[Non-US] News That Makes You laugh/cry/neither...

[tussock]

Europeans probably count the EU starting in 1951 with the Treaty of Paris, that lead to the common market treaties in 1957 forming the European Economic Community, which was later absorbed into the EU.

Which was those political and diplomatic changes that were carried out to make wars both less likely to happen and much harder to make work at all between the various parties, starting with unifying France's, Germany's, and Italy's steel foundries.

[DSMatticus]

No, they don't, because that would be fucking retarded. The 1951 Treaty of Paris is a glorified trade treaty establishing the ECSC, which has the authority to maintain a common market for coal and steel between all member states. The idea was simple; coal and steel are the engines of war, so any attempt to restrict another country's access to your coal or steel production could be reasonably assumed to be part of a buildup to hostilities. It's basically an aggressive free trade treaty over two specific markets. Out of all of Europe, only six countries would ever sign the Treaty of Paris: France, (West) Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg.

The 1957 Treaty of Rome is far more relevant, but to claim it as the birth of the EU is still revisionist sleight of hand bullshit. It's another glorified trade treaty establishing the EEC, which is very similar to the ECSC, except with authority over more markets than just coal or steel. It originally had the same six member states as the ECSC, and it would not admit a seventh until sixteen years later in 1973. That would be the UK. We finally got the big three, boys! The full name for the Treaty of Rome is the "Treaty for Establishing the European Economic Community" or some shit like that, and they renamed it several times until finally in 2009 they renamed it to the "Treaty on the functioning of the European Union," retroactively giving the European Union a 52 year history despite only being 16 years old. And that is the reason some people point to the 1957 Treaty of Rome as the beginning of the EU (and are more wrong than right), and why absolutely no one points to the 1951 Treaty of Paris (which would be just as wrong-right, but instead of being renamed a bunch of times that treaty was allowed to expire completely and so no one pretends it has anything to do with the modern EU).

The fact is that until the Treaty of Maastricht, Europe's path to peace was building a single trade bloc (if only because the pro-"United States of Europe" camp couldn't convince the member states to go any further). It is inoffensive and boring, and nothing like what came out of the Treaty of Maastricht itself.

[ishy]

Europeans probably count the EU starting in 1951 with the Treaty of Paris, that lead to the common market treaties in 1957 forming the European Economic Community, which was later absorbed into the EU.

Which was those political and diplomatic changes that were carried out to make wars both less likely to happen and much harder to make work at all between the various parties, starting with unifying France's, Germany's, and Italy's steel foundries.

We do consider the treaties of '51 and '58 the points of origin of the EU.

[Kaelik]

Europeans probably count the EU starting in 1951 with the Treaty of Paris, that lead to the common market treaties in 1957 forming the European Economic Community, which was later absorbed into the EU.

Which was those political and diplomatic changes that were carried out to make wars both less likely to happen and much harder to make work at all between the various parties, starting with unifying France's, Germany's, and Italy's steel foundries.

We do consider the treaties of '51 and '58 the points of origin of the EU.

In the same way I consider Reagan the Point of Origin of Donald Trump, which is to say, your are basically a lying shit if you think that is relevant to the conversation.

[Username17]

I also live in Europe, and the common coal market thing is indeed viewed as the start of the Union. If that doesn't make sense to you, you can't contribute to a conversation about what the EU is about with the people who live in it.

Right now, there is no viable left wing replacement for the EU. Dismantling the EU would give us a continent where all the leaders were Boris Johnson or Le Pen if they weren't simply the strongman of the day for Golden Dawn or Jobik.

The EU is corrupt, incompetent, and absurd. But the way it is held together at the moment ensures that taking it apart would put hundreds of millions of people under the command of literal Nazis. Many of the unionists are bad actors, but you always root for them over the secessionists. Always.

-Username17

[Kaelik]

I also live in Europe, and the common coal market thing is indeed viewed as the start of the Union. If that doesn't make sense to you, you can't contribute to a conversation about what the EU is about with the people who live in it.

Right now, there is no viable left wing replacement for the EU. Dismantling the EU would give us a continent where all the leaders were Boris Johnson or Le Pen if they weren't simply the strongman of the day for Golden Dawn or Jobik.

