Unfortunely too many European countries are following along voting into the same kind of local parties.
Those of my generation and previous ones following WW II, just wasted all the efforts for a better society.
Those of my generation and previous ones following WW II, just wasted all the efforts for a better society.
The trend in Europe started many decades ago. It is too convenient to blame Russia to avoid acknowledging reality. Russia does not create problems, it is an opportunistic actor that tries to use the existing problems and discontent to its advantage.
Immediately labelling discontent as "xenophobia" is exactly what I mentioned in my previous comments, a denial of reality and of people's concerns. It shuts down debate and only fuels discontent. People are effectively told that they have no choice and if they don't like it they are wrong and racist.
In the intelligence community there is very little doubt that russia has been doing this for decades. Yes, there is a home grown component as well but it would not be nearly as large if not for all this meddling.
> Immediately labelling discontent as "xenophobia" is exactly what I mentioned in my previous comments, a denial of a reality and of people's concerns. It shuts down debate and only fuels discontent. People are effectively told that they have no choice and if they don't like it they are wrong and racist.
Yes.
This will end badly because of this denial of reality and denial of people's voices, not because of Russia.
This is incredibly short-sighted and is in fact exactly such a denial of reality that you accuse others of. The world is divided into poorer regions and wealthier regions, and regions that are peaceful and ones that are less peaceful. Then there is oppression based on race, creed, sexual preference and a whole raft of other things.
As long as that is the case there will be people that want to move away from where they were born.
You are claiming to speak for a group, but in fact you are just speaking for yourself, and poorly reasoned and supported at that.
The world is what it is. That has nothing to do with the immigration policies in Europe, which are chosen by the governments not imposed on them, and nothing to do with the growing range of issues in Europe.
I am not claiming to speak for anyone, by the way. I only acknowledge the election results and trends across Europe and how those signs of public opinion are met.
Have a nice one, guys.
It does however, have everything to do with centuries of European imperialism. We shaped the world to be the way it is. It didn't happen by accident.
Long term sustainable policies that do not result in such an imbalance require a longer term view and possibly lower short term profits. In fact, the United States was on that path until Trump took over. Mexico was slowly getting wealthier and people were already moving back because it was a more viable alternative. Now of course all that progress has been destroyed but it was really working, and I'm pretty sure that it could have been accelerated.
Our goverments could do better fixing the ways of the past, instead it is much easier to complain about immigration, from countries politians themselves would not freely chose to live on, other than on big monthly check from one of those corporations.
Interestingly, at the time when this happened there was due to the fact that Surinam people were considered to be citizens a massive influx of Surinam people to NL, the ones that saw the writing on the wall and realized that there would be a less-than-optimal situation post dutch pull-out. This then - predictably - led to exactly the same levels of xenophobia about the Surinam people coming to NL. The kind of stuff dutch people at the time were saying about them does not bear repeating here, suffice to say it was pretty horrible. Now, a good 40 years later they've integrated into Dutch society, and you don't hear anybody anymore about how they were going to cause the end of our 'way of life' That honor simply shifts from one group to the next. The only ones so far that seem to escape such scorn are the Ukrainians, but I suspect if their numbers would rise further that that would happen just the same, already Wilders has been trying out that fiddle to see how well it plays. But he's playing with fire on that subject and he knows it, we have not forgotten his response to the Russian downing of MH-17.
I, too, am part of the "people". My concerns are that we are seeing xenophobia rise as a distraction from the issues caused by capitalist contradictions and that Russia is fueling that fire for its own motives.
I, too, am unhappy with the current political parties, but for reasons opposite to yours. As long as the means of production are owned by the capitalist class, we will continue to suffer.
My "people's concern" is not the same as yours. Please do not try to commandeer it.
It is as true as the belief that social dynamics can be explained without the notion of class and modes of production.
Strawman detected. That's not what the GP wrote.
> The moment socialism arrives there won't be racism or xenophobia.
And that makes two.
> It is as true as the belief that social dynamics can be explained without the notion of class and modes of production.
Ok, I give up.
Much can be said, but not that they are so naive as your typical HN commenter.
And invasion or occupation is hardly the only example of adversarial policy, even if most obvious.
It was better for Russia than the present.
> You are taking last few decades, which were anomaly due to unprecedented situation of total global hegemony of US, and you extrapolate for the rest of future human history, whereas it dissolves right before your eyes.
The US has nothing to do with this.
> And invasion or occupation is hardly the only example of adversarial policy, even if most obvious.
Yes, you can make enemies out of thin air. But the facts are simple: Europe has tried to appease Russia by trading with them, in the end that trade balance was and is used to wage war. That's a dead end strategy. Russia can not survive by itself and needs trading partners more than it needs more territory. Putin and his band of mafiosi are robbing Russia blind and are the root cause of a lot of this, they will at some point be replaced and hopefully the new guard will be smarter than the old guard. And if not we'll deal with that when we get there.
