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Now what i was proposing was not no EU but a much looser organization with more national autonomy. European states could still choose to organize for common defense and so gradually become less dependent on American support. At that point we would not have to play these global power games. I tougth you lefties were supposed to be against modern imperalism, was i misinformed? I just dont belive that war in europe must always be the consequence of allowing nations to control their own energy grids, to protect farmers in less fertile regions and to stimulate key domestic industries etc.
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Jun 11, 2021 00:40
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Baudolino posted:European states could still choose to organize for common defense and so gradually become less dependent on American support. european states can currently choose to organize for common defense and so gradually become less depedent on american support quote:At that point we would not have to play these global power games. there will literally never be a point where global power games are not a thing. even in the ideal rodenberrian utopia where we've created sources of infinite energy and abundance of every basic necessity, people will still be jockeying for influence over these things. the idea that regions will not be competing for influence over [concept x] is, at best, misguided. quote:I tougth you lefties were supposed to be against modern imperalism, was i misinformed? i hear they also give themselves names like wavey gravey and like to smoke the devil's lettuce
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Jun 11, 2021 03:18
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Railing against the EU as if it were some autonomous behemoth subjugating those poor countries is hilariously out of touch with reality. Stop mythologising the EU, it makes it sound so much cooler than what it actually is. The EU exists because the geopolitical situation makes it necessary. It is a really thin law golem put on top and vested with a very limited set of powers because its constituent countries want it to be that way. You can fantasise about all the sunlit uplands you want but you're doing so in a reality where a fractured Europe gets pulled immediately into the American, Chinese, and Russian sphere of influence and looted for scraps. Baudolino posted:I tougth you lefties were supposed to be against modern imperalism, was i misinformed?  The European left, fractured as it is, has its own problems with the EU. It is, after all, a bourgeois project through and through. They do, however, seldom enjoy the privileges of the American Twitter left to pontificate about the EU without actually being personally affected.
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Jun 11, 2021 07:51
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learning that I live in the Best of All Possible Europes itt
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Jun 11, 2021 08:01
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webcams for christ posted:learning that I live in a Europe that could be a lot worse than it currently is itt Could be also be a lot better, obviously.
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Jun 11, 2021 08:11
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KozmoNaut posted:could be a lot worse drat, just when I thought the discourse couldn't get any more profound
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Jun 11, 2021 08:28
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webcams for christ posted:drat, just when I thought the discourse couldn't get any more profound You on the other hand, perfectly live up to my very low expectations. You're right at the top of the bell curve.
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Jun 11, 2021 08:31
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KozmoNaut posted:You're right at the top of the bell curve. lol Europeans really can't resist framing everything as a eugenics project
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Jun 11, 2021 08:34
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Skiant posted:Let's take a stroll on the magical land that is Belgian Politics. The minister of defense was trying to deflect criticism of the military's handling of Conings, by trying to shift blame to her N-VA predecessor for under-investing in the military (which the current government doesn't plan to change), and for 'fueling populism and hatred', which is kind of a stretch in this case. Francken explicitly did not call for her resignation. Skiant posted:Same Theo Francken who once invited Saudi secret services to come pick up refugees he didn't want to deal with so they could be executed back home. Skiant posted:There was also a study made to analyze why the two far-right parties in Flanders have such big scores in the polls while there is virtually nothing of the sort in Wallonia and Brussels. You should pay more attention to facts.
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Jun 11, 2021 09:11
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Wtf, the EU is already in the American sphere.just ask anyone with power in Europe about our independent policy on Israel and Palestine. Remember that time when they where caught spying on European heads of state? Or that other time when their evangelical and right wing nuts where funding our right wing nuts? Or that other, other time when they turned Italy into assassination central? Fun times, great friends, we should have some of them over, in the Hague.oh wait...
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Jun 11, 2021 10:06
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to lighten the mood: https://twitter.com/jfrankensteiner/status/1403199582134284288?s=21 Falk recounting the event on Letterman: https://youtu.be/rDKHCGwa6h8
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Jun 11, 2021 10:09
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Antifa Poltergeist posted:Wtf, the EU is already in the American sphere.just ask anyone with power in Europe about our independent policy on Israel and Palestine. Again, would this be any different if the EU weren't around?
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Jun 11, 2021 10:11
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I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!