The EU is corrupt, incompetent, and absurd. But the way it is held together at the moment ensures that taking it apart would put hundreds of millions of people under the command of literal Nazis. Many of the unionists are bad actors, but you always root for them over the secessionists. Always.

-Username17

I'm going to come out with the incredibly controversial opinion that no one gives a fuck about how Europeans who weren't even alive in 1993 feel about a 1951 treaty being the start of the EU.

The only relevant consideration is if EU was actually the logical outgrowth of Trade Treaties (IE, is the TPP going to inevitably result in China, Japan, Korea, and the US merging into a single super state)?

And since the answer is obviously no, regardless of whether people now, 23 years after the creation of the EU, when they were seven, associate a treaties that were signed and expired before they were born as the beginning of that 1993 creation, it's probably just the case that their opinions are effected by all the usual things that effect people's opinions and perspectives over time, and that if you went back to say, 1985, no one would tell you "well of course the 1951 treaty that my country didn't sign will inevitably lead to a Pan Europe Super State, and this is the only possible way to prevent more war, because if this doesn't happen, Germany will definitely go to war with France and England, and there is definitely no giant explosive reason they won't."

[Username17]

The European Coal and Steel Community will make war not only unthinkable, but materially impossible.

Yes, the common coal market was very much created with the specific and stated goal of creating a European super state and ending war between the states of Europe. That was explicit before the first treaty was even signed.

-Username17

[Kaelik]

The European Coal and Steel Community will make war not only unthinkable, but materially impossible.

Yes, the common coal market was very much created with the specific and stated goal of creating a European super state and ending war between the states of Europe. That was explicit before the first treaty was even signed.

-Username17

Just curious, can you read? I ask, because literally no part of what you quoted in any way indicates that the goal or intention was a Super State. I mean, congrats, people in Europe in 1951 managed to read Montesquieu. Good for them. But since no one is contesting that, and the actual issue is that people are specifically advocating that trade treaties without a Super State was going to prevent War, and that plus Nuclear Annihilation did for 42 years, it sure looks like they didn't need a super state with the same currency to prevent war.

Now I mean, you can certainly contend that germans are just such warmongering dicks that they would have risked a nuke landing in central Berlin if the EU hadn't been formed, because mere trade and the benefits gained from trade agreements would never have mattered to them, and they would have totally started WWIII if they didn't have the power to shit all over Greece while laughing manically. You might even be correct (okay you would definitely be wrong) but that still wouldn't magically transform a plan based around interlinking trade to remove the incentives for war by signing up a few major countries to trade with each other into a plan for a single European super state.

[PhoneLobster]

So anyway, back in Australia.

In the Tony Abbot era tradition of trying to bury an embarrassing media narrative with a MORE embarrassing media narrative we now have the Australian Federal Police (you know, Tony Abbot's personal palace guard) raiding labor party offices in the middle of an election in a hunt for whistleblowers that released politically damaging information about LNP and Turnbull's embarrassing handling of the NBN, like, ages ago.

They are of course seizing labor campaign strategy notes and totally not handing them to their obvious masters to whom they owe total political allegiance.

It is particularly worth noting that this is during a period where where they have been dragging their feet for YEARS over the theft of personal documents from the speaker of the house in a co-ordinated attempt to destroy one mans career, in which over 20 leaks of national security information have gone un-investigated, and, it is worth SPECIFICALLY noting a large number of older leaks FROM THE NBN during the labor era that essentially were Malcolm Turnbull's personal bread and butter for his entire career in that period ALSO remain uninvestigated.

Everyone is pretty sure the AFP are, as fucking usual operating at the behest or at least in what some idiot at the AFP percieves to be in the interests of the LNP. But... exact mechanisms and what they think they are achieving other than looking massively corrupt and reminding everyone of how fucking much the government has fucked up on the NBN and then squeeled like a pig trying to cover it up... is... unclear.

I'm guessing the idea is that the LNP grass roots fanatics will like it because they like authoritarianism and as far as they see it police raids are proof to them that the labor party are totally baddy mc bad criminals.

