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Although this thread does not function under the same strict guidelines as the USPMT, it is still a general practice on TL to provide a source with an explanation on why it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion. Failure to do so will result in a mod action. |
@xM(Z: never heard about that thing, probably just some irrelevant gesture with no hidden meaning.
+ Show Spoiler +On May 02 2017 02:13 maybenexttime wrote:So a bunch of opinions, selective reporting, things taken out of context, still several unsubstantiated claims on your part, plus a couple of things you've said that you presented more or less objectively. Your post is all over the place and you did not substantiate most of your claims, so I'm going to address it as a whole. You're as biased as Reporters Without Borders. Let me show you what they have to say about the state of media in Poland to see what I mean. Show nested quote +Just weeks after winning the 2015 parliamentary elections, the conservative Law and Justice party passed a media law in December 2015 giving the government (1) direct control over public broadcasting. (2) It immediately used this power to dismiss those running the state radio and TV stations. (3) After turning the state media into propaganda tools, (4) the government tried to financially throttle several independent print media outlets (including Gazeta Wyborcza, Polityka and Newsweek Polska) by ordering all state agencies to cancel their subscriptions. In December 2016, the government had to abandon plans to restrict media access to parliament after thousands of people took to the streets in a show of concern about media freedom. Concern is now focused on a proposed law to “re-Polishize” the country’s press by setting a limit on the level of foreign capital in Polish media companies. Alarmed to see a European Union member flouting fundamental EU values, the European Commission launched a procedure in January 2016 that is designed to ensure respect for the rule of law. In response to the grave and repeated violations of media freedom and pluralism, RSF issued a call to the EU in October 2016 to impose sanctions on Poland, including financial sanctions. Ad 1. Before this change the institution controlling public media was still under a a strong influence of whichever party was currently in power. That statement looks much worse without a context. Ad 2. Previous governments did the same thing. Doesn't make it right, but it's a political reality. Some people running state radio stations resigned on their own (not all) out of protest, which made the situation look worse than it really was. Ad 3. Again, lack of context. When PO-PSL were in power, most public broadcasters were mildly pro-government, and a couple of them favored PO a lot. You could argue that PiS changed the proportions, chiefly by making TVP (public TV network) heavily pro-PiS, but they certainly did not make the situation that much worse - TVP went from mildly pro-government to heavily pro-government. Somehow Reporters Without Borders were not bothered by the previous situation (during the PO-PSL times) where all three major TV networks (TVP, Polsat and TVN; the latter two are private) were either mildly pro-PO (TVP and Polsat) or heavily pro-PO. If you're okay with biased journalism (I am not), you could argue that there's more pluralism now, with TVP being heavily pro-PiS, TVN heavily pro-PO and Polsat mostly neutral. Ad 4. Now that is a good one. The previous government effectively subsidized media outlets that were heavily PO-biased through unnecessary advertisements (why would state agencies or various state-owned monopolies need advertising?). PiS simply funneled that stream of money to PiS-biased media outlets. The same applies to subscriptions at state agencies. It's ridiculous to assume that left-leaning media should be favored and subsidized by the government by default. And so on, and so on. At the same time, in their earlier opinions RWB failed to mention the police raiding the office of "Wprost" (which released tape incriminating PO) or PO (through Paweł Graś) having the owner of "Rzeczpospolita" (one of the most popular daily newspapers in Poland), Grzegorz Hajdarowicz, pressure the editorial staff into not being critical of PO.
You're right about point 4, and I think Manitou is exaggerating the problems, but I can't agree with you on points 1-3.
Ad 1. It's true that previous governments had a strong influence on public media, but the ties between the ruling party and TVP were never that close. The current TVP director Kurski has much more power, but that's just half of the story. It wouldn't be so bad if he didn't use that power to turn the public television into a propaganda outlet. Even people from PiS like Czabański (head of public media supervisory board) and Gliński (vice PM and culture minister) think the current state of TVP is, to put it mildly, disappointing.
Ad. 2. A lot of people did resign on their own but you forgot to add why. Yeah, the first wave of resignations can be explained with the leftist views of the journalists who chose to quit (e.g. Wielowieyska), but those who left later (e.g. Orłoś) quit, at least in my opinion, because they couldn't stand working with or under people like Pobudzin. My point is that the first wave left because they were leftists who wanted to make a political statement, and the second wave left because they did not want to be associated with shameless propagandists.
Ad 3. I guess it's a matter of opinion, but I think they did make the situation much worse, way below the acceptable level. Even TVN is more objective in my eyes and I hate that station.
I would also like to say that it's really frustrating to see foreigners compare Kaczyński to Erdogan and Putin. Even with all the problems mentioned above things here are nowhere near as bad as the situation in Turkey or Russia.
