I've looked around if there was a topic on this already. If I have missed it, let me know.
It is starting to get scary here in Europe. Besides the economical downfall that is already happening.
Now this influx of refugees and economical immigrants, or basically illegals.
Our national tv and radio channels have been renamed to NPO already, taking away the national
identity of it. But it is very noticeable, more than ever, how much propaganda there is.
Also lots they don't tell or broadcast.
This counter-report is 20 minutes. You can call it propaganda as well. But at least it shows the other
side of what is happening, and no standard media outlet will put out.
Any other Europeans feeling that things are about to go wrong?
Does anyone really buy into this refugee story? As you can only see well build men, of younger
age. I seriously think that sh*t will hit the fan pretty soon. And it will be violent.
For me the biggest part is that my own government is failing me and allowing for this to happen.
If not actively making this happen. Although I wouldn't know to what gain.
As it is, the EU pretty much dictates our national law these days. While the EU is not a democratic chosen
institute at all.
What's the alternative? Force them to stay in their countries to die? Man, you guys are quick to forget when a good chunk of Europe itself were refugees.
Wow.
Edit: to elaborate, this reads like a commentary from someone in the "Minutemen" or the "Oath Keepers" here in the US.
Does anyone really buy into this refugee story? As you can only see well build men, of younger age.
Edit 2: I made it through about a minute and a half of that video before its blatant and hateful nationalist jingoism was just too much to tolerate. It is, blow for blow, exactly like the sh*t you see produced from white supremacists in the US.
In fact, The Daily Stormer (a neo-nazi white supremacist site based in the US) had this to say about that video:
This is absolutely the best compilation video of the invasion I’ve seen. Incredibly powerful.We need to make this viral. Spam it everywhere.
I think that pretty much speaks for itself.
This counter-report is 20 minutes. You can call it propaganda as well. But at least it shows the other side of what is happening, and no standard media outlet will put out.
It is propaganda and exceptionally racist propaganda at that.
And what, exactly, is the "other side of what's happening"? That a few million immigrants added to the 503 million people already living in the EU are going to completely change things and, somehow, erase thousands of years of European history and culture virtually overnight (European, of course, being a not-so-subtle code phrase for white and Christian)?
That groups of predominantly young men will commit acts of violence and other crimes when they're kept segregated from the rest of society and given absolutely nothing to do?
Any other Europeans feeling that things are about to go wrong?
Again, you're going to have to spell out what you mean by "wrong" because right now it sounds like you think that a relative handful of people are going to overthrow all of Europe and turn it into a Muslim Caliphate or third-world, crime-ridden cesspool. And do so virtually overnight.
Does anyone really buy into this refugee story? As you can only see well build men, of younger age. I seriously think that sh*t will hit the fan pretty soon. And it will be violent.
Have you not been paying attention to the news for the last ten years? The Middle East and Northern Africa has been torn apart with war, civil war, and revolution. Tens of millions of people have been displaced and they're looking for a place that's not currently exploding and, hopefully, where they can build a future.
And, if you actually take a moment to think about it, why wouldn't you see mostly younger men? Deciding to take a dangerous journey thousands of miles to a completely unknown place isn't exactly something that older people or people who have to care for very young children will willingly do unless the sh*t is truly hitting the fan. But you know who will take that risk? Young men.
The waves of immigration that America absorbed showed a similar pattern: young men came first, established themselves, and then sent for the rest of their family. Or, alternatively with more recent immigration from Mexico and Central America, young men came here and worked while sending a lot of their earnings home to take care of their families. And, once they made enough money, returned to their homeland.
For me the biggest part is that my own government is failing me and allowing for this to happen.
How, exactly, is your government failing you? Because you don't want to see non-white people in your country? Because those refugees aren't being treated as dangerous threats?
It seems like you're saying that Europe is being overrun with foreigners, but the reality it that it has one of the lowest percentage of foreign-born populations. Only about 7% of Europe's population is foreign-born. The US, on the other hand, has nearly double that. And Canada? More than a fifth of Canada's population is foreign-born and you don't hear them crying about how they're being overrun.
If not actively making this happen. Although I wouldn't know to what gain.
Read up on the fertility statistics of the EU. 2.1 live births per woman is considered replacement level fertility: you have enough children to keep population numbers stable. Right now the EU has 1.55 live births per woman and that number has been below replacement level for well over a decade.
