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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. |
I don't have any issues with this specific policy in isolation, I just thought it illustrated well the Orwellian trend that's happening now. More police, more surveillance, more rules. Armed police on trains in Germany. Armed soldiers in Paris and Brussels. Civil liberties out of the window. The complete dismantling of the welfare state.
All so we can import more men, whose god, prophet, imams and political leaders tell them to kill us. That doesn't seem like a good deal, to use a Trumpism.
But there's some hope, a majority of Europeans now wants a Muslim ban as well. It's a remarkably quick turnaround, which always happens when optimism meets reality.
We were promised doctors and engineers, we were given almost exclusively men, a majority of whom are illiterate in their own language. Out the very few who do have degrees, almost all 'studied' Islam studies.
Last week an article euphorically celebrated that 4% of the migrants have found work in Germany. Well halleluja!
There are only so many rapes, murders, violent attack and general strains on a society the people will accept.
Can you even imagine the depth of indoctrination it takes for a bunch of men to flee their own Islamic shithole of a country, get to Munich, see the 'refugees welcome' signs and the euphoric Germans who are eager to help them, get welcomed into a country, get food, shelter, medical treatment, a phone, a computer, education for free, and then kill the aid worker who's giving up her free time to take care of you because your prophet tells you it's okay to kill the infidel?
That's why this weekend we've seen thousands of second generation immigrants who have no ties to Turkey celebrate Erdogan IN GERMANY. If you need more damming evidence that integration doesn't work, I can't think of any. They see ' European values' as nothing but weakness.
User was temp banned for this post.
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
Poland and the Baltics are little more than liabilities that cost money (and they know that - but they benefit greatly from the perception that that isn't the case). Russia is perfectly happy not to have to pay subsidies to keep them afloat. Paying money to countries that hate you is no fun - and economically there is no sense in it. Russia would mostly just like to keep its borders free of enemies, a daunting task these days. That's not how it's seen universally but Putin represents the "rebuilding the USSR isn't the future" faction in Russia, which is the most significant. And any conventional war will involve nuclear weapons, so it's moot.
And since the topic came up, I also wanted to mention that over the past few months or so, there have been a series of disagreements between Russia and Belarus. Nothing particularly new; Belarus has spent a long time playing politics with its alliances to beg Russia for more subsidies (while smuggling foreign food into Russia) and Russia has gotten sick of it and taken more strict measures against it. For example, Russia implemented border controls with Belarus - Belarusian passports can pass without being checked, but Belarus now allows visa-free travel for a lot of countries and Russia doesn't want those people crossing Russian borders. Nothing is going to come of it - Belarus needs Russia more than the reverse - but it's a notable falling out.
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On February 20 2017 03:30 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2017 03:10 opisska wrote:I meant Czech Republic. Will you stop saying Czechoslovakia already? It's year twenty four and counting  I heard Poland is worse, that's true, but can't really comment on it personally as I have not enough experience from here. However what I know is that saying "Poles weren't particularly complicit in Holocaust" here would net you some punches, the casual inclusion of Poles in the extermination project is still a flaring wound in the nation and a big hurdle in Poland-Germany relations. Let me put it in a way that is a little more specific, but not necessarily more flattering. The Poles did not have the widespread, eager and willing collaboration with the Holocaust that is an ugly staple of certain other nations in East Europe. But that is not out of any sympathy for the Jews. The Poles hate the Jews quite a bit.Show nested quote +On February 20 2017 03:10 opisska wrote:
If you want to speak about non-trustworthy allies, would you really trust China with anything? Is there any indication that China isn't going to dump any distant ally at the earliest convenience? I always thought they operate pretty much based only on their own gains. I would trust China about as far as I could throw Manhattan. But I trust their credits and raw resources as good as any others. The basis of any relation with China is purely transactional. And I'd say that's true on behalf of Russia as well, whether or not the government is willing to admit it to be so.
Seems like you have seen through the collective Polish soul, my friend. ;-)
But on a more serious note, what are you basing this on? The bolded part in particular? It might've been the case before the Second World War, when Poland had a sizeable Jewish population (that refused to integrate into the wider Polish society for centuries, let alone assimilate), but in my experience is but a fringe phenomenon now.
To shed some light on Polish antisemitism of the interwar period, Poland was not actually more antisemitic than your average European country or the USA for that matter. It was actually one of the few countries that accepted Jewish refugees from Germany, albeit reluctantly. If I am not mistaken, the West was not very eager to accept them.
