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I'm afraid this is going to happen inside the EU as well (Hungary, Poland... ). What can I do to prevent this? (I live here and I want to keep living here if p

I'm afraid this is going to happen inside the EU as well (Hungary, Poland... ). What can I do to prevent this? (I live here and I want to keep living here if possible.)

rocketpastsix 10y ago
Talk to people, try to understand their reasoning. Explain to them what will happen if (x) happens. Dont do what we Americans did in the last election and call anyone on the right homophobes, racists, xenophobe etc. That just pushes them further to the other side. Be understanding, but present the facts and hope they understand you.
- beagle3 10y ago
  I hate to post non constructive criticism, but ... unless you do that in a coordinated effort with thousands of others, that's just wasting your time. The reach of any one person without an amplifier of sorts (traditional media, facebook popularity, etc), is essentially zero; Even in the extremely unlikely case that you've changed the minds of 1,000 people you talked to (because to change 1,000 people's mind and vote, you need to speak to 20,000), it's still a rounding error. It will make you feel good that you tried while you're at it, yes. It will also demonstrate how powerless you are if the results go against your wishes (or falsely make you think you contributed if they go your way). It's the same as fighting the centralization of the web, the big brothering of facebook/nsa, etc - you have to mobilize people to act, many of them. And sadly, it's very rarely possible or within one's power.
  - maxerickson 10y ago
    Is it then a paradox that the first step towards organizing would be to talk to people?
    - beagle3 10y ago
      It's not the same people op mentioned talking to, though; op laid an outline to possibly changing the mind of one person who disagrees with you. But to make a dent, you have to address the masses (and to do that, you have to coordinate with the masses on your side).
  - Profragile 10y ago
    This. Voting is essentially always "setup" i.e. the people who make maximum use of the power usually bet on both sides, albeit slightly differently. Since they know it's either one or the other, it doesn't really matter to them who really wins. They have necessary control of the situation no matter what happens. If you don't frame your life in a way that whoever wins matters to you very less, you are doing something wrong. If that is already the case, your vote doesn't count at all. It's one vote. The chance of your vote actually affecting the outcome of the election is so small that you might as well buy a lottery ticket instead. If however, you have the power to convince a large enough group of people to sway the election to one side or another, you should sell some of that influence to whoever is offering more money or favors to you.
    - noobermin 10y ago
      >If you don't frame your life in a way that whoever wins matters to you very less, you are doing something wrong. The answer is it does matter, and that you have such little influence is a failure of the system. I'm not talking about one vote, it's that some individuals have more influence over politicians due to their campaign donations. That is unacceptable. The answer once again is get money out of politics.
      - beagle3 10y ago
        Chicken and egg. Incumbents, the only people capable of taking money out of politics (short of some kind of revolution) enjoy the status quo too much to change it. You can only take money out of politics after you've taken money out of politics
      - Profragile 10y ago
        So do you agree that unless the money is out of politics, participating in voting is futile?
        noobermin 10y ago
        I view your question as "do you agree that since you can't cure cancer, you shouldn't take painkillers or symptom treatments." No, I don't agree. It's just that instead of casting it as the state of being that you are powerless, it is instead that you should fight back.
- noobermin 10y ago
  Schumer said "for every blue collar dem we lose we'll gain middle class suburban whites." That didn't work out, R's turned out for their candidate, as they always do. The answer is not to suppress the leftist vote and care about the working class' concerns.
tormeh 10y ago
Looking at 1930s Germany, the fortunate ones were the ones who got out early. Stopping the political pendulum is hard; it's easier to get out of the way.
- kmonsen 10y ago
  But where to go?
  - kowdermeister 10y ago
    If you can work remotely, I'd pick something nice and sunny with a beach.
    - sz4kerto 10y ago
      I can work remotely, but I can't bring my friends and family with me, and I can't bring all the other things. So I rather try and make 'this' a better place, if possible.
      - kowdermeister 10y ago
        That's great, luckily it doesn't seem that Hungary will collapse to something Turkey is becoming now. Have you been to Okotogon or other protests? I have and it was really inspiring to see that many young faces around. I Support all efforts of making Fidesz the least appealing party. That's probably all we can do if violence is not considered.
        sz4kerto 10y ago
        Of course I've been :)
        egeozcan 10y ago
        Well, do you know about Gezi protests? We also had that kind of inspiration. Just saying.
  - 10y ago
rjtavares 10y ago
I think there's a danger today with intelligent people moving away from politics due to the mess they perceive it as being (IMO, rightfully so). The problem is that when you take a certain level of rationallity out of politics you let extremism flourish. We need to fix moderate parties, but I have no idea how to do that...
odiroot 10y ago
Then, I am sorry, you lack insight in this area. At least Poland is one of the most pro-EU countries.
- hutzlibu 10y ago
  pro-EU and pro-Humanrights are not quite the same.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
lossolo 10y ago
Don't worry, if elections would be made today in Poland then ruling party (PiS) would lost (opposition would have more votes so coalition would be possible). Poland is the most EU enthusiastic society in EU. Most of the things that ruling party does now was not in their program before elections, people protested on streets but it's democracy, you need to wait for next elections. Orban in Hungary is very pragmatic, he talks a lot but when pressured in EU he will take step back. In Hungary genesis is different, 8 years ago there was big economic crisis there, country was on the edge of bankruptcy, Orban and his party changed things, people just voted for bread.
- uiri 10y ago
