Politics in history. In general.

[Billy Underdog]

This is first and foremost a question to Charger, but as it might develop into something long and interesting i desided to start a thread to encompass more within the same topic.

Charg, i've always wondered about the Finnish relationship with its occupants Sweden and Russia. Which of these countries do you have the best relationship to now "after the fact". Both you personally and what you see as the Finnish majoritys opinion as a whole?
It's funny with the Norwegian history, because despite having been occupied by Denmark for almost 400 yrs and in an involuntary union with Sweden for less than a hundred, we're overall more positive towards Danes than Swedes. Despite while being "Danish" we had absolutely no say, whereas in union with Sweden we had our own government and constitution. I've always found that peculiar, so just wondering what point of view a somewhat similar country with a somewhat similar occupation history have.

[Zzzptm]

I know there are a lot of Danes that are still rankled over the ethnic cleansing of Skane.

[Billy Underdog]

I know there are a lot of Danes that are still rankled over the ethnic cleansing of Skane.

I have to admit it took me a second of thinking "wtf?" until i understood you're joking...

[Zzzptm]

I know there are a lot of Danes that are still rankled over the ethnic cleansing of Skane.

I have to admit it took me a second of thinking "wtf?" until i understood you're joking...

No, really, that's how they describe the de-Danification of Skane and Halland.

[Billy Underdog]

No, really, that's how they describe the de-Danification of Skane and Halland.

Wow... Those Danes...

Well, yeah, i know they have a romantic view of how great the Danish kingdom once was, and that they regret losing huge parts of their land. Just like we Norwegians regret the loss of much of our land over several decades (some given away from the Danish king to the British, some kept by the Danes, some given to Sweden and so on...)
But to call it ethnic cleansing..? First of all, Danes and Swedes (and Norwegians) are the same ethnicity (exept the Sami people of northern Sweden and Norway). Second, though the physical land of Skåne have shifted rulers several times, there haven't been any mass killings of the people living there, they've been the same all along, something pretty apparent in their Swedish dialect, which is pretty close to Danish.

Is this truely Danes you're talking about, or second, third or fourth generation immigrants with Danish ancestry?

[Zzzptm]

To be sure, these are people with Danish ancestry, not current Danes.

Current Danes don't seem to be all that hung up on anything.

[Billy Underdog]

To be sure, these are people with Danish ancestry, not current Danes.

Well, that's a whole different matter then, because

Current Danes don't seem to be all that hung up on anything.

that's very true...

I saw a program about this American woman with Norwegian ancestry (for some reason Norwegians love how much Americans with Norwegian ancestry love Norway). She was like the third or fourth generation immigrant. And she absolutely LOOOOVED everything Norwegian. That is, exept post WW2 Norway...  It was something about our social-democratic politics that didn't sit well with her... 

Well, that's who we are now, and have been since 1945. Her romantic views based on what her grandparents and great grandparents have told is just that. Romantic. It doesn't exist any longer... She loves something that used to be, not something that is.
I don't think i'm far off if i guess that your "Danes" are somewhat along the same lines?

[Billy Underdog]

Charg, i've always wondered about the Finnish relationship with its occupants Sweden and Russia. Which of these countries do you have the best relationship to now "after the fact". Both you personally and what you see as the Finnish majoritys opinion as a whole?
It's funny with the Norwegian history, because despite having been occupied by Denmark for almost 400 yrs and in an involuntary union with Sweden for less than a hundred, we're overall more positive towards Danes than Swedes. Despite while being "Danish" we had absolutely no say, whereas in union with Sweden we had our own government and constitution. I've always found that peculiar, so just wondering what point of view a somewhat similar country with a somewhat similar occupation history have.

I never got an answer on this one, Charg. You know i'm a history geek, and this is something i've been VERY curious about for a long time.
If you don't feel like sharing your own point of view, atleast share what you see as the Finnish "norm".
If you don't wanna go public about either, please send me a PM...