You live in Poland, but your position does not strike me as typically Polish. Poland has seen first hand what it was like to live as a Russian occupied country. The same goes for the Baltics, Romania and lots of other countries in the East. Between all of them there is a solid agreement that this will not happen again. They're more than happy to let Russia be Russia, but within its own borders. Just like it would be if your country bordered Somalia or Iran.
On the contrary. Epitome of close transnational cooperation, the EU, would not exist if not for the US. So called "international law" and "free trade" are creations of US hegemony as well.
> You live in Poland, but your position does not strike me as typically Polish. Poland has seen first hand what it was like to live as a Russian occupied country.
I suspect it is because you for some reason believe it is impossible to hold multiple, noncontradictory thougths simultaneously in mind:
1. Russia is Poland's adversary, always have been, always will be. Not because of some good vs evil bs, or because Putin is madman, but because success of one is a loss of the other. Yes, some games are zero-sum, and this is why wars will happen. Alliances always are more or less situational.
2. Russia is a country of misery, and always was.
3. Unrest and far-right success we face internally, as other countries do as well, though definitely exploited and fueled by Russia, are fault of people that were in charge so far, and systemic problems they created or failed to address.
4. Russian policy against neighbouring countries is independent from who is currently ruling there.
No, it is because I too lived in Poland, have a ton of friends and family there and know from first had experience what Poland looked like under Russian occupation.
The EU was preceded by several other institutions which had absolutely nothing to do with the United States.
And how from this experience follows anything that you postulated before?
My great grandfather was in three German camps, Auschwitz among them, and I do not produce from this fact any theory on German foreign policy, or politics in general. That would be quite silly.
> The EU was preceded by several other institutions which had absolutely nothing to do with the United States.
ECSC in 1951 was created due to US encouragement and active involvement. US was preventing France from enacting more severe reparation policies after WW2, US was pushing UK to go against traditional British policy of preventing mainland Europe from any unification, US was making sure Germany will be part of any initiative (France was reluctant, UK even more so) etc. We can add to that the Marshall Plan as well. Of course nothing of that wasn't motivated by charity of the US, and it doesn't mean that there were no forces internal to Europe that also pushed for closer cooperation, but it doesn't change facts that are a bitter pill for some euro enthusiasts. History usually brings bitter pills for those that think it ended.
Unless you mean Holy Roman Empire as a predecessor of the EU, then sure, you are right.
https://european-union.europa.eu/principles-countries-histor...
The USA does not even rate a mention, though it probably should have, that's a bit of EU revisionism afaic.
More on this in Wikipedia:
"The United States was not officially part of the treaty negotiations, but it was a major force behind the scenes. The US High Commissioner for Occupied Germany, John McCloy, was an advocate of decartelization and his chief advisor in Germany was a Harvard anti-trust lawyer, Robert Bowie. Bowie was asked to draft anti-trust articles, and texts of the two articles he prepared (on cartels and the abuse of monopoly power) became the basis of the treaty's competition policy regime. Also, Raymond Vernon in the State Department (of later fame for his studies on industrial policy at Harvard university) carefully reviewed successive drafts of the treaty. He stressed the importance of the freedom of the projected common market from restrictive practices.
The Americans insisted that the German coal sales monopoly, the Deutscher Kohlenverkauf (DKV), should lose its monopoly, and that the steel industries should no longer own the coalmines. It was agreed that the DKV would be broken up into four independent sales agencies. The steel firm Vereinigte Stahlwerke was to be divided into thirteen firms, and Krupp into two."
As for the Holy Roman Empire, no, that was not what I had in mind but since you are arguing in bad faith all over this thread I don't think it is worth my time to continue the discussion, even if I think that in principle we agree. It has been noted before that just like here you are stating a lot of things without actually aiming to make a point and you are repeating things that are objectively false in order to confuse the discussion, and things that are true but that are besides the point and not worth the contest because of the ridiculous out-of-proportion weight you assign on some details. I have no clue why you are doing this but I also simply don't have the energy for it.
You couldn't prove that any of my claims are "objectively false". And that would be ridiculous, as we discussed things somewhere at intersection of history and politics, where it is immensely difficult to state anything objectively true or false.
All I did was to question popular, ideological sentiments your comments exemplify. Your reaction, as well as calling it "arguing in bad faith" proves that this ideology is indeed something that should be challenged, as it is blinding and makes you disregard some key facts apriori. Also, stating I am all over place while rambling something about US hypocrisy and its monopolies, when neither has anything to do with topics we discussed is funny. And naive.
Agree that it is pointless, but in truth I have never written with an intent of convincing you. I leave my comments for others to read and think.