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In the news: Haider out! November 26, 2002 ~ 12:17 p.m. How could I let this piece of news slip by without commenting? J�rg Haider, leader of Austria�s Freedom Party (now, I ask you, just how soi disant can a name get?), called it quits after a resounding annihilation in the country�s recent general elections, collecting a meager 10 percent of the vote. Haider�s rivals, the conservative People�s Party captured 42 percent, while the Left-wing opposition Social Democrats received nearly 37 percent. Haider was no Pim Fortuyn, the charismatic center-Right Dutch politician murdered last May, for whom the case for tolerance could be defended despite Fortuyn�s anti-immigrant stance. Instead, the leader of the �Freedom� Party was a snarling pit bull, a Jean Marie Le Pen-type crackpot, who idolized the Nazis and once famously referred to those who comprised the SS as �men of character.� He also promised to enact �proper employment practices,� much in the manner that his hero � Adolf Hitler � did. Now, it�s really no surprise that a man like J�rg Haider could win in a nation like Austria, for it is the bad-boy of Europe. Austrians, big-mouthed, anti-Semitic xenophobes that they are, would appear tailor-made for a man of Haider�s racism. But, in the past few years, Austrians had been misled by the Freedom Party, promised lower taxes, a weakening of union power and an end to favoritism in government. All of these points are staples of moderate, unthreatening conservatism. To this end, Haider had even elected on putting a moderate (insofar as anyone in a party such as this could be called moderate) spokeswoman in place to represent the party. Haider remained a prominent force in the background, spinning the knobs. The middle-of-the-road turned out to be a monster that Haider was horrified to see he�d created, and he turned on his spokeswoman, regained front-office recognition and dragged the Freedom Party back into the snake-pit of nastiness from which it had originally emerged. And the Haider familiar to all began to re-assert himself. According to an AP news story, �He [Haider] mocked the head of Vienna's Jewish community earlier this year and accused a rival of playing to the American �East Coast� � a code-phrase for U.S. Jews.� Maybe Austrians aren�t such rednecks after all in their hands-down rejection of his filth. An Austria led by the People�s Party could very likely continue with the conservative reforms already put into place by the lesser-evil elements of the �Freedom� Party. I am just glad that the world has seen the backside of J�rg Haider (although he has not quit politics altogether, retaining the governorship of the province of Carinthia and Freedom Party membership). But as Haider exits stage right from Austrian political prominence, I just want to say this much to the man: Schnell, schnell! � M.E.M.
Copyright � 2001-2007 by M.E. Manning. All material is written by me, unless explicitly stated otherwise by use of footnotes or bylines. Do not copy or redistribute without my permission.
AMERICA FOR TRUE AMERICANS!
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