So far no media outlets have been raided, but this IS a series of raids on a media leak and various media outlets are named in warrants and such so... the latest "WTF Australian democracy? REALLY?" moment may yet escalate in a way that guarantees unfavorable coverage.

Here's hoping that for once the beatings continue until morale really DOES improve (not in the manner usually intended).

[DSMatticus]

Someone replaced Frank with a centrist asshole who is 100% always full of shit about everything. Anyone who claims that the EU is a net restraint on radicals is full of shit, and that's the end of the story. The EU has had two fascist coups in its member states go completely unsanctioned and is fostering the radicalization of several other member states by inflicting massive economic damage and human suffering upon them. The EU does nothing to guarantee fair elections or punish corrupt governments. Nothing. Zilch. Zip. Nadda. The fascists and nazis would have to jump through the exact same hoops to rise to power if the EU dissolved as they would right now. Meanwhile, the EU's catastrophic mismanagement is creating actual fascists and nazis who go out and vote for fascists and nazis in elections. If Le Pen ever ends up running France, it will be because the EU's abysmal monetary policy finally breaks the French economy and voters respond by looking for representatives outside the mainstream.

The European Coal and Steel Community will make war not only unthinkable, but materially impossible.

Yes, the common coal market was very much created with the specific and stated goal of creating a European super state and ending war between the states of Europe. That was explicit before the first treaty was even signed.

-Username17

You realize that that quote does not say the thing you said it says? But more importantly, there absolutely was a "supranational" faction pushing for political unification towards a "United States of Europe." And they lost. They lost in 1951, when all they got was a free trade treaty. They lost in 1957, when all they got was a free trade treaty. They lost the entire period from 1957 to 1970, when the French almost single-handedly sabotaged the entire project by simply saying "no" over and over and over. They kind-of-sort-of won in 1993, but ultimately the conflicting desires to retain sovereignty and have a European political union resulted in a "federal government" that is often impotent without the unanimous support of its member states. Imagine if every single U.S. state governor had veto power over federal laws - that is a legitimate problem that the EU has when trying to tackle certain policy issues. It's insane, and it's done nothing to protect Europe and a great deal to lead it to the sort of ruin that has historically created the world's Hitlers'.

The supranational faction got what they wanted, and it's destroying Europe. Full stop, conversation over. It's time to kick the supranationals out of office and go back to basic trade treaties. If and only if there's ever a time when the people of Europe are willing to consent to a strong federal government, then it would make sense to revive the project.

[tussock]

The supranational faction got what they wanted, and it's destroying Europe.

Given that Europe was actually destroyed on a fairly regular basis by wars right up into living memory, Europeans may not appreciate your choice of phrase.

Like, Australia has a far-right government that's given itself extra-judicial powers of arrest and indefinite imprisonment and is actively engaged in torturing thousands of people on a constant basis because of their religion. They openly steal land and children from minority groups "for their own good" and are actively engaged in making climate change worse for the benefit of a tiny number of shareholders in their massive coal companies.

But that's totally not Australia being destroyed, they just did that, because that's how the world is right now.

[Username17]

I am not saying the EU reduces radicalism. The very fact that the EU is a ponderous and corrupt institution which has been pushing schlock economics at the highest levels since the Maastricht Treaty empowers and justifies radicalism. I am saying that right now if the UK leaves the EU then Boris Johnson becomes the leader of the Tories and the government that comes into being after the inevitable no confidence vote is a UKIP-Conservative coalition that would basically make V for Vendetta a documentary.

If Greece leaves the Union, power goes to Golden Dawn, not the KKE. If Czechia leaves the EU we get Klaus, not Vojtech. And so on and so forth. Scrapping all the trade deals does not put the Sanders wing in charge of Europe, it puts the Trump wing in charge.

There is certainly a left wing argument against the EU. There is a fucking technocratic argument for the undoing of the EU for how shitty Ordoliberalism actually is. But we're way past the perfect being the enemy of the good. You have to look at what the dismantling proposals actually are. There are leftists advocating for Brexit on various grounds ranging from altruistic to delusional, but they are small and weak. The Brexit campaign is being led by Brtainian Trump supporters. If Brexit passed, that is who would control the government for at least five years.

