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

[DSMatticus]

But are we seriously comparing just the years of German austerity to the years of the Greek junta? Because that's stupid. Or rather, it's extremely irrelevant for purposes of deciding whether the EU has been a net positive or negative to Greece over all.

No, we aren't. Maglag is, and I am making fun of him for it. That is abundantly clear, and I don't know why you're trying to defend him. You cannot actually stop him from choosing shitty goalposts. He's a fucking savant. This is his calling.

Anyway, as for quibbling about the actual numbers, according to the OECD (it's just an interactive widget, so you have to set up the table yourself), Greece's GDP per capita was $4,519 in 1973 and $4,591 in 1974. According to the world bank (that's the thing you get when you type Greek GDP in google), Greece's GDP per capita was $2,512 in 1973 and $2,839 in 1974. Those are obviously using different years for their nominal values for the dollar, but they are also genuinely different real values. The two don't agree with eachother, though both indicators agree with me. On the flip side, if you type Greek annual GDP growth into google the world bank will also tell you Greece's annual growth rate in 1974 was -6.4%. But I can't help but notice that that is a squiggly ass line with a huge fucking V out of nowhere. That means we're probably looking at some sort of annualized quarter-on-quarter calculation, and... I'm not sure that's the best measure of annual growth to be using in this situation. It has its purposes, but this isn't one of them. Also, the Greek military junta is ousted in early Q3 1974, so it's kind of dumb that we're talking about 1974 at all, but if we're going to do it let's do it right.

So I cracked open the OECD again to check out the percent change in quarterly GDP (same period, previous year) to get a better look at what happened, and I found that Q1 was positive while Q2, Q3, and Q4 were negative. The Greek military junta saw exactly one quarter of year-on-year negative annual GDP growth before it stopped existing. If you annualized the two quarters of 1974 that the junta existed, you could technically call that year negative, though you could not technically call it a "year." Disclaimer: I am not the least bit interested in defending the economic performance of the Greek military junta (let alone the junta itself). In truth, it's not very good. Maglag said a dumb thing, and you are making me engage in pointless econonerdery to prove how dumb it was. In truth, we are quibbling about the economic performance of the junta in a year it did not live to see the end of. It's pointless and does not help you make your broader point about how I am pulling numbers out of my ass.

[Stahlseele]

i feel like this is relevant to the discussion
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dyCPfFk-Lk

[Kaelik]

i feel like this is relevant to the discussion
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dyCPfFk-Lk

First of, I want to make clear, that absolutely no one knows what will happen if we leave the EU. If they say they do, they are lying.

Now stick around for the next 4 minutes of the video where I tell you what will happen if we leave the EU.

[Stahlseele]

Yeah, he has bascially summed up your entire "discussion" here into a short video.

[Kaelik]

Yeah, he has bascially summed up your entire "discussion" here into a short video.

You so funny... Oh wait, you aren't funny at all.

Look, Neither Frank nor DSM has taken the position that all possible results are equally as likely, and that's why X will definitely happen. Since "my" discussion basically never talks about the UK at all except to refute one dumb comment, it's completely unrelated.

Sometimes it is okay to admit that a youtube video is actually a worse explanation of the issues than people arguing in a forum.

[Parthenon]

What I am saying is that there is a variety of things that could be done to punish the UK in lots of minor to medium ways

BZZZT!! SHIFTING GOAL POSTS.

The explicit stated scenario was the EU punishing the UK for Brexit enough to ensure no other nation ever dared to leave them. Not "minor to medium ways" not a minor embarressment of a few months of negotiation for the same outcome. Enough to stomp on all hope of rebellion by any other nation. And they have to do this to the UK, one of the big three so the sheer scale has to be huge.

The EU making some insignificant show of punishing the UK? Maybe, but frankly my prediction in that scenario is lots of apologetic language of "hope and regret" with long term goals of "reconciliation and reunion" which may or may not themselves amount to anything at all in actual action.

