Just watch the last 20 minutes, he discussed Israel,Iran,Syria,USA foreign decision policies and relationships. Even though the talk is old, its still relevant as the same policies are still being ran.
If you wanna see how he debunks the whole illusion of democracy in our civilized society just watch the whole talk.
I've seen a lot of criticism on Chomsky except it all seems dull and when they have ground, he himself admits that he s wrong. He s quite the rational mind, obviously with radical thinking, but he somehow manages to set limits up to what seems adequate and true.
This isnt terrorism, it is a very criminal and shitty thing to do but its motivation it is not to cause terror in the population so it doesnt fall under that definition.
I dont know many people who disagrees that what Israel does to Palestine is atrocious, and I havent seen anyone in this thread profess hatred towards muslims either.
On July 25 2016 12:45 nolan wrote:
Kind of surprising that only 36% of the asylum applicants in Germany are Syrian.
Where are the rest from? Libya and Iraq?
The stats as laid out in the article makes it sound as if there's already more MENA migrants that arrived this year than all of last year. How is Europe not just refusing these guys entry at this point? I don't get what the end game is supposed to be here from the European perspective.
and Afghanistan, there never was a plan, it's just a million levels of bureaucracy doing random shit
i've never been a big conspiracy nerd, but i refuse to believe that sincere care for the fellow man is the driving factor in the various political groups that propagate european immigration.
it's either better economically for their social circle to have migrants, or perhaps even more scandalous they consider the future voting implications as a benefit for their party.
On September 08 2008 10:07 Baal wrote: my head is a gyroscope, your argument is invalid
even more scandalous they consider the future voting implications as a benefit for their party.
That seems to me like the most reasonable explanation, I dont see many ways they can economically benefit from mass migration, I think its a political move for votes that backfired big time
On July 25 2016 12:45 nolan wrote:
Kind of surprising that only 36% of the asylum applicants in Germany are Syrian.
Where are the rest from? Libya and Iraq?
The stats as laid out in the article makes it sound as if there's already more MENA migrants that arrived this year than all of last year. How is Europe not just refusing these guys entry at this point? I don't get what the end game is supposed to be here from the European perspective.
and Afghanistan, there never was a plan, it's just a million levels of bureaucracy doing random shit
i've never been a big conspiracy nerd, but i refuse to believe that sincere care for the fellow man is the driving factor in the various political groups that propagate european immigration.
it's either better economically for their social circle to have migrants, or perhaps even more scandalous they consider the future voting implications as a benefit for their party.
The explanation doesn't even have to be that deep. All you need is any political meme to get the same thing. "Assault weapons ban" in the US is another. The content of the "policy" is irrelevant. The only thing that concerns the political elite is strengthening, or at least not weakening, their support by doing whatever random thing has caught on. No matter how nonsensical or poorly thought through it is. Because sadly, in politics, in medicine, in all the most important fields for our civilization, there's no immediate gratification for just sitting there like a normal person, doing nothing, and in the process not fucking anything up by immeasurable incompetence.
In the case of immigration, it's confounding because it involves people so there are also direct benefits, not only in what you call future voting implications, meaning making sure immigrant children repay you by voting for the people who let them into the country, but also the people who are already here. Like in the US, Hispanics as a group strongly lean and turn out for Democrats partly because of the stance on illegal immigration, which mainly affects Hispanics. But in a more general sense, the same tribalism extends to the political coalition in general, not just cases where there's a "demographic." An older one was stem cell research (wanted an example from the right also). It was a big deal simply because people made it one. But again, the politicians are complicit in this too, but not treacherously so. It's not the Bildeberg/Illuminati whatever level of devious. It's naked self-interest. People: Protect the souls! Politicians: You'll be happy to know we came up with a wonderful moratorium on stem cell research to slow down your access to new cures for diseases! People: Thank you you've secured my vote! That's as stupid as people are. That's our world. It doesn't even have to be conscious - politicians sincerely believe some of the same bullshit. A bunch of people's concern for keeping their 20 year careers as bumbling politicians and bureaucrats (that think they're fooling everyone by pretending to be necessary) is the reason Germany has tentatively absorbed an entire city of foreigners.