I am simply unsympathetic to plans that involve tearing down society under the hope that a more just one can be built from its ashes. All plans to improve society have to start with improving society. If your plan starts with making Boris Johnson prime minister or repealing Obamacare, I don't actually give a shit what your step 2 or step 3 is. If that makes me a centrist asshole corporate whore, so be it.

-Username17

[Pseudo Stupidity]

Out of curiosity, why is Obamacare so great that it shouldn't be dismantled for something better? We know Bismarkian systems are the worst.

[maglag]

I am simply unsympathetic to plans that involve tearing down society under the hope that a more just one can be built from its ashes. All plans to improve society have to start with improving society. If your plan starts with making Boris Johnson prime minister or repealing Obamacare, I don't actually give a shit what your step 2 or step 3 is. If that makes me a centrist asshole corporate whore, so be it.

-Username17

Amen to that.

And any dumbfucks claiming that "war in Europe wouldn't happen because threat of total mutual annihilation trollol" just need to take a look at the middle east in the recent past. People are still stabbing and shooting each other by the thousands over there despite the existence of nuclear/chemical weapons of mass destruction.

Heck, Germany did go into WW II when chemical weapons were already a thing for several years. They risked that the english/french would just go "No, FUCK you" and make the air of Berlin unbreathable.

And no, Europe nowadays is not any closer to WW III than it was in 1951 because nobody around is building up their armies nor are the French constructing lines of fortresses. And although the situation in Greece is bad, is still not "families have no bread to eat? Let them eat cake" bad.

[name_here]

Bismarkian systems are not the worst. Not having health insurance for a third of the population is the worst. Any plan where repealing Obamacare precedes installing a better system rather than accompanying or following it is a terrible plan.

[Kaelik]

Out of curiosity, why is Obamacare so great that it shouldn't be dismantled for something better? We know Bismarkian systems are the worst.

Because you should only dismantle for something better when you can get something better.

I mean, yeah, if I can personally lock all congressional republicans in a time cage that magically gives me all their votes, Obama Care is dead tomorrow. But since that won't happen, talking about how you are going to rip apart Obama Care so that you can try to get something better that you won't get is crazy.

[Pseudo Stupidity]

Out of curiosity, why is Obamacare so great that it shouldn't be dismantled for something better? We know Bismarkian systems are the worst.

Because you should only dismantle for something better when you can get something better.

I mean, yeah, if I can personally lock all congressional republicans in a time cage that magically gives me all their votes, Obama Care is dead tomorrow. But since that won't happen, talking about how you are going to rip apart Obama Care so that you can try to get something better that you won't get is crazy.

So is the answer that Obamacare is not that great and we SHOULD replace it with something better? That was my actual question.

Note: No system is obviously worse than a system. My question was why should we pretend the ACA kicked ass when all it did was suck less than nothing at all. We are, in theory, smart enough to know single-payer healthcare is just fucking better.

[Grek]

Out of curiosity, why is Obamacare so great that it shouldn't be dismantled for something better? We know Bismarkian systems are the worst.

I wrote out a long reply to this explaining why you can't just 'replace Obamacare', but instead I'm going to give you a shorter answer:

Rhetorical questions only work if the answer actually supports your side. You know very well why "Destroy the ACA and then replace it with something better" is a stupid plan. As long as the Republican Party continues to run on a platform of destroying the government from within, there can be no nuanced political proposals. Everything must be passed in a single stage and be utterly tamper proof. Anything less than that is going to turn into something actively harmful by our toxic and incredibly hostile Congress.

[Kaelik]

Out of curiosity, why is Obamacare so great that it shouldn't be dismantled for something better? We know Bismarkian systems are the worst.

Because you should only dismantle for something better when you can get something better.

I mean, yeah, if I can personally lock all congressional republicans in a time cage that magically gives me all their votes, Obama Care is dead tomorrow. But since that won't happen, talking about how you are going to rip apart Obama Care so that you can try to get something better that you won't get is crazy.

So is the answer that Obamacare is not that great and we SHOULD replace it with something better? That was my actual question.

Note: No system is obviously worse than a system. My question was why should we pretend the ACA kicked ass when all it did was suck less than nothing at all. We are, in theory, smart enough to know single-payer healthcare is just fucking better.