Hold up. You're accusing me of goalpost shifting during the exact same point you've changed from 'there will never be any economic punishment for the UK' to 'economic punishment for the UK is possible but if anything will be small and not worth worrying about'. Those are two different things.

DSMatticus makes more sense and actually is reasonable. I can see how any punishment the EU tries to give will in all likelihood in any sane world be small enough that it won't economically crush the UK because of the reasons he gave rather than just ranting. And I was thinking based on what I've heard about existing tariffs from a while back and not ones agreed on in the future. But if you are just saying that something can't happen because that would be bad then I view it as the same rose tinted bullshit as the hyperbole I am getting from both sides.

1) Support the EU and the Neoliberal agenda OR Allow/encourage the current EU to collapse
2) ?
3) Fascists defeated.

Fill in the fucking 2. DSM gave his 2, it's that the EU stops fucking things up and handing everything to the fascists, you can attack it if you like but you don't get to keep saying there isn't a 2 on THAT side of the argument, and you OWE a 2 of your own to explain how continuing with the current status quo actually fights fascism.

You are getting me mixed up with Frank. I am not defending staying in the EU, nor am I obliged to show how the EU will reduce fascism. I'd like to leave the EU, I'd just like something to move towards, not running away from the current situation. What I was saying is that the current thing is:

1: Leave the EU
2: Farage and other right wing anti-immigration racists make right wing trade agreements with the EU from a position of weakness
3: ?
4: Fascists defeated, the current EU disappears and a new set of trade agreements is in place

There is 3 weeks before the referendum. The left wing isn't going to take over the movement and get what they want. The conservatives aren't going to give up power and call an election immediately after. The fascists are already political movements that won't go home and sip smugly on their tea now that they've won. What I was asking is what is going to happen in the next year to reduce the fascists power and get proper working trade agreements and immigration policies that aren't racist.

And DSMatticus again actually answered my question rather than attacking me- it's going to be shit and led by racists, but it's better now than in an even worse position by even worse people.

[MGuy]

What is this issue about racism in the UK about? The only videos and articles I can find just dance around the problems that people have been having with large concentrations of immigrants who are apparently running their own courts, human trafficking rings, and how sticking them all together in whatever neighborhood isn't a good way to integrate them. I'd assume that the fascists are the people who are talking about no more brown people but that doesn't seem to be affecting policy as far as I can tell.

[Omegonthesane]

Well, the Conservatives ran an openly Islamophobic smear campaign against the Labour candidate for mayor of London, to the point of tarring one of their own activists as a Daesh sympathiser. That they thought they could get away with that rather sets a water mark for the prevalence of Islamophobia in the country.

[PhoneLobster]

Hold up. You're accusing me of goalpost shifting

Yes, because you are shifting the goal posts.

You are flat out defending Franks position on EU retribution against the UK being explicitly so horrible in consequences that history itself shall clearly and definitively judge the Brexit as a failure. You DO get to distinguish your argument from his if you want to, but NOT by just fucking stepping into the ongoing discussion and defending his position with your own DIFFERENT position because THAT is shifting fucking goal posts you stupendous idiot.

[Username17]

The BBC's summary of the official Leave campaign's position on Immigration is the following:

• It is impossible to control immigration as a member of the EU
• Public services are under strain because of the number of migrants
• High immigration has driven down wages for British workers
• The official figures underestimate the true level of migration

The actual arguments for Brexit by the actual people running the actual campaign to get people to vote for it are that there are too many foreigners "taking our jerbs!" and that the EU prevents them from properly cracking down on foreigners. Anyone who says that a victory by Leave won't lead to racist crackdowns on foreigners is willfully ignorant. The entire Brexit campaign is justified by racism and fear of immigrants. That's the whole thing.

It's exactly Trumpism. And anyone who claims that there is a progressive argument for it had better pull their head out of their ass, because there fucking isn't.