Demographically speaking that means the EU population is going to get smaller and older. And that has massive negative implications for the economy and politics (fewer workers mean less consumption, which means a shrinking economy and fewer workers and a smaller economy means less taxes and less taxes mean cuts to social safety nets and other government benefits). The only bright spot for the EU is the fertility of foreign-born women: they're having more children than native women.
And it's the same here in America. Our population would be declining without immigration and the higher birth rates of immigrant women.
People who tell me to be afraid of my fellow humans (particularly those who are already marginalized) are rarely without ulterior motivations.
Usually consolidation of their own political / monetary / other power, in my experience.
The thing is, Sparhawk, we've been dealing with unsanctioned/illegal immigration in the United States for decades if not centuries and literally none of the nightmare scenarios the xenophobes have presented have come to pass. I can understand where the fear comes from but it's so hard to swallow as we've been living surrounded by the cries of cultural paranoiacs practically forever and the only ones who ever seem to get the short end of the stick are the immigrants.
Oh, and when the first comment on the Youtube video is by someone named "Avenge Fascism" who says "The original video has been taken down by Jewtube with over a million views in half a week" I can't help but think it's not exactly an unbiased look at the situation.
A couple of my childhood friends who are Greek-American's have dropped what they are doing and are in Greece right now trying to help and aid refugees in any way they can. I think that's is the proper response to this tragedy. And Greece of all places is poorly equipped to handle this crisis but I'm hearing first hand stories of individual acts that make me feel good about the world.
Thing is, many others joined the stream of people, for pure economical reasons.
Can you expand on that? I'm trying to see the economical gain for folks to "pretend" to be refugees.
Sparhawk wrote:Thing is, many others joined the stream of people, for pure economical reasons.
Can you expand on that? I'm trying to see the economical gain for folks to "pretend" to be refugees.
My understanding is that this is partly true. People have joined the stream of people from parts of Syria that aren't actively in conflict, but also from other countries in the region. Those numbers, though, are too small to take, seriously, IMO. And Syria is actively in the middle of a horrific civil war, so to bring that up is kind of silly, IMO. There are always economic immigrants. That's basically what the US immigrant "crisis" is, and usually the people who come here are productive, tax-paying members of society.
Just to make clear, I am far from a racist. I want people that are in need to be helped.
I do find your earlier post rather worrisome because it hearkens disturbingly close to the rhetoric of bigots in the US, but I want to make it clear that my actual accusation of racism was levelled directly at the writer/director team of that video, not at you.
What I don't get, is why we send all this money to foreign countries for aid.
How much foreign aid do you think the EU sends to countries? It's probably a lot less than you think.
EU member nations only provide about €160 billion of foreign aid a year (that 0.7% of your GNI). The vast majority of that is economic development. Only about €1 billion goes to actual humanitarian aid.
And you simply can't drop billions of Euros of economic aid into regions that are ravaged by conflict and that have very little functioning government. I mean you can, but it will just line the pockets of the local warlord and not actually help anyone. America did that in Iraq and Afghanistan the only thing that came about from that was a couple of companies got rich and American taxpayers got swindled out of about $150 to $200 billion.
We have UN troops and NATO troops going everywhere. All in the name to stop these people having to flee their home. Somehow that failed.
Again, you are likely vastly overestimating the number of troops you think are deployed and vastly underestimating how much military intervention would be required to stabilize things.
Not to mention that you are highly mistaken if you think that UN and NATO troops are deployed to keep people from fleeing conflict zones and coming to Europe. Peacekeeping troops are deployed to act as a buffer between warring factions and prevent one side from inflicting horrible atrocities on the other side. And even then their rules of engagement are tremendously restricted, especially for UN peacekeepers.
At best UN peacekeepers are Band-Aids over sucking chest wounds. The UN currently has about 90,000 troops deployed in 16 different peacekeeping operations around the world. It's largest peacekeeping operation is in the Sudan where less than 13,000 UN troops and police have been deployed to watch over a country of 38 million. How effective do you think they can be given those numbers?
The EU's contribution to those efforts is to pay for about 40% of peacekeeping operations (about $4 billion a year) and provide just 6,000 troops. That's the combined efforts of all 28 EU member nations, which isn't much.
And NATO deployments are much smaller. There's currently only 18,000 NATO troops deployed around the world today. 13,000 of those are in Afghanistan (and 10,000 of those are actually American troops).
If you actually want enough UN and NATO troops deployed around the world to provide enough security to prevent people from fleeing conflict areas then you best start digging deep, funding the crap out of your militaries and writing much bigger checks to the UN.
