This is Netanyahu's legacy, a proto dictator, arming dictators.
I'm convince pegasus was used against Israeli journalists, opposition leaders and law enforcement officials. Too bad our political system is still under his thumb and doesn't shed light on this crap even now that he's no longer PM.
> This is Netanyahu's legacy, a proto dictator, arming dictators.
Isn't the U.S selling arms to Saudi Arabia?
Not just in the region. In the 1970s, Israel worked with apartheid South Africa to develop nuclear weapons. South Africa has subsequently been disarmed, but Israel has not been.
Incidentally, in 1963 JFK was trying to stop Israel's nuclear weapons program because American intelligence had failed to turn up any evidence that other countries in the region were pursuing the same. In a letter to Ben-Gurion, JFK wrote:
> "I can well appreciate your concern for developments in the UAR. But I see no present or imminent nuclear threat to Israel from there. I am assured that our intelligence on this question is good and that the Egyptians do not presently have any installation comparable to Dimona, nor any facilities potentially capable of nuclear weapons production. But, of course, if you have information that would support a contrary conclusion, I should like to receive it from you through Ambassador Barbour. We have the capacity to check it."
Egypt never developed nuclear weapons.
> Isn't the U.S selling arms to Saudi Arabia?
How's that relevant? If you're fishing for hypocrisy, be assured I dislike the US take on democracy and it's leaders of late no less than Netanyahu.
But At least the US has a constitution, checks and balances. And a tradition of freedom and democracy. Israel has a growing population, the parts that grow are mostly lacking any sense of democratic values or tradition. Guess which electorate Netanyahu spurned and which he focused his Messiyah propaganda on.
> And a tradition of freedom and democracy
The U.S was a de facto apartheid state until the 60s. The UK castrated gays up until quite recently. Liberal democracy as we know it today is quite new. I'm not a Netanyahu fan, quite far from it, but bias is bias.
It's easy to see that it's in my interest to kill a woman on an unlit street and nick her purse. What kind of argument is this??
It's especially aggravating since so much propaganda comes out touting Israel as a democracy and decrying the savage Palestinians for being a dictatorship.
The US and UK sell arms to all of these countries. That's not a good sign; the US even directly subsidizes the military and police of some of them. We like dictatorships that make our political donors money.
Lebanon used to be more democratic; Iran was democratic at one point. What happened to Mossadegh?
Lebanon used to be a state. More democratic? Perhaps.
>What happened to Mossadegh?
One of the first things Mossadegh did was to suspend elections because the opposition was winning too much.
There is a point where politics depend on good intent. It does not matter if it is the EU, USA or China. If there is a part of the population that is radicalized and hate rhetoric is used that will destabilize any society.
The main defense against this situation is that it does not work to improve citizens lives. It only benefits a small part of society and it will make the rest suffer. Hate calls for win-lose deals and an unproductive zero sum mentality. Hungarian business will suffer, and Hungarian workers will suffer. That is not sustainable long term.
EU can be improved, but if millions of citizens support a far-right government there is little to be done. Orbán is a problem, but that people follows him is another one. It will only make Hungary poorer and the EU poorer and more dangerous.
I'm going to point at this as an example of a very traditional, very political example unproductive thinking. One of the lessons people refuse to see in politics is that the people who vote for things they don't like might, potentially, be upset about something. There is a lack of reflection on how rational people might have ended up here.
I know nothing about Hungary. But I am quite confident that a happy, well organised society labouring under the grip of sound economic policies tends not to radicalise very easily. People get radicalised when it becomes obvious that politics as usual is not going to work out well for them. There are cases where the cause is lost and there is an intransigent radical group. Usually there is a long lead up to that of a group who is systemically not having their needs met.
It is totally correct that hate leads to win-lose deals. That seems like a very reasonable option to people if the alternative loving approach is a win-lose deal but with the winners and losers reversed.
And through pure boredom/decadence, they were radicalised through years of negative messaging from the populist press into 'caring' about things like Brexit, immigration, welfare claimants, etc.
These are people that have most of their needs met and are comfortable, yet their emotional buttons were pushed over the course of years into making them foam at the mouth about things they largely don't fully grasp and that definitely don't have an impact on their lives.
Yes, but is the thing they're upset about and the thing they're directing their anger towards actually linked?
It's often hugely successful in politics to say "all your problems are the fault of this external bad actor" rather than "we have a problem and it's going to take a lot of hard work to fix it". It's very easy to blame external Jewish financiers (George Soros always gets a namecheck) and gay people for all your problems. The last time people did that en masse in Eastern Europe it ended up with extermination camps and millions dead.
