4 ms·

That is plain delusion, really. Economic and, especially, immigration issues are fully home-made. Again, Russia is only using them with very small effects. Thi

That is plain delusion, really. Economic and, especially, immigration issues are fully home-made. Again, Russia is only using them with very small effects. This will end badly because of this denial of reality and denial of people's voices, not because of Russia.

saubeidl 1y ago
[flagged]
- mytailorisrich 1y ago
  I have flagged this comment because of the gratuitous insult and misrepresentation. Sad. "Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes." "Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.*"
jacquesm 1y ago
> Economic and, especially, immigration issues are fully home-made. This is incredibly short-sighted and is in fact exactly such a denial of reality that you accuse others of. The world is divided into poorer regions and wealthier regions, and regions that are peaceful and ones that are less peaceful. Then there is oppression based on race, creed, sexual preference and a whole raft of other things. As long as that is the case there will be people that want to move away from where they were born. You are claiming to speak for a group, but in fact you are just speaking for yourself, and poorly reasoned and supported at that.
- mytailorisrich 1y ago
  Odd how the replies to my comments seem to quickly swerve into ad hominem attacks and irrelevant points... Perhaps that's QED. The world is what it is. That has nothing to do with the immigration policies in Europe, which are chosen by the governments not imposed on them, and nothing to do with the growing range of issues in Europe. I am not claiming to speak for anyone, by the way. I only acknowledge the election results and trends across Europe and how those signs of public opinion are met. Have a nice one, guys.
  - saubeidl 1y ago
    > The world is what it is. That has nothing to do with the immigration policies in Europe, which are chosen by the governments not imposed on them, and nothing to do with the growing range of issues in Europe. It does however, have everything to do with centuries of European imperialism. We shaped the world to be the way it is. It didn't happen by accident.
    - jacquesm 1y ago
      It is interesting how few people are willing to admit that these are problems in large part of our own making. If there are two places that are both poor and one decides to plunder the other and becomes fabulously wealthy because they are able to turn what they plundered into wealth more effectively than the places that they plundered then it stands to reason that at some point the citizens of the places that were plundered would like to move their residence to the wealthier place. Long term sustainable policies that do not result in such an imbalance require a longer term view and possibly lower short term profits. In fact, the United States was on that path until Trump took over. Mexico was slowly getting wealthier and people were already moving back because it was a more viable alternative. Now of course all that progress has been destroyed but it was really working, and I'm pretty sure that it could have been accelerated.
    - pjmlp 1y ago
      Worse, because after we left many of those countries to their own "freedom", the imperialism kept going by having big corporations sponsor the new goverments. Our goverments could do better fixing the ways of the past, instead it is much easier to complain about immigration, from countries politians themselves would not freely chose to live on, other than on big monthly check from one of those corporations.
      - jacquesm 1y ago
        That's exactly what the Dutch did with Surinam for instance (And with Indonesia, which was in many ways far, far worse and which caused massive bloodshed). They pretty much left the place in shambles with no credible path to stability. I think to some degree it was petty revenge for the loss of the colony, as in 'if you think you can do without us then we'll make that as hard as possible for you'. They could have done a much more graceful handover, instead they abandoned their responsibilities overnight and pretended that any fall-out was the locals' problem. Interestingly, at the time when this happened there was due to the fact that Surinam people were considered to be citizens a massive influx of Surinam people to NL, the ones that saw the writing on the wall and realized that there would be a less-than-optimal situation post dutch pull-out. This then - predictably - led to exactly the same levels of xenophobia about the Surinam people coming to NL. The kind of stuff dutch people at the time were saying about them does not bear repeating here, suffice to say it was pretty horrible. Now, a good 40 years later they've integrated into Dutch society, and you don't hear anybody anymore about how they were going to cause the end of our 'way of life' That honor simply shifts from one group to the next. The only ones so far that seem to escape such scorn are the Ukrainians, but I suspect if their numbers would rise further that that would happen just the same, already Wilders has been trying out that fiddle to see how well it plays. But he's playing with fire on that subject and he knows it, we have not forgotten his response to the Russian downing of MH-17.