During NATO's involvement in Kosovo the US military determined that it needed about one troop to every 50 civilians to effectively maintain the peace. Scaling that up to the conflicts in Syria and Iraq you're looking at deploying about 1.1 million peacekeepers. And before that could happen ISIS would have to be militarily defeated, meaning a full on invasion of two sovereign nations.
Peacekeepers would then have to occupy those territories (and put up with continual insurgent attacks) until real governments with actual buy-in and support from the general population could take hold. And that's a big "if" given deep-seated ethnic and religious differences.
So, at best, you're looking at decades of occupation, during which time the occupiers would also have to shell out hundreds of billions to rebuild what was destroyed and provide for the general welfare of the people you're supposedly protecting.
America spent at least $1.7 trillion to invade and occupy Iraq for a little over a decade. The EU would be looking at a much, much larger investment to prevent people from fleeing to Europe. That or you can build walls and start sinking refugee boats.
All real refugees are welcome. Thing is, many others joined the stream of people, for pure economical reasons.
So you'd rather all those young men stay in conflict zones where there's absolutely no future for them outside of joining a militant group?
Seriously, what's the problem with so-called economic refugees? They're trying to make a better life for themselves.
Europe should be more concerned with figuring out ways to incorporate all those new immigrants into their society and economy.
Here in the United States we have people who constantly rail against immigrants from Mexico and Central America. If you listen to them every Hispanic immigrant is a threat to America that drains taxpayer resources from real Americans.
The reality is that all those immigrants pay more in taxes than they consume in services. Additionally, they comprise about 15% of our entire economy meaning that if we kicked them all out our economy would shrink by nearly $2 trillion.
Thing is, many others joined the stream of people, for pure economical reasons.
One thing to keep in mind about people fleeing for purely economic reasons is that this is a good thing. One of the first steps in disenfranchising people with their living situations is to take away all of their money, by force, by unstable economy, by anything. People with no money have no food, no shelter, and get desperate; desperate people do terrible things. Extreme poverty has a nasty habit of forming dangerous situations, and if the world is lucky it is 'just' some riots and theft; if the world is unlucky it is a breeding ground for ISIS, Hamas, alQuada, and other terrorist groups. Someone who wants to come to your country to make an honest living is the absolute best kind of immigrant.
*EDIT - OG said it a lot better, and hit post first.
I appreciate the feedback. And glad it is supported by good arguments.
Right now, I am really trying to figure things out. As so much is happening.
Thank you for trusting the community with your concerns. They really do sound similar to the racist/xenophobic rantings of the worst kind of people in America, but this follow up post shows that you are approaching an understandably scary-looking situation with an eye towards understanding. I really, really appreciate that you can avoid taking concerns about the content of the video as an attack on your character, and that you're willing to read counter-arguments to it. Thank you so much for opening this conversation.
Someone who wants to come to your country to make an honest living is the absolute best kind of immigrant.
Thanks for having me, America!
Atras wrote:Someone who wants to come to your country to make an honest living is the absolute best kind of immigrant.
Thanks for having me, America!
We had to debate it A LOT. Just be clear.
Jonman wrote:Atras wrote:Someone who wants to come to your country to make an honest living is the absolute best kind of immigrant.
Thanks for having me, America!
We had to debate it A LOT. Just be clear.
You clearly didn't debate it ENOUGH.
On a serious note, I'm totes playing Immigration on Easy Mode. Being the dominant ethnicity and fluent in the dominant language of the destination country is a cinch. The only racism I'm faced with is cute girls telling me how much they love my accent.
The Paris attacks will most definitely be a game changer for the refugee situation.
Unfortunately.
The Paris attacks will most definitely be a game changer for the refugee situation.
Well, maybe. I don't think we know who did them or why at this point, unless I've missed something?
I'm sure that anti-refugee people will be using the Paris attacks as justification for stepping up their rhetoric, regardless who ends up being responsible, and indeed regardless whether any refugees were actually involved in the attacks.
I'm sure that anti-refugee people will be using the Paris attacks as justification for stepping up their rhetoric, regardless who ends up being responsible, and indeed regardless whether any refugees were actually involved in the attacks.
Precisely. Nothing works quite like pointing at an extremist group and using that to justify mass prejudice.
Nomad wrote:The Paris attacks will most definitely be a game changer for the refugee situation.
Well, maybe. I don't think we know who did them or why at this point, unless I've missed something?
It won't matter who did it. There was growing sentiment in Europe (long before the Syria crisis) that there are too many immigrants moving to Europe and that they weren't assimilating into the culture. The leap from there being that poor immigrants who don't mix with the overall culture are more at risk of becoming radicalized.