Arguably Hungary's problems are due to the international finance industry, but there's nothing especially Jewish about it, just good old mis-selling. See e.g. https://www.ft.com/content/6c27cfbc-f50b-11e2-94e9-00144feab... - Orban took on the banks, which has to have been a big help to his popularity.
The EU is not blameless in this: https://www.escp.eu/news/eu-convergence-narrative-played-key...
Brazil experienced 12 years of prosperity from 2003 to 2015, with some trouble starting in 2012, but still with solid numbers in unemployment, for instance. Still a hate-based disinformation campaign managed to overthrow a re-elected president for accusations later proved unfounded, paving the way to the election of a far-right president who is ripping apart the fragile fabric of Brazil's still young democracy.
This is why we need to deal harshly with such hatred/disinfo campaigns, ruthlessly deplatforming fringe elements and denying them the chance to drag the Overton window their way.
In the past century Europe saw the construction of facilities used exclusively to commit murder at an industrial scale, designed to be the cheapest way to kill whole populations.
It's people like Orbán, the Le Pens, Jörg Meuthen, Nigel Farage, among many, many others, that took this continent there and, if we don't act, they'll do it again.
Orban is seen as hateful or radicalising because he is against illegal immigration. He has made a big marketing point about this.
But that doesn't mean that there aren't legitimate concerns about illegal immigration that Hungarians might have. Just because Western european nations have decided they don't mind if they add 1-2% yearly to their populations of a culturally totally different type of person, doesn't mean that that is normal or "good".
Orban is using these emotions for his own purposes. That's true. But it's not Orban that is creating these issues, or the concerns about them.
I've travelled a lot in Eastern Europe and I think I know where this is coming from.
When communism fell, people rejoiced in joining the EU and getting all the benefits of a free society. However what really happened was that those spoils went to the people who were desirable employees. Meaning mainly the young (and those happy few with money or connections). Meanwhile the old communist cronies stayed in power and simply became capitalist oligarchs.
On the other side, older people's built up state pensions were cut or removed due to their jobs being privatised to shady agencies owned by these ex-government oligarchs. An easy way to cheat them out of their benefits they worked for. For all its failures, communism did provide them with a sense of continuity and job security that is now lost.
As a result there is now a strong separation between those with opportunities and those without. The haves and have nots. The older people have been abandoned. Of course these people tend to have traditional values and this is what people like Orban target.
I don't think Orban will really make things better for them, he is just a populist seeing a niche to take advantage of. But the disillusionment is real and very clear to me. I've spoken to some well educated poor people that were just too old to be of interest to capitalist companies. And thus ending up living in an apartment with plastic bags for windows (in -20 degrees C). I spoke to a very well educated school teacher who was begging on the street to pay for her husband's cancer treatment. She wasn't one to fall for these populists as she was way too sharp. But I was shocked how society has let an entire class of hard-working people just drop away into insignificance. In Western Europe we have built a balance between capitalism and welfare, but in Eastern Europe they moved straight to a caricature of hard neoliberalism. It caused a big culture shock and left a whole class of people behind.
We (as the EU) have let this happen by letting these states change their industries to capitalism overnight without setting up a proper welfare system. This will not go away until we find a way to give everyone a decent life in these countries. For some people the EU has been nothing but broken promises. Of course that's a breeding ground for dissent and populism.
The world would be a better place if we did that more often.
And one of the lessons other people refuse to see is that appeasement of hate generally just leads to more hate. This is what we're seeing in the US right now, where what seems to be a majority fraction of one of the major parties is captured by an escalating rhetoric of hate. The angrier they get, the more votes they get. You can't placate that, because at the end of the day it's feeding on ITSELF, not a fundamental injustice.
You really think that American voters are so outraged about vaccines or masks because of a genuine concern for good modern medical practice? No, they hate that stuff because it's pushed by the people they already hate. So now they hate them more.
All the other shit he does, they deem less important. It's ridiculous.
Hungary should go out of the EU or be forced out. The lack of obeying rules and abusing subsidies for own gain should be enough reason. Hungarians should outweigh pro's and cons, it's already a decade...
This pattern is attenuated when there's a reliable external source of energy. Hungary is not a closed system that will decay into entropy. It has regular funding from the EU which allows the disequilibrium to continue.
BTW, is it rouge (as in French for red) or rogue?