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On February 20 2017 05:21 DickMcFanny wrote:
I don't have any issues with this specific policy in isolation, I just thought it illustrated well the Orwellian trend that's happening now. More police, more surveillance, more rules. Armed police on trains in Germany. Armed soldiers in Paris and Brussels. Civil liberties out of the window. The complete dismantling of the welfare state.
All so we can import more men, whose god, prophet, imams and political leaders tell them to kill us. That doesn't seem like a good deal, to use a Trumpism.
OK, so let's talk about this for a minute, because it's getting a little silly.
While there probably are some people who truly believe that getting people from different cultures to move into Europe is great and that we would be foolish if we didn't want to enrich out society with some Arabs, I am pretty sure this view is in absolute minority even among the people (like me) who are in favour of accepting refugees from war-torn Middle Eastern countries. Yet, I still see people (not necessarily Dick here, but people from that "camp") arguing against this stance that noone really has.
I definitely do not want to "import muslims" into Europe. I quite like Europe as we have it now and even though all my visits to Muslim/Arab countries were rather brief, I am quite sure there aren't many aspects to their culture I'd like to import. But that is just not the point: I insist that we have a moral obligation to go out of our way to help people in danger of bombshells, executions and all sorts of life threatening danger. Even moreso because this danger is to a large extend the fault of our own fucking civilization meddling with their homelands. This moral obligation is not relieved from us just because fulfilling it is not convenient. There are clear negative effects to the migration (such as noted in the quoted post), but these are for us to deal with, this can't be an excuse to turn refugees away.
Even if you disagree with this morality, there is this small problem, which is being constantly overlooked by "opponents of migration", that preventing those people from coming isn't actually that very easy and neither is returning them. We can't shoot people on the border, we can't drown them in the sea - those things aren't human and we aren't gonna do them. We could try to keep them in the first country they reach, but it's both hard and stupid, because this country is already a part of the "we", so that would be self-inflicted damage. We can keep them in detention, which is expensive and pointless.
So please, can people stop uttering one-line remarks "against migration"? Those just do not hold any substance. If you really want to discuss how migration is bad, why don't you start with providing some options what else could we do?
(And please, spare us from the "provide help in the affected countries" fallacy, time travel is not available at the moment).
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Poland and the Baltics are substantially more prosperous per capita than Russia. But, NATO aside, Estonia is an obviously more inviting target than say, Georgia. Not that I think the West will collapse quite to the point where either Poland or the Baltics are targeted. But a few years I would have said Russia invading Ukraine was crazy talk. (And yeah, I know, they're unaffiliated volunteers.)
So, when you say Russia wants a border "free of enemies," what is envisioned? Regime change in Estonia and Georgia? Japan to surrender its island claims? I mean, what enemies does Russia have of note? Like, literally no-one is clamoring for a fight with Russia, no force threatens its borders. Indeed, the world wanted to be Russia's friend two decades ago and Russia spent Putin's reign saying no. What is the Russian endgame? Because to a Western observer it seems like the endgame is Putin staying in power by stoking paranoia and waging small, low risk wars against weak neighbors.
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
On February 20 2017 05:41 maybenexttime wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2017 03:30 LegalLord wrote:On February 20 2017 03:10 opisska wrote:I meant Czech Republic. Will you stop saying Czechoslovakia already? It's year twenty four and counting I heard Poland is worse, that's true, but can't really comment on it personally as I have not enough experience from here. However what I know is that saying "Poles weren't particularly complicit in Holocaust" here would net you some punches, the casual inclusion of Poles in the extermination project is still a flaring wound in the nation and a big hurdle in Poland-Germany relations. Let me put it in a way that is a little more specific, but not necessarily more flattering. The Poles did not have the widespread, eager and willing collaboration with the Holocaust that is an ugly staple of certain other nations in East Europe. But that is not out of any sympathy for the Jews. The Poles hate the Jews quite a bit.On February 20 2017 03:10 opisska wrote:
If you want to speak about non-trustworthy allies, would you really trust China with anything? Is there any indication that China isn't going to dump any distant ally at the earliest convenience? I always thought they operate pretty much based only on their own gains. I would trust China about as far as I could throw Manhattan. But I trust their credits and raw resources as good as any others. The basis of any relation with China is purely transactional. And I'd say that's true on behalf of Russia as well, whether or not the government is willing to admit it to be so. Seems like you have seen through the collective Polish soul, my friend. ;-) But on a more serious note, what are you basing this on? The bolded part in particular? It might've been the case before the Second World War, when Poland had a sizeable Jewish population (that refused to integrate into the wider Polish society for centuries, let alone assimilate), but in my experience is but a fringe phenomenon now. To shed some light on Polish antisemitism of the interwar period, Poland was not actually more antisemitic than your average European country or the USA for that matter. It was actually one of the few countries that accepted Jewish refugees from Germany, albeit reluctantly. If I am not mistaken, the West was not very eager to accept them.
