- 12 Posts
- 24 Comments
Scotty@scribe.disroot.orgto Europe@feddit.org•Far-right populists top polls in Germany, France and Britain for the first timeEnglish5·1 day agoIt’s oversimplified on purpose. The message needs to be crystal clear, and it needs to be repeated so often that no politician can go into a Talkshow without having to explain themselves why they are not taxing the rich.
Is this the solution or part of the problem? Don’t get me wrong I don’t question your good intentions, but I am not sure whether this is the right way to get there. Our information pipelines - and the talkshows - are crammed full of simple would-be solutions that doesn’t bring us any further imo.
What we needed is a broad public discussion across the whole society asking questions like, “What should the state and our democratic communities be responsible for?”, “How much money should the government spend, and for what?” (These are, btw, the same questions any university lecture on Public Finance starts with.)
Are talkshows (or big tech’s social media such as Tiktok, Facebook, and the like) the right tools to discuss these? I don’t think so. I used to believe that decentralized platforms like Lemmy may offer an opportunity to initiate such a debate, but after a few days here I am not so sure anymore. There is as much partisanship and totalitarian gibberish as anywhere else.
Maybe this comment is a bit off-topic, so just ignore it (and feel free to delete it), these are just my 2 cents.
Scotty@scribe.disroot.orgto Europe@feddit.org•Far-right populists top polls in Germany, France and Britain for the first timeEnglish171·1 day agoI personally support ‘taxing the rich’, but I also think presenting this as a solution is hopelessly oversimplified. We need to rebuild the complex social contract, and this goes well beyond taxes imo.
Scotty@scribe.disroot.orgto Europe@feddit.org•German gas drive fuels fears of climate backslidingEnglish2·2 days agoSo Russia and China, number 2 and 3 world gas consumers, are increasing their gas consumption independently, right? Is is that what you say? For the world climate it doesn’t make a difference.
Scotty@scribe.disroot.orgto Europe@feddit.org•German gas drive fuels fears of climate backslidingEnglish4·2 days agoA lot of western countries are following usa lead
The comment and the data on the linked sites say that gas demand has spurred by China, Russia, and the USA.
Did China and Russia also follow the US lead? Or did they increase their gas consumption independently?
Scotty@scribe.disroot.orgOPto Europe@feddit.org•UK: China’s London mega-embassy meets vast rejection as residents fear espionage, human rights violations, tourism deterrenceEnglish32·2 days agoDid any ambassador except the Chinese one ever drag down a protester and beat them?
Scotty@scribe.disroot.orgOPto Europe@feddit.org•UK: China’s London mega-embassy meets vast rejection as residents fear espionage, human rights violations, tourism deterrenceEnglish72·4 days agoOne such incident occurred in the UK in October 2022, when a Hong Kong pro-democracy protester was dragged into the grounds of a Chinese consulate in Manchester and beaten, in events captured on camera
[Exiled Chinese pro-democracy activist Carmen Lau] argues that the UK should not allow China’s “authoritarian regime” to have its new embassy in such a symbolic location. One of her fears is that China, with such a huge embassy, could harass political opponents and could even hold them in the building.
Even the UK Socialist Workers association says that “the Chinese state is no alternative to Western imperialism.”
There have been more reasons and ‘incidents’ regarding Chinese transnational repression, it’s easy to find.
Scotty@scribe.disroot.orgto Europe@feddit.org•Russia allegedly teamed up with a Libyan warlord to trigger a fresh migrant crisis in the European UnionEnglish11·5 days agoI am sorry, but this is almost hilarious. Russia runs a plot to trigger a migrant crisis in Europe, not France. I am far from being the French government’s greatest admirer, but this is really odd.
Scotty@scribe.disroot.orgto Europe@feddit.org•Russia allegedly teamed up with a Libyan warlord to trigger a fresh migrant crisis in the European UnionEnglish31·5 days agoIt relates as France is willing to work alongside Russian interests in North Africa, if France believes it to serve their own interests. Now it backfires and that was predictable.
What was predictable?
France may or may not have collaborated with the Haftars in Libya, but if so, how was it predictable that Russia would collaborate with a warlord in Libya to trigger a migrant crisis in Europe?
It also raises questions about France reliability in fending off Russian threats to the EU.
As someone already said, all the governments cooperate at least in some areas, this may be sometimes wrong and misguided, but I feel raising the France’s Libya connection in this context and then claiming Russia’s move was predictable is a bit far-fetched.
Scotty@scribe.disroot.orgto Europe@feddit.org•Russia allegedly teamed up with a Libyan warlord to trigger a fresh migrant crisis in the European UnionEnglish21·6 days agoIt says that the two European countries (France and Italy) see Libya as a key partner in stopping the wave of migration from sub-Saharan Africa.
Is there more about the France-Libya relationship than these three lines in an article that writes about another topic so that one can dig a bit deeper?
And, if so, if France’s alleged backing of Libya’s Haftar has nothing to do with the Russia-Libya cooperation aiming at initiating a migrant crisis in the EU, why do we even bring in France into this discussion? Is it just as a means of distraction? Whataboutism? I don’t understand that.