Oversimplified view. There was common interest of V4 against accepting refugees, but Czech & Slovak rep. generally support EU's side in judicial and media independence issues.
Elsewhere, German automakers have vast investments in the eastern EU and they have been holding Merkel back against Orban, together with conservative faction of CDU.
In Czechia, I wish that was true, but our current prime minister Andrej Babis is actually openly admiring Orban, and playing up the same nationalistic politics (before the upcoming elections in October). I am not sure he would necessarily support media and judicial independence if it came down to that.
Between this, Nord Stream 2, etc, Germany's commercial elite are having more and more to answer for...
Afaik Orban's party has won the last rounds of elections pretty conclusively, with no fraud allegations involved (unlike what currently happens in the US, I'm talking about election fraud allegations). What's with this "Belorussian-style regime" nonsense?
Since then they have taken even more control of the media, diverted the majority of EU and state funds to loyal businessmen (a regular gas-fitter became the wealthiest man in the country in a few short years, believed to be the straw man of Orban himself), filled all major positions with their own people (including most recently the high court), created laws directly against the civil society and LMBTQ+ people, stopped most of the funding to towns that have elected politicians from the opposition, taken control of all universities and actively worked on getting rid of CEU (one of the best, independent university, which was criticised due to being funded by George Soros), signed secret business deals for enormous amounts of money with Chinese and Russian interests that will almost certainly never be beneficial for Hungary, etc.
The comparison to Belarus is not correct in the sense that in Hungary violence has not been used (fortunately), but apart from that the governing party has done everything else they can to keep their power and crush everyone else.
Think the figures are somewhat higher: Party/FPTP: 49.27%/47.89% [0]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Hungarian_parliamentary_e...
- The UK has got a bunch of boundary changes queued up that have been pending for years, which will benefit the ruling party. It sounds bad when put like that, however the boundary changes themselves were recalculated using census data (I think) in a neutral way, so although it helps the ruling party that isn't what led to the changes.
- It's hard to understand for a non Hungarian exactly what the voting rule changes might be about, but it sounds like it may be related to postal voting (people in neighbouring regions can go there physically). A lot of countries either restrict or want to restrict postal voting because it's drastically more susceptible to fraud, and there are constant allegations that left wing parties in particular like to abuse postal voting. Again the UK has exactly the same problem and some conservative MPs want to tighten the rules over who may vote postally due to a string of scandals related to it.
- Using the state to fund their own political campaigns. Again, any consistent standard that said this is evil would need to have considered the UK a rogue state in 2016, because the government at the time used vast sums of government money to fund the campaign to remain in the EU. For example the government sent a mailshot to everyone in the entire country, which alone cost more than the theoretical spending limit for the entire campaign. Government resources were routinely deployed in other ways to try and win the vote. Yet unsurprisingly, nobody in the EU complained at the time.
- "Gradually taking control of all media outlets" sounds like a reference to supporters of Orban coming into editorial positions rather than the government literally passing a law that gives Fidesz direct control over the press. Is that not so? In which case, under what standard can that be described as illegitimate? European media is totally dominated by supporters of the EU Commission and centre-left parties to the extent that in some parts of Europe, Eurosceptic conservative media hardly exists at all. Clearly the same thing has happened with different political movements in other parts of the world.
- Filling major positions with their own people and other such things, that's exactly what governments are meant to do. It's a necessary step in order to govern, in fact. No government can run a country if all major positions are controlled by people who oppose the government. Again, the UK is an interesting counter-point: it has major constitutional problems due to the lack of the government doing this, with the result that various organizations that are technically parts of the government are run by people who see themselves as some kind of quasi-official opposition, and who constantly try to undermine the actual elected government instead of doing their job.
"Belorussian-style regime", to name a few:
- control of state media packed with non-stop propaganda
- openly friendly towards dictators / other regimes
- suppressive, openly anti-liberal laws
> - openly friendly towards dictators / other regimes
Trump cuddling with Kim-Jong Un and being a good buddy of Putins.
> - suppressive, openly anti-liberal laws
US Republicans are working on overturning Roe v. Wade, opening the door to more anti-liberal laws. Heck, in some states, women have to drive hundreds of miles to the next abortion clinic and risk getting intimidated by big guys with guns on their way in. Cause freedom.
> - control of state media packed with non-stop propaganda
I give you that, the non-stop propaganda in the US is privatized, e.g. Fox News, Washington Post, OANN, MSNBC, etc. Still propaganda.