Over the years I've seen how Poland treats Jews who come to their country - say, for commemorating the Holocaust. Often the Poles blame them for "ruining their country" and other such victim card moves.
I suppose "not all Poles" is the implicit qualifier here. And it's true, Poland behaved better than certain others. Western nations certainly failed to do their part. I don't think that Poland is the crown example of antisemitism by any means. But piss mentioned that "his country wasn't particularly antisemitic" which would be an odd statement for Poland.
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On February 20 2017 05:46 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2017 05:41 maybenexttime wrote:On February 20 2017 03:30 LegalLord wrote:On February 20 2017 03:10 opisska wrote:I meant Czech Republic. Will you stop saying Czechoslovakia already? It's year twenty four and counting I heard Poland is worse, that's true, but can't really comment on it personally as I have not enough experience from here. However what I know is that saying "Poles weren't particularly complicit in Holocaust" here would net you some punches, the casual inclusion of Poles in the extermination project is still a flaring wound in the nation and a big hurdle in Poland-Germany relations. Let me put it in a way that is a little more specific, but not necessarily more flattering. The Poles did not have the widespread, eager and willing collaboration with the Holocaust that is an ugly staple of certain other nations in East Europe. But that is not out of any sympathy for the Jews. The Poles hate the Jews quite a bit.On February 20 2017 03:10 opisska wrote:
If you want to speak about non-trustworthy allies, would you really trust China with anything? Is there any indication that China isn't going to dump any distant ally at the earliest convenience? I always thought they operate pretty much based only on their own gains. I would trust China about as far as I could throw Manhattan. But I trust their credits and raw resources as good as any others. The basis of any relation with China is purely transactional. And I'd say that's true on behalf of Russia as well, whether or not the government is willing to admit it to be so. Seems like you have seen through the collective Polish soul, my friend. ;-) But on a more serious note, what are you basing this on? The bolded part in particular? It might've been the case before the Second World War, when Poland had a sizeable Jewish population (that refused to integrate into the wider Polish society for centuries, let alone assimilate), but in my experience is but a fringe phenomenon now. To shed some light on Polish antisemitism of the interwar period, Poland was not actually more antisemitic than your average European country or the USA for that matter. It was actually one of the few countries that accepted Jewish refugees from Germany, albeit reluctantly. If I am not mistaken, the West was not very eager to accept them. Over the years I've seen how Poland treats Jews who come to their country - say, for commemorating the Holocaust. Often the Poles blame them for "ruining their country" and other such victim card moves. I suppose "not all Poles" is the implicit qualifier here. And it's true, Poland behaved better than certain others. Western nations certainly failed to do their part. I don't think that Poland is the crown example of antisemitism by any means. But piss mentioned that "his country wasn't particularly antisemitic" which would be an odd statement for Poland.
Yeah, I always forget that I have changed the country in the profile, in particular when talking to people who I assume know that I am Czech (as indicated also by LightLord's familiar use of my nickname). As I said, I haven't really collected enough data in Poland - haven't yet met any outward symptoms, but not being a Jew, it's quite easy to have it that way.
But it's true that a Polish friend of mine (who has long ago moved to Czech Rep.) once told me that if you go on a public bus in his old Polish town, you can sometimes see people start complaining about Jews and complete strangers join in. But he really hates Poland, so I am not sure how fabricated the story is
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On February 20 2017 05:44 opisska wrote:
(And please, spare us from the "provide help in the affected countries" fallacy, time travel is not available at the moment).
Why isn't it?
There's two things we should do:
1. Stop bombing their countries.
2. Stop being complicit in bombing their countries.
Do you think American drones fly over the Atlantic to kill people in Afghanistan? No, they launch from Ramstein, Germany.
Why do we permit this? Why do we support Big Daddy committing atrocious crimes in the Middle East? Why don't we speak up when the US constantly commits extrajudicial killings in countries they're not at war with?