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On May 02 2017 03:58 xM(Z wrote:or better, could any of you shed some light on this?: https://www.agerpres.ro/english/2017/04/28/crown-princess-margareta-to-become-royal-patron-of-poland-army-s-17th-mechanised-brigade-17-11-42 Show nested quote +Romanian Crown Princess Margareta is the royal patron of the 17th Mechanised Brigade of the Polish Army, which, according to Polish officials, will be renamed King Carol II of Romania.
"The Romanian crown princess has proudly and gratefully accepted the proposal of Polish officials, considering that this noble initiative contributes to deepening bilateral relationship between Romania and Poland, its defence and national security components, as well as their joint European prospects," according to a press statement released on Friday by King Mihai I's Press Office. i mean, does it happen often and stuff?; what deal was made behind it? .. etc.
Patrons from friendly countries for army brigades or similar are not thaaaat rare.
E,g, the Norwegian Kings Guard has Brigadier Sir Nils Olav III. from Edinburgh as their colonel-in-chief.
+ Show Spoiler +
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On May 02 2017 04:14 Sent. wrote:@xM(Z: never head about that thing, probably just some irrelevant gesture with no hidden meaning. + Show Spoiler +On May 02 2017 02:13 maybenexttime wrote:So a bunch of opinions, selective reporting, things taken out of context, still several unsubstantiated claims on your part, plus a couple of things you've said that you presented more or less objectively. Your post is all over the place and you did not substantiate most of your claims, so I'm going to address it as a whole. You're as biased as Reporters Without Borders. Let me show you what they have to say about the state of media in Poland to see what I mean. Show nested quote +Just weeks after winning the 2015 parliamentary elections, the conservative Law and Justice party passed a media law in December 2015 giving the government (1) direct control over public broadcasting. (2) It immediately used this power to dismiss those running the state radio and TV stations. (3) After turning the state media into propaganda tools, (4) the government tried to financially throttle several independent print media outlets (including Gazeta Wyborcza, Polityka and Newsweek Polska) by ordering all state agencies to cancel their subscriptions. In December 2016, the government had to abandon plans to restrict media access to parliament after thousands of people took to the streets in a show of concern about media freedom. Concern is now focused on a proposed law to “re-Polishize” the country’s press by setting a limit on the level of foreign capital in Polish media companies. Alarmed to see a European Union member flouting fundamental EU values, the European Commission launched a procedure in January 2016 that is designed to ensure respect for the rule of law. In response to the grave and repeated violations of media freedom and pluralism, RSF issued a call to the EU in October 2016 to impose sanctions on Poland, including financial sanctions. Ad 1. Before this change the institution controlling public media was still under a a strong influence of whichever party was currently in power. That statement looks much worse without a context. Ad 2. Previous governments did the same thing. Doesn't make it right, but it's a political reality. Some people running state radio stations resigned on their own (not all) out of protest, which made the situation look worse than it really was. Ad 3. Again, lack of context. When PO-PSL were in power, most public broadcasters were mildly pro-government, and a couple of them favored PO a lot. You could argue that PiS changed the proportions, chiefly by making TVP (public TV network) heavily pro-PiS, but they certainly did not make the situation that much worse - TVP went from mildly pro-government to heavily pro-government. Somehow Reporters Without Borders were not bothered by the previous situation (during the PO-PSL times) where all three major TV networks (TVP, Polsat and TVN; the latter two are private) were either mildly pro-PO (TVP and Polsat) or heavily pro-PO. If you're okay with biased journalism (I am not), you could argue that there's more pluralism now, with TVP being heavily pro-PiS, TVN heavily pro-PO and Polsat mostly neutral. Ad 4. Now that is a good one. The previous government effectively subsidized media outlets that were heavily PO-biased through unnecessary advertisements (why would state agencies or various state-owned monopolies need advertising?). PiS simply funneled that stream of money to PiS-biased media outlets. The same applies to subscriptions at state agencies. It's ridiculous to assume that left-leaning media should be favored and subsidized by the government by default. And so on, and so on. At the same time, in their earlier opinions RWB failed to mention the police raiding the office of "Wprost" (which released tape incriminating PO) or PO (through Paweł Graś) having the owner of "Rzeczpospolita" (one of the most popular daily newspapers in Poland), Grzegorz Hajdarowicz, pressure the editorial staff into not being critical of PO. You're right about point 4, and I think Manitou is exaggerating the problems, but I can't agree with you on points 1-3. Ad 1. It's true that previous governments had a strong influence on public media, but the ties between the ruling party and TVP were never that close. The current TVP director Kurski has much more power, but that's just half of the story. It wouldn't be so bad if he didn't use that power to turn the public television into a propaganda outlet. Even people from PiS like Czabański (head of public media supervisory board) and Gliński (vice PM and culture minister) think the current state of TVP is, to put it mildly, disappointing. Ad. 2. A lot of people did resign on their own but you forgot to add why. Yeah, the first wave of resignations can be explained with the leftist views of the journalists who chose to quit (e.g. Wielowieyska), but those who left later (e.g. Orłoś) quit, at least in my opinion, because they couldn't stand working with or under people like Pobudzin. My point is that the first wave left because they were leftists who wanted to make a political statement, and the second wave left because they did not want to be associated with shameless propagandists. Ad 3. I guess it's a matter of opinion, but I think they did make the situation much worse, way below the acceptable level. Even TVN is more objective in my eyes and I hate that station. I would also like to say that it's really frustrating to see foreigners compare Kaczyński to Erdogan and Putin. Even with all the problems mentioned above things here are nowhere near as bad as the situation in Turkey or Russia.