You are partially right: they won the elections conclusively. However, their supermajority was due to fraud. I am not even sure whether that can even be called "allegations" at this point, it's more like "everyone knew on election night already but what could you do".
I think the best description of the events in English can be found at https://www.unhackdemocracy.eu/en/investigation Summary:
> Unhack Democracy’s year-long investigation into the April 2018 Hungarian Parliamentary elections indicates Prime Minister Viktor Orbán secured his one-seat supermajority thanks to a combination of outright fraud, gerrymandering and by engineering the electoral system.
> Our findings reveal extensive polling station irregularities including forged voter logs and intimidation of ballot counters; a suspicious ticket splitting rate twice as likely in areas where there we no opposition delegates; electoral clientelism involving large-scale vote buying and intimidation of voters, the unlawful transportation of voters from Ukraine, Romania and Serbia; missing absentee ballots; and a mysterious failure of national election software.
And the full version goes into "fake" parties and more.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_Hungary#The_votin...
“Belorussian style regime” I assume is in reference to freedom of press/expression/artists/minorities etc in the country.
As much as I would like this to be true, I don't think it is. In practice - and to a certain extent also in theory, if you at least add add some nuance - in every democratic country the majority has power to decide who's granted full rights and value, and who isn't (think of voting rights for inmates or immigrants, right to be elected, right to obtain a job etc.). Even when the constitution sets those rights "in stone", a vast majority has the legal right to change the constitution.
Update: part of the nuance is that democracies won't technically change the value of a person, to use your term. But by removing their rights, the effects are hardly different.
AFAIK Lukashenko also has some no-fraud elections under his belt. You don't need an election fraud to go from a democracy to a dictatorship.
Now all the major opposition parties have united into a single electoral slate for the next election. Primary elections are being held for the first time to determine the compositions of the electoral slate. One minor problem is that the coalition would be very incongruous. But hey, still gonna vote for them (personal opinion).
But while it is not a dictatorship, it is, as Orbán himself puts it, an "illiberal democracy". And the government's attitudes and laws create a ton of problems. And that's not even getting into the corruption and so on...
- The election system has been changed in a way that overcompensates the winner. Fidesz is supported by about 50% of the voting population, yet it has a 2/3-s supermajority which enables them to pass any law they wish without any resistance.
- Fidesz has built up a MASSIVE database of the voting population over the years, basically they can tell the voting preferences for each home address. There is video evidence of this, I am not talking out of my ass.
- Based on this database large scale gerrymandering took place in the past years.
- The governing body overseeing the elections is run by long standing Fidesz cadres. Many polling districts especially in rural areas only had Fidesz-affiliated polling-clerks during the last election.
- Thousands if not tens of thousands of Ukrainian citizens (many of whom have Hungarian ancestry, but many do not) have been registered in the Eastern part of the country with voting rights. They are eligible for pensions multiple times the amount they would receive from the Ukrainian government because of an old agreement made bw the Soviet Union and Hungary. In exchange they are voting for Fidesz. Again, this may sound like bullshit, but it is a documented fact.
- Small cities are told that they won't get any EU funding from the government if they elect a non-Fidesz mayor.
- There is a massive amount of very poor people dependent on government distributed "public work" in the countryside. It's basically modern day servitude. These people are also often threatened that if they vote the "wrong way" they will not get work.
- Most of the relevant news outlets (TV, Radio, Newspapers, online media) are owned by Fidesz-frienly businesspeople and they are in 24-7 propaganda mode. I am talking about 1950-s style Stalinist propaganda, not some kind of "pro-government bias". There have been by now basically one TV station and a handful of small websites left that are not controlled by Fidesz.
- And add to that that any opposition leader, any journalist critical towards Fidesz or any businessman who is not part of their circles can be monitored by these spy softwares and then you will understand what the term "hybrid regime" stands for.
Yes there are elections every four years, but they are just for show.
Orbán has integrated Hungarian industry deep into German supply chains and milks this fact as much as he can.
The EU just doesn't have a political culture where Hungarian press freedom is "our problem." It's more of a "very unfortunate, next" kind of issue. No more of an EU concern than Uzbek press freedom.
This doesn't compute. I agree. The EU clearly is a very political union. But that's how it is. Press freedoms, human rights or minority freedoms outside of the EU are more likely to become politically hot than inside it.
Maybe this will change over time, but the EU has a weird trajectory. I have no idea where it's going. For the most part, "culture war" issues don't seem to have a grasp on it... as they do on most polities.