-Username17

[PhoneLobster]

Racist fascists like it.

The new totally legit argument proving something is bad that is total not in any way a very basic and insulting commonly known logical fallacy.

You know, I'm STILL sitting stubbornly on the who the fuck cares anymore fence not siding with Brexit but if that is the best you've got to convince people not to Brexit... you fail at convincing people to not Brexit.

[Username17]

PL, if you don't consider "This proposal was written and promoted by racists and fascists for the express purpose of cutting social services, doing bad things to ethnic minorities, and deregulating corporations." to be a compelling reason to oppose the proposal, you and I have nothing to discuss.

-Username17

[MGuy]

Gonna go out on a limb and say that this proposal is either irrelevant to the discussion or just more reason for the left to start coming up with some counter proposals.

[Username17]

Gonna go out on a limb and say that this proposal is either irrelevant to the discussion or just more reason for the left to start coming up with some counter proposals.

This is stupid and you should know that you're a stupid person who says stupid things for having said that.

The Left has counter proposals. Those proposals are things that actually improve peoples lives. Expansionary fiscal policy to create infrastructure and employment. Expansions of the safety net to protect and care for society's most vulnerable citizens. Regulatory expansion to ensure a healthier environment and better access to uncontaminated food and water. Legal protections for minorities. Investment in research, healthcare, and clean energy. Good things. Leftist things. The exact fucking things that the people trying to tear down the EU are trying to roll back.

The argument that the Left should come up with a proposal to tear the EU apart is just the argument that the Cat Food Lobby makes to say that the Democrats need to come up with cuts to Social Security. It's a thing we might have to do sometime in the future, so we'd better start kicking peasants right now. No. No we do not. We do not have to give an inch. We do not have to negotiate away our principles. We can fight for actual good things and against bad things every step of the way and when we lose and bad stuff happens anyway at least history will note that it wasn't us fucking that chicken.

-Username17

[MGuy]

DSM pointed it out earlier but you yourself said that good reforms can't make it in the EU. So how exactly are they supposed to advance anything in the system you, yourself, claimed would have none of it? Hell the best you could come up with earlier was that maybe in half a century things might maybe get incrementally better which isn't going to exactly move people's hearts right now. The reason it is irrelevant to bring up fascist plans is because none of the people here are saying they want the fascists to make the rules. Pointing out that the bad people are making bad plans doesn't advance your position. No one wants the right to take over but if trends continue they will and your best solution is to wait it out.

[DSMatticus]

Part of Frank's position is that the left can't make eurosceptic counter-proposals because "the fascists are eurosceptics, and anything the fascists are is badwrong." It's simplistic and stupid and really boils down to beating the wardrum about how bad the other guys are. Yes, the fascists are horrifically evil. Yes, the specific reasons they want to leave the EU are terrible. It does not follow that staying in the EU is the best possible choice. It does not follow that the fascists will get everything they want out of exit negotiations. Staying certainly hasn't been the best choice for Greece, which has basically already gone through the worst case Grexit scenario and has nothing to show for it. It's just not a very good argument. "The tories are currently in power" is a decent argument, because tories negotiating trade treaties is not good. But then again, tories were in charge for the Maastricht negotiations too.

[Omegonthesane]

John Major, who was leader of the Tories and Prime Minister of the UK during the early 90s and thus presumably during the Treaty of Maastricht, has come out as part of the Remain campaign.

The Tory party are a house divided on this issue, there's going to be some kind of schism whether or not Team Sane win the referendum.

[Username17]

DSM, name one progressive goal advanced by Brexit. Just name one. There isn't one. Everything we hate about the EU doesn't even apply to the UK.

Your entire argument has been:

• We have to do something.
• Leaving the EU is something, therefore we must do it.