  Poland is the most EU enthusiastic society in EU I find this ironic since they are not part of the Eurozone. Their economy is much less at risk from mismanagement in Greece than France, the Netherlands or Germany. it's democracy, you need to wait for next elections In a representative democracy, you need to wait for the next elections. In a parliamentarian democracy, a vote of no confidence can trigger elections (like Canada in 2011) or the Prime Minister can ask the Crown to dissolve parliament and call elections (like the UK in 2010). This can lead to situations like 3 elections within 5 years (Canada 2006, 2008, 2011). In the US, federal elections are every two years, with the whole House being up for election and 1/3 of the Senate while the President is up every other Congressional election.
  - tonyedgecombe 10y ago
    You can be enthusiastic about the EU but not the Euro, I can't imagine any of the successor nations are in a hurry whilst the Greek and Italian issues are unresolved.
  - petre 10y ago
    You are right about Polish economy less likely being at risk than Greece and Italy's. This is mainly because Poland is not part of the EMU and retain control over their currency.
kowdermeister 10y ago
Try to convince people who stay off voting booths to actually go there and remove Fidesz from power next year. The "no alternative" is a lame excuse, Momentum is coming up and even giving a vote to MKKP would be better than staying home.
inputcoffee 10y ago
That is a great question. I think spending time to think about how to best answer that question is probably the best thing one can do to prevent similar events. We are in the middle of this strange global event and you can tell from the profusion of explanations that no one knows what the reason is. -- loss of confidence in institutions? -- wealth gap? -- tech enabled cultural sabotage? -- "globalization"? And so on. I think people don't even know why it is happening yet. There is a lot of cognitive labor ahead.
- Mikeb85 10y ago
  The reasons are pretty clear. Some just refuse to acknowledge them.
  - inputcoffee 10y ago
    Well, don't keep us in suspense. What do you think the reasons are for... first, describe the phenomenon under discussion because I think that is the first challenge.
    - Mikeb85 10y ago
      Globalisation and immigration have weakened the relative wealth of the working classes. The left refuses to acknowledge the problem while the right (and far right) does, so guess where that leads?
      - egeozcan 10y ago
        I couldn't guess it. No, I'm not being sarcastic.
        Mikeb85 10y ago
        Read someone like Piketty. He has tons of data to back up the assertion that the working classes are losing relative wealth. Then take an economics course. Realise that globalisation outsources manufacturing, agriculture, services, etc..., lowering costs, but also lowering wages. This is by design. The 'Information' industry in the west was supposed to make up for the loss of blue collar jobs. Except it hasn't. And then also realise that immigration increases the size of the workforce, especially the uneducated workforce. Again, downward pressure on wages. Personally I think progressive economics provides a better solution than the regressive protectionism of the right. Except the left pretends there's no problem, and here we are.
Ralfp 10y ago
I'm from Poland. We are seeing failure of trust in to EU because its terrible at PR. Its successes are taken as local governments successes ("our govt is awesome, it snatched the money from those bureaucrats for new architecture!") which failures are easily blamed on Brussels ("We wanted to rescure our failing Shipyards and coal mining, but Brussels tells us we can't because its unfair competition! In meantime French and Germans have no issues like that! This is unfair competition and favorism of west-dominated Union!"). Then you have usual of their weird decisions that are brought as example of overgrown bureaucracy without attempt to understand the reasoning behind it. "Hey, did you hear? Idiots in Brussels decided that snails are fish, what an idiots" the popular saying goes, meantime nobody cares that such decision saved EU from making up separate legislature for seafood farming and trade. Then we have refugee crisis which is generally something considered result of poor decisions beind done in western EU side that it is trying shift the blame on across all of the union. The situation where in Poland is explictly named amongst the countries that show no solidarity while at same time we've accepted one million people from UA doesn't help neither. With all of this going on, its easy for populist guys to gain widespread support. However situation in Poland where traditionalistic-populistic gov gained enough of majority to rule on its own is (IMHO) primarily the result of weak opposition, whose entire idea and programme was "we are saner than those other folk" but instead we've got liberal party apparently become traditionalist one with leaks after leaks of them doing disappointing deals with each other or private business. This effectively sank primary opposition party in polls. They've also made some harsh steps to improve the grim future of our social security system via bumping retirement age as well as forcefully relocating bulk of private savings to the public fund. http://www.reuters.com/article/poland-pensions-idUSL6N0H02UV20130904 http://www.reuters.com/article/poland-pensions-idUSL6N0H02UV... Apparently there's trend in the polls going on for few weeks now giving them growing support, but its most likely the wave of popular disgust for current gov, which would be story from 2006 repeating itself. I'm unsure if they are capable of fixing things.
- subpixel 10y ago
  This article chronicles the move of a factory from Britain to Poland and is a great intro to current Polish politics with regard to the EU: https://www.lrb.co.uk/v39/n08/james-meek/somerdale-to-skarbimierz https://www.lrb.co.uk/v39/n08/james-meek/somerdale-to-skarbi...
Mikeb85 10y ago
You're afraid Hungary and Poland are going to be taken over by an Islamic dictator? Or are you referring to the rise of nationalist parties?
- noobermin 10y ago
  Like Trump and Kim Jong Un feed off each other, ideology doesn't matter, two strongmen fighting each other strengthen each other's power in their respective country.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
petre 10y ago
Do away with career politicians by effectively limiting their terms just as all demicracies do with presidents. But this is very hard to do in the curreny system without massive citizen initiative, because the politicians will never vote for such a measure.
dgregd 10y ago
If you are really worried about this then stop reading mainstream news propaganda, especially GW, TVN24, Newsweek. Poland leaving EU is the newest oposition narrative to discredit current government. That's all. People don't care about TK any longer so oposition created the new faked news.

