Compare it with Eastern Europe with seldom protests, maybe once in 20 years or so. And not against poverty but for justice (Slovakia), democracy (Ukraine, Serbia) or alike.

What good is freedom and democracy if it doesn't give you enough to eat?

Economic trouble is was causes totalitarianism.

It's called escape from freedom.

So of course it’s capable of changing how it’s governed - it was never a choice.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_junta#American_influence...

I'm from South America where the US experimented with setting up dictatorships after WWII as well, and the effects are still felt today.

Spain was an openly fascist country that made the transition into a covertly fascist one in the late 70s. It wasn't the democratic forces who forced the transition, it was the fascists who half-conceded it because they wanted a halo of legitimacy in the international stage.

Not only the country knew of the King's dealings with Saudis and other fascist dictators, they used those dealings to make a case in favor of the Monarchy. "Of course, he'll take a cut! It's the least he should get after sealing that multi-million deal!" went the general conversation (among the population, of course, the media remained silent at all times). This should give people a taste for how Spain works, and the attitude of their citizens.

Another interesting thing that nobody has mentioned in the press yet is that maintenance and servicing (staff) of most if not all of the Monarchy assets (houses, palaces, boats!) is paid by Patrimonio Nacional (National Heritage; supposedly in charge of public assets of cultural and historical relevance), not by Casa Real (Royal Household; in charge of the Monarchy expenses). I.e.: a significant part of the budget allocated to public affairs is redirected to the private affairs of the Monarchy. Then they will claim "but relatively speaking, it's not that expensive", when a significant portion of the cost is hidden behind a different institution.

Source?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...

Though I'm pretty amazed it isn't just common knowledge - America has a long history of fixing democracies... It takes working democracies and replaces them with military dictatorships.

“Common knowledge” of history (ancient and recent) differs vastly from country to country. In Norway, we basically just learn of USA that it’s the country that turns the tide of war whenever it enters; for which we learn of two occasions: 1st and 2nd WW; not much else.

Pardon my english.

Well, even that's not true. See: Vietnam.

Personally I think I'm quite lucky. I got a self-appointed, and rather proud Marxist as a history teacher in upper secondary school. He solemnly declared that, while this was indeed his conviction, he would not let it colour his classes. Then he went on to give us college lectures about WWI and the Russian Revolution, because he trusted us to be smart enough to understand it anyway.

I shall never forget these amazing classes, but this style of teaching didn't sit well with the, shall we say, less aware pupils in the class, who promptly wrote up a complaint against his use of difficult to understand concepts and use of academic language.

After a meeting between us, him and the principal, he declared that he was very disappointed with us, and that—despite the authors retracting the complaint—he would not continue as a teacher for our class anymore. Then he donned his motorcycle gear and rode off on his Harley. I'm telling you! You can't make this shit up! :D

The next day we got a brand new history teacher. Instead of teaching, he would merely read up passages from the pre-approved history book, in the most passive and uninspired way possible. Then he would give us the lamest of lame assignements such as, "describe who was the prime minister of Great Britain during World War II and why," and other such mindblowingly boring stuff. Meanwhile the Marxist teacher would tell us interesting tidbits about Churchill and his role in the sinking of the USS Lusitania, and fascinating stuff like "contra-factual hypothesis", and so on.

You're probably wondering how I feel about Marxism now. Well, let's just say that I think it's a failed philosophy. But the stories that extremely Marxist teacher shared with us, were so good and so captivating, that they have simply stuck with me and everyone who were lucky enough to have this true rebell as a history teacher.

Anway, if you're still not satisfied, and just want bloody good "history lessons," then I can highly recommend the podcast Blueprint for Armageddon, about WWI as told by Dan Carlin.

I’ve been reading so much english lately, that I’m losing grasp of my native norwegian. (Yet I can’t seem to get my syntax quite right.) This is frightening and also the reason I’m always trying to find norwegian books on whatever subject I’m interested in — which isn’t always easy...

[1]: https://naob.no/

I really had not heard of this; which was why I asked for a source, so that I could learn of it. The request was stupidly lazy, I admit; but I think asking (if done properly) for a source is one of the things that never should be met with disapproval.

Meanwhile, by refusing to help Greece with its debt, not only did EU increased the debt, but inadvertently legitimized the right option, by saying there will be no debt canceling (which was left position at the time).

a) a country with a record of mismanagement and debt it cannot pay back

b) a set of countries that do not have a record of mismanagement and have the ability to help out a country that is in debt

If we take your metaphor we could say the choice is:

a) do not accept the terms and starve to death

b) cut off your arm and live with rules to live by to prevent the scenario from repeating

b) a set of banks who were willingly ignorant that they were lending to a state with a history of bankruptcy over many decades, because they believed/knew that when push came to shove the EU (taxpayers) would bail them out (which they did. You realise that the Greek "bailout" was a bailout of the EU banks that lent to the Greek state).

