European politics

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Nauru Dolan
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Re: European politics

Post by Dolan »

iNcog wrote:
02 Jul 2024, 21:04
No one cares about migrants risking their lives to leave Africa and establish themselves in a safer country. No one cares about the rights and safety of women being nonexistent in the Middle East or India. No one cares about anyone, but everyone cares about themselves. This is the stark reality in which we live.
You're describing the individual-existential part of it, but on a legal-institutional level those boats with migrants have been crossing the Mediterranean for years (they still are right now) and governments haven't been able to stop them, due to the UN convention I mentioned being part of their national legislation. They can't simply send the boats back and tell them to fuck off, if they do, they get sued by various NGOs and lose because of those legal obligations arising from that country being a signatory to that UN convention.

And that is the case because governments and politicians don't dare repeal those UN conventions in their national law books for fear of being branded anti-human rights, fascist, blablabla. There would be some serious image problems to be managed if a country like Italy comes out publicly denouncing some UN conventions basically saying: we're not gonna apply those rules on the obligation to help ships at sea that output distress signals because the UN convention is being abused, there are people smugglers who simulate a situation of distress in order to force us to take their clients on our shores and give them asylum. Which is very profitable for them and leads to major political problems for us. So what Italy has been doing, as a cope-solution, has been to externalise the triage of asylum seekers to Albania and also participate together with other EU leaders in a joint effort to fund and motivate governments from North Africa to stop the flow of illegal migrants right on their shores. Which works to some extent, but the people smugglers have also intensified their efforts, actually doubling the number of migrants that end up on Italian and Greek shores.

So that's the state of the game right now, but as I said above, if there's a sea change in European politics and the people openly turn against internationalism, we could see some Euro governments breaking the ice and starting to abrogate some of those UN conventions in their national law, thus effectively putting an end to this mindset and legal reality of governments having an obligation towards everyone in the name of this belief in the universalism of human rights. Because legally and effectively that's what's happening right now: migrants continue to cross maritime borders and get smuggled into Italy and Greece, aided by NGOs, because these countries can be held hostage through their own assumed obligations to apply UN conventions.
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Re: European politics

Post by iNcog »

I don't believe image problems matter as much as they used to; looking at the state of American politics but also the politics of other countries these days. We're past the point where public image is a thing that actually matters
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Garja wrote:
20 Mar 2020, 21:46
I just hope DE is not going to implement all of the EP changes. Right now it is a big clusterfuck.
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Nauru Dolan
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Re: European politics

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Re: European politics

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@spanky4ever
are you guys in Norway even trying?
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Netherlands Goodspeed
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Re: European politics

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https://www.edwest.co.uk/p/on-danish-exceptionalism

Great article that puts into words why I think the European left needs to admit to itself that multiculturalism doesn't work and that it needs to start adopting some of the right's stance on immigration. The Danes figured this out before everyone else.
Mette Frederiksen, the current prime minister and a Social Democrat, criticised mass immigration in her autobiography, writing: ‘For me, it is becoming increasingly clear that the price of unregulated globalisation, mass immigration and the free movement of labour is paid for by the lower classes.’
This is quite true I think, and it's hard to square with the progressive ideal of lifting up the lower classes. People with money will just dodge the asylum seekers by seeking out the "good neighborhoods". When looking for a house to buy, we always checked neighborhood "reviews" (there's a website here with crime stats, happiness levels etc per neighborhood), and often this would come down to how many "foreigners" lived there (this was also a stat, and the correlations were obvious). We could afford to dodge those places, people with less money can't. It's easy for us to take the moral high ground and say we should take asylum seekers in.

A colleague recently found out they are planning to build "temporary homes" for asylum seekers in his neighborhood, which will probably be there for about 30 years. He has an 8 year old daughter and now wants to leave, but he bought his house at a great time (mortage interest rates are much higher now) and his house dropped in value from this news as well. So he has to either stay there or lose money. And if he leaves, who would buy his house? Someone of a lower class than him.
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Latvia harcha
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Re: European politics

Post by harcha »

yeah i'm a progressive on most issues but on some issues it is hard to square my beliefs and the experiences of people around me with this stubborn dogmatic approach we see progressives online (really any loud political voices online) take.
recently we had a friend visit, she studies art in belgium. she also told about her experience - her being generally progressive, but the class mates in her uni not being able to have any nuanced conversation about political issues, especially issues that are geographically further away like palestine. most "activists" political activism goes only as far as repeating chants and public shaming of anyone who disagrees.
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Re: European politics

