to as "radicals and hippies", although this may not be the correct terminology (I apologize for my use of words, but you know who I mean), barged in on a budget meeting. They used garbage cans and chairs to get past cops. So violent? Yes, to a degree. The president allowed them into the meeting provided they be respectful but apparently they were too rowdy so they eventually cancelled the meeting. I just watched a video of the protest, so that's why I have the story! And yeah, it looked pretty rough.

[Jesus]

Funny you mention that... a few weeks ago there was this big protest at my school due to the fact that there are severe budget problems (not nearly enough funding from the government... cuts HAD to be mades SOMEWHERE) and the students didn't like it. So... those I refer to as "radicals and hippies", although this may not be the correct terminology (I apologize for my use of words, but you know who I mean), barged in on a budget meeting. They used garbage cans and chairs to get past cops. So violent? Yes, to a degree. The president allowed them into the meeting provided they be respectful but apparently they were too rowdy so they eventually cancelled the meeting. I just watched a video of the protest, so that's why I have the story! And yeah, it looked pretty rough.

The most important thing in this is: 1) Why the hell were the cops their to begin with. 2)Why didn't they have a public budget meeting first (with students invited) and then a closed one.

[Vera]

Yeah, what WCM said. Greens are extremely popular, especially in the local parliaments of big cities (such as Helsinki, obviously) and since we were basically discussing decisions of local parliaments (kunta, plural kunnat in Finnish) and not THE parliament, it's just really confusing. The rightwing party Kokoomus did win in the last kunta election in here, but I think Greens have nearly as many seats as the Social Dems in the Helsinki local parliament. It just overall doesn't make sense.

I guess the point was that this thing so did not make me more sympathetic toward rightwing political parties. Except for Keskusta (The Centre Party), slightly, but gahh. Enjoy Capitalism? I'm sorry, but that's just tacky. And the girl at one point said, "Well, I think when considering political ideals, if I wanted to help the poor, I couldn't have joined Kokoomus."

Who says that?!

[Betty]

The most important thing in this is: 1) Why the hell were the cops their to begin with. 2)Why didn't they have a public budget meeting first (with students invited) and then a closed one.

1) The cops were there because there was apparently a specific serious threat towards one of the board members.

2) There were various meetings beforehand open to students and other members of the public.

Our school is usually pretty decent for respecting activism and student concerns so I think that's why it was especially disappointing for some that the protest was very non-peaceful.

But I don't know, maybe that meeting SHOULD have been public as well, I'm not sure of the politics and motives behind that decision. So my point is not about whether having the protest was right, just that it was violent (in response to the sarcastic hippie comment).

I don't think the motives behind the protest were right in my opinion though. The school had proposed amongst other solutions, a pretty big departmental cut across the departments (most likely leading to layoffs for some of these) and raises to international student tuition (which I think is understandable because their tuition is already subsidized by the government when they had not been paying into the tax pool and will now be slightly less subsidized, which I think still sucks, but is better than raising tuition for students from our own country, which would still be understandable if it happened). The central student association alternative was to run a huge deficit. I don't think that is very fiscally responsible at all. Sure, it's easy to protest cuts, but I think you should provide a viable alternative, and I don't feel that they did that.

***

ON TOPIC: Yes Sanni, then I do agree it's pretty silly that not all representative parties were invited. Was there some sort of bias among the organizers?