On the other hand, condescension is harder to grow out of.
Perhaps you meant "they will eventually sell their soul" instead?
Which freedoms did I give up, exactly?
Also, since the EU is a vassal of Pax Americana, I doubt that the European Citizens in toto benefit from that arrangement.
> Also, since the EU is a vassal of Pax Americana
So the problem is giving a centralized authority (EU) more power. At the same time the EU is a vassal of the US (Pax America, which is a fairly ridiculous notion in and of itself).
I can only conclude from the horrible word salad you gave me that individual member states without the EU would also be vassals of the US, which is itself a centralized power. So the EU existence, following your logic, is inconsequential.
Your thoughts were mildly entertaining to parse through. Sorry for not giving credence to your thoughts beyond mere entertainment however.
You don't believe me? Perhaps Pax Americana needs to blow up another one of Europe's oil pipelines to remind you...
I wonder how long the sycophantic politicians can keep up the act before the freezing & unemployed citizens notice.
Here's a word of advice though, don't give the Nazis too many weapons. It may end up in a bad situation. They may hate Putin today, but tomorrow their prerogatives may change...
Does "pax" in Freedom Latin mean the same thing that it does in traditional Latin?
Yeah, cognitive dissonance is strong with this one
For the record, this is a standard Russian talking point. Stepan Bandera was a nationalist Ukrainian leader and his remembrance is one of the reasons why Russian propaganda now paints Ukraine as Nazified.
"War is terrible."
Indeed, and being absorbed into the Russian World is even more terrible. I get it, the Kremlin isn't exactly winning on the battlefield right now, so it tries to undermine the will to fight among its opponents. Nazis, Peace Now etc., the standard Russian word salad.
No, you are not getting Ukraine, forget it. That invasion was a bridge too far and Russia will lose badly. Good. I will never forget nor forgive the Soviet rape of Czechoslovakia in 1968, but Russian defeat in the Ukrainian war will at least somewhat soothe the bitterness.
My opinion is, you know, "right wing libertarian stuff". I must be off my rocker...So must Vice & the various other media outlets that extensively reported on this over the past decade.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xC1oCpnDURc&ab_channel=VICE
https://www.vice.com/en/article/y3m3eg/neo-nazi-terror-group...
https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/ukraine-has-nazi-probl...
https://thehill.com/opinion/international/359609-the-reality...
I also don't support Pax Americana destroying the Nordstream Pipeline, where the German people bear the brunt of this act of violence. I lived in Panama City, FL, where the divers who destroyed the Nordstream Pipe live, as reported by Pulitzer Prize journalist Seymour Hersch.
https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/how-america-took-out-the...
Here is "right wing libertarian stuff" news outlet Democracy Now interviewing Seymour Hersch...
Sounds like I failed some sort of purity test here. It's a chilling time we live in; that simply saying we should not eagerly enter into wars & arm violent extremists is so controversial. Reminds me of the 1930s Germany, where pacifists were so wholeheartedly denounced when they did not support the tenants of the same extremist ideology that created WW2...whose modern direct adherents we are sending $billions of weapons to.
But shhhh, we can't talk about this. It's the dirty secret that shall not be mentioned. Who in their proper mind would support this? Consolidated power inevitably gets corrupted & turns into a bully because it attracts psychopaths, sociopaths, & sycophants into positions of leadership.
So please, denounce me & downvote me. Flag this post. Many people critical of wars & arming extremist groups have been denounced & silence in the past and continue to be denounced & silenced. Show us all who you really are...
I keep thinking Russia is a joke now. Whatever they get of Ukraine, isn’t the country a mess now? Would they be able to invade Georgia in 5 years? Other regional power like Indonesia, Iran, Saudi Arabia are much more successful at their imperialism. Israel is the most successful of regional powers. Israel is unique in that it is plenty more powerful than any neighboring country while having fewer people. Not to mention engaging in ethnic cleansing and an open air gulag/internment camp in the Gaza Strip.
I guess my thinking is who cares? Relatively speaking. We were still bombing Yemen with Saudis pretty recently. Israel kills so many Palestinians. America keeps trying to overthrow leftist leaders in Brazil, Cuba, and Venezuela. American intelligence assassinated the leader of my parent’s country a decade ago.
I never quite understood the intense hype of Russia and Ukraine. I’m guessing it’s because they are white and the Global North is white and controls the world, relatively speaking.
I realize my comment borders on whataboutism. I don’t think it is. I’ve condemned Russia’s actions.
I'm not happy with the invasion but given the aggressive expansionist behavior of Pax Americana, I don't know if there are any alternatives other than the West using diplomacy in good faith. Russians see this conflict as "existential" & will not back down. Given such a position, does diplomacy not make sense?
There was a US backed coup in Ukraine in 2014, which the Nazis played an important role in. The Minsk 2 agreements were broken by Ukraine as it continued to attack the Donesk & Luhansk republic, both of which declared independence from Ukraine after the 2014 coup.