The content is only relevant because it determines the memetic danger of it. What I mean is that when there's language that plausibly makes the idea sound really grave. Like in the case of stem cells, people coming up with bullshit about baby souls and everything, at a glance that would definitely affect people. If you go on Facebook every day and you see dozens of images of "THESE PEOPLE ARE FLEEING WAR YOU RACIST MONSTER," that can have a strong effect on random people not paying much attention to reality. Now, the contagiousness of the idea is independent of the truth of it. Some ideas spread easily, but they're also great ones. Like "Save the world from Hitler." But take the exact same idea and it will fit just as easily in another context "Save the world from communism, fight the Reds in Vietnam" - that is, until the evidence starts to stack up against the idea.
It's a totally organic thing, a natural fluctuation, of the political system. It's extremely bad of course, but it's not unexpected. The pushback is now more than warranted. One thing about Vietnam is it was perpetrated by people acting with absolute power and impunity. Whether by design or accident, the US system's precarious balance means you can always swing in the other direction. But all Europe leans further to the left so I wonder whether at some point it may start to be a danger of parliamentary systems that a country could manage to fuck things up so badly that the system couldn't correct itself. We know countries collapse and Europe is no exception. Is Greece still around? I haven't been following.
It seems to be not very profitable in the long run to play those kind of hands. - Gus Hansen
sorry, but the 'importing immigrants for voters' idea is absolutely ridiculous, at least in the context of the european left.
There are basically two reasons for the pro-refugee acceptance pov. First, and most importantly, is the humanitarian angle. If any of you actually spend time with pro-refugee acceptance activists, you will know that this is true. People want to accept refugees because they feel it is the morally correct choice, not because they believe it is economically beneficial. Leftists might sometimes cite statistics showing that someone predicts that migration will be economically beneficial - but this is a counter argument to the idea that accepting refugees is going to destroy/bankrupt the country. It's not the reason behind the policy.
Second is less of an explanation for why people want to accept refugees, and more of an explanation of why the opposition to immigration doesn't set - the group of people pro-refugees and pro-non-western immigration (which is still founded in humanitarianism) do not themselves and are not projected to themselves struggle with any of the consequences of immigration. They (we) don't live in areas with a lot of immigrants (and the immigrants who do live in 'our' areas are likely to be the well-integrated and successful ones who make positive societal contributions through positive diversity), have jobs that are so language-dependent that immigrants are no threat to the job market / don't receive benefits and thus also aren't too worried about the fund of benefits being smaller / to a greater degree consume culture and go to restaurants, two areas where the immigration benefit is actually tangible.
Like, I totally accept the argument that massive immigration brings with it too many negative aspects for it to be a valid policy. I totally accept the argument that germany and sweden were reckless and irresponsible in a way that hurts their respective societies, and I totally accept the argument that one refugee in norway is so costly that we could have helped 50 in turkey or greece or lebanon or whatever. I might personally have some disagreements with those arguments, but they are all fair enough.
But I don't accept, at all, the notion that pro-refugee groups have been motivated by any type of nefariousness. The only selfishness involved in this is that the feeling of doing the right thing makes you feel good about yourself. There might be stupidity involved, in the sense that the action that 'feels' like the right thing might actually be really societally stupid and dangerous, but please don't try to find bad intent; that's virtually non-existent.
like, I know a lot of leftists politicians, and some right wing ones. my brother is a former member of parliament for the socialist left party in norway, which is probably the political party in Norway with the most pro-refugee and pro-immigration point of view. And every actual politician I have met, from both sides of the political aisle, in Norway - it's certainly my impression that this changes if you go to the US (but hardly for any european country) - have championed the causes they believe in more so than the causes they believe give them voters. When campaigning, they might try to stir the discussion away from topics where they know they are a minority, but I have never encountered a single politician or activist who was fighting for a political cause they didn't believe in just because they thought it was a good way of achieving reelection. The overwhelming majority of people who get involved in politics do so because they want to make the world a better place. Wealth they could almost always get more of elsewhere (successful politicians have skillsets that are highly valuable in the private consulting market), and power/influence are means of achieving their goals more than goals by themselves.