And yeah, if you really want to help Muslims, don't bomb their countries, and resettle them in countries in which they have a chance to be part of society, instead of being welfare recipients for the rest of their lives. That almost seems cruel.
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On February 20 2017 05:59 DickMcFanny wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2017 05:44 opisska wrote:
(And please, spare us from the "provide help in the affected countries" fallacy, time travel is not available at the moment). Why isn't it? There's two things we should do: 1. Stop bombing their countries. 2. Stop being complicit in bombing their countries. Do you think American drones fly over the Atlantic to kill people in Afghanistan? No, they launch from Ramstein, Germany. Why do we permit this? Why do we support Big Daddy committing atrocious crimes in the Middle East? Why don't we speak up when the US constantly commits extrajudicial killings in countries they're not at war with? And yeah, if you really want to help Muslims, don't bomb their countries, and resettle them in countries in which they have a chance to be part of society, instead of being welfare recipients for the rest of their lives. That almost seems cruel.
Syria is already in ruins. The war is ongoing, part of the country is still held by IS, a growing part is held by a Russia-backed dictatorship which for many Syrians is equally threatening. There is really nothing we can do now in Syria to help the refugees - the parties will just not lower the weapons if we ask nicely and a full-scale invasion would threaten lives more not less. Afghanistan I don't follow that closely, so maybe there are some immediate actions to be taken, but there still will be large sources of threats present.
The second part would be great, if only there were any Muslim countries willing to play ball! Well, there is Jordan, which is overflowing as we speak and is the true hero of the story and Turkey that bears a huge weight as well. You could maybe try to convince other countries, but it hasn't happened so far really - and the refugees have a pretty hard time waiting it out right now.
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Drones take out terrorists with reasonably high precision, which also helps allied forces on the ground. Refugee streams won't stop because you stop taking out ISIS cells, if anything it would probably make the situation worse.
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
On February 20 2017 05:46 Yoav wrote:
Poland and the Baltics are substantially more prosperous per capita than Russia. But, NATO aside, Estonia is an obviously more inviting target than say, Georgia. Not that I think the West will collapse quite to the point where either Poland or the Baltics are targeted. But a few years I would have said Russia invading Ukraine was crazy talk. (And yeah, I know, they're unaffiliated volunteers.)
So, when you say Russia wants a border "free of enemies," what is envisioned? Regime change in Estonia and Georgia? Japan to surrender its island claims? I mean, what enemies does Russia have of note? Like, literally no-one is clamoring for a fight with Russia, no force threatens its borders. Indeed, the world wanted to be Russia's friend two decades ago and Russia spent Putin's reign saying no. What is the Russian endgame? Because to a Western observer it seems like the endgame is Putin staying in power by stoking paranoia and waging small, low risk wars against weak neighbors.
Russia is under sanctions. The nominal GDP figure is quite meaningless because of that. While the current Russian recession had a real effect of maybe 10% of GDP, nominally it was a 50% drop. If you look at PPP, they are quite close to equal, which is pretty much how it's always been. Even in the USSR, Poland and the Baltics were given enough subsidies to be a little better off than Russians in Russia. Basically they are exactly where they were back then. And GDP numbers aside, they simply aren't very productive. They are large net recipients of EU aid (trading one subsidizer for another) and their output is largely agricultural. Not really what Russia needs right now.
NATO is the big threat that Russia would not want on its borders. Japan doesn't really have much leverage on the Kuril Islands issue - they might be able to get a few back, but their involvement in the sanctions set that back a decade or so (although Russia-Japan relations have improved a lot since then). As for most everything else you noted, it would be a very long, and ultimately pointless venture, to explain a more Russian perspective on these issues. The US is not a country known for understanding a Russian perspective on anything and there is a reason why there is pretty much zero chance that Trump could possibly reset relations - because the US simply doesn't understand what Russia wants. Changing that is a venture that I'm not about to embark upon - though I would be willing to clarify things here and there.
Oh, and a "regime change" in Georgia isn't really useful, lol. The Georgian government is already warming up to Russia, realizing that despite their differences there's no means by which they can survive independent of Russia, and that they can't try to take their breakaway regions by force. And the president who presided over the war is a wanted man in Georgia - last I heard he was somewhere in West Ukraine after resigning as mayor of Odessa.