Scotty@scribe.disroot.orgto Europe@feddit.org•Russia allegedly teamed up with a Libyan warlord to trigger a fresh migrant crisis in the European UnionEnglish62·6 days agoFrance has also provided tacit backing for Mr Haftar, which has resulted in a public falling out with Italy, which supports the UN-backed government.
The two European countries see Libya as a key partner in stopping the wave of migration from sub-Saharan Africa.
France, for example, carried out unprecedented air strikes on the LNA’s biggest opponents - Chadian opposition fighters - in the midst of battles in the south.
Good article about Libya (as far as I can tell as a layman for this topic), but there are only three sentences that mention France. How does this relate to Russia’s cooperation with Haftar trying to cause a migrant crisis in Europe?
Scotty@scribe.disroot.orgto Europe@feddit.org•Russia allegedly teamed up with a Libyan warlord to trigger a fresh migrant crisis in the European UnionEnglish62·6 days agoHafta is … also backed by the UAE and France, among others, seeking to undermine Lybian stability and the internationally recognized government.
I am not an expert for Libya, so I may be wrong, but what does being “backed” mean? France and other may back Haftar as well in some way, for some purpose, but here we have Russia collaborating with a Libyan warlord to trigger a migrant crisis in the EU.
Even if France and others back Libya, how does this relate to this issue?
Scotty@scribe.disroot.orgto Europe@feddit.org•Ukrainians’ trust in Zelensky dips after wartime protests, pollster findsEnglish41·8 days agoThat doesn’t make a difference. They are responsible for what they publish, it doesn’t matter whether its own research or agency news.
Scotty@scribe.disroot.orgto Europe@feddit.org•Ukrainians’ trust in Zelensky dips after wartime protests, pollster findsEnglish261·9 days agoThe KIIS poll, which began a day after the controversial vote on July 22, found that 58 per cent of Ukrainians currently trust Mr Zelensky, down from an 18-month high of 74 per cent in May and 67 per cent in February-March.
This poll was made before Zelensky reversed his questionable decision and reinstated the anti-corruption bodies’ independence. Publishing this more than two weeks later when the situation has already changed is dishonest and has nothing to do with objective, independent journalism. The Straits Times discredits itself with this.
Scotty@scribe.disroot.orgto Europe@feddit.org•The EU is a colossus. So why is it cowering before Trump like a mouse?English91·9 days agoDue to the trade deficit and the service sector that America has over Europe. They simply have more leverage
The U.S. trade deficit with the EU would shrink considerably if and when we account in the service sector, so that’s a leverage the EU has over the U.S. rather than the other way around.
Scotty@scribe.disroot.orgto Europe@feddit.org•The EU is a colossus. So why is it cowering before Trump like a mouse?English382·9 days agoThere is a strong body of research regarding the U.S. tariffs conundrum in the meantime (including here in this comm as I just read) revealing that Trump hurts the U.S. more than any other country or region. (And the EU is indeed the least carbon-intensive economy globally due its environmental laws that - as much as we need to improve also here- are stronger than anywhere else in the world.)
Op-eds like this one are being written these days on a daily basis, but they are exaggerated. The EU could maybe retaliate more (would this hurt the European economy as U.S. tariffs do in the U.S.?), but I wouldn’t say it is ‘cowering’. The Florida man says something every day, and it wouldn’t make sense imo to ‘bully back.’ Economic forecasts for the U.S. are much worse than Trump and these op-eds make it seem.
[Edit typo.]
Scotty@scribe.disroot.orgOPto Europe@feddit.org•Job opportunities are more important to refugees from Ukraine than social benefits, a survey over Ukrainians in Europe findsEnglish61·10 days agoI fully agree. I just posted an article in this community right before this one that I find very illuminating and discusses also this issue (here again).
Scotty@scribe.disroot.orgOPto Europe@feddit.org•Job opportunities are more important to refugees from Ukraine than social benefits, a survey over Ukrainians in Europe findsEnglish71·10 days agoI don’t know where you have got this, but do yourself a favour and stay away.
This survey says that job opportunities are more important to refugees from Ukraine than social benefits, and it means that job opportunities are more important to refugees from Ukraine than social benefits. Nothing else.
Scotty@scribe.disroot.orgOPto Europe@feddit.org•Demonising migrants won’t fill jobs or boost falling populationsEnglish51·10 days agoYes, for the moment it seems so. But as the article discusses, it is unsure what the future holds for such politics. “Voters may worry about immigration, but that doesn’t mean they won’t blame the government if they can’t pay their bills and there is no one to look after their ageing parents.”
The competition for skilled workforce will intensify in the very near future, and a large part of the world -with all Western democracies among them- are facing a decline in population. Indeed, only a few countries - notably China, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan - have lower fertility rates than we in Europe, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, while Africa is clearly winning the global demography game in the next decades.
[Edit to correct a typo.]
Scotty@scribe.disroot.orgOPto Europe@feddit.org•Job opportunities are more important to refugees from Ukraine than social benefits, a survey over Ukrainians in Europe findsEnglish5·10 days agoWhat is “Eastern European programming” and what has this survey to do with “voting for austerity”?
Guess this is more an attempt of bullying a European country than economic sanctions based on reasonable ground. It’s somewhat ridiculous, but the Chinese government shows once again that it is an unreliable partner.