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On January 30 2015 09:08 WhiteDog wrote:
To be fair, the way the EU behave towards Russia is insulting. 25 million russian died against the germans during WW2, and no representative of Russia were invited to the 70th anniversary of the liberation - by russians - of Auswitch ?
You can disagree with Putin, but insulting the Russian, and punishing the whole population, is not the way to go.
How many Poles died against Russians? French Communists always have a strange way of dismissing Soviet victims.
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No one was invited personally, Putin just decided to not show up.
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Yeah the whole fuss about concentration camp was caused by misunderstandings and twisting facts from both sides. I'd blame Russian diplomacy and some stupid journalists but our officials made some mistakes too so I think it's better to just move on and forget about it.
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Anyone who knows anything about Russian liberation of Eastern Europe knows that it was anything but liberation. I personally like to think that the best of humanity triumphed against the horrors of Nazism with the fall of Berlin, but an army that engaged in looting, raping millions of women, and massacres are things that should not be glorified. At least the Western Front Allies atrocities were significantly smaller, even when firebombing Dresden.
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On January 28 2015 17:39 maartendq wrote:Show nested quote +On January 28 2015 07:55 hannahbelle wrote:On January 28 2015 00:02 maartendq wrote:On January 27 2015 23:42 farvacola wrote:
It is a mistake to look at tax evasion in a country so bereft of competent government services as a distinctly selfish or culpable act. Sure, there are a lot of tax withholding Greeks who held and hold into their money in an exploitative manner, but there also thousands of folks who, justifiably so, simply didn't trust their government and had very little reason to past altruism or heroism. Tax collection is generally not done out of altruism (except maybe by those who actually realise that taxes can be used to finance good things, such as healthcare). Tax collection is enforced. The fact that tax evasion was rampant could mean a couple of things: one thing is that the greek state was too weak to enforce tax collection, which means that reforms are needed, or that the greek state, or rather, the ruling party, tollerated it in order to keep its voter base happy, which, again, means that reform is necessary. The irony here is that a reforms can only be done by a strong, effective state, ie. a state that is trusted by the people it governs. Greece is basically stuck in a catch-22 here (although Tsipras might be able to play a role here). Either way, reforms will take a long time because not only do whole institutions need to be reformed, the state will need to show its citizens that it can be trusted, and the citizens will have to learn to trust the state, and start paying taxes. These reforms will also be heavily opposed by vested interests, who profit from the corrupt and dysfunctional situation the country is in now. You couldn't be more wrong if you tried. The citizenry shouldn't trust the state. Citizens should never trust the state. No one should ever trust an institution that theoretically has absolute power. This mindset is what brought this situation to its current state. Greeks kept trusting their government to fix its problems and this is what happened. Greeks need to show the government that the government should fear the power of the Greek electorate. Unfortunately, it appears that the corruption in Greece is far too rampant for simple reforms to take care of. When corruption is this deeply rooted, there is really only one option remaining... There is a difference between blind obedience and trust. Blind obedience is always bad, but a country in which the citizens do not trust the very leaders they elected (in case of a liberal democracy) cannot function properly. Even Americans trust their representatives to act in the interest of their voters, trust the supreme court to uphold the constitution etc etc. A society without trust just cannot function.
Sure it can. Skepticism is what keeps public officials in line. George Washington said it best. "Government is a dangerous servant and a fearful master". It should never be trusted, and should be held in check by an armed citizenry.
And what your asking for in Greece is blind obedience. The Greek politicans have shown time and again they cannot be trusted to do what needs to be done to improve the situation. There is less than zero reasons for Greeks to trust their politicians. Giving them any leeway to do anything is asking for more of the same.
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On January 30 2015 09:42 Toadesstern wrote:Show nested quote +On January 30 2015 09:08 WhiteDog wrote:
To be fair, the way the EU behave towards Russia is insulting. 25 million russian died against the germans during WW2, and no representative of Russia were invited to the 70th anniversary of the liberation - by russians - of Auswitch ?
You can disagree with Putin, but insulting the Russian, and punishing the whole population, is not the way to go. that's actually not true at all. There were no invitations at all. They just send out "notifiations" leaving it up to every country to decide who attends and if they want to attend. There was no specific invitation for anyone else either.
Ho I didn't know. That's not how the event were presented in France at all.
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On January 30 2015 17:37 WhiteDog wrote:Show nested quote +On January 30 2015 09:42 Toadesstern wrote:On January 30 2015 09:08 WhiteDog wrote:
To be fair, the way the EU behave towards Russia is insulting. 25 million russian died against the germans during WW2, and no representative of Russia were invited to the 70th anniversary of the liberation - by russians - of Auswitch ?
You can disagree with Putin, but insulting the Russian, and punishing the whole population, is not the way to go. that's actually not true at all. There were no invitations at all. They just send out "notifiations" leaving it up to every country to decide who attends and if they want to attend. There was no specific invitation for anyone else either. Ho I didn't know. That's not how the event were presented in France at all.
You sure?
Here it said.. Russia/Putin decided not to go too... Nothing baout "being not invited".