[Vyn]

"That which is not dead can eternal lie…"

Riffing off of the "how does one country, or you personally, feel about another or your own from the past" narrative, some recent interactions in real life have caused me to think about this.

Which I;ll have to relay later as something here is calling me away from my computer!

[Vyn]

Ok, made it back.

When and where I was brought up, the U.S.S.R. was the enemy. So much so that it was simply a given that they hated and wanted to destroy our country and therefore we should feel the same about them. Terms used to label the nebulous "them" included Russians and Communists. The Vietnam war was sold to the people here not as us fighting Vietnamese (although we were), but as fighting our enemy the U.S.S.R.

The NVA folks where merely an outreach program for the main machine located in...you guessed it, the U.S.S.R. I believe The Evil One resided somewhere in Russia.

I recall seeing tattoos on people with illustrations and text such as "Fuck Russia", "All Communists Must Die", and so forth.

I had (and still have!) a t-shirt with an American bald eagle in flight carrying a scrolling banner that says "Kill a Commie for Mommy".

My point, and in short, is that the propaganda was strong and prevalent enough that kids like me took it as the unvarnished truth. As I grew older, education and life experience in general changed my views and thinking such that I could distinguish truth from propaganda.

Several months ago we hired a woman who is from Russia. As the months have past, we've had discussions about this very thing. She informed me that it was the exact same thing in her country as it was in mine.

She wouldn't admit that The Evil One lives there, but speculated that Cthulhu might reside in Siberia

Fucking politics.

[Typhon]

^^^^^^
I always felt that it wasn't the Russian people that were the evil, but those in the Kremlin that were running their country.  The same way I don't blame the German people for what the Nazis did in WW2.

With the advancements in communication today, it is a lot easier to check out what is happening in the rest of the world, instead of having to rely on what you were told by your own government.  You can count on 1 hand the number of countries left that still have the ability to brainwash their population with propaganda, like in the past.

[Vyn]

With the advancements in communication today, it is a lot easier to check out what is happening in the rest of the world, instead of having to rely on what you were told by your own government.  You can count on 1 hand the number of countries left that still have the ability to brainwash their population with propaganda, like in the past.

Good point. Knowledge is power in very impactful ways.

[Zzzptm]

I'll take a contrary side to the idea that the Internet makes us more immune to propaganda. I'd refer interested parties to Evgeny Morozov's book, The Net Delusion.

Some takeaways include how surveillance is more prevalent in all societies, not just authoritarian ones. But on propaganda and democracies, I gathered that governments no longer need to have propaganda convince the entire country, just one more than 50%, or enough people in the right districts to get a win in an election with a minority of the popular vote.

And for checking out news... do people in general go to sources because of their reputation for accuracy, or because they're assured the news there will be delivered with a political angle that they are comfortable with? When I look back on how mass media evolved in the USA, it's full of newspapers that had clearly partisan editorial and reporting policies. They'd even have "Democrat" or "Whig" or "Republican" in their company names. As corporations gained in power after the Civil War, papers - regardless of political affiliation - took on pro-corporate stances that had to be challenged by non-mainstream papers and magazines, like Ramparts and Mother Jones. These outlets tended to get lumped in with political leftism, since that was a convenient label to tar them with when their investigative journalism got too close for comfort for corporate bosses and boards. With the development of the Internet, we see even more niches pop up, some with very pronounced biases.

We've also seen the competition for eyeballs result in sensationalism, which on the Internet we see as clickbait titles. I honestly do all I can to avoid clicking on any story that has "10 things" or "you won't believe" in its title, because I know it's more about the "look at this trainwreck" aspect of the story and less about the actual events that happened. Stories about school finance mismanagement get pushed aside for stories about violent crime or celebrity meltdowns.

But circling back to propaganda, if people tend to stay with news outlets that have a partisan bias they appreciate, then the us/them shifts from USA/Russia types of associations and becomes attached to domestic political party affiliation.

[Typhon]

I'm jealous.    Texas has the best political adds and the best politicians.

[Vyn]

Everything's bigger in Texas.