Ad 1. Well, I agree that the current state is disappointing. My point is that people whose information sources are very selective (e.g. did "The Guardian" discuss the eavesdropping scandal in Poland? I only found a couple of very scant mentions...) will have a tendency to think that the situation changed from practically exemplary to outright terrible, while in reality it changed from quite bad but largely accepted to even worse.
Ad 2. Point taken. I agree. At the same time it has to be mentioned that PO-PSL also pushed many journalists out (e.g. by offering them to work as external contractors with subpar contracts) and treated some journalists in a questionable way (e.g. constantly moving the airing time of Pospieszalski's talk-show).
Ad 3. I rarely watch TV nowadays so I am not in a position to truly compare them. But some of the examples of "extreme bias" brought up by left-leaning friends of mine are rather exaggerated. E.g. the infamous "240k march of KOD" whose numbers TVP allegedly underestimated to be roughly 45k people, IIRC. It turned out that TVP was much closer to the truth than TVN, which reported over 100k. Then you have TVN's biased reports on the refugee crisis, e.g. the one where the reporter talked about pretty much only women and children arriving when the footage showed almost exclusively men in their 20's and 30's. Or that interview with an alleged witness after drunken Wipler's altercation with the police.
I'd say TVP's bias is more of the propaganda of success type. It also uses language typical of PiS, such as "ubek" or "esbek", which is so inappropriate for TV. TVP also undermines the status of Lech Wałęsa as a secular saint, but this is, in my opinion, well grounded in facts we know about his past, but is still seen as heresy by people who are opposed to PiS.
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On May 01 2017 01:05 warding wrote: Somehow Spain has dealt with separatists from Catalonia and terrorists from Basque country without becoming a dictatorship. The UK dealt and achieved peace with the IRA while maintaining the rule of law.
I know all of your arguments, they are the same for every despot. Dictators breed extreme opposition everywhere, which then help dictators enact stricter illiberal policies. It's the same everywhere. You seem to believe that Turkey doesn't have anything to gain with democracy and that the current status is fine and nobody here will convince you otherwise. Good thing you mention Egypt because that's the sort of direction you're heading towards, instead of Europe.
As for European help, you'd be getting it if Erdogan hadn't stalled progress towards EU application once he got into power.
I don't have detailed knowledge about IRA and Basque, but I'm pretty sure the PKK is stronger than them. Do you think they would quit their cause if they had man-power and weapons as the Kurds have?
Syrian Kurds do also operate within Turkey as Turkish Kurds operate in YPG, they switch uniforms if needed. You need to invade 2 other countries to terminate the PKK which is impossible. You can't stop a movement roots itself outside your borders, even if you become liberal, they will still run their agenda because in reality, it's still right vs left (as you can spot from the PKK flag) and liberals are still imperials.
The PKK demands 3 things from the Turkish government as peace conditions.
1 - Release of their founding leader Abdullah Ocalan. and amnesty for PKK militants. 2 - A new constitution where Kurdish ethnicity is mentioned. 3- Autonomy in Kurdish provinces and Kurdish language as one of the official languages.
Let's start with the third and second, you know Turkey is nation state.
ARTICLE 66- Everyone bound to the Turkish State through the bond of citizenship is a Turk.
As you can see it doesn't state a bond of blood but defines your citizenship. If you try to change it you need to produce something like AMERICAN, right? What are your suggestions? Are we gonna use a new geographical definition? Even the early European recordings call it Turkey, you can't name us Anatolians because the North and the West of the Turkey isn't Anatolia, I'm not Anatolian for example, and I don't want to be named as Anatolian because they're different people, their Turkish is different, their lifestyle is different, I'm an İstanbuller, it's something like Parisien but not quite. Oh, by the way can you please explain why Karim Benzama calls himself French and there's no problem with that but a Kurd calling himself a Turk is somehow racist?