The endgame... well it depends on how friendly Western nations want to be. Some, including France and occasionally Germany, are somewhat sympathetic to Russia and could be dealt with nicely. The US/UK are likely to be enemies for a long time. Everyone else ranges from "would like deeper relations with Russia" to "our hatred for Russia burns brighter than a thousand suns." A lasting peace would be nice. But on the current course, that's not where we're heading. If the price for a better future for Russia is to destroy the credibility of the US internationally, then so be it.
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On February 20 2017 05:21 DickMcFanny wrote:
I don't have any issues with this specific policy in isolation, I just thought it illustrated well the Orwellian trend that's happening now. More police, more surveillance, more rules. Armed police on trains in Germany. Armed soldiers in Paris and Brussels. Civil liberties out of the window. The complete dismantling of the welfare state.
What are you referring to?
All so we can import more men, whose god, prophet, imams and political leaders tell them to kill us. That doesn't seem like a good deal, to use a Trumpism.
Whatever you're refering to, I won't bite this time.
But there's some hope, a majority of Europeans now wants a Muslim ban as well. It's a remarkably quick turnaround, which always happens when optimism meets reality.
Can you give me a link to the european poll that you seem to cite? I would appreciate it.
Helping people fleeing from war is a bad thing to do, indeed. It's not like Europe or the US are doing anything of substance to stop the fighting to solve the cause of them fleeing in the first place.
We were promised doctors and engineers, we were given almost exclusively men, a majority of whom are illiterate in their own language. Out the very few who do have degrees, almost all 'studied' Islam studies.
Last week an article euphorically celebrated that 4% of the migrants have found work in Germany. Well halleluja!
Sharing your sources might make you a more enjoyable partner of discussion. I try to be open but if you make me look up your sources on my own, it gets tedious too fast.
If you try to look past the number and take into consideration that a large share of migrants might not yet be eligible to work (because of whatever reason), this number could actually be a rather large proportion of those that are.
On another note nobody denied that providing work for so many new workers without certification or anything, especially in a country that puts so much value into "Zeugnisse" like Germany, would pose a challenge. Nobody will deny that cultural differences pose lots and lots of difficulties either. But for those difficulties to be solved it needs time and effort.
There are only so many rapes, murders, violent attack and general strains on a society the people will accept.
the last time you claimed the above you were proven wrong and apparently haven't learned much since then.
Either substantiate your hate speech or suck it up.
Can you even imagine the depth of indoctrination it takes for a bunch of men to flee their own Islamic shithole of a country, get to Munich, see the 'refugees welcome' signs and the euphoric Germans who are eager to help them, get welcomed into a country, get food, shelter, medical treatment, a phone, a computer, education for free, and then kill the aid worker who's giving up her free time to take care of you because your prophet tells you it's okay to kill the infidel?
I will never condone violence and neither should the state.
Appropriate treatment according to our laws should be enforced, but you can't send people to their deaths for that. We abolished that roundabout 70 years ago. And as long as there is no success on that front, we can't do that.
As to your question: can you imagine the depth of indoctrination it takes to have a terrorist group on a killing spree for several years and the secret service, in spite of having clues without end, decide to let the speculation of intra-immigrant causes for the murders persist, only to it all ending in a blown up house, a burning caravan and two of the three terrorists dead?
Is there so much as a difference between this person and the NSU?
Regarding poland and the jews: I've read this recently
Savage Continent fome Keith Lowe
And the jews, iirc, IF they managed to return to their former residence, they weren't greeted with open arms, to be VERY polite. They were lucky to be able to get away with their life. I haven't got it on me right now so I can't look it up.
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On February 20 2017 06:07 Nyxisto wrote:
Drones take out terrorists with reasonably high precision
I hope I get this message out before I get banned again, but this is really not true.
First of all, terrorists aren't even the target. Not if you define a terrorist as someone who has committed terrorism. These drones TARGET people who, based on metadata, are suspected of perhaps planning to commit acts of terrorism in future.
They weren't convicted of a crime, they weren't even suspected of a crime, they were suspected of being sympathetic to terrorist cells. Noam Chomsky put it best, imagine the Iranian government bombing US citizens in the US for being hostile towards Iran. Would we be saying 'oh well, they are terrorists' then? Of course we wouldn't. And you can't even classify them as enemy combatants because last time I checked, the USA wasn't at war with Pakistan.
That is to say nothing of the thousands of 'collateral' victims yet.