On July 31 2016 12:54 Liquid`Drone wrote:
like, I know a lot of leftists politicians, and some right wing ones. my brother is a former member of parliament for the socialist left party in norway, which is probably the political party in Norway with the most pro-refugee and pro-immigration point of view. And every actual politician I have met, from both sides of the political aisle, in Norway - it's certainly my impression that this changes if you go to the US (but hardly for any european country) - have championed the causes they believe in more so than the causes they believe give them voters. When campaigning, they might try to stir the discussion away from topics where they know they are a minority, but I have never encountered a single politician or activist who was fighting for a political cause they didn't believe in just because they thought it was a good way of achieving reelection. The overwhelming majority of people who get involved in politics do so because they want to make the world a better place. Wealth they could almost always get more of elsewhere (successful politicians have skillsets that are highly valuable in the private consulting market), and power/influence are means of achieving their goals more than goals by themselves.
The uncle of my mom has been minister multiple times in Italy and was connected to basically every important person in Italy. I had a family heavily involved in politics for 3 generations. From my experience in my country it is the total opposite of what you said. From what I heard all they care about is personal gain, and politicians easily toss their morals and original ideas in exchange for personal benefit. They ask and give favors, promote illegality and believe they are above citizens. They aren't simply concerned with people, it's a different world.
This relative of mine was the brother and best friend of my maternal grandad, who was a proud man that fought for democracy in second world war, and they ended not talking to each other for 20 years because my grandad was disgusted by what my mom's uncle had become after he became an important politician. He was also from the socialist party, not right wing.
My bad. Should not have generalized to mean all of europe. My stepdad has for decades been a Polish politician, and he's been a self-serving bastard changing views based on what was popular at the time - he's held office for like 4 different parties and been involved in several cases of semi or full-blown corruption.
I do however wholeheartedly stand by the content of my post when relating to scandinavia - and to a large extent to germany as well. I think there's likely to be a very strong correlation between how self-serving politicians are and how much faith people have in the political system and fabric of society - and I've read some statistics showcasing the stark contrast between countries, especially northern and southern european countries, when evaluated by this metric. And either way I think the refugee crisis and acceptance of refugees is a very bad example because strict on immigration is a better way to win voters than easy on immigration - if anything what I am observing is that politicians are abandoning their humanitarian principles for votes - not that they adopted humanitarian principles for votes in the first place.
Santafairy Korea (South). Jul 31 2016 18:07. Posts 2227
On July 31 2016 12:45 Liquid`Drone wrote:
There might be stupidity involved, in the sense that the action that 'feels' like the right thing might actually be really societally stupid and dangerous, but please don't try to find bad intent; that's virtually non-existent.
was this for me? that's what I said
It seems to be not very profitable in the long run to play those kind of hands. - Gus Hansen
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Liquid`Drone Norway. Aug 01 2016 03:15. Posts 3093
I agreed with your post, so I definitely wasn't arguing with you. I guess it was mostly directed towards nolan (but also baal for entertaining the idea), and anyone who might feel the same way.
On July 31 2016 14:52 Liquid`Drone wrote:
My stepdad has for decades been a Polish politician, and he's been a self-serving bastard changing views based on what was popular at the time - he's held office for like 4 different parties and been involved in several cases of semi or full-blown corruption.
Thats how politicians work, actually self interest is how most people work, especially people who seek power, and this power system not only usually helps the biggest assholes raise faster but power corrupts everyone, its one if the most rare attributes a person can have, it is the ultimate test that a handful of leaders have had through history, to resist the corrosive force power have on you.
And here you are arguing that Merkel is somehow isnt all this, she isnt like most people, selfish and self serving, her assention to the highest seat in a super powerful country was righteous that she is able to rest to what amost no man can, the natural corruption of power and that above all else, she is pursuing what is objectively morally right regardless or her partys affiliation or political rhetoric.