There are millions of LAZ people in Turkey, the fact that they don't have a separatist group doesn't erase that minority but makes them well integrated. Have a look: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minorities_in_Turkey If we are to give autonomy to all, sure Lazistan would add some colors but nobody would be happy to buy extra-taxed anchovies!
So, we need to change the whole constitution to make some Kurds happy? HDP got %10 in the last elections which is 5 millions of votes, considering there are 20 millions of Kurds that makes 15 millions of them still don't agree with HDP/PKK and 55 millions of Turkish citizens with mixed ethnicities neither! How democratic it would be to ignore 75 million's will and obey the PKK's?
As for their autonomy, they are expected to be compatible with their umbrella constitution, I assume? In Kurdish case, it' has no ideological resemblance to the Turkish one, have you ever read their so called manifesto and constitution? They created a leftist utopia you would laugh when reading. THERE IS NO TAXATION and I'm not kidding.
+ Will the state with democratic autonomy get help from the state or will it be completely burned with its own oil?- We are speaking and building democratic autonomy. The formulation is that ... Taxes that are collected in their local area are certainly not enough for the development of the rate and for closing the scissors between the other regions of Turkey. The center should support the establishment by applying positive discrimination. So I do not pay taxes to Ankara but I need to get help from the state. This should be the case for all of the backward regions. Because these regions have been neglected for years. State invested in Marmara and Aegean - http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/bdpli-bengi-yildiz-vergi-vermeyiz-18331863 + Well, what if this autonomy does not work?What was happening until now ... What happens in thirty years, it will be. (mentioning the terrorism)
As you can see this is how the PKK politicians bargain, you give or you die. There's no grey area where you can negotiate.
http://www.ozgur-gundem.com/haber/46662/dort-parca-birlesecek
Let me translate the most important part for you, this is Ahmet Türk, a Kurdish politician with big influence.
"Let it be known that the four parts of Kurdistan will unite (Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Syria). Kurds in Syria have achieved their freedom thanks to organized struggles. Our free brothers are based on the Senyurt border already. Freedom voices echo within (Turkish) Kurdistan."
"AB özerklik şartı özyönetimi karşılamıyor." - Emine Ayna http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/gundem/9422316.asp?gid=229&sz=30157
"The EU's Autonomy model doesn't fulfill our needs."
Their constitution is written for the united Kurdistan, not for YOUR LOCAL HAPPINESS type. I wish there was a way to translate it: https://tr.wikisource.org/wiki/KCK_Sözleşmesi
Let me pick my favorite parts:
The founder of Kurdistan Democratic Society Confederalism and the leader is Abdullah Öcalan. It is the philosophical, theoretical and strategic theorist of democracy based on ecology and gender freedom. Each area is the leadership organization that represents the whole people. It observes the basic policies regarding the free and democratic life of the people of Kurdistan and is the last resort in the main issues. It observes the conformity of the Kongra Gel General Assembly resolutions to the democratic, ecological and gender-liberal revolution line. It appoints the President of the Executive Council. It approves the decisions of the Executive Council on key issues.
It is responsible for conducting theoretical work and ideological struggle on the basis of the leadership line, continuing the cadre and public education, developing culture, art-literature studies, conducting propaganda-agitation work and continuing. It is the institution responsible for organizing and running all ideological work of the KCK system. It organizes itself in the form of the following committees to carry out its tasks more effectively and successfully.
A- Science-Enlightenment Committee: Responsible for the implementation and development of the philosophical-ideological line determined by the Leadership. It conducts widespread and in-depth theoretical-intellectual work on the basis of academic organization on different grounds for each area of history and society's life. The basic ideological struggle is the institution. Based on scientific studies, Kurdistan and the Middle East develop the enlightenment movement. KCK conducts the training of its staff and employees and encourages democratic education of the people.
B- Cultural Committee: Responsible for carrying out literature and art works. Develops Kurdish culture and minority cultures, and promotes the cultural education of the community. It develops and supports culture-art organizations.
C- Press Committee: It forms the policies of media according to the leadership line and supports the establishment and development of press organization. Conduct studies to consolidate ideological and national unity. It is a fundamental task to work to realize social enlightenment on the axis of democratic, ecological and gender-liberal society paradigm. For the sake of democracy, public space functions as critique, observation power and a basic control mechanism. It aims to generalize all kinds of scientific knowledge in order to overcome power-based ruling and to realize democracy-based formation.