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On February 20 2017 05:46 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2017 05:41 maybenexttime wrote:On February 20 2017 03:30 LegalLord wrote:On February 20 2017 03:10 opisska wrote:I meant Czech Republic. Will you stop saying Czechoslovakia already? It's year twenty four and counting I heard Poland is worse, that's true, but can't really comment on it personally as I have not enough experience from here. However what I know is that saying "Poles weren't particularly complicit in Holocaust" here would net you some punches, the casual inclusion of Poles in the extermination project is still a flaring wound in the nation and a big hurdle in Poland-Germany relations. Let me put it in a way that is a little more specific, but not necessarily more flattering. The Poles did not have the widespread, eager and willing collaboration with the Holocaust that is an ugly staple of certain other nations in East Europe. But that is not out of any sympathy for the Jews. The Poles hate the Jews quite a bit.On February 20 2017 03:10 opisska wrote:
If you want to speak about non-trustworthy allies, would you really trust China with anything? Is there any indication that China isn't going to dump any distant ally at the earliest convenience? I always thought they operate pretty much based only on their own gains. I would trust China about as far as I could throw Manhattan. But I trust their credits and raw resources as good as any others. The basis of any relation with China is purely transactional. And I'd say that's true on behalf of Russia as well, whether or not the government is willing to admit it to be so. Seems like you have seen through the collective Polish soul, my friend. ;-) But on a more serious note, what are you basing this on? The bolded part in particular? It might've been the case before the Second World War, when Poland had a sizeable Jewish population (that refused to integrate into the wider Polish society for centuries, let alone assimilate), but in my experience is but a fringe phenomenon now. To shed some light on Polish antisemitism of the interwar period, Poland was not actually more antisemitic than your average European country or the USA for that matter. It was actually one of the few countries that accepted Jewish refugees from Germany, albeit reluctantly. If I am not mistaken, the West was not very eager to accept them. Over the years I've seen how Poland treats Jews who come to their country - say, for commemorating the Holocaust. Often the Poles blame them for "ruining their country" and other such victim card moves. I suppose "not all Poles" is the implicit qualifier here. And it's true, Poland behaved better than certain others. Western nations certainly failed to do their part. I don't think that Poland is the crown example of antisemitism by any means. But piss mentioned that "his country wasn't particularly antisemitic" which would be an odd statement for Poland.
You are being vague. What have you seen specifically? The Holocaust is commemorated every year in Poland, with top government officials attending the celebrations. Jews coming to Poland are treated like any other tourists.
If there's something many people are not fond of (myself included) about the Jewish trips to the concentration camps, it's the school trips that Israeli schools are organizing. They use them to feed into the siege mentality and brainwash their youth. They tell those kids they came to a hostile country, guard them with men armed with SMG's and tell them not to leave the hotel... They have their own guides, who usually don't bother mentioning that roughly 3 million Poles were exterminated alongside the Jews.
I am not sure what you are referring to when talking about "Poles blaming Jews for ruining their country". Did you mean blaming modern day Poland's problems on Jews? That would be a tiny minority of actual antisemites. Or did you mean people blaming Jews for establishing "communism" in Poland? The latter view would certainly be much more widespread than the former, but then again there's some validity to it, as Jews were severely overrepresented in the communist circles in post-war Poland and historically their loyalty was rarely with Poland.
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On February 20 2017 05:46 Yoav wrote:
Poland and the Baltics are substantially more prosperous per capita than Russia. But, NATO aside, Estonia is an obviously more inviting target than say, Georgia. Not that I think the West will collapse quite to the point where either Poland or the Baltics are targeted. But a few years I would have said Russia invading Ukraine was crazy talk. (And yeah, I know, they're unaffiliated volunteers.)
So, when you say Russia wants a border "free of enemies," what is envisioned? Regime change in Estonia and Georgia? Japan to surrender its island claims? I mean, what enemies does Russia have of note? Like, literally no-one is clamoring for a fight with Russia, no force threatens its borders. Indeed, the world wanted to be Russia's friend two decades ago and Russia spent Putin's reign saying no. What is the Russian endgame? Because to a Western observer it seems like the endgame is Putin staying in power by stoking paranoia and waging small, low risk wars against weak neighbors.
Poland is safe I think but the Baltics are at risk and so is Belarus,ukraine and the other states that where part of the ussr. This all in the coming decade. It just seems like a natural development. First rusia had to get their economy and society back on track,putin managed to do so. Now the next step will be to try regain some of the influence lost at the end of the cold war,i have no illusions about this. As soon as there is a void (for example America drawing back) rusia will step in to fill it. Slowly and carefully,small steps at a time.