Liquid`Drone Norway. Aug 01 2016 20:50. Posts 3093
My understanding is really more along the lines of the refugee crisis being the one situation where merkel truly followed her heart.. Pre-refugee crisis she's been a super pragmatic chancellor who has never been blinded by ideology, been occupied with consolidation of power and finding agreeable solutions across the board that provides stability and some life improvement in small increments at a time. Then the refugee crisis comes, and this is no longer the case - she chooses potentially unstable and polarizing because she believed it was the right thing to do - potentially ruining her own political career as a consequence thereof. (To be fair, the population was indeed very pro-refugee at first and has become less positive as time has passed, so I do get where you're coming from. I just think it's wrong in this case - which I mostly base on seeing what germans whose political views tend to overlap with mine think about the issue. But either way, I'm not gonna defend this one to death. ;p )
Also I've actually met Merkel, she smiled to me and waved her hand from 15 meters distance before entering her car (security was making it clear that I could not come any closer). But either way she came off as this (tiny and frail) old nice grandmother and I have had a much better impression of her after seeing her in person.
I totally agree that people are selfish and self serving. But sometimes even this becomes altruistic, to some people the experience of self-sacrifice for an important case is less devastating than the experience of having the chance to make the world a better place and not acting. And it's just.. I know quite a lot of people who have been pro-refugee activists in some form. They all tend to be particularly selfless and caring people. anecdotal whatever, 'open borders' is hardly ever really a populist position imo, leftist populism takes a different form.
On August 01 2016 19:50 Liquid`Drone wrote:
My understanding is really more along the lines of the refugee crisis being the one situation where merkel truly followed her heart.. Pre-refugee crisis she's been a super pragmatic chancellor who has never been blinded by ideology, been occupied with consolidation of power and finding agreeable solutions across the board that provides stability and some life improvement in small increments at a time. Then the refugee crisis comes, and this is no longer the case - she chooses potentially unstable and polarizing because she believed it was the right thing to do - potentially ruining her own political career as a consequence thereof. (To be fair, the population was indeed very pro-refugee at first and has become less positive as time has passed, so I do get where you're coming from. I just think it's wrong in this case - which I mostly base on seeing what germans whose political views tend to overlap with mine think about the issue. But either way, I'm not gonna defend this one to death. ;p )
Also I've actually met Merkel, she smiled to me and waved her hand from 15 meters distance before entering her car (security was making it clear that I could not come any closer). But either way she came off as this (tiny and frail) old nice grandmother and I have had a much better impression of her after seeing her in person.
I totally agree that people are selfish and self serving. But sometimes even this becomes altruistic, to some people the experience of self-sacrifice for an important case is less devastating than the experience of having the chance to make the world a better place and not acting. And it's just.. I know quite a lot of people who have been pro-refugee activists in some form. They all tend to be particularly selfless and caring people. anecdotal whatever, 'open borders' is hardly ever really a populist position imo, leftist populism takes a different form.
yes I think there is a good chance she did it because she though thought it was the right thing to do, if she knew it was political suicide at the time I doubt it, there is also the possibility that she thought it was the right thing to do and she thought she would look like a savior, that would go in line with how most people act.
i guess i'm just a cynic, i still refuse to believe politicians are motivated 100% by kind feeling and altruism in this regard, they might sincerely feel that way but they wouldn't go to these lengths without some extra bonuses involved, in my humble opinion.
edit:
regarding the french mosques, if you read the article it's 'since last december', and from what i gather a large amount of these mosques are effectively 5 jihadis having a 'mosque' in a rented small office or something of the sort.
On September 08 2008 10:07 Baal wrote: my head is a gyroscope, your argument is invalid
20 mosques/places of prayers closed since last December, per google.
I wish one of your guys had children if I could kick them in the fucking head or stomp on their testicles so you can feel my pain because thats the pain I have waking up everyday -- Mike Tyson