So the optimal option would've been to leave Greece to its own devices?

Contrary to that, the agreement with the EU was negotiated by multiple democratically elected governments and confirmed in a referendum.

They had a chance to make different choices and they still do. No one is taking their democratic rights away from them.

Excuse me? Syriza reneged on the referendum result! The people spoke, and Tsipras did the opposite!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Greek_bailout_referendum#...

That's not true. Military junta gives you option. Serve us or be punished. Prison or death.

EU negotiators gave Greece a choice too. Agree to our demands or we destroy your economy.

Thing is, that works for Greece, since the debt was small compared to EU budget. That won't work for Italy or Spain.

And if they get debt relief, when Greece didn't, there are going to be problems.

No. The destruction was done in decades of mismanagement by successive Greek governments.

But if you think that I agree with the bailout terms you are mistaken. Quite the contrary. I think there should have been debt relief so that Greece can make a new start.

But I reject the idea that installing a dictatorship is comparable to not granting someone debt relief or not extending new loans to them.

~70 years ago.

I approved of that coup attempt. Does that responsibility for the coup can be laid at my feet?

Just so no one over-reads into this, it's important to point out that 'doing security for Trump' is essentially meaningless as Trump has frequently held stadium-sized public events and all kinds of local security contractors from off-duty police to mall cops are hired as temps to help do outer-ring security from parking lot patrol to outside line management. There's very little vetting because they have no special access to the president. The inner rings of presidential security are handled by active-duty law enforcement, then active-duty military/national guard and lastly the secret service.

I read a lengthy interview with a former special ops person that knew and occasionally worked with this guy up until recently. The guy was widely known to exaggerate his history, credentials and contacts. He tried to recruit his 'friend' to this effort but, according to the interviewed guy, anyone with half a clue avoided getting involved as the whole thing was clearly a half-assed cluster-fuck with no real support from anyone that matters. This erstwhile 'coup leader' appears to be no different than thousands of other ex-military dudes squeaking out a post-service living doing security contracting and playing at being a 'solder of fortune', except this guy was even more fringe than most. The only people that are known to have given him any real encouragement or money were some U.S.-base Venezuelan ex-pats fantasizing about over throwing the govt.

America loathing is relevant world-wide.

France is in no way behind the USA in repressing popular demonstrations.

Only Benalla, the president's personal praetorian.

Actually many of these have been empowered by some kind of internet troll movement. The emergence of such parties is eerily similar - an overwhelming majority who is peeved at some designated and vilified minority getting even minor privileges. Plus a lot of ranting against left liberalism and globalism. They conveniently forget the fact that such egalitarian viewpoints have more or less assured a stable 75 years in recent world history. Nearly a century of peace in large parts of the world - this has been a great achievement unprecedented in the last 500 years.

Unfortunately for us, I think since Internet 2.0, this trend has been exacerbated by the echo chambers which constitute most social media.

It's not a "movement". It's information warfare enabled by the fact that most information sources online don't even give lip service to the idea of separating propaganda and manipulation from honest public discussion.

The Russians are (obviously) getting very good at this, and other countries like China aren't far behind. Until companies like Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, and others recognize that protecting public discussion from interference isn't optional, you can expect this to continue.

It's a monster of our own making. When politicians start courting that fringe, you get a virtuous cycle, where the fringe starts impacting policy, which emboldens and encourages more and more radicalization.

[1] Look at the rhetoric surrounding the AIDS epidemic, and tell me if anything has changed.

It's naïve to think that companies are unaware of this. I think they actively encourage this outrage-fest, because it increases eyeballs. We are paying a heavy social price for a flawed advertisement revenue model.

You can look up the documentary on Cambridge Analytica. The logo _most_ prominently displayed the CEO's office is that of major Indian political party. And that party is not even the top dog in this game.

WWIII has already started - but its "hearts and minds" but with Corporatocracy and with covid being the opening salvo to drive fear and socially engineered behavior into the global populous.

You cant control 7B people without first taking over their minds.... (emotions and behaviors)

@Dang prove chinese are not here

Isn't a large part of this from nuclear detente?

Recover what? You say it as if what was before communism was better than communism.

Communism was probably the best system ever to exist in Hungary up until 1989, at least it was certainly the best to last.

It wasn't democratic by any means, but to me it's weird to say "recovered from communism", as if there was something before communism to recover.

Hungary exists as an independent nation since 31 July 1921. Since then, these are the political systems that lasted any significant amount of time:

- Kingdom of Hungary: created anti-semitic laws before the nazis, waged wars of conquest against it's neighbors and collaborated with the Nazi regime, perpetrator of Holocaust

- 1944 until the end of world war: Nazi control of Hungary, perpetrator of Holocaust

- until 1989: a few years of Soviet military occupation, then Communism

- since 1989 current system

So which of the pre-communist political systems of Hungary is the one worth recovering in your opinion?