Tbh I don't think rusia will ever accept the current government of the Ukraine (and neither would I if I where rusian),it is waiting for a window of opportunity to make the next move. Ukraine is to rusia what cuba was to America.
The endgame is not putin staying in power,that was the middle game which has been successfully completed. He probably is the strongest leader in the whole world. The endgame I think is getting more influence in international politics,becoming a world power again.
We could end up with 4 about equally strong world powers, the usa,europe,rusia and china,which china will dominate in the very end.
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On February 20 2017 06:16 DickMcFanny wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2017 06:07 Nyxisto wrote:
Drones take out terrorists with reasonably high precision I hope I get this message out before I get banned again, but this is really not true. First of all, terrorists aren't even the target. Not if you define a terrorist as someone who has committed terrorism. These drones TARGET people who, based on metadata, are suspected of perhaps planning to commit acts of terrorism in future. They weren't convicted of a crime, they weren't even suspected of a crime, they were suspected of being sympathetic to terrorist cells. Noam Chomsky put it best, imagine the Iranian government bombing US citizens in the US for being hostile towards Iran. Would we be saying 'oh well, they are terrorists' then? Of course we wouldn't. And you can't even classify them as enemy combatants because last time I checked, the USA wasn't at war with Pakistan. That is to say nothing of the thousands of 'collateral' victims yet.
War isn't really a binary issue any more. Drones are part of intelligence dominated warfare so of course there's no official declaration of war. But there is no real connection between the Syrian civil war, which is a conflict between the government and the population on a macro scale, and taking out people in Yemen or Pakistan with a drone strike.
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Keith Lowe one the reception of Jews after WW II:
"Well, you would expect, wouldn't you, that after everything that Jews had been through, when they came home after the war, you'd expect them to have some kind of welcome or some kind of sympathy. Actually, really, the opposite was true. In general, they were treated with indifference, or with outright hostility. Now there were various reasons for this, after all: [because of] the propaganda that had been doing the rounds throughout the war and before the war, there were plenty of people who had ideological and racial reasons to dislike the Jews.
"But really most of it, I think, came down to the idea of the property of Jews. When the Jews were sent away to concentration camps, expelled or fled, they left behind property, which was then taken up by the local communities. [You] had Romanian peasants, who for the first time, had access to decent furniture, a nice house which has been abandoned — 'Fine, I'll move into that.' Good clothing, they had taken over the livestock that's been left behind. Now suddenly, if the Jew who owns all of this property comes back, he's not going to be welcomed, is he?"
Source
Utter devastation to Jewish life (among many others) by Germans wasn't over even after the liberation of Germany.
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On February 20 2017 06:09 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2017 05:46 Yoav wrote:
Poland and the Baltics are substantially more prosperous per capita than Russia. But, NATO aside, Estonia is an obviously more inviting target than say, Georgia. Not that I think the West will collapse quite to the point where either Poland or the Baltics are targeted. But a few years I would have said Russia invading Ukraine was crazy talk. (And yeah, I know, they're unaffiliated volunteers.)
So, when you say Russia wants a border "free of enemies," what is envisioned? Regime change in Estonia and Georgia? Japan to surrender its island claims? I mean, what enemies does Russia have of note? Like, literally no-one is clamoring for a fight with Russia, no force threatens its borders. Indeed, the world wanted to be Russia's friend two decades ago and Russia spent Putin's reign saying no. What is the Russian endgame? Because to a Western observer it seems like the endgame is Putin staying in power by stoking paranoia and waging small, low risk wars against weak neighbors. Russia is under sanctions. The nominal GDP figure is quite meaningless because of that. While the current Russian recession had a real effect of maybe 10% of GDP, nominally it was a 50% drop. If you look at PPP, they are quite close to equal, which is pretty much how it's always been. Even in the USSR, Poland and the Baltics were given enough subsidies to be a little better off than Russians in Russia. Basically they are exactly where they were back then. And GDP numbers aside, they simply aren't very productive. They are large net recipients of EU aid (trading one subsidizer for another) and their output is largely agricultural. Not really what Russia needs right now.