Post by harcha »

whenever i open twitter i see latvian progressives and latvian conservatives calling each other kremlin agents. they would rather refuse to live in the reality where other latvians have a drastically different political belief than their own and substitute the drastic difference in belief with the notion that it's just a kremlin inspired activity.
we've seen so many attempts of kremlin to disrupt discourse that many are not willing to believe anyone online and are not willing to engage in any discourse at all. i think kremlin succeeds in a roundabout way
whenever i open threads it's 100% engagement bating and nothing else
POC wrote:Also I most likely know a whole lot more than you.
POC wrote:Also as an objective third party, and near 100% accuracy of giving correct information, I would say my opinions are more reliable than yours.
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Re: European politics

Post by Cometk »

Goodspeed wrote:
13 Aug 2024, 06:14
Mette Frederiksen, the current prime minister and a Social Democrat, criticised mass immigration in her autobiography, writing: ‘For me, it is becoming increasingly clear that the price of unregulated globalisation, mass immigration and the free movement of labour is paid for by the lower classes.’
This is quite true I think, and it's hard to square with the progressive ideal of lifting up the lower classes.
are immigrants removed from having a class character? the successful induction of immigrants into productive economy should be of primary concern, and might be markedly cheaper than the 13+ years of public education for a domestic populace, but this might not be denmark's political strategy, as the article describes, "allowing asylum seekers to work, as campaigners well know, makes it much more likely that they will make this new country their own."
And if he leaves, who would buy his house? Someone of a lower class than him, who can't afford to live in a nice neighborhood.
could be someone wealthier than him, who can utilize the opportunity to expand the scale of or become a rentier capitalist. or since they got such a good rate, maybe they keep the house and rent it out to somebody else, and maybe make a profit too. they can rent it out to an immigrant
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Netherlands Goodspeed
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Re: European politics

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Cometk wrote:
13 Aug 2024, 08:52
Goodspeed wrote:
13 Aug 2024, 06:14
Mette Frederiksen, the current prime minister and a Social Democrat, criticised mass immigration in her autobiography, writing: ‘For me, it is becoming increasingly clear that the price of unregulated globalisation, mass immigration and the free movement of labour is paid for by the lower classes.’
This is quite true I think, and it's hard to square with the progressive ideal of lifting up the lower classes.
are immigrants removed from having a class character?
They are removed from the conversation about who pays the price of allowing them in.
the successful induction of immigrants into productive economy should be of primary concern, and might be markedly cheaper than the 13+ years of public education for a domestic populace,
There are economic arguments for (and against) immigration. That's not really what the article was about.
but this might not be denmark's political strategy, as the article describes, "allowing asylum seekers to work, as campaigners well know, makes it much more likely that they will make this new country their own."
Yeah their strat seems to be disincentivizing asylum seekers to choose their country as a permanent place of residence. So they greatly reduced the amount of refugees who come there to stay, without breaking the European treaties around asylum seeker distribution.
could be someone wealthier than him, who can utilize the opportunity to expand the scale of or become a rentier capitalist. or since they got such a good rate, maybe they keep the house and rent it out to somebody else, and maybe make a profit too. they can rent it out to an immigrant
An investor might buy the house, but the one who actually pays the price of this policy is the one who ends up living there. If my middle class colleague, along with the rest of the middle class families who can afford to leave, leaves, that will end up being someone of less means than them.

Apparently in decision making around where to place asylum seekers, they use a concept called the "veerkracht" (resilience) of neighborhoods. Good neighborhoods have more resilience because the people that live in them have high degrees of "samenredzaamheid" which in this context means a sort of neighborhood-wide support system where if something bad happens to the place, people can come together to reduce the damage and will generally be okay. Less resilient neighborhoods are the ones where, if something bad happens, it spirals because everyone who can afford to leave gets out of there and it ends up turning into a non-cohesive "bad neighborhood".
My colleague is in a neighborhood whatsapp group apparently and someone who lives close to him is saying they're planning to fight this by bringing the argument that their neighborhood isn't resilient enough to be able to take refugees, which ironically is itself an example of good resilience (their coordinating and fighting it).
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Netherlands edeholland
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Re: European politics

Post by edeholland »

Goodspeed wrote:
13 Aug 2024, 06:14
Great article that puts into words why I think the European left needs to admit to itself that multiculturalism doesn't work and that it needs to start adopting some of the right's stance on immigration. The Danes figured this out before everyone else.
Isn't part of the reason Denmark can have such strict immigration policies because they got an opt-out for the Maastricht Treaty? So would this even be possible for The Netherlands?
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Re: European politics

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Ah ok, probably not then. I haven't looked into their actual immigration policies in any detail and have no opinion on whether or not we should be as strict as them. Regardless, the left's inability to face the reality that multiculturalism was a failure is a major reason so many people are voting for right wing populists. In NL, just adopting some of Wilders' rhetoric might go a long way for center left parties. It seems like most parties' strat has been to distance themselves from the things he says while still trying everything they can to reduce refugee intake. It's virtue signaling except it's not even working politically, so why do it?
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Re: European politics

Post by RefluxSemantic »

Goodspeed wrote:
13 Aug 2024, 12:12
Ah ok, probably not then. I haven't looked into their actual immigration policies and have no opinion on whether or not we actually should be as strict as them. Regardless, the left needs to do those things because its inability to face the reality that multiculturalism was a failure is a major reason so many people are voting for right wing populists
The left doesnt have an inability to face the reality that multiculturalism was a failure. Read into some of their programs. In the NL, the left coalition actually had very strict views on immigrations.