I'm afraid this is going to happen inside the EU as well (Hungary, Poland... ). What can I do to prevent this? (I live here and I want to keep living here if possible.)

rocketpastsix 10y ago

Talk to people, try to understand their reasoning. Explain to them what will happen if (x) happens. Dont do what we Americans did in the last election and call anyone on the right homophobes, racists, xenophobe etc. That just pushes them further to the other side. Be understanding, but present the facts and hope they understand you.

beagle3 10y ago
I hate to post non constructive criticism, but ... unless you do that in a coordinated effort with thousands of others, that's just wasting your time. The reach of any one person without an amplifier of sorts (traditional media, facebook popularity, etc), is essentially zero; Even in the extremely unlikely case that you've changed the minds of 1,000 people you talked to (because to change 1,000 people's mind and vote, you need to speak to 20,000), it's still a rounding error. It will make you feel good that you tried while you're at it, yes. It will also demonstrate how powerless you are if the results go against your wishes (or falsely make you think you contributed if they go your way). It's the same as fighting the centralization of the web, the big brothering of facebook/nsa, etc - you have to mobilize people to act, many of them. And sadly, it's very rarely possible or within one's power.
- maxerickson 10y ago
  Is it then a paradox that the first step towards organizing would be to talk to people?
  - beagle3 10y ago
    It's not the same people op mentioned talking to, though; op laid an outline to possibly changing the mind of one person who disagrees with you. But to make a dent, you have to address the masses (and to do that, you have to coordinate with the masses on your side).
- Profragile 10y ago
  This. Voting is essentially always "setup" i.e. the people who make maximum use of the power usually bet on both sides, albeit slightly differently. Since they know it's either one or the other, it doesn't really matter to them who really wins. They have necessary control of the situation no matter what happens. If you don't frame your life in a way that whoever wins matters to you very less, you are doing something wrong. If that is already the case, your vote doesn't count at all. It's one vote. The chance of your vote actually affecting the outcome of the election is so small that you might as well buy a lottery ticket instead. If however, you have the power to convince a large enough group of people to sway the election to one side or another, you should sell some of that influence to whoever is offering more money or favors to you.
  - noobermin 10y ago
    >If you don't frame your life in a way that whoever wins matters to you very less, you are doing something wrong. The answer is it does matter, and that you have such little influence is a failure of the system. I'm not talking about one vote, it's that some individuals have more influence over politicians due to their campaign donations. That is unacceptable. The answer once again is get money out of politics.
    - beagle3 10y ago
      Chicken and egg. Incumbents, the only people capable of taking money out of politics (short of some kind of revolution) enjoy the status quo too much to change it. You can only take money out of politics after you've taken money out of politics
    - Profragile 10y ago
      So do you agree that unless the money is out of politics, participating in voting is futile?
      - noobermin 10y ago
        I view your question as "do you agree that since you can't cure cancer, you shouldn't take painkillers or symptom treatments." No, I don't agree. It's just that instead of casting it as the state of being that you are powerless, it is instead that you should fight back.
noobermin 10y ago
Schumer said "for every blue collar dem we lose we'll gain middle class suburban whites." That didn't work out, R's turned out for their candidate, as they always do. The answer is not to suppress the leftist vote and care about the working class' concerns.