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you can tell columbo is fiction because he's a cop that exclusively goes after rich white people lmao
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Jun 11, 2021 10:19
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suck my woke dick posted:Again, would this be any different if the EU weren't around? In any case, without the EU it might be tougher for one state to spy on another, and the repercussions greater - especially if you had different overlords. As is, the EU is just a way to turn on easy mode for American spying in Europe.
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Jun 11, 2021 10:22
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Re: V. Illych L. I'm not convinced the EU in practice is less democratic than most or even all of its member states. The complete hot mess the Dutch government is currently in has pretty much convinced me that representative government is inherently undemocratic. Our government can act like a mafia and openly target its own citizens to be utterly crushed by the bureaucracy and there are 0 consequences, including electorally. Critical party members are removed and/or ground down. Court rulings against the government are ignored. Parliament is simply not informed or straight up lied to if it ever even starts to think about doing its job. And this is in a country whose electoral system is usually used as an example for others to strive towards. None of this is because of the EU, this poo poo is entirely self-grown. So like, sure, the EU is not democratic enough. But the only alternative that is on offer currently is more xenophobic and not any more democratic. If we need a democratic revolution (and tbh don't have a credible path from here to there currently), what difference does it makes if we dream of one on the national or the European wide scale?
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Jun 11, 2021 13:56
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Truga posted:you can tell columbo is fiction because he's a cop that exclusively goes after rich white people lmao https://www.franceculture.fr/emissions/lessai-et-la-revue-du-jour-14-15/columbo-la-lutte-des-classes-ce-soir-la-tele-revue related umberto eco quote: quote:But Columbo, worse dressed than Derrick, moves with his proletarian ways in a world of handsome and powerful Californians, who treat him like trash (and he encourages them), certain that this leftover from some distant immigration will not be able to break through their guard and pierce the barrier of their arrogance. Columbus corners them with a few psychological tricks of perfidious sophistication, pulls an unsuspected ace of spades from his sleeve, and leads them to their ruin by exploiting their confidence. The audience enjoys this fight between the pygmy and the clay-footed giant, and goes to sleep with the feeling that someone, as humble and honest as they are, has avenged them by punishing obnoxiously rich, beautiful, talented and powerful characters. NihilCredo fucked around with this message at 14:38 on Jun 11, 2021 |
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Jun 11, 2021 14:14
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Orange Devil posted:So like, sure, the EU is not democratic enough. But the only alternative that is on offer currently is more xenophobic and not any more democratic. If we need a democratic revolution (and tbh don't have a credible path from here to there currently), what difference does it makes if we dream of one on the national or the European wide scale? Well, most Europeans hate every other European nation's guts. Or at least the ones close by. (This has even been referenced in this conversation, Jerry would be right back to bombing everyone around them if we didn't placate them with their own currency zone, etc.) Now, granted, at least here in Finland most people are likely to also hate the guts of every Finn not from their home village, but generally two strangers-to-each-other-Finns would form a team to beat up a nearby Swede. So it seems slightly more feasible to have national revolutions rather than pan-European ones  And slightly more seriously, a continent-wide European democratic project would still have to solve the Gordian knot of representation vs. population size. E.g. Finland would be the Wyoming of USE, should we get the same 2 (or whatever) senators in the upper house or not?* From a European point of view, the only thing we have to offer is xenophobia and a huge-rear end land border with an antagonistic rogue state, both of which seem like a malus rather than a bonus for the project, but at the same time, good luck selling the USE while pointing this out. Obviously the current EU structure has just decided that democracy mostly gets in the way, so that's been thrown out (and as you say, similar solutions tend to have happened in the individual member states too), it's just a shame that even the technocratic version of a sort-of-unified Europe is a dysfunctional mess due to geopolitical interests, economic disparities and what have you. *I realize we've already decided a representative democracy is out too, but a "direct democracy" USE seems even less workable, have you seen the Eurovision?
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Jun 11, 2021 14:22
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Rappaport posted:Jerry would be right back to bombing everyone around them if we didn't placate them with their own currency zone, etc.