Its just that:
1. They dont try to demonize these people and turn them into scapegoats
2. They want to respect international treaties
3. Which means they want to accept actual refugees (ie people that would be killed if they wouldnt emigrate)
4. They try to propose actual, realistic solutions instead of the typical bs populists come up with.

But the left coalition for example had plans to make it less attractive for companies to hire low skilled workers from Poland/Romania, by forcing these companies to not treat these workers like modern slaves.

Its also not the case that they openly embrace economic refugees. They dont, they want to send these back just as much as any other party. They just dont want to torture them while they are here..
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Re: European politics

Post by Goodspeed »

RefluxSemantic wrote:
13 Aug 2024, 12:21
Goodspeed wrote:
13 Aug 2024, 12:12
Ah ok, probably not then. I haven't looked into their actual immigration policies and have no opinion on whether or not we actually should be as strict as them. Regardless, the left needs to do those things because its inability to face the reality that multiculturalism was a failure is a major reason so many people are voting for right wing populists
The left doesnt have an inability to face the reality that multiculturalism was a failure. Read into some of their programs. In the NL, the left coalition actually had very strict views on immigrations.
https://groenlinkspvda.nl/standpunten/migratie/

This doesn't read "very strict" to me. The core idea is still that we have a moral obligation to offer comfortable asylum to these people. And I agree that we do, but this ideal is becoming politically costly and maybe, when voters tell you in no uncertain terms to change your tune, you should change your tune. I would rather GL/PVDA be in power than it be an opposition party with nothing to write home about except their moral high ground.
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Re: European politics

Post by RefluxSemantic »

Goodspeed wrote:
13 Aug 2024, 12:53
RefluxSemantic wrote:
13 Aug 2024, 12:21
Goodspeed wrote:
13 Aug 2024, 12:12
Ah ok, probably not then. I haven't looked into their actual immigration policies and have no opinion on whether or not we actually should be as strict as them. Regardless, the left needs to do those things because its inability to face the reality that multiculturalism was a failure is a major reason so many people are voting for right wing populists
The left doesnt have an inability to face the reality that multiculturalism was a failure. Read into some of their programs. In the NL, the left coalition actually had very strict views on immigrations.
https://groenlinkspvda.nl/standpunten/migratie/

This doesn't read "very strict" to me. The core idea is still that we have a moral obligation to offer comfortable asylum to these people. And I agree that we do, but this ideal is becoming politically costly and maybe, when voters tell you in no uncertain terms to change your tune, you should change your tune. I would rather GL/PVDA be in power than it be an opposition party with nothing to write home about except their moral high ground.
This just shows how deep the rightwing narrative is ingrained in our society, and underlines my exact point.

If I read this, I conclude the following
1. Respect human rights and international treaties.
2. There is no mention of plans to accept economical refugees, which means that they are against economical refugees (which is the status quo)
3. Intention to cut down on labor migration within the EU, within the laws of the EU.

This is as anti-immigration as any reasonable person can be.
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Netherlands Goodspeed
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Re: European politics

Post by Goodspeed »

It's somewhat lazy to just dismiss the Danes as unreasonable out of hand, but let's assume they are for the sake of argument. That doesn't change the fact that the political reality in our country, and in most of Western Europe, is that people are turning against this moral obligation to help refugees. You say the rightwing narrative is ingrained in our society: Exactly, that's why political parties on the left should consider adopting some of it.
2. There is no mention of plans to accept economical refugees, which means that they are against economical refugees (which is the status quo)
Then they should say that, unequivocally, instead of some weak point about "regulating it better". If, as a political party, your position is exactly what voters want to hear, you should want to shout it from the rooftops.
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Re: European politics

Post by Cometk »