You also have to remember that the EU is an union of sovereign countries. Plenty can be done by EU members where the EU is powerless. History shows that messing with France and Germany can be costly.
EU offers a lot to the Hungarian people in terms of travel, freedom of business, employment etc. In 10 years Orban likely will be gone. In the long run the liberal values of Europe will prevail.
How does EU "fight" that? By playing for the long run: freedom of movement, cultural exchange, freedom of business. In the long term this leads to a more liberal society, regardless of counter movements.
And that's basically only the tip of the fuckberg that will be future migrations.
EDIT: As mentioned below, desire to misbehave was certainly at the root of the secession, but in practice even after the war was won the federal government wasn't able to impose its will particularly effectively.
Helpless and hypocritical. If Orban rolls out surveillance he is a dictator. If UK or Germany do it, it's the noble fight against terrorists, pedophiles and kids downloading moviez from the internet.
I'm not sure if I would've liked en EU with stricter punitive measures over its member states before all this, but it's clear that the measures to prevent situations like these have all failed.
Poland has nothing to do with Orban and wants nothing to do with Orban. Unfortunately we have our own populists that like Orban wants to remodel our country to be easier for them to rule as they please. And results are similar as with Orban in Hungary and threats to that from EU are the same so cooperation against EU safeguards is kind of natural and spontaneous.
(Pole and Hungarian — two brothers, good for saber and for glass.)
Some countries in the EU have better relations than others. Czechs and Slovaks, the three Baltic nations, and Poland and Hungary. Things must get really bad before they will stop having each other's back on the international scene.
This is a historical and diplomatic fact that must be taken into account when conflicts arise.
It is easy to blame some entity everyone knows exits, but at the same time, that entity is more like a group which doesn't fight back against it. Even if they fight back and criticize the government here and there, the latter own the media and that becomes a non-story.
Right wing governments always need a boogeyman to rally against. Today it is EU, LGBT+ groups, Roma etc. Tomorrow it might be you and me.
The only reason these countries are now “hostile” is because the EU and the West have changed.
And you can look at it in a very different light if you see it as Hungary becoming a small vassal state of Germany (an autocracy helps it to stay that way, and German manufacturers want the situation to remain like this) rather than a "rogue fascist" state. Just follow the money.
If you look at things this way you expect to see a war of sphere of influence of big countries in the near future. I think the Balkans will be the next soft battlefield between German and Italian influence.
EU needs our country just to be minimally stable. Stable enough so millions of foreigners can come to their villas each summer, and as poor as possible so their money is worth more here. Whatever happens outside summer, that's not their problem. That includes tolerating far right politics, Christian fundamentalists and other lobbying groups, super corrupt politicians (better to say whole governments), huge government incurred debt, no freedom of the press or speech, and pretty much non-existing economy.
I'm sorry to say, but I'm sure that trouble is coming to this part of EU, maybe not in couple of years, but eventually surely will. The seeds of radicalization, corruption and all that nasty "us vs them" mentality were planted 20 years ago already. Only now they are starting to bear fruits.
I wonder what will happen to Croatia, politically, in the future, when the young there find themselves priced out of their own country by richer foreigners.
Seems like uncontrolled capitalism has enabled a form of economic colonialism, as proven further by the money printer let loose during Coving, making the rich richer and the poor poorer, to which the response is always "that's just how the free market works".
Meanwhile, european people's appetite for "international" politics is been mostly satisfied with world politics... especially US politics, which was good and saucy for the last few years. The most animating issues of recent years have been: Trump, BLM related US politics, Israel-Palestine conflicts & climate change. Most of what happens in EU parliament attracts very little interest in the greater citizenship-journalism-politics sphere. National politics is, by far, still the main political sphere.
European politics rarely becomes primary news/politics "stories." That applies to both Hungary, within the Union and Belarus, an immediate neighbor. It also applies to Ukraine and the Russia-Ukraine conflict, which was largely about EU affiliation.
Notable exceptions are Brexit, peek refugee migration and the Greek/Euro crisis... 12 years ago. The ironic exception to "EU politics doesn't exist" is the nationalist, eu-skeptical camp which has been developing an EU-wide audience.
In any case, IDK if "helpless" is the right word. It's more like "uninterested." Hungarian freedom of the press and such just aren't on anyone's agenda. The fact that they're EU doesn't really mean much.
Do not get me wrong. I like the idea of EU. I see its benefits, but the idea ignores lessons of creating new federations. Apart from everything else, I doubt EU would be willing to do the same things US did to maintain its grip.