And tell me now how the YPG-PKK kurds are the most westernized people. Female warriors? TOW firing videos with no Allahu Ackbars? You can find those Kurds in Turkish army as well, believe me.
And their first demand, amnesty for all. Please tell me how will you release a man who planned-ordered suicide bombings and those attackers? It would cause nothing but a civil war... And how you relate that condition to liberalism? How can we make peace if we don't release him and when they openly say there is no if-buts, but full scale war if their demands are not met.
PS: I forgot the language part, if Kurdish language becomes an official one, Armenian, Greek, Laz and other languages should be too. Heavy burden on state communication. I never met a Kurdish who fluently speaks Kurdish actually. My girlfriend is Kurdish, she doesn't know kurdish, nor she wants to learn. Her father lives in Kurdistan, he is pro-state and knows kurdish, he never speaks kurdish even with his kurdish friends because he says it's almost impossible to communicate in kurdish because everyone speaks it differently, my Iranian friends understands Kurdish better than some other Iraqi Kurds because they are all different to the regions. Iraqi rooted Kurds in Turkey never understand the Syrian rooted ones. WHY BOTHER when they all know Turkish. Nobody is holding them to speak it in public. There's even a state channel in Kurdish, but nobody is watching. Their demand is groundless. The language of the nation is turkish, and better stay turkish. It's as stupid as GERMAN TURKS getting their Turkish to the German constitution as official language. There are almost 5 millions of them in Germany right? And they are expected to be speaking good GERMAN to be counted as well integrated...
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On May 01 2017 10:43 Manit0u wrote: Speaking of dictatorships, we have some pretty crazy things going on in Poland right now...
Constitutional tribunal being neutered. Supreme army command being moved from president to the minister of defense. Judges being appointed by politicians. 13 out of 14 police generals being fired. Attempt at splitting the policeman's union (they have a single union with 40k members) into many smaller ones due to recent concerns from the police force and their statements against being politicized. Most of the higher ranking military commanders (those with real combat experience and such) resigning due to new minister of defense's policies and cleansing (our special forces, involved in operations against ISIS and others have had their commander changed several times in the past year and they're voicing some serious concerns about it). Public media being turned into propaganda machine for the government (which also included plenty of cleansing where a lot of journalists lost their jobs because of not being on the board for it). Attempts to give military full, pretty much unrestricted surveillance access. etc. etc.
Fun times. Not.
I'm just waiting for the EU to turn off the money stream, which would disable any efforts to hide our government's shitty governing useless. They can fool a lot of people as long as there's money and they're not hurting that much - it's surprising how many people don't give a shit about their freedoms as long as nothing much changes in their day-to-day lives. Fucking scary.
Didn't Poland already literally confiscate a bunch of money from people (life savings? life insurance?) a few years ago?
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double post*
I'm trying to fill it anyways:
A question sent to Macron: Will you compete for Europe leadership with Germany? Seems like France is holding itself back on policies regarding ME, RU, TR.
Answer coming from Macron: Macron has spoken about the need for a Franco-German partnership to reinvigorate Europe. Economically + politically this would be effective.
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On May 02 2017 08:18 Incognoto wrote:Show nested quote +On May 01 2017 10:43 Manit0u wrote: Speaking of dictatorships, we have some pretty crazy things going on in Poland right now...
Constitutional tribunal being neutered. Supreme army command being moved from president to the minister of defense. Judges being appointed by politicians. 13 out of 14 police generals being fired. Attempt at splitting the policeman's union (they have a single union with 40k members) into many smaller ones due to recent concerns from the police force and their statements against being politicized. Most of the higher ranking military commanders (those with real combat experience and such) resigning due to new minister of defense's policies and cleansing (our special forces, involved in operations against ISIS and others have had their commander changed several times in the past year and they're voicing some serious concerns about it). Public media being turned into propaganda machine for the government (which also included plenty of cleansing where a lot of journalists lost their jobs because of not being on the board for it). Attempts to give military full, pretty much unrestricted surveillance access. etc. etc.
Fun times. Not.
I'm just waiting for the EU to turn off the money stream, which would disable any efforts to hide our government's shitty governing useless. They can fool a lot of people as long as there's money and they're not hurting that much - it's surprising how many people don't give a shit about their freedoms as long as nothing much changes in their day-to-day lives. Fucking scary. Didn't Poland already literally confiscate a bunch of money from people (life savings? life insurance?) a few years ago?
Donald Tusk's government moved pension money from one place to another and some people consider that a theft.
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@lastpuritan
Amnesty is an absolute necessity for peace. It's very hard to stomach, but there is no alternative. Look at the response to Martin McGuinness' death. Politicians in England had to work with him despite knowing he had ordered bombings that had killed their friends. But that was the price for peace in Northern Ireland.