tormeh 10y ago

Looking at 1930s Germany, the fortunate ones were the ones who got out early. Stopping the political pendulum is hard; it's easier to get out of the way.

kmonsen 10y ago
But where to go?
- kowdermeister 10y ago
  If you can work remotely, I'd pick something nice and sunny with a beach.
  - sz4kerto 10y ago
    I can work remotely, but I can't bring my friends and family with me, and I can't bring all the other things. So I rather try and make 'this' a better place, if possible.
    - kowdermeister 10y ago
      That's great, luckily it doesn't seem that Hungary will collapse to something Turkey is becoming now. Have you been to Okotogon or other protests? I have and it was really inspiring to see that many young faces around. I Support all efforts of making Fidesz the least appealing party. That's probably all we can do if violence is not considered.
      - sz4kerto 10y ago
        Of course I've been :)
      - egeozcan 10y ago
        Well, do you know about Gezi protests? We also had that kind of inspiration. Just saying.
- 10y ago

rjtavares 10y ago

I think there's a danger today with intelligent people moving away from politics due to the mess they perceive it as being (IMO, rightfully so). The problem is that when you take a certain level of rationallity out of politics you let extremism flourish. We need to fix moderate parties, but I have no idea how to do that...

odiroot 10y ago

Then, I am sorry, you lack insight in this area. At least Poland is one of the most pro-EU countries.

hutzlibu 10y ago
pro-EU and pro-Humanrights are not quite the same.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

lossolo 10y ago

Don't worry, if elections would be made today in Poland then ruling party (PiS) would lost (opposition would have more votes so coalition would be possible). Poland is the most EU enthusiastic society in EU. Most of the things that ruling party does now was not in their program before elections, people protested on streets but it's democracy, you need to wait for next elections. Orban in Hungary is very pragmatic, he talks a lot but when pressured in EU he will take step back. In Hungary genesis is different, 8 years ago there was big economic crisis there, country was on the edge of bankruptcy, Orban and his party changed things, people just voted for bread.

uiri 10y ago
Poland is the most EU enthusiastic society in EU I find this ironic since they are not part of the Eurozone. Their economy is much less at risk from mismanagement in Greece than France, the Netherlands or Germany. it's democracy, you need to wait for next elections In a representative democracy, you need to wait for the next elections. In a parliamentarian democracy, a vote of no confidence can trigger elections (like Canada in 2011) or the Prime Minister can ask the Crown to dissolve parliament and call elections (like the UK in 2010). This can lead to situations like 3 elections within 5 years (Canada 2006, 2008, 2011). In the US, federal elections are every two years, with the whole House being up for election and 1/3 of the Senate while the President is up every other Congressional election.
- tonyedgecombe 10y ago
  You can be enthusiastic about the EU but not the Euro, I can't imagine any of the successor nations are in a hurry whilst the Greek and Italian issues are unresolved.
- petre 10y ago
  You are right about Polish economy less likely being at risk than Greece and Italy's. This is mainly because Poland is not part of the EMU and retain control over their currency.

kowdermeister 10y ago

Try to convince people who stay off voting booths to actually go there and remove Fidesz from power next year. The "no alternative" is a lame excuse, Momentum is coming up and even giving a vote to MKKP would be better than staying home.

inputcoffee 10y ago

That is a great question. I think spending time to think about how to best answer that question is probably the best thing one can do to prevent similar events. We are in the middle of this strange global event and you can tell from the profusion of explanations that no one knows what the reason is. -- loss of confidence in institutions? -- wealth gap? -- tech enabled cultural sabotage? -- "globalization"? And so on. I think people don't even know why it is happening yet. There is a lot of cognitive labor ahead.