That's a terrible argument. It's just absolutely terrible at every possible level. Fight for better wages. Fight for expansionary fiscal policy. Fight for increases in public welfare. Fight for minority protections. Fight for fucking anything that improves the real lives of real people. Fighting for a massive upheaval of the social order that is almost certain to ruin the lives of millions in not tens of millions of people just because you think the same thing might happen even worse later on is Cat Food Lobby bullshit that you should be ashamed of.

-Username17

[DSMatticus]

"It's working for me, fuck everyone else" is a really fucking weird argument to be making, particularly for a position that is supposed to be both progressive and pro-European solidarity. It is neither of those things; it's conservative and exploitative. As it currently stands, no, the EU is not an economic threat to the UK. The UK is not on the euro and is capable of meeting its fiscal obligations, so the EU has no leverage to fuck with them. You can make the case that the EU is a political threat to the UK, since so far its blatant corruption and incompetence has made fascism cool again even in the UK and other countries that the EU hasn't directly fucked over. You can make the case that the EU will be an economic threat to the UK in the future; there are no real plans on the table to make the institution more democratic, but there are lots of plans on the table to give it leverage over member states' fiscal policy. The EU is clearly a dire economic threat to some of its members, and you can make the case that by pushing the EU closer to dissolution the UK can give those members both a better bargaining position and a precedent to leave the abusive spouse the EU has become. If none of those arguments sway you, then you're probaby an idiot twice over and an asshole, but yes, you should vote to remain.

The progressive eurosceptic argument is that the EU is an institution which naturally favors conservative agendas and cannot realistically be democratically fixed. As a result, it is savaging some of its members for no reason other than petty greed and backlash against it is putting a bunch of fascists in power. Stopping fascists and giving southern Europe a real chance to escape generations of crippling poverty are legitimate progressive goals, and all that remains is arguing about whether or not pushing for the dissolution of the EU is the best way to achieve those goals. That is mostly an argument about "can the EU be fixed, at all?" and "how much fascism is going to be peak fascism, and how much fascism is the failure of the EU responsible for?"

The EU looks like the fucking Senate turned up to 11, and I don't think that shit's fixable at all short of rollback or full federalization. Both of those are harder than piecemeal dissolution. I think peak fascism is high enough to make "staying the course" about as smart as playing chicken with a train. I would rather not see fascists take control of any of the large European states and march us dangerously close to World War 3 with their nationalist, xenophobic posturing.

[Covent]

PL, if you don't consider "This proposal was written and promoted by racists and fascists for the express purpose of cutting social services, doing bad things to ethnic minorities, and deregulating corporations." to be a compelling reason to oppose the proposal, you and I have nothing to discuss.

-Username17

*Slow Clap, moving into full standing applause*

Frank that is beautiful. I have wanted to say something like this to several people, and now I have a quote.

[Mechalich]

You can make the case that the EU is a political threat to the UK, since so far its blatant corruption and incompetence has made fascism cool again even in the UK and other countries that the EU hasn't directly fucked over.

Yeah, but this is mostly about immigration, and the UK is likely to have a "problem" with immigration (insofar as immigration is a problem) assuming a Brexit happens and it remains a stable modern industrial economy.

You can make the case that the EU will be an economic threat to the UK in the future; there are no real plans on the table to make the institution more democratic, but there are lots of plans on the table to give it leverage over member states' fiscal policy.

Any case you make predicated on hypothetical future scenarios is inherently weak, it just is. If the EU becomes and economic threat to the UK in the future, they could leave at that time. It doesn't make leaving now a better idea.

The EU is clearly a dire economic threat to some of its members, and you can make the case that by pushing the EU closer to dissolution the UK can give those members both a better bargaining position and a precedent to leave the abusive spouse the EU has become.

While the EU is absolutely a massive economic threat to certain members, I'm not sure Brexit in any way makes the position of those states better. It could in fact make them worse be removing British leverage over the EU and letting the Germans run the thing as a de facto economic extortion ring over Southern Europe. It's very hard to say.