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Anyone who knows anything about Russian liberation of Eastern Europe knows that it was anything but liberation. I personally like to think that the best of humanity triumphed against the horrors of Nazism with the fall of Berlin, but an army that engaged in looting, raping millions of women, and massacres are things that should not be glorified. At least the Western Front Allies atrocities were significantly smaller, even when firebombing Dresden.
This is absolute hypocrisy.
- Rape and war are an invarriable : as you said, there were rape in the western front too, but rape happened in most war known to men (Algeria is a good exemple of that), and was even used as a weapon by the military in some conflicts ;
- The western front was not engaged in war for the same time : three years of war in the eastern front - brutal war - does that to men ;
- There were no official directive to use rape as a tool coming from the Red Army : the military were just savage after so long (unlike in Palestine, were rape was used as a tool for ethnical cleansing by the israelis).
You really can't compare the two.
On January 30 2015 09:46 Sub40APM wrote:Show nested quote +On January 30 2015 09:08 WhiteDog wrote:
To be fair, the way the EU behave towards Russia is insulting. 25 million russian died against the germans during WW2, and no representative of Russia were invited to the 70th anniversary of the liberation - by russians - of Auswitch ?
You can disagree with Putin, but insulting the Russian, and punishing the whole population, is not the way to go. How many Poles died against Russians? French Communists always have a strange way of dismissing Soviet victims.
What's the link between the victim of the soviets and the fact that the russian lost 24 millions people during WW2 ? The french communist denied the existence of the goulag, it's true, that has nothing to do with the subject at hand. You're that type of people that think communist and nazi are the same ? lol
Here are figures if you want to compare :
total deaths under the German occupation at 5,470,000 to 5.670,000 Jews and Poles, 2,770,000 Poles, 2.7 to 2.9 million Jews. According to IPN research there were also 150,000 victims of Soviet repression.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties_of_Poland
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Zurich15362 Posts
Can we not derail this into WW2 please?
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On January 30 2015 19:05 WhiteDog wrote: You're that type of people that think communist and nazi are the same ? lol
Because they are, the Soviets killed a lot more people than the Nazi ever did. Even before WW2, just see the great famine. At least 5 million Ukranians alone died during that time and up to 2 million Russian/Belarusian.
Stalin, Mao and Hitler were all so aweful for humanity and killed so many people, that it is stupid to try and rank them.
They all did what they did in the name of their ideology
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On January 30 2015 20:11 Ramong wrote:Show nested quote +On January 30 2015 19:05 WhiteDog wrote: You're that type of people that think communist and nazi are the same ? lol
Because they are, the Soviets killed a lot more people than the Nazi ever did. Even before WW2, just see the great famine. At least 5 million Ukranians alone died during that time and up to 2 million Russian/Belarusian. Stalin, Mao and Hitler were all so aweful for humanity and killed so many people, that it is stupid to try and rank them. They all did what they did in the name of their ideology
zatic will not be happy but that's untrue (and I think that relevant to the topic at hand).
You're referring to the black book of communism, who made famous this theory that communism and nazism are somewhat related, but do you know that most of the people who wrote this book (which is collective) disagreed with the introduction that made this parallel ? You're making a huge mistake in making the easy comparaison, because the dead under the soviet are way different : it's a collective of many things. I suggest that you throughfully read a little on the topic and you'll see all the differences.
Now, and to get back on the topic, this is absolutly relevant because it shows how today we consider Russia. We're forced to get back to this moment - the USSR - which was a huge crime against humanity for sure (altho entirely different with the nazi period), but that should not justify a collective punishment on the comtemporary Russian population - just like I'm not for a collective punishment on the Greek for the misdeads of the minority in power who spent money and lowered taxation on rich until the debt was unsustainable.
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Zurich15362 Posts
On January 30 2015 20:32 WhiteDog wrote:
Now, and to get back on the topic, this is absolutly relevant because it shows how today we consider Russia. We're forced to get back to this moment - the USSR - which was a huge crime against humanity for sure (altho entirely different with the nazi period), but that should not justify a collective punishment on the comtemporary Russian population - just like I'm not for a collective punishment on the Greek for the misdeads of the minority in power who spent money and lowered taxation on rich until the debt was unsustainable.
This is not comparable at all. The main difference is that 90% of Russians approve of their leaders policy, whereas Greeks just voted theirs out of office. You could make an argument for punishment in the Greek case, but Russians are evidently happy with the course they are choosing.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
punishment is very much a primitive thought routine based on vengeance and all that, and the result is bad. the goal should be helping greek establish new institutions and groom better politicians.
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Besides, are we really going to trust the polling data coming out of Russia? I mean, come on, we all know that Putin wouldn't even allow numbers against him to be published in Russia itself, not to mention releasing those numbers internationally. In any case, the same argument should be made on behalf of the people of Russia; punitive measures levied against an entire population are simply not the way to go in moving forward. If we want to move backwards, well, crack the whip, ehh?