Goodspeed wrote:
13 Aug 2024, 12:12
Regardless, the left's inability to face the reality that multiculturalism was a failure is a major reason so many people are voting for right wing populists.
was the stimulus for your posting of the article the recent riots in the UK?
Goodspeed wrote:
13 Aug 2024, 13:46
It's somewhat lazy to just dismiss the Danes as unreasonable out of hand, but let's assume they are for the sake of argument. That doesn't change the fact that the political reality in our country, and in most of Western Europe, is that people are turning against this moral obligation to help refugees. You say the rightwing narrative is ingrained in our society: That's for a reason. It resonates with people.
if i may ask, why do you think it might resonate with people?
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Netherlands Goodspeed
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Re: European politics

Post by Goodspeed »

No but that might be why someone posted it on truereddit. I didn't even know about the UK riots when I read it
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Re: European politics

Post by spanky4ever »

Dolan wrote:
12 Aug 2024, 23:26
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@spanky4ever
are you guys in Norway even trying?
I am not sure how this data came to be, but you surely can get OP internet in Norway, and I guess this is some kind of average?
I used to have 1k up and 1k down with fiber. But now I am happy for my 150up/down, cos I really do not want to pay for the super internet, that I have no use for anyway ;)
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Nauru Dolan
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Re: European politics

Post by Dolan »

spanky4ever wrote:
13 Aug 2024, 18:12
I used to have 1k up and 1k down with fiber. But now I am happy for my 150up/down, cos I really do not want to pay for the super internet, that I have no use for anyway ;)
I pay about 8 euros for 1gpbs down/up
And they've been rolling out 10gbps in some cities here for 10€

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United States of America Cometk
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Re: European politics

Post by Cometk »

275up 25down for $70 in west coast america. our people yearn for freedom
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Re: European politics

Post by harcha »

prices in US are ridiculous however average speed and price is mostly a function of population density.
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POC wrote:Also as an objective third party, and near 100% accuracy of giving correct information, I would say my opinions are more reliable than yours.
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Re: European politics

Post by RefluxSemantic »

Goodspeed wrote:
13 Aug 2024, 13:46
It's somewhat lazy to just dismiss the Danes as unreasonable out of hand, but let's assume they are for the sake of argument. That doesn't change the fact that the political reality in our country, and in most of Western Europe, is that people are turning against this moral obligation to help refugees. You say the rightwing narrative is ingrained in our society: Exactly, that's why political parties on the left should consider adopting some of it.
2. There is no mention of plans to accept economical refugees, which means that they are against economical refugees (which is the status quo)
Then they should say that, unequivocally, instead of some weak point about "regulating it better". If, as a political party, your position is exactly what voters want to hear, you should want to shout it from the rooftops.
Why is it exactly lazy to call people that do not wish to honor the international human rights treaties unreasonable? Are you saying that you think it is a reasonable thing to ignore these treaties?
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Netherlands Goodspeed
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Re: European politics

Post by Goodspeed »

I'm not that concerned with whether or not Denmark is being "reasonable" (is that a synonym for "moral" in your head?), which is why I said let's assume they are being unreasonable for the sake of argument. I'm more concerned with what works politically, and what will stop the right wing populists from growing in Western Europe.

Anyway, the reason I called it lazy to dismiss them out of hand is that, considering how well Denmark is doing and in particular considering how well their political left is doing, I think we owe it to ourselves to entertain the possibility that they're doing at least something right.

As for human rights violations, I'm not aware of them, what treaties are they ignoring? Their intent seems to be to do the bare minimum.
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Re: European politics

Post by RefluxSemantic »

So what do you suggest we change in terms of policy in the Netherlands?

We have a far right coalition right now, and even they have not managed to come up with actual solutions (they dont even want to do something about labor immigrants, because the farmers party and the liberal party are part of this coalition). I dont see what we can do at this point.
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Netherlands Goodspeed
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Re: European politics

Post by Goodspeed »

Maybe we don't change anything, that's not really what my point is about. What I'm saying is that our left should consider stopping advocating diversity as an ideal and adopt some of the right's rhetoric on immigration. My position is ultimately a response to the very clear message voters sent in the last election, with Denmark as a supporting example of a country where the left is in power. A major reason, and this fits with what is happening here, that the left managed to survive in Denmark is that they took a hard line on immigration, which is the one issue that the right is absolutely crushing us on.

I don't like that there is this issue that the right can just keep crushing us on for free, now and in the future. Because it's not going to get better. People aren't going to suddenly start embracing multiculturalism, they are only going to sour on it further, because it's not working for them. This is what I mean when I say the left should admit this to themselves. If they had, they would be singing a different tune by now. They need to face that this issue is killing them and it's going to keep killing them.

Look, I want us to be a happy, multicultural, diverse, tolerant society as much as the next guy. But, while I don't begrudge anyone a healthy bit of idealism, I have to be realistic. Even if that future is possible, politics is a game of compromise, and we need to compromise with the apparently rather large part of the country that doesn't believe in it.

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