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Lastpuritan: why do you consider changing your constitution to reflect the fact that all people who live on the area controlled by Turkish government aren't Turks to be such a big problem? The article 66 you have quoted is a terrible backwards concept and such declarations have no place in 21st century, get rid of it for the better. Why do you so insist on ruling all the area anyway, do you get a kick from the thought of having a large country? There is nothing conceptually wrong with the unification of Kurdistan using land that currently belongs to other countries, in particular because the current Syria and Iraq are completely random western creations anyway. There is nothing wrong with separatism and the insistence of keeping borders as drawn at some negotiation tables a century ago is one of the stupidest and most harmful ideas that exists on the planet right now. Yes, it happens in Europe as well and yes, it's equally stupid - well the Northern Ireland situation is complicated, because the populations are terribly intertwined and the region as a whole actually refused to secede, but for example Spain sabotaging the voting on independence of Catalunya is utterly imperialistic nonsense.
It doesn't really matter how "westernized" the Kurds are. The right of people for self-determination should not be based on how cool they look to us. If the Syrians actually wanted to live under the ISIS system, I'd be happy to let them (but we have pretty good indications that it's not the case). I have no idea how exact your translations of their constitution is, but if that's what they want, then so be it. Surely, if that's only a vocal majority, then no. But it should be definitely up to will of the local people, not the Turkish government.
Honestly, you sound like a big child. "They are the bad ones, we are the good ones" is the worst approach to any conflict you can ever have. Yes, they have done some terrible things to you, so have you to them, learn to forgive and hope to be forgiven.
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The USA have issued a travel warning for Europe, due to terrorist attacks. Given that there is no objective reason why it would be advised to stay out of Europe for safety reasons when you come from the US, this seems to be the American government trying to hurt European tourism right before summer time.
I don't expect anyone in Europe to have the balls to stand up to it though.
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We should issue a permanent travel warning for the US due to the rogue gunmen running uncontrolled all over the country
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On May 02 2017 16:04 Big J wrote: The USA have issued a travel warning for Europe, due to terrorist attacks. Given that there is no objective reason why it would be advised to stay out of Europe for safety reasons when you come from the US, this seems to be the American government trying to hurt European tourism right before summer time.
I don't expect anyone in Europe to have the balls to stand up to it though.
Oh you mean like the Obama administration tried to hurt European tourism when the exact similar warning was issued in November 2016 (expired in February 2017) with regards to the winter festivals in Europe? This is just the summer version. It has little to do with the current American government, and nothing to do with trying to hurt European tourism.
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On May 02 2017 16:17 Ghostcom wrote:Show nested quote +On May 02 2017 16:04 Big J wrote: The USA have issued a travel warning for Europe, due to terrorist attacks. Given that there is no objective reason why it would be advised to stay out of Europe for safety reasons when you come from the US, this seems to be the American government trying to hurt European tourism right before summer time.
I don't expect anyone in Europe to have the balls to stand up to it though. Oh you mean like the Obama administration tried to hurt European tourism when the exact similar warning was issued in November 2016 (expired in February 2017) with regards to the winter festivals in Europe? This is just the summer version. It has little to do with the current American government, and nothing to do with trying to hurt European tourism. This doesn't seem right. It may have nothing to do with the administration, but it's clearly a diplomatic football that is being kicked around. Either that, or some paranoid doofus at the state department who watches too much CNN. Is there also a warning for Kansas due to the chance of tornadoes?
Nonsensical danger warnings are kinda the US's thing, though. Scaring the entire population about zika just before the Olympics in Rio was another one of those herpaderp moments. + Show Spoiler +not trying to downplay the severity of zika, and in particular the risk it loses for pregnant women, but for everybody else, dengue is still a far shittier disease, which is far more prevalent in Rio, and nobody was worried about. That said, your chances of getting either disease when staying in an airconditioned flat in Ipanema is effectively 0, just as your chance of getting hit by a terrorist attack in Europe
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On May 02 2017 16:17 Ghostcom wrote:Show nested quote +On May 02 2017 16:04 Big J wrote: The USA have issued a travel warning for Europe, due to terrorist attacks. Given that there is no objective reason why it would be advised to stay out of Europe for safety reasons when you come from the US, this seems to be the American government trying to hurt European tourism right before summer time.
I don't expect anyone in Europe to have the balls to stand up to it though. Oh you mean like the Obama administration tried to hurt European tourism when the exact similar warning was issued in November 2016 (expired in February 2017) with regards to the winter festivals in Europe? This is just the summer version. It has little to do with the current American government, and nothing to do with trying to hurt European tourism.