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On January 30 2015 15:51 hannahbelle wrote:Show nested quote +On January 28 2015 17:39 maartendq wrote:On January 28 2015 07:55 hannahbelle wrote:On January 28 2015 00:02 maartendq wrote:On January 27 2015 23:42 farvacola wrote:
It is a mistake to look at tax evasion in a country so bereft of competent government services as a distinctly selfish or culpable act. Sure, there are a lot of tax withholding Greeks who held and hold into their money in an exploitative manner, but there also thousands of folks who, justifiably so, simply didn't trust their government and had very little reason to past altruism or heroism. Tax collection is generally not done out of altruism (except maybe by those who actually realise that taxes can be used to finance good things, such as healthcare). Tax collection is enforced. The fact that tax evasion was rampant could mean a couple of things: one thing is that the greek state was too weak to enforce tax collection, which means that reforms are needed, or that the greek state, or rather, the ruling party, tollerated it in order to keep its voter base happy, which, again, means that reform is necessary. The irony here is that a reforms can only be done by a strong, effective state, ie. a state that is trusted by the people it governs. Greece is basically stuck in a catch-22 here (although Tsipras might be able to play a role here). Either way, reforms will take a long time because not only do whole institutions need to be reformed, the state will need to show its citizens that it can be trusted, and the citizens will have to learn to trust the state, and start paying taxes. These reforms will also be heavily opposed by vested interests, who profit from the corrupt and dysfunctional situation the country is in now. You couldn't be more wrong if you tried. The citizenry shouldn't trust the state. Citizens should never trust the state. No one should ever trust an institution that theoretically has absolute power. This mindset is what brought this situation to its current state. Greeks kept trusting their government to fix its problems and this is what happened. Greeks need to show the government that the government should fear the power of the Greek electorate. Unfortunately, it appears that the corruption in Greece is far too rampant for simple reforms to take care of. When corruption is this deeply rooted, there is really only one option remaining... There is a difference between blind obedience and trust. Blind obedience is always bad, but a country in which the citizens do not trust the very leaders they elected (in case of a liberal democracy) cannot function properly. Even Americans trust their representatives to act in the interest of their voters, trust the supreme court to uphold the constitution etc etc. A society without trust just cannot function. Sure it can. Skepticism is what keeps public officials in line. George Washington said it best. "Government is a dangerous servant and a fearful master". It should never be trusted, and should be held in check by an armed citizenry. And what your asking for in Greece is blind obedience. The Greek politicans have shown time and again they cannot be trusted to do what needs to be done to improve the situation. There is less than zero reasons for Greeks to trust their politicians. Giving them any leeway to do anything is asking for more of the same.
Trust and obedience are not the same thing.
What I ask from the Greeks is long-term thinking and policies that will decisively end the rampant tax evasion, corruption, and clientelism. All this will require reforms in the long-term. Greece's problem is not something that can be solved in a few years' time. However, all these things require an effective and strong state staffed with people based on competence and merit, not a bloated, ineffective state filled with people who got their jobs based on party membership or "knowing someone".
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On January 30 2015 23:14 farvacola wrote:
Besides, are we really going to trust the polling data coming out of Russia? I mean, come on, we all know that Putin wouldn't even allow numbers against him to be published in Russia itself, not to mention releasing those numbers internationally. In any case, the same argument should be made on behalf of the people of Russia; punitive measures levied against an entire population are simply not the way to go in moving forward. If we want to move backwards, well, crack the whip, ehh?
Can we perhaps talk as concretely as possible? What sanctions do you, in particular, take offense with? In this generality your argument could have been used against sanctioning apartheid South Africa (and I'm sure it was).
Russia is engaged in an aggressive war in Ukraine (yes, yes they still play the game of irregular troups who just so happen to have modern Russian equipment and are free to operate from Russia and it's convenient for the rest of the world pretend that this is true*). I wish Europe would have done something more substantial at the eve of the Iraq war but that it didn't doesn't stop me from wishing it in this situation as well. To be fair, it is a difficult situation because sanctions might strengthen Putin even more in Russia
*A notable exception is Lukaschenko of all people...
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The main difference is that 90% of Russians
Just like when Bush was going at war for false reasons. Back then, the americans were broadly behind him : it's nationalism at play, and it's exactly the reason why one should not punish the population, because facing what is felt as a danger, citizens usually end up forgetting all critical thinking and following their "leaders" even in the most unjust and idiot behaviors (nazi germany is the same kind of thing).
I believe there is a place where we can both show respect toward the population of Russia and at the same time show our disagreement with the politics of Putin - but not by increasing the price of all primary goods.
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The sanctions aren't really that big of a deal and actually are specifically targeting politicians and such and not the average population. It's pretty much the minimal response the EU has to show in this conflict so they at least look like they're doing something. All the trade restrictions hitting the population were actually initiated by Russia. Putin probably likes riling up the population with them. Also the oil prices is what's really killing the Russian economy at the moment.
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So, this is just in:
Greece kicks out the troika, there was some kind of fall out in a meeting between Euro group head Dijsselbloem and the new finance secretary Varoufakis.
They seem to be serious - it doesn't look like they are just playing poker, maybe they already took the money offer by Russia? It's hard to see how they could stay in the euro if they continue to act like this.
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EPT