Zelensky & Putin were about to come to an agreement in February before the west, via Boris Johnson, intervened.
My main point here is diplomacy is possible & the natural course but bad actors in Pax Americana, like the NeoCons/NeoLibs only push war & double down on war when these misadventures fall apart. This behavior also drives the conflicts in Yemen, Israel, South America, etc.
The NeoCons/NeoLibs used to be known as "The War Party". Fitting name. They push for war & as we have seen, war is what we have gotten for a long time.
yes!
> Most of them will grow out of it eventually.
not if PG has his way
I'm guessing this is due to stupidity manifesting in different ways in their respective regions.
Like apparently the UK bring a knife-ridden crime epicentre, when the knife-crime rate is, while unacceptably high, actually rather lower than the US, and that's before you consider guns which are about 10 times more on top of that.
(And let's please at least pretend that the UK is still in the EU for argument's sake :)
Then again, my perspective is from someone not originally from Europe, that chose to migrate here and declined job offers from the US even though I would receive considerably more money had I accepted. I have zero regrets, by the way.
So take my opinion as one without the social nuance from someone born here.
The reality is also that almost non of the people in the countries were actually asked if they wanted to join.
There is a difference between being pro European integration and pro existing EU structure.
mind you, European integration is a major political pillar in national politics of basically all countries inside of europe and its periphery.
People vote on parties based on there political program, and most people seem to want to vast economic benefits being a member states brings. (heck, ukraine is basically fighting a war at the moment about an issue which basically boils down to European integration).
People definetly had a say if they wanted EU membership through the political process of there country.
The only case where this is a bit of a grey area is of the founding countries of the precursor of the EU. (european community of coal and steel). Most of those measures got passed as policy without a lot of democratic process by the populance.
But we cannot change the past, and considering the state of most of europe during the 1950's i wouldn't judge them so harshly for it.
The reality is most people vote primary for domestic polices, and the extent what the EU would do was not understood by voters at the time. There is a difference in initially joining and then having very little choice in the continue growth of that institutions power.
And in fact, in many places where aspects of the EU were put to a popular vote it actually fails.
There is also the reality that things like the EU/Euro were political projects and that Germany after the Cold War had to agree to some of these things in order for France and Britain to accept its unification.
People certainty were not asked if Eastern nations should be allowed to join the EU. Again, shouldn't a popular vote be in order when an institution like the EU considers adding a new member that can massively impact its economy and will receive untold billions in subsidies?
I'm Swiss so for me, a decision of such huge importance should actually be based on a popular vote. Not 'well in the 70s leftist parties were broadly more popular'. And once you are in, its incredibly hard to get out, and that is by design.
A real European Union based on fundamentally pro European pro Democracy principles would have been established over many steps and many votes. This would give some granularity to the choices. Maybe the population like one aspect of the many EU polices, but not the other.
In Switzerland we rejected the EG, but we joined Schengen, both based on popular vote. We join institutions such as ESA and many others. That seems to me to be a much better process of incrementally growing together.
> the state of most of europe during the 1950's i wouldn't judge them so harshly for it.
Lets not pretend the EU was formed in the 1950s.
This is democracy at its finest.
That said not all the good stuff actually was caused by the EU either. I'd recommend watching Yes Minister but apparently that will get you put on a watchlist these days... https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/1153smh/yes_min...
The fact is politicians at all levels including EU take credit for things they didn't do and try to ignore the fallout from things they did. All the while blaming the voters. Mainly because changing public perception of policy choices takes time and effort and they have limited of both and tend to want to focus on things they actually care about.
https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/inflation-rate?con...
My personal suspiction is that UK citizens were mislead about the consequences of leaving but, hey, democracy is about taking decisions with incomplete information. People have spoken and their decision is sacred. I wish the UK the best luck and it's with sadness that I believe they will need a lot of it.
Besides their xenophobia and racism, at least the Nordic countries are closer to informed voters.
In the EU as a whole it's slightly higher because of the East countries (Hungary, Romania, Latvia, Estonia, ...) where inflation is crazy high because of their dependency on Russia for energy.
UK is in the very West of Europe, not East, and not reliant on Russia as East countries are. The economic impact of Brexit has just been significant, as it was supposed to be. Everybody knew it would be. Brexit was never about economy, but mainly sovereignty. That's a legitimate trade-off, of course, and many in the UK prefer to be a bit poorer in exchange for less dependency on their neighbours. I respect that. But it's important not to fool oneself thinking that leaving the highest economy in the world (EU economy was bigger than US' before UK left) was going to be good for the UK economy. That's just nonsense.
At the worst times, you could phone to thirty pharmacies with a relatively standard recipe (Augmentin etc.) and be turned away everywhere.
Been there, done that.
Sounds precisely like Czechia right now.
The reality is that most of the UKs problems were not because of the EU before and are not because they left the UK now.
The US is used to this. The EU still have to adjust.
They just don't like that it exists.