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Jun 11, 2021 14:30
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Finland wouldn't be the Wyoming of the EU, it's way too big for that. The closest equivalent would be like Cyprus, with Malta being an even more disproportionately represented country under the same distribution. I'm not sure the issue would be quite as big a deal in a USE as it is in the US though, since population size is not nearly as correlated with specific politics as they are in the US. The fact that those countries are spread out across Europe rather than just being concentrated in one largely homogeneous location where they'll easily align themselves politically also helps. Also, all the bad parts of Eurovision is when it resembles the EU. The fully democratic version we had for a brief beautiful moment was the height of European civilization.
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Jun 11, 2021 14:41
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webcams for christ posted:to lighten the mood: Not just Romania, either, apparently Hungarians love him too  And to be fair, who doesn't
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Jun 11, 2021 14:48
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V. Illych L. posted:the EU is designed to be that lightning rod. it's an integral part of the project. And how exactly did the EU as a lightning rod result in the Tory party being the most electorally successful party in the UK for hundreds of years before they joined the EU, or the EU even existed? Its almost as if European nation states predominantly elected right-wing governments before the EU existed, continue to do so during the EU's existence, and would/will do so long after the demise of the EU or their exit from it 
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Jun 11, 2021 15:00
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mobby_6kl posted:Not just Romania, either, apparently Hungarians love him too If this is the vision Eastern Europeans had of the US it's no wonder they wanted to institute capitalism asap. Alas, reality is different.
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Jun 11, 2021 15:28
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Orange Devil posted:If this is the vision Eastern Europeans had of the US it's no wonder they wanted to institute capitalism asap. Alas, reality is different. Should've just focused on French cinema, anything just dripping with ennui.
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Jun 11, 2021 15:57
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I often ask myself what the timeline where Heath won a majority in February 1974 would have been like, because I strongly suspect Britain would still be in the EU today
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Jun 11, 2021 16:08
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A Buttery Pastry posted:That's the point. AP was challenging the whole "But without the EU we'd all fall under the sway of the Americans" idea with the fact that we already are. If nothing else, naked self interest means it's better to be in a lovely EU than to be a lone has-been country, and the problems the EU already has mostly won't be solved by dissolving the EU anyway.
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Jun 11, 2021 17:37
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CSM posted:The N-VA isn't close to being far right on the same level as actual far-right party Vlaams Belang. Right. It's why - N-VA-members have repeatedly gotten into hot (more like tepid, since racism is normalized in Flanders) water over saying racist, homophobic and transphobic things over and over and over; e.g. René Volger's diatribe about young Moroccan men "with their circumcised, naked glans in their pants", a (former) N-VA member laying a wreath at the grave of an SS Officer, the N-VA being perfectly fine to form an EU faction with parties like PiS and Fidesz, etc. - No other party except Vlaams Belang has so many members with dark pasts in pro-collaborationist and collaboration-apologist movements, e.g. Jan Jambon as a keynote speaker at Sint-Maarten events, Theo Francken attending the birthday party of former collaborator Bob Maes (and not even trying to hide it), N-VA bigwigs saying Flemish volunteers at the Eastern Front "probably had their reasons", etc. - De Wever himself thinks Universal Human Rights ought to be "revised" (and not to grant people more rights) - In stirring up poo poo over the Marrakesh Pact, N-VA distributed online imagery that was a direct copy of Vlaams Belang propaganda; Filip De Winter even congratulated the N-VA for it - Party figureheads constantly say the grossest things about migrants and poor people completely in line with Vlaams Belang's discourse, e.g. Liesbeth Homans claiming unemployed people spent all day getting drunk in cafés, Jambon and his infamous "dancing Muslims" and claiming migrants could buy a house with their government welfare - The official N-VA party account follows nearly every racist Twitter account in Flanders - N-VA members and cheerleaders repeat extremist lies on a near-daily basis Yes, the party has a wing of more moderate members like Geert Bourgeois, Jan Peumans or Lorin Parys, but most of them have either been sidelined or left, or form a serious minority in the party body. Some have simply switched sides: Bart De Wever has always been floating in between conservatism and the actual hard right, but he has increasingly drifted off to the latter in recent years. The N-VA isn't as bad as Vlaams Belang. It's worse because it keeps pretending it's a democratic party while legitimizing some of Vlaams Belang's grossest ideals and actually governing. The damage this party has done to social cohesion, normality and civic discourse in Flanders and Belgium is catastrophic. CSM posted:Nor had they been attacking Van Ranst for months or 'painting him as a target'. Van Ranst was actually defended by Francken en De Wever at several times, as he worked with them. Siegfried Bracke, former parliament president, had constantly and viciously been slandering Van Ranst for months, baselessly claiming Van Ranst was or wanted to be a communist dictator or a cult leader. Other stuff: Ben Weyts, minister of education, shooting water balloons with a gun, with political opponents' faces taped to the balloons. CSM posted:Sudan, the country was Sudan. He invited members of the Sudenese government to come help interview refugees to examine their cases, after which they were deported. And then possibly tortured/disappeared. Oh that makes it perfectly fine then. CSM posted:You should pay more attention to facts. As one does
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Jun 11, 2021 17:58
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A Buttery Pastry posted:Finland wouldn't be the Wyoming of the EU, it's way too big for that. The closest equivalent would be like Cyprus, with Malta being an even more disproportionately represented country under the same distribution. I'm not sure the issue would be quite as big a deal in a USE as it is in the US though, since population size is not nearly as correlated with specific politics as they are in the US. The fact that those countries are spread out across Europe rather than just being concentrated in one largely homogeneous location where they'll easily align themselves politically also helps. I'm still reminded of ideas of what a EU-wide election would look like being absolutely loving hilarious.
