Finnish MP Halla-aho calls for tanks in Greece

[nadinbrzezinski]

Jussi Halla-aho, an MP for the populist True Finns party, wrote on social networking website Facebook on Wednesday that the Greek government should use military force against workers on strike.

"What Greece needs at this particular point in time is a military junta that would not have to worry about its popularity and could use tanks to enforce some order among strikers and rioters," Halla-aho wrote.

The Facebook entry soon sparked outrage, with Halla-aho removing it and retracting his comment.

http://www.helsinkitimes.fi/htimes/domestic-news/politics/16646-finnish-mp-halla-aho-calls-for-tanks-in-greece-.html

1848...

[marmar]

1. Halla-aho is Whacka-doodle

:crazy:

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. Hey he is saying what I am sure many are thinking

so at least for that... we should respect the man!

:hi:

[katsy]

5. My family suffered through the last military junta in Greece.

It's not in my power to respect any one that advocates force upon it's people.

Guns on striking workers? Never a moral choice.

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. Misunderstand it...

the fact that he is willing to say it, tells me more are thinking it

[katsy]

9. Sorry.

Forgive me. I jumped to the wrong conclusion.

[nadinbrzezinski]

10. No problem... none of us wants another

dictatorship, why they reference to 1848... this is global and one response was armed from insert government here.

[Brickbat]

3. Just like any of them, he said his words were taken out of context.

[Dawson Leery]

4. True Finns: The Teaklan of Findland.

[tama]

15. Not

The origin of the party is small farmers movement and there is the minority wing of xenophobic anti-immigrationists represented by Halla-aho (who BTW got suspended for few weeks from his parlamentary group because of his statement about junta and Greece).

True Finns won a landslide in last election because they oppose tax-payer support for banks in form of bail outs for Greece, Portugal etc. and because people are fed up with the old parties and their neoliberal agenda. It's a nationalistic party with leftist social policies and conservative cultural values, a populist party supporting democratic reforms like direct democcracy etc.

[Angry Dragon]

7. When a country uses tanks and guns against its citizens

things have progressed to a point where the citizens need to overthrow that government

[malaise]

8. WTF????

Is it fascism yet?

[nadinbrzezinski]

11. For a while

[jwirr]

12. I know many Finns and that does not sound like what they would think.

I wonder if he is saying what his people think or what he thinks?

[nadinbrzezinski]

13. Think TEA PARTY...

:hi:

[tama]

16. He

got suspended by his own party. A whiny, spineless xenophibic "intellectual" who also had no decensy to think how what he said would affact his wife, who is a scholar in Greek language and literature.

Halla-aho has been earlier sentenced for his flammatory xenophobic rhetorics, and that actually gave the xenophobic anti-immigration movement more popularity, because people do like freedom of expression and he became a martyr. This statement brought no support from any part of Finnish society, all in the contrary and lost a lot of street cred for the xenophobes.

[jwirr]

18. Thank you. I guess there are Tbaggers all over the world. I have

always admired the Finnish culture and country so was kind of shocked to see his statement.

[white_wolf]

14. Well he isn't very smart. I guess even Finnish schools have their limits.

[tama]

17. He's an academic

doctorate in slavic languages. Being smart and well-educated don't mean he is wise.