And yet, you will find no one on this forum saying otherwise. But the reason we as a country, or we as democrats, don't say that is because we as a country and we as democrats are fucking idiots. Case in point, the War of Filthy White Men versus the Corrupt System So Down With the System that has become our primary.

You asked why we shouldn't dismantle it for something better. The obvious answer is "because never in your life time will you get anything better, so if you dismantle it you are an idiot."

[Username17]

Single Payer is better and National Health Service are better if and only if you have a legislature that will fund them. The United States does not have one of those. If we all had government insurance funded at the levels that Paul Ruan or Ted Cruz would allow, we'd have copays so large that all the poors would be rationed out of healthcare altogether. If we relied on government hospitals, they'd be so underfunded that the only way to see a doctor in less than six hours would be to check into a private clinic.

Obamacare is a Bismarckian system that is still incomplete. But for the first time since records have been kept the number of uninsured Americans is under thirty Million people. It can be improved, and it has improved every year since it was passed. But there is no reason to believe that implementing a theoretically superior basic system would take less time than Obamacare already has. And in the meantime you're talking about uninsuring the entire populations of Greece plus Portugal at the very least.

-Username17

[DSMatticus]

I am saying that right now if the UK leaves the EU then Boris Johnson becomes the leader of the Tories and the government that comes into being after the inevitable no confidence vote is a UKIP-Conservative coalition that would basically make V for Vendetta a documentary.

This is fucking gibberish. If a bunch of left-wingers angry about the mismanagement of the EU by neoliberal officials end up being the deciding factor in the Brexit vote (as they might), those same left-wingers are not going to turn around and help put a bunch of neoliberals in charge of their government. That's absurd. The truth is that if a UKIP-conservative coalition ends up in power, then it will be because we were too late and now there are too many fascists (and too much fascism in regular conservatism) and now we're fucked. We're fucked if Brexit happens and we're probably even more fucked if it doesn't, because dissatisfaction with the EU isn't going to stop radicalizing voters before the next election cycle. We're fucked because people like you convinced us to drag our heels and pretend that the EU could be saved and now the numbers have stopped panning out and we can no longer prevent the horrible shit that is about to go down.

The correct answer is obviously to convince as many left-wingers as possible to vote for Brexit, because abandoning the EU is the path to preventing further radicalization, and it would be much better to abandon the EU before the fascists have an actual majority (counting their own party and sympathetic members of the conservative party) and can make Brexit happen on their own.

I am simply unsympathetic to plans that involve tearing down society under the hope that a more just one can be built from its ashes. All plans to improve society have to start with improving society. If your plan starts with making Boris Johnson prime minister or repealing Obamacare, I don't actually give a shit what your step 2 or step 3 is. If that makes me a centrist asshole corporate whore, so be it.

Uhh, jackass, Europe was not an anarchic wasteland in the half century period between WW2 and the Treaty of Maastritcht. There were governments. There were even international agreements. Society worked just fucking fine. Nobody is actually calling for the burnination of European society. People are calling for the burnination of the EU, a cluster of undemocratic institutions which are slowly marching Europe into the next era of fascism and European violence.

[Username17]

DSM, that is not how UK politics work. It's first past the post with eight parties. Each MP is basically doing a two party race like the US, with the relevant two parties changing from district to district depending on which parties are taken seriously in a region.

If the brexit referendum passes, the largest pro-brexit party automatically becomes "serious" in most of England and the next election they get about a third of parliament on that basis alone. In the UK, it is factually true that the largest pro-Brexit party is UKIP.

Secondly, the Cameron wing of the Tories have bet essentially all of their political capital on Brexit failing. If the measure passes, Cameron will be replaced by Johnson as head of the Conservatives. Which means that the government post Brexit will be a coalition headed by Farage and Johnson.

Now maybe that doesn't scare you, but if so it can only be because you don't understand UK politics. Which is understandable because you do not live in Europe and there is no reason for you to. But it should scare you, because that would be a very scary thing.