I think you meant war.
I think the EU is unwilling to make even non-bloody sacrifices, like the US did in the beginning at the Connecticut Compromise (1787). Basically as early as 11 years after the independence, the large US states relinquished a lot of power to the smaller states. With that compromise they gave 2 senators to each state, no matter how big or small it was.
I really don't see Germany relinquishing that much power, or France for that matter.
Also the EU cannot function like the US without the absolutely massive transfer of cash from rich to poor states.
A poor state in the US receives as much as 10k per person NET from the federal government https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/federal-aid... Imagine giving out 200 billions to Romania alone every year... At best we get 10 billions a year, but only for a limited time. In the previous budget we got like 3-5 billions a year. For those funds, the richer countries expect a lot of obedience in return, always dangling the threat of cutting the funds if we "don't behave".
Note that either of these would be unlikely to succeed. Just about every EU state has survived numerous occupations; some partitions; some ceased to be nation states. How can you possibly hope to force them to see themselves as Europeans first and nation A second? If anything, force or even threat of force will likely result further digging in.
Overall, I agree with your post though. I personally think both France and Germany simply use EU framework for their own purposes ( Germany actually just had an interesting case that may finally shed some light over whether EU law is above German law -- that should be fun to watch - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/09/eu-launches-le...).
Countries can only be kicked out of the EU with unanimity of all states except the one being kicked out. But Poland and Hungary have a pact to support each other, so that can't happen. I suspect though that if Hungary and Poland pissed off the EU in a big way, the other states would all leave and simultaneously form a new EU2021.
Can you give me some examples of the EU doing this?
My understanding is that nothing has happened on migration because there is no agreement.
Is Hungary a rogue state?
this is not going to last forever, its already diminished a lot since 2015
States that wear lots of lipstick? It's a word often mis-spelt.
There is no need of official government approval to conduct such surveillance. It's enough to have weak access contol to such technologies, political roles within the agencies, and poor work ethics in civil servants: there alway will be someone with will and motive to act in favor of the system, off the record. Orban deliberately shaped the government this way.
FWIW I just see them use the money of others for their own purposes coactively and provoke a lot of polarization. Many times with bad intention for selfish interests. I am talking about ALL of them.
I think people should be able (Hungarian case at hand) to choose whether they want certain contents to be taught at certain age for their kids. No matter which ones. It should be a free to choose thing.
The minimum stuff we must all agree upon should be not killing, discriminating, etc. in legal terms. But when you try to force people to like or dislike something, instead of respecting others (whether they like or not other people ideas) then you have this highly polarized environment because you will always find the other half resisting, since it is imposed contents highly ideological.
I think that things could be way better with fewer of these people.
It's not a single "Apple music exploit", it's dozens of separate services. Music, messenger, safari, iOS, etc...
I never want to hear Apple cares about security again.
I could forgive 1 mistake, but this seems like negligence. (Don't put me down as a defender of MS or Android, but at least they don't use "Security" in their marketing)
From paragraph 10:
Much of the targeting outlined in this report involves Pegasus attacks targeting iOS devices. It is important to note that this does not necessarily reflect the relative security of iOS devices compared to Android devices, or other operating systems and phone manufacturers. In Amnesty International’s experience there are significantly more forensic traces accessible to investigators on Apple iOS devices than on stock Android devices, therefore our methodology is focused on the former. As a result, most recent cases of confirmed Pegasus infections have involved iPhones.And I'm not even defending android, I'm attacking Apples unethical marketing practices of claiming security and privacy, but failing.
https://telex.hu/english/2021/04/22/hungary-china-fudan-univ...
This (and the events of January 6th) are a good reminder that the law is worth the paper it's printed on if no one acts on it.
This is some kind of code injection attack that can go through a text message?
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/research/2021/07/forensic-...
The rest of it sounds like a Metasploit-esque framework along with some telemetry tools.
Nationalism is an ancient mentality, get rid of it and start moving into larger groups who can do more.
I keep reading about the North American Alliance in sci fi books, how long until the usa, canada and mexico combine to create a bigger economic block?
Because outside of your bubble nobody wants this. A random person from Bulgaria is going to have a very different culture from a random person from Netherlands. What do you think happens with power in such conglomerate ?
If you want to see what happens when you create a forced conglomerate of different nations (but still more similar than EU member, languages were way closer and cultures were close as well) into a super state look up Yugoslavia.