Ultimately, there is a very strong argument for a Grexit. The EU is absolutely doing horrible things to Greece and the Greek people. Heck, there's even a reasonable argument for exits by Italy or Spain, which would be a much bigger deal than Greece. However, it is much less clear how any of those arguments translate into an argument for the UK leaving the EU at this precise moment.

[Kaelik]

PL, if you don't consider "This proposal was written and promoted by racists and fascists for the express purpose of cutting social services, doing bad things to ethnic minorities, and deregulating corporations." to be a compelling reason to oppose the proposal, you and I have nothing to discuss.

-Username17

*Slow Clap, moving into full standing applause*

Frank that is beautiful. I have wanted to say something like this to several people, and now I have a quote.

As PL pointed out, that is literally a specifically named Fallacy. If the Fascists believe that increasing taxes and repairing bridges would save america, it doesn't mean that you should start opposing all bridge repairs.

Things are good or bad because they are good or bad, and Frank's repeated insistence that things are bad because fascists support them is really just evidence that he has not actual evidence that they are bad.

Now, England has a lot less to gain from exit, because they aren't on the Euro, and being fucked by it. But the point is that the actual negatives of leaving the EU are so speculative, being based on what treaties are approved in the next two years, and what polices the assorted countries enact in response to such treaties, that Frank can't point to any actual negative consequences, which is why people keep arguing that it won't happen whenever he proposes one.

So since Frank can't point to any actual certain or even likely negatives, he instead is pointing to how some bad people want it to happen so that over the next two years they can take control over the government, then implement bad treaties and bad policies.

But just like all his previous doom and gloom, that only matters if the fascists actually take over the UK. Just like his death to the UK theories only apply if no treaties get passed and then France or the EU passes a 30% tariff as actual law.

Now, there really isn't much to gain, if anything either, for the UK. But what they lose is not "and then immigration is illegal and everyone gets kicked out, like the fascists want" as Frank claims.

[Covent]

I completely agree that opposing something simply due to it having been proposed by a certain group or individual is both illogical and stupid. That however is not what Frank said or I applauded.

He said:

for the express purpose of cutting social services, doing bad things to ethnic minorities, and deregulating corporations." to be a compelling reason to oppose the proposal, you and I have nothing to discuss.

Now I admit my lack of understanding of European politics. Just to be clear my response sprang from people in America, specifically Republicans, wanting to defund Obamacare and Planned Parenthood.

It struck me that I could say something very similar to what Frank said the next time one of those idiots tried to talk to me.

I have no idea how true/false his statements are in reference to Europe, I was simply applauding the eloquence I intended to steal.

[Kaelik]

I completely agree that opposing something simply due to it having been proposed by a certain group or individual is both illogical and stupid. That however is not what Frank said or I applauded.

Except that is literally what Frank said.

If I told you that like 8 guys in the Senate teamed up to pass a bridge repair budget amendment FOR THE EXPRESS PURPOSE!!!! of using those bridges to drive their tanks around murdering dissenters, it would still be a good thing to repair the bridges, because the law itself doesn't do the things that it was written "for the express purpose" of doing, because all it actually does is make that possible for a future law to be passed doing that thing.

[Mask_De_H]

That's an over generalization and you know it, but this entire argument has been over generalization on both sides to facilitate jerking off to their own personal politics.

From reading outside sources, the long and short is that the issue is complex and has too many potential variables to consider at this time, but the EU as it is now is fomenting negative sentiment because it is an organization that is aiding and abetting scumfuck plutocrats. That negative sentiment is being taken advantage of by nativist, racist and fascist elements in various countries, which is terrifying. Some places they've won, some places they haven't, but they are a political threat. A dissolution of the EU would be lancing an infected boil on the ass of Europe, but the fallout from the shock potentially throws so much shit into the air all anyone can do is speculate.

So it's a rock and a hard place and everyone yelling NO YOU'RE WRONG in this thread can blow it out their asses.