No, it absolutely does not.

You have absolutely not right to suppress other people with your ideology for anything other than a moment.

"Without it, the democracy crumbles"

This is completely false.

There is no such thing as 'peaceful' closure of public transit, it's only authoritarian, frankly.

There are exactly 0 examples of 'democracy crumbling' because protestors were not able to stop public transit and public roads.

In very certain terms - you don't have the right to close public spaces, to stop public activity with your political ideology.

It's completely illegal if 1 of you do it, it doesn't make it legal if 1000 of you do it, though you might get away with just a fine or whatever if you 'take it down' soon enough.

It's helpful to think of a cause that you don't support, or are perhaps against, even think of as 'immoral' and consider how you'd react if they shut your office down every few days.

I don't have to think about it. My office has been shutdown on multiple occasions by causes I don't agree with (we are located by federal land). In fact, it happens at least once a year. Not once have I wanted the protesters to be prevented or forced to disperse. Is it an inconvenience? Yes. But it is their right and a right that is critical to democracy.

Blocking the road to work, hospital, etc. is infringing on others.

Control of the majority by the minority is by definition not democratic.

Authoritarian regimes are the exact ones who control the majority with a small minority of the population.

I'm coming at this from a US point of view but would be interested in hearing other perspectives.

In casual use I think "democracy" is best understood to mean the more technically accurate concept of "democratic republic" and additionally that there are a core set of individual rights that are not subject to infringement by the majority via legislation. One of the primary roles of the government is to protect those individual rights.

The right to peaceful assembly, to free speech, to association, and to petition the government are all protected and foundational to what we might call "protesting" or "demonstrating".

I think "democracy" is generally used as a short-hand to refer to this bundle of ideas and not to the concept of a "direct democracy" where "majority rules" is the operating principle with no limitations.

But those rights aren't absolute and they have to be balanced with rights of others who aren't participating in the protest. If your group is no longer peaceful, or your speech is inciting violence, or your group is unlawfully impeding the free movement of others, or your actions are in fact crimes against people or property then you are no longer engaging in protected activities.

Blocking a public right-of-way without permission (like getting a parade permit, for example) is infringing on other people's rights and is not peaceful. It is not protected activity. It is dangerous and puts other people at risk. Similarly arson, vandalism, and other destruction of property is not part of the idea of "peaceful protest" and is not protected activity.

I was pointing out that "democracy" doesn't mean that "protest" is automatically lawful, which was the confused assertion of the comment I was responding to.

I'm not sure what anything I wrote has to do with government killing people in "immoral ways" or democracy having slaves or civilians being violent. That just seems to be a bunch on non-sequiturs.

I'll attempt to respond though:

Government officials can obviously act in immoral ways regardless of the political system. But that is basically just a statement that people have free will. Laws don't magically make people obey them, so we can have a discussion about what is or isn't lawful but the statement that people can be immoral is just an obvious assertion about humanity without some specific fact pattern to discuss.

A liberal democracy that upholds individual rights (which I claimed was what people mean when they use the shorthand "democracy"), can't simultaneously assert the legality of slaves. That is a contradiction. Of course reality can be full of contradictions and people and governments can fail to adhere to their own laws. Is that some surprise to you?

It is hard to know what "Why can't democratic civilians be violent" means. People have free will so of course they can be "violent" and those actions may or may not be crimes, depends on the motivation and target of the "violence".

But you can't block the highway, subway, or traffic and it has little to do with 'democracy'.

The only reason people are not cleared out sooner, is because politicians are afraid of ugly images - it's hard to physical move people with someone, somewhere getting hurt.

If there were an easy way to move people, they'd be moved.

People can picket all they want in front of Parliament or wherever, just not on the subway tracks.

And protesters tend to allow ambulances to get through, because most of them aren't monsters.

Both of those statements a very false.

On the other hand, the Hungarian opposition owning such a small minority, may even feel oppressed because of it. This is why I think it's unfortunate if this alternative media outlet is indeed being pressured into being more polite towards the sitting government. But speaking of poor resources among alternative and fringe media may also be misleading. In some respects it is no different than the alternative media in Left leaning countries, such as Sweden or Norway. Over here it is the alternative Right Wing media that are on the brink of extinction, and Left Wing supporters are constantly calling for their defunding and cancellation, even resorting to call out or boycott businesses who dare advertise with them.

This tactic certainly seems to have worked with the big tech companies. Moreover there seems to be little to no discussion in Left Wing media about the larger ongoing censorship happening in Western Europe and the USA. As such, some may even call this event welcome when compared to what is happening on giant platforms like Twitter, Google, Facebook or YouTube. However I'm unsure if fighting cancel culture with more cancel culture is a very bright idea.