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Jun 11, 2021 19:12
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Ghost Leviathan posted:I'm still reminded of ideas of what a EU-wide election would look like being absolutely loving hilarious. There are EU-wide elections right now.
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Jun 11, 2021 20:07
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Orange Devil posted:Re: V. Illych L. doesn't sound like it's making it any better either, though, is it if power resided in a more transparent and meaningful way closer to people, it would be better. the EU is deliberately set up to be opaque and remote from people. this, in addition to it being built around neoliberal governance to a downright astonishing degree, makes the EU bad. nation states can and, indeed, often are also very bad, but they can also be less bad. the EU cannot.
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Jun 11, 2021 23:26
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Pope Hilarius II posted:As one does Thanks for this reply that's way better than anything I could ever do. TL;DR is N-VA is a deeply xenophobic party packed with the bottom of the barrel when it comes to respectable people. Pretending it isn't and then saying "you should pay attention to facts" is silly at best but most likely revisionist.
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Jun 12, 2021 09:31
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V. Illych L. posted:doesn't sound like it's making it any better either, though, is it A form of European cooperation could be democratic and good. We could call that the EU. So the EU could be less bad. I see achieving a less bad EU as at least equally difficult as achieving a less bad nation state. Not least because a less bad nation state will have to resist the US and other European states alone. To be clear, I see both as immensely difficult to achieve given the fascism infected European political landscape.
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Jun 12, 2021 10:55
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I mean, making the EU democratic isn't impossible. Just decomission the comission, shutdown the council and council of ministers, put the ECB beneath parliament, give the parliament competency to unitarily revise any treaty and bam, you have a democratic state.
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Jun 12, 2021 11:51
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Is this what the EU defending its member states from America looks like? 63,854 discrete deployments
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Jun 12, 2021 12:36
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webcams for christ posted:63,854 discrete deployments where are the indiscreet deployments
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Jun 12, 2021 13:43
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Continuous deployments are everywhere
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Jun 12, 2021 14:58
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webcams for christ posted:Is this what the EU defending its member states from America looks like? It's what imperialism looks like.
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Jun 12, 2021 16:25
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webcams for christ posted:Is this what the EU defending its member states from America looks like? what is this and wheres it from
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Jun 12, 2021 18:52
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Nilbop posted:what is this and wheres it from Graphic is from this 2015 Politico article. found it from this blog that lists other reporting/visualizations on the global US military presence Tally of 63.8k deployments in Europe from this Wikipedia article.
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Jun 12, 2021 19:52
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so its a list of us military bases and interventions
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Jun 12, 2021 22:11
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I also kind of like how the US is constantly nagging Europe about not contributing enough to NATO (which, to be fair, is a valid criticism), but then when European countries begin looking at budgets and improving military strengths together (which makes a lot of sense in terms of interoperability of equipment since the EU/NATO core states have been military allies for 75 years or longer; for standardization; and for pooling resources to get better deals on buying equipment, etc), the US is like "no no no not like this!!".
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Jun 13, 2021 00:50
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