Yeah, like that. And Europe is going to take this again like the good boy we are.
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@opisska
There is at least one objective reason to be against separatism. E.g. in Poland there is Silesian separatism (a minority view, afaik), motivated mostly by the fact that this region is a net contributor into the country's budget (I am not sure whether that is still the case, but let's assume it is). The problem is that Poland, both before and after WW2, invested into that region heavily in an attempt to make it one of the country's core heavy industry regions. In return, people from Silesia benefited from low unemployment and relatively high wages, plus a set of privileges for the people employed in the coal mining sector.
The very goal of investing in a certain region to promote industry is for that region to become a net contributor into the budget. It makes seceding very complicated from a financial perspective. Namely, how do you estimate the alternative costs of such a divorce? After all, the country could've industrialized another region, one which wouldn't have had aspirations to secede, it would've continued to benefit from having an industrialized net contributor.
Isn't that the case with Catalonia as well?
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On May 02 2017 16:30 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On May 02 2017 16:17 Ghostcom wrote:On May 02 2017 16:04 Big J wrote: The USA have issued a travel warning for Europe, due to terrorist attacks. Given that there is no objective reason why it would be advised to stay out of Europe for safety reasons when you come from the US, this seems to be the American government trying to hurt European tourism right before summer time.
I don't expect anyone in Europe to have the balls to stand up to it though. Oh you mean like the Obama administration tried to hurt European tourism when the exact similar warning was issued in November 2016 (expired in February 2017) with regards to the winter festivals in Europe? This is just the summer version. It has little to do with the current American government, and nothing to do with trying to hurt European tourism. This doesn't seem right. It may have nothing to do with the administration, but it's clearly a diplomatic football that is being kicked around. Either that, or some paranoid doofus at the state department who watches too much CNN. Is there also a warning for Kansas due to the chance of tornadoes? Nonsensical danger warnings are kinda the US's thing, though. Scaring the entire population about zika just before the Olympics in Rio was another one of those herpaderp moments. + Show Spoiler +not trying to downplay the severity of zika, and in particular the risk it loses for pregnant women, but for everybody else, dengue is still a far shittier disease, which is far more prevalent in Rio, and nobody was worried about. That said, your chances of getting either disease when staying in an airconditioned flat in Ipanema is effectively 0, just as your chance of getting hit by a terrorist attack in Europe
Kansas has a tornado warning issued (which is done by a different department than the one which issues INTERNATIONAL travel warnings - Kansas is after all still part of the USA). The same department that issued the EU travel warning has also issued a Hurricane and Typhoon Season 2016 Travel Alert for Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, the Caribbean, and the Gulf of Mexico. So yes, the department does indeed warn about just about everything.
To put the US travel warning into perspective: Spain has issued a similar warning
Austria doesn't consider France to be safe either
You were saying about that diplomatic football? This is seriously par for the course and considering that France is currently in a state of emergency (was recently extended until July this year) no ministry of foreign affairs is going to greenlight it - they will ALL have issued a warning saying to pay extra attention (which is what a travel warning is).
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On May 02 2017 16:42 maybenexttime wrote: @opisska
There is at least one objective reason to be against separatism. E.g. in Poland there is Silesian (a minority view, afaik), motivated mostly by the fact that this region is a net contributor into the country's budget (I am not sure whether that is still the case, but let's assume it is). The problem is that Poland, both before and after WW2, invested into that region heavily in an attempt to make it one of the country's core heavy industry regions. In return, people from Silesia benefited from low unemployment and relatively high wages, plus a set of privileges for the people employed in the coal mining sector.
The very goal of investing in a certain region to promote industry is for that region to become a net contributor into the budget. It makes seceding very complicated from a financial perspective. Namely, how do you estimate the alternative costs of such a divorce? After all, the country could've industrialized another region, one which wouldn't have had aspirations to secede, it would've continued to benefit from having an industrialized net contributor.
Isn't that the case with Catalonia as well?
I am aware of this argument, however isn't this the problem of the investor, not the benefactor? I understand that is feels unfair to lose your investments to a secession, but that's also a very uncontextual view of the situation, only looking from a "now" perspective. If you look at it globally in time, would you consider it acceptable to force money into a region in order to make it unable to secede? I don't think so. To use the same example, I believe that the current population of Catalunya shouldn't be limited in their self-determination by the decision of previous governments of Spain to invest into their region. It would be just plainly wrong.
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On May 02 2017 17:31 opisska wrote:Show nested quote +On May 02 2017 16:42 maybenexttime wrote: @opisska
There is at least one objective reason to be against separatism. E.g. in Poland there is Silesian (a minority view, afaik), motivated mostly by the fact that this region is a net contributor into the country's budget (I am not sure whether that is still the case, but let's assume it is). The problem is that Poland, both before and after WW2, invested into that region heavily in an attempt to make it one of the country's core heavy industry regions. In return, people from Silesia benefited from low unemployment and relatively high wages, plus a set of privileges for the people employed in the coal mining sector.