The US were a blank page, with roughly the same crowd starting with the same common goal and aspirations. Europe comes with 15centuries of nationlike structures and history. Latin and AngloSaxons have very different approaches on life and work (particularly visible in the “PIGS” recent controversy...).
As someone said, you cant make the european omelette with nations hard boiled eggs.
The mere facts that the euro bank notes has zero european symbol (because they couldnt find one) speaks for itself. So they put bridges and windows... India has Gandhi.
There are independence tensions within European countries (eg. Spain/Basque, UK/Scotland).
You have to be a blind idealist to think this would work. There are going to be a lot of crisis scenarios for EU in the next few decades, refugees being the looming one EU failed to reach a consensus on and botched previously (that helped radicalise parts of it like Hungary and further alienated UK). The pending post COVID inflation/economic shock could also storm the Euro zone, Greece is still devastated from the "bailouts" in the financial crisis.
And somehow me, a person from Denmark, has more cultural overlap with a hacker hipster from Mexico than most of my childhood classmates. And somehow I still coexist peacefully with my neighbors.
The internet and global travel are breaking down the national cultural barriers (largely induced/imposed by mass media). Meanwhile, power imbalance and widening gaps in the social fabric are increasing issues globally, even in monocultures and regardless of immigrants.
I think the points you raise are orthogonal. Except that you're most likely right that most people don't want this - because the illusion of the shared nation-culture and history has been so deeply imprinted in us by propaganda from the education system, the government, advertising, and media.
EU is made of countries and having countries merged does not mean that cultures has to be, actually hundrends of cultures and subcultures live together with other cultures in present countries, even as parts of nations, even inside cultures (subcultures).
It is a basic human need and necessity to collaborate, everybody wants and needs that!! (except those living in a lone grumpy bubble) Those not doing it are not really viable: see Yugoslavia. : )
The EU - and in fact many many countries with hudreds of years of success - is made of and founded by former arch enemies btw....
People need to think beyond these tribes and up it a level. A random person from Bulgaria is very similar to a random person from Netherlands. I welcome the day that our tribe is Earth...
This is just dismissively asserrting your opinion as if it were fact. Where are your statistics on this?
People group together with others that share certain cultural values. Ever since borders, passports and standard languages have been the norm, this has only been reinforced.
I don't feel culturally similar to many other European countries, most notable Hungary, Poland and some other countries that have been sliding towards the far right. I wouldn't want the people who voted Orban into power to outvote me, either.
Grand unification of humanity is a good ideal, one we should work towards, but it's not something that will be possible within our lifetimes. There are very practical reasons against the North American Alliance; for example, Canada has socialised healthcare, while you can't even get the suggestion off the ground in the US. Such political differences don't just disappear.
I don't want a European superstate because I disagree with most people that would live in it. My ideals would no longer be represented by my government. I think that's enough reason not to go for complete European unification. Opinions can change, so maybe some day we can all agree, but with Hungary fighting the free press and its people cheering Orban on, I can't say I expect this situation to change any time soon.
Maybe, but what "tribe" are you part of is completely fluid. Your tribe can be extremely inclusive or exclusive.
> Grand unification of humanity is a good ideal, one we should work towards, but it's not something that will be possible within our lifetimes.
And it is quite of inevitable as communication and travel becomes cheaper.
> I don't want a European superstate because I disagree with most people that would live in it. My ideals would no longer be represented by my government. I think that's enough reason not to go for complete European unification.
That is easily an argument against any form of government. No country would exist this way for good or bad. But they exists. As you said, bigger communities are a matter of time. What it would have been an impossible union 100 years ago it makes a lot of sense today.
There is a lot of friction when changing tribes. Especially if it means changing your religion, language and culture. Few people can make that jump.
I would not call this "completely fluid".
This is "appeal to nature" nonsense. Tribalism, just like every other social behavior, can be learned and unlearned.
Imagine if someone was getting tribal along odd VS even apartment number or floor number. It would be seen as ridiculous just because it's not in line with the social construct indicating what to be tribal about.
> People group together with others that share certain cultural values.
By this logic, relocating across countries should be made illegal to prevent diluting culture. This would be ultranationalism.
> I don't feel culturally similar to many other European countries
Societies are not countries and are not people. We can be feel very disconnected from some societal values and yet find similar minded individuals in it.
> Grand unification of humanity is a good ideal, one we should work towards, but it's not something that will be possible within our lifetimes.
Citation needed. Humanity has never seen the level of culture and information sharing that is happening now.