I don't think any of that is true, but Nomad is correct that the perception will be bad.
Back in WWII, there was a huge influx of European war refugees who settled in Australia and have since integrated into the country without much problem.
In the 70s, a big Lebanese refugee population were accepted in Australia. They have since integrated.
In the late 70s/80s, a large Viet and Khmer wave of refugees fled and/or were evacuated to Australia. They have since integrated.
In current times, there is a big African/Middle Eastern refugee movement in Australia both of which are in the process of integrating with everyone else.
Because Europe has traditionally been a not-so-multicultural collection of countries, you just aren't use to the fact that it takes time for migrants to settle and contribute positively to their host nations. There will always be a fear of "us vs them" until mutual understanding and acceptance arises. This is not to say that a country such as Australia (or the US) do not have any racial conflict, but simply that time usually resolved most perceived problems.
Sparhawk, the Australian experience is that migrants cause social unrest mostly when they have no outlet to be gainfully employed and are openly discriminated against. Give them something productive to do and they will pay their taxes like everyone else. We are still trying to understand the Islamic paradigm and vice versa. It doesn't help that people from wartorn countries have their own personal trauma to overcome before they can move on.
Dimmerswitch wrote:I'm sure that anti-refugee people will be using the Paris attacks as justification for stepping up their rhetoric, regardless who ends up being responsible, and indeed regardless whether any refugees were actually involved in the attacks.
Precisely. Nothing works quite like pointing at an extremist group and using that to justify mass prejudice.
This. I don't remember how well they did in the recent election, but I recall the National Front party (Le Pen's far right party) came up fairly often on the BBC news podcast I listen to in the morning. I think they're popular enough there now that they're no longer being treated as a fringe party.
Gremlin wrote:Nomad wrote:The Paris attacks will most definitely be a game changer for the refugee situation.
Well, maybe. I don't think we know who did them or why at this point, unless I've missed something?
It won't matter who did it. There was growing sentiment in Europe (long before the Syria crisis) that there are too many immigrants moving to Europe and that they weren't assimilating into the culture. The leap from there being that poor immigrants who don't mix with the overall culture are more at risk of becoming radicalized.
Also this. Hungary had a xenophobic far right government come to power a couple years back and look how nutty they've been with the Syrian crisis. And like I said above, you've got LNF in France and UKIP (or is it TKIP?) in the UK on the rise.
Oh man, I forgot about Hungary. I was fixated on the news in Greece (and by extension the greater EU) when my wife were getting ready for vacation there. Since then I've had to pivot my attention towards other things, but you're right. Hungary had people penned up at train stations and was trying to hold them there or turn them back. That's where Nomad is 100% right on. Regardless of who is actually at fault, imagine those same leaders now feeling like they have a mandate to shut down all the borders.
Dimmerswitch wrote:I'm sure that anti-refugee people will be using the Paris attacks as justification for stepping up their rhetoric, regardless who ends up being responsible, and indeed regardless whether any refugees were actually involved in the attacks.
Precisely. Nothing works quite like pointing at an extremist group and using that to justify mass prejudice.
Yup.
Eliminating the grayzone - the zone of coexistence - and rendering a world as black & white as their own flag. That's what ISIS wants.
ISIS's goal from their own publication. A black & white world. What they call "grayzone" is our coexistence zone.
Extremists using extremism to further extremism. It's the same playbook Al-Qaeda in Iraq used to start the sectarian war.
This episode of 'From our own correspondent' on Radio 4 really helped me to get some perspective on the crisis. Hopefully you can all access it (I would have thought so.) It's well worth a listen.
As a sidenote, every single time I've seen refugees (especially Syrians) asked, they've all said they'd much prefer to be back in their own country. Except, y'know, Assad and ISIS.
As a sidenote, every single time I've seen refugees (especially Syrians) asked, they've all said they'd much prefer to be back in their own country. Except, y'know, Assad and ISIS.
That's what I've heard too from BBC reports.
Also, Sparhawk, if it hasn't already been said keep in mind that a lot of the refugees seem to be the people who have the resources to actually get out of that hellhole. People who are trained in a profession or business owners just looking to get on with their lives. The people who are staying are those who can't actually leave at this point.
I don't know where Sparhawk lives, but please check in? He hasn't posted in this thread since the attacks, and I find that somewhat ominous. (Although I am sure there are more important things to do in all of Europe than post on a games forum.)
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