Mikeb85 10y ago
The reasons are pretty clear. Some just refuse to acknowledge them.
- inputcoffee 10y ago
  Well, don't keep us in suspense. What do you think the reasons are for... first, describe the phenomenon under discussion because I think that is the first challenge.
  - Mikeb85 10y ago
    Globalisation and immigration have weakened the relative wealth of the working classes. The left refuses to acknowledge the problem while the right (and far right) does, so guess where that leads?
    - egeozcan 10y ago
      I couldn't guess it. No, I'm not being sarcastic.
      - Mikeb85 10y ago
        Read someone like Piketty. He has tons of data to back up the assertion that the working classes are losing relative wealth. Then take an economics course. Realise that globalisation outsources manufacturing, agriculture, services, etc..., lowering costs, but also lowering wages. This is by design. The 'Information' industry in the west was supposed to make up for the loss of blue collar jobs. Except it hasn't. And then also realise that immigration increases the size of the workforce, especially the uneducated workforce. Again, downward pressure on wages. Personally I think progressive economics provides a better solution than the regressive protectionism of the right. Except the left pretends there's no problem, and here we are.

Ralfp 10y ago

I'm from Poland. We are seeing failure of trust in to EU because its terrible at PR. Its successes are taken as local governments successes ("our govt is awesome, it snatched the money from those bureaucrats for new architecture!") which failures are easily blamed on Brussels ("We wanted to rescure our failing Shipyards and coal mining, but Brussels tells us we can't because its unfair competition! In meantime French and Germans have no issues like that! This is unfair competition and favorism of west-dominated Union!"). Then you have usual of their weird decisions that are brought as example of overgrown bureaucracy without attempt to understand the reasoning behind it. "Hey, did you hear? Idiots in Brussels decided that snails are fish, what an idiots" the popular saying goes, meantime nobody cares that such decision saved EU from making up separate legislature for seafood farming and trade. Then we have refugee crisis which is generally something considered result of poor decisions beind done in western EU side that it is trying shift the blame on across all of the union. The situation where in Poland is explictly named amongst the countries that show no solidarity while at same time we've accepted one million people from UA doesn't help neither. With all of this going on, its easy for populist guys to gain widespread support. However situation in Poland where traditionalistic-populistic gov gained enough of majority to rule on its own is (IMHO) primarily the result of weak opposition, whose entire idea and programme was "we are saner than those other folk" but instead we've got liberal party apparently become traditionalist one with leaks after leaks of them doing disappointing deals with each other or private business. This effectively sank primary opposition party in polls. They've also made some harsh steps to improve the grim future of our social security system via bumping retirement age as well as forcefully relocating bulk of private savings to the public fund. http://www.reuters.com/article/poland-pensions-idUSL6N0H02UV20130904 http://www.reuters.com/article/poland-pensions-idUSL6N0H02UV... Apparently there's trend in the polls going on for few weeks now giving them growing support, but its most likely the wave of popular disgust for current gov, which would be story from 2006 repeating itself. I'm unsure if they are capable of fixing things.

subpixel 10y ago
This article chronicles the move of a factory from Britain to Poland and is a great intro to current Polish politics with regard to the EU: https://www.lrb.co.uk/v39/n08/james-meek/somerdale-to-skarbimierz https://www.lrb.co.uk/v39/n08/james-meek/somerdale-to-skarbi...

Mikeb85 10y ago

You're afraid Hungary and Poland are going to be taken over by an Islamic dictator? Or are you referring to the rise of nationalist parties?

noobermin 10y ago
Like Trump and Kim Jong Un feed off each other, ideology doesn't matter, two strongmen fighting each other strengthen each other's power in their respective country.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

petre 10y ago

Do away with career politicians by effectively limiting their terms just as all demicracies do with presidents. But this is very hard to do in the curreny system without massive citizen initiative, because the politicians will never vote for such a measure.

dgregd 10y ago

If you are really worried about this then stop reading mainstream news propaganda, especially GW, TVN24, Newsweek. Poland leaving EU is the newest oposition narrative to discredit current government. That's all. People don't care about TK any longer so oposition created the new faked news.

I'm afraid this is going to happen inside the EU as well (Hungary, Poland... ). What can I do to prevent this? (I live here ​and I want to keep living here if p

I'm afraid this is going to happen inside the EU as well (Hungary, Poland... ). What can I do to prevent this? (I live here ​and I want to keep living here if p

I'm afraid this is going to happen inside the EU as well (Hungary, Poland... ). What can I do to prevent this? (I live here and I want to keep living here if p

I'm afraid this is going to happen inside the EU as well (Hungary, Poland... ). What can I do to prevent this? (I live here and I want to keep living here if p