The very goal of investing in a certain region to promote industry is for that region to become a net contributor into the budget. It makes seceding very complicated from a financial perspective. Namely, how do you estimate the alternative costs of such a divorce? After all, the country could've industrialized another region, one which wouldn't have had aspirations to secede, it would've continued to benefit from having an industrialized net contributor.
Isn't that the case with Catalonia as well? I am aware of this argument, however isn't this the problem of the investor, not the benefactor? I understand that is feels unfair to lose your investments to a secession, but that's also a very uncontextual view of the situation, only looking from a "now" perspective. If you look at it globally in time, would you consider it acceptable to force money into a region in order to make it unable to secede? I don't think so. To use the same example, I believe that the current population of Catalunya shouldn't be limited in their self-determination by the decision of previous governments of Spain to invest into their region. It would be just plainly wrong.
I am pretty sure nobody forced Silesia or Catalonia to accept the investments. They gladly accepted them because it elevated their standard of living. I am all for self-determination. But I also think Spain would have every right to recuperate the alternative costs of heavily investing in Catalonia and not another region instead. I don't think either side would negotiate in good faith and I doubt a reasonable consensus could be agreed upon.
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On May 02 2017 17:31 opisska wrote:Show nested quote +On May 02 2017 16:42 maybenexttime wrote: @opisska
There is at least one objective reason to be against separatism. E.g. in Poland there is Silesian (a minority view, afaik), motivated mostly by the fact that this region is a net contributor into the country's budget (I am not sure whether that is still the case, but let's assume it is). The problem is that Poland, both before and after WW2, invested into that region heavily in an attempt to make it one of the country's core heavy industry regions. In return, people from Silesia benefited from low unemployment and relatively high wages, plus a set of privileges for the people employed in the coal mining sector.
The very goal of investing in a certain region to promote industry is for that region to become a net contributor into the budget. It makes seceding very complicated from a financial perspective. Namely, how do you estimate the alternative costs of such a divorce? After all, the country could've industrialized another region, one which wouldn't have had aspirations to secede, it would've continued to benefit from having an industrialized net contributor.
Isn't that the case with Catalonia as well? I am aware of this argument, however isn't this the problem of the investor, not the benefactor? I understand that is feels unfair to lose your investments to a secession, but that's also a very uncontextual view of the situation, only looking from a "now" perspective. If you look at it globally in time, would you consider it acceptable to force money into a region in order to make it unable to secede? I don't think so. To use the same example, I believe that the current population of Catalunya shouldn't be limited in their self-determination by the decision of previous governments of Spain to invest into their region. It would be just plainly wrong.
If you're trying to point to federal investment as a reason for not seceding, Catalonia is an absolutely terrible example. You should probably stop talking about Spain.
Edit: make that both of you.
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On May 02 2017 18:26 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On May 02 2017 17:31 opisska wrote:On May 02 2017 16:42 maybenexttime wrote: @opisska
There is at least one objective reason to be against separatism. E.g. in Poland there is Silesian (a minority view, afaik), motivated mostly by the fact that this region is a net contributor into the country's budget (I am not sure whether that is still the case, but let's assume it is). The problem is that Poland, both before and after WW2, invested into that region heavily in an attempt to make it one of the country's core heavy industry regions. In return, people from Silesia benefited from low unemployment and relatively high wages, plus a set of privileges for the people employed in the coal mining sector.
The very goal of investing in a certain region to promote industry is for that region to become a net contributor into the budget. It makes seceding very complicated from a financial perspective. Namely, how do you estimate the alternative costs of such a divorce? After all, the country could've industrialized another region, one which wouldn't have had aspirations to secede, it would've continued to benefit from having an industrialized net contributor.
Isn't that the case with Catalonia as well? I am aware of this argument, however isn't this the problem of the investor, not the benefactor? I understand that is feels unfair to lose your investments to a secession, but that's also a very uncontextual view of the situation, only looking from a "now" perspective. If you look at it globally in time, would you consider it acceptable to force money into a region in order to make it unable to secede? I don't think so. To use the same example, I believe that the current population of Catalunya shouldn't be limited in their self-determination by the decision of previous governments of Spain to invest into their region. It would be just plainly wrong. If you're trying to point to federal investment as a reason for not seceding, Catalonia is an absolutely terrible example. You should probably stop talking about Spain. Edit: make that both of you.
Care to elaborate?
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