saubeidl 1y ago

[flagged]

mytailorisrich 1y ago
I have flagged this comment because of the gratuitous insult and misrepresentation. Sad. "Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes." "Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.*"

jacquesm 1y ago

> Economic and, especially, immigration issues are fully home-made. This is incredibly short-sighted and is in fact exactly such a denial of reality that you accuse others of. The world is divided into poorer regions and wealthier regions, and regions that are peaceful and ones that are less peaceful. Then there is oppression based on race, creed, sexual preference and a whole raft of other things. As long as that is the case there will be people that want to move away from where they were born. You are claiming to speak for a group, but in fact you are just speaking for yourself, and poorly reasoned and supported at that.

mytailorisrich 1y ago
Odd how the replies to my comments seem to quickly swerve into ad hominem attacks and irrelevant points... Perhaps that's QED. The world is what it is. That has nothing to do with the immigration policies in Europe, which are chosen by the governments not imposed on them, and nothing to do with the growing range of issues in Europe. I am not claiming to speak for anyone, by the way. I only acknowledge the election results and trends across Europe and how those signs of public opinion are met. Have a nice one, guys.
- saubeidl 1y ago
  > The world is what it is. That has nothing to do with the immigration policies in Europe, which are chosen by the governments not imposed on them, and nothing to do with the growing range of issues in Europe. It does however, have everything to do with centuries of European imperialism. We shaped the world to be the way it is. It didn't happen by accident.
  - jacquesm 1y ago
    It is interesting how few people are willing to admit that these are problems in large part of our own making. If there are two places that are both poor and one decides to plunder the other and becomes fabulously wealthy because they are able to turn what they plundered into wealth more effectively than the places that they plundered then it stands to reason that at some point the citizens of the places that were plundered would like to move their residence to the wealthier place. Long term sustainable policies that do not result in such an imbalance require a longer term view and possibly lower short term profits. In fact, the United States was on that path until Trump took over. Mexico was slowly getting wealthier and people were already moving back because it was a more viable alternative. Now of course all that progress has been destroyed but it was really working, and I'm pretty sure that it could have been accelerated.
  - pjmlp 1y ago
    Worse, because after we left many of those countries to their own "freedom", the imperialism kept going by having big corporations sponsor the new goverments. Our goverments could do better fixing the ways of the past, instead it is much easier to complain about immigration, from countries politians themselves would not freely chose to live on, other than on big monthly check from one of those corporations.
    - jacquesm 1y ago
      That's exactly what the Dutch did with Surinam for instance (And with Indonesia, which was in many ways far, far worse and which caused massive bloodshed). They pretty much left the place in shambles with no credible path to stability. I think to some degree it was petty revenge for the loss of the colony, as in 'if you think you can do without us then we'll make that as hard as possible for you'. They could have done a much more graceful handover, instead they abandoned their responsibilities overnight and pretended that any fall-out was the locals' problem. Interestingly, at the time when this happened there was due to the fact that Surinam people were considered to be citizens a massive influx of Surinam people to NL, the ones that saw the writing on the wall and realized that there would be a less-than-optimal situation post dutch pull-out. This then - predictably - led to exactly the same levels of xenophobia about the Surinam people coming to NL. The kind of stuff dutch people at the time were saying about them does not bear repeating here, suffice to say it was pretty horrible. Now, a good 40 years later they've integrated into Dutch society, and you don't hear anybody anymore about how they were going to cause the end of our 'way of life' That honor simply shifts from one group to the next. The only ones so far that seem to escape such scorn are the Ukrainians, but I suspect if their numbers would rise further that that would happen just the same, already Wilders has been trying out that fiddle to see how well it plays. But he's playing with fire on that subject and he knows it, we have not forgotten his response to the Russian downing of MH-17.