How was Poland given subsidies by the USSR? The USSR forced Poland to sell it its coal for 10% of the market price. Soviets also took almost everything of value from the formerly German lands, including thousands of factories. It is not clear which country was the net benefactor in this relationship. As for the EU subsidies, they are mutually beneficial. Plenty of them go directly to net payers' companies through infrastructural investments, and the rest spurs their economies indirectly. It's a win-win situation, for the most part.
As for your comments regarding the economy of Poland, I have no idea where you are getting your data from... How is Poland's output largely agricultural? Here's Poland's export treemap:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Poland_Export_Treemap.png
The composition of our GDP is: agriculture: 2.7%, industry: 38.5%, services: 58.9%. The Baltic states are in a similar situation.
Now compare it with that of Russia:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Russia_Export_Treemap.png
GDP composition - agriculture: 4.7%, industry: 33.1%, services: 62.2%.
How is our output largely agricultural again?
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On February 20 2017 06:19 maybenexttime wrote:
If there's something many people are not fond of (myself included) about the Jewish trips to the concentration camps, it's the school trips that Israeli schools are organizing. They use them to feed into the siege mentality and brainwash their youth. They tell those kids they came to a hostile country, guard them with men armed with SMG's and tell them not to leave the hotel... They have their own guides, who usually don't bother mentioning that roughly 3 million Poles were exterminated alongside the Jews.
You reminded me of the documentary "Defamation".
Teenagers are obnoxious at the best of times, but lord these Israeli school parties sound ... damaging for all concerned. They go straight out of that into the EDF too. Urgh.
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On February 20 2017 06:39 Nyxisto wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2017 06:16 DickMcFanny wrote:On February 20 2017 06:07 Nyxisto wrote:
Drones take out terrorists with reasonably high precision I hope I get this message out before I get banned again, but this is really not true. First of all, terrorists aren't even the target. Not if you define a terrorist as someone who has committed terrorism. These drones TARGET people who, based on metadata, are suspected of perhaps planning to commit acts of terrorism in future. They weren't convicted of a crime, they weren't even suspected of a crime, they were suspected of being sympathetic to terrorist cells. Noam Chomsky put it best, imagine the Iranian government bombing US citizens in the US for being hostile towards Iran. Would we be saying 'oh well, they are terrorists' then? Of course we wouldn't. And you can't even classify them as enemy combatants because last time I checked, the USA wasn't at war with Pakistan. That is to say nothing of the thousands of 'collateral' victims yet. War isn't really a binary issue any more. Drones are part of intelligence dominated warfare so of course there's no official declaration of war. But there is no real connection between the Syrian civil war, which is a conflict between the government and the population on a macro scale, and taking out people in Yemen or Pakistan with a drone strike.
There are, in my opinion, some quite significant links between current day US/western activities and the problems in Syria. The drones are just one part of the entire equation, but I don't see how you can just dismiss the idea that drone attacks are part of the fuel for radicalisation in the region.
The fact that Europe is not taking action to attempt to stop what the US is doing in the Middle East as a whole is essentially working against our own interests by forcing ourselves to be in the humanitarian position of taking in refugees. With Ramstein, we are even helping the Americans terrorize the tribes in the Middle East and thereby giving ISIS -- which was absolutely created as a direct result of the American invasion and subsequent retreat -- additional fuel for their propaganda to radicalise the vulnerable parts of our imported population. Just as Trumps travel ban was used for propaganda, the drone attacks and other American activities (supported by Europe) are making this whole situation worse.
Quite frankly, I doubt the Syrian crisis would have erupted in the way it did if the US hadn't invaded Iraq. Assad wouldn't have felt as pressured to solidify his hold on the regime without the militant uprising in the neighbouring country bleeding over into his own country. It was only made worse by the US and her allies (SA) supporting the opposition in Syria financially and with the supply of weapons.
You mention Yemen and continue to defend the position of activities by the US (and her allies) in the Middle East. Just... unbelievable. As I said, drones are just one part in this. We need to stop supporting all of these kinds of activities. The UK needs to stop sending warplanes to Saudi Arabia, the US needs to stop giving them missiles and bombs. We need to stop facilitating the drone attacks all over the place.
We need to stop arming the world, and ourselves. More weapons only means more destruction. Increasing spending on the military means an increase in the use of said military. Look at the US, they have a huge military and are working hard to find reasons to keep using it, no matter the consequences. Put the money in developing renewable energy technologies to stop being dependent on oil and combat the real threat to the globe while at the same time stopping our interference in the Middle East.
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EPT