-Username17

[DSMatticus]

The sweet fuck are you smoking? Boris Johnson is already a clear favorite to be the next tory leader. He is beating his nearest competitor in a fucking landslide. If Brexit fails, the tories are not going to spontaneously declare that Brexit was a bad idea and abandon Boris Johnson. They're going to keep being pro-Brexit, and they're going to continue supporting Boris Johnson because he is pro-Brexit, and they're going to blame their defeat (correctly) on being outnumbered by left-wingers and centrists. The right-wing radicals don't disappear because they lose a fucking referendum. They're still there, and as long as the EU is allowed to continue fucking the people of Europe in the ass there will be more of them tomorrow than there are today.

The calculus on this is very simple. The EU is radicalizing Europe. The further Europe is radicalized, the larger the voting bloc the Boris Johnson's and Nigel Farage's of Europe have to draw on. By making Brexit a left-wing vs right-wing issue, you are making the Johnson-Farage coalition inevitable. The gross mismanagement of the economy by the EU will continue driving people into the arms of fascism until the fascists (and the "they can't really be that bad, can they?" fascist sympathizers) have the majority they need to seize control and then we're completely fucked. The only solution - the only fucking one - is for a bunch of left-wingers to help dissolve the EU before the fascists hit critical mass.

You want fascism to go away? Then we need sane fiscal and monetary policy. You want sane fiscal and monetary policy? Then we need to set fire to the EU, because it is actively stopping those things from happening. And yes, we really are almost too late to do that, and that's depressing as shit. The odds are very high that regardless of the results of the referendum, there will be a Johnson-Farage coalition in power sometime soon. If we had admitted the obvious to ourselves four years ago (i.e. "the EU has failed, tear it down") then we genuinely could have nipped the existential threat to democracy we are currently facing in the bud. But "in for a penny, in for a pound" isn't going to make things any better - it just means pissing away even our last chance to derail the forces radicalizing Europe in favor of riding this train to its Final Solution Destination.

That the EU is, through its incompetence and corruption, empowering right-wing radicals is the beginning and end of the conversation. Dismantling the EU is the path to defeating the radicals. It is the thing we must do to take the wind out of their sails.

[MGuy]

DSM, that is not how UK politics work. It's first past the post with eight parties. Each MP is basically doing a two party race like the US, with the relevant two parties changing from district to district depending on which parties are taken seriously in a region.

If the brexit referendum passes, the largest pro-brexit party automatically becomes "serious" in most of England and the next election they get about a third of parliament on that basis alone. In the UK, it is factually true that the largest pro-Brexit party is UKIP.

Secondly, the Cameron wing of the Tories have bet essentially all of their political capital on Brexit failing. If the measure passes, Cameron will be replaced by Johnson as head of the Conservatives. Which means that the government post Brexit will be a coalition headed by Farage and Johnson.

Now maybe that doesn't scare you, but if so it can only be because you don't understand UK politics. Which is understandable because you do not live in Europe and there is no reason for you to. But it should scare you, because that would be a very scary thing.

-Username17

I don't live in the EU but if the video I watched is to be believed it sounds like things are pretty damned corrupt over there right now and in a way where foreign people are getting a lot of say in what happens locally. You're saying UKIP is the biggest secession based party and if people decide to go for it then they become a threat. It seems like people are getting more and more behind this idea in Britain and in other places. Greece was talking about it, now Britain. I suspect other places in the EU are also considering it in growing numbers that I probably just haven't heard about. I get that you want to avoid risks and that's fine but what makes you think this growing sentiment is going to stop before what you call a threat becomes inevitable instead?

[maglag]

Uhh, jackass, Europe was not an anarchic wasteland in the half century period between WW2 and the Treaty of Maastritcht. There were governments. There were even international agreements. Society worked just fucking fine.

Glad that you made your sheer idiocy crystal clear by claiming that a dictator ruling from a mountain of corpses is "society working just fine".


I can't wait to see how now you're gonna claim that motherfucking Franco was a paragon of democracy and the spanish people were so much better being hunted and killed like animals before joining the EU.

Not salaries cuts, not extra taxes, simply plain shot and stabbed if they dared to raise their heads, killed, murdered, the actual meanings of the words.

Plus, you know, 200 000 spanish starved to death when Franco went "fuck that international trade noise".