For the first time in history some 15 years old girl in Vietnam can watch at a viral meme put on social media by an equally young boy from Canada. Practically for free and with no effort.
> Such political differences don't just disappear.
History shows otherwise. Big, unexpected grass-root social changes happen. Especially under the pressure from climate collapse and so on.
By nature or not by nature — they are in fact very tribal.
But I see this as an argument for the United States of Europe. Let's give tribalism to the people in the USE. Big _cultural_ autonomy for all the regions! The government should fund all the locals' funny dances, clothes, and rituals.
Having regional culture makes the average tribalist more happy than having nation wide culture, I believe.
Re: your comment, it's not only on nation level. People have tendency to form groups and build their identity on "us vs them" basis. That's why you have rivalries between football clubs from different cities etc.
Anyway, language and culture/history is a powerful thing that people can't get over in us-vs-them thinking. There's also business in play which collides with politics a lot. For example Germany are fine doing business with Russia, while for Poland, Lithuania and other Russia-bordering countries, RU is #1 evil and existential threat.
Because when the going gets really tough that abstract "human being" from across the Continent won't care at all about you, while at the same time the person geographically closer to you and who might belong to the same nation might prove to be a better ally. Just think of the Greece crisis of 2012 when the "human beings" from The Netherlands were generally just assholes to their fellow human beings who happened to live in Athens or in Thessaloniki.
Or think of the Greece crisis of 2012 when the “human beings” from Greece were generally just assholes to their fellow human beings who happened to live in Slovenia, Munich or Denmark. Note that the Greek crisis included a transfer from poorer Slovenia to the richer Greece. Note that Greeks as a nation has a high savings - the money has been within Greece jurisdiction all along. Note that Greece has a high corruption rate.
While the first statement stands, the use of Greek crisis of 2012 signifies the authority different jurisdictions have in aiming for effective administration.
Merkel actively lobbied for the corrupt Wirecard company in front of China officials while the company had been under investigation, afaik the highest Greek official has done no such vile and corrupt things. Unfortunately what Merkel did does not get counted in various "corruption charts" for various reasons (Orientalism being just one of them).
First, money. Some parts of the EU are way richer than others, with superior welfare systems. If every EU citizen is to be truly equal, then that would mean same standards of government services and welfare everywhere, which would be costly to the richer states. Of course, alternatively we could lower standards everywhere, but that's not good for people.
Then there's cultural, economic, geolocial differences in general, higher corruption in many members states of east/south... Plenty of things to consider. Leaders in some parts of the EU really won't understand the situation in other parts, which makes any kind of centralized government problematic. Perhaps a very decentralized model could work though, but then again that's not much different from what we have now.
Also, nationalism is hardly "an ancient mentality". Healthy nationalism, a common idea and identity is something pretty much all well-functioning countries have. United States of Europe would never work without a common European identity, and controlled outer borders. Cultural differences between different parts of the world are still way too large for anything like democratic one world government to work.
In some sense, maybe... The foundations are ancient. But...
The "world order" where the globe is divided into nation states is quite new. Before that, multinational empires were the dominant mode. We tend to think of west european empires as the canonical: french, british and spanish. These empires had clear "home countries," so the dynamic was "nation ruling other nations."
Other empires were more ambiguous. EG the Austro Hungarian Empire & the Ottoman empires. They had capitals, centres of power and such. But, geographic and ethnic national boundaries were much fuzzier within these empires.
The border changes, forced migrations and ethnic cleansing that created the modern nation state world happened mostly within the last 100 years. Take Warsaw, for example. Before WW2, ethnic Poles were about 50% of the population. Jews & Germans were the next biggest groups. This was typical of european cities. After the war, Warsaw and Poland within its new borders was/is >90% Polish. Also typical. Meanwhile, countries like Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Northern Ireland & Belgium that didn't fit into the "nation state" template were pretty unstable.
The USSR's dissolution pretty much cemented a world order where nation states dominate. That's recent.
What you are advocating for is, by some definition, the establishment of an EU Empire. Maybe a democratic empire is possible, but we don't really have example to draw on.
Nationalism is a very recent affair, the idea that people and not just the nobility have nations is a 19 century concept.
Is that right? Sounds like the opposite to me. The English King, German Kaiser and Russian Tsar during WWI were cousins.
https://www.history.co.uk/articles/the-kaiser-the-tsar-and-k...
There can exist nationalist monarchies, just the thing keeping then bound is not that they are the same rulers subjects.
Not just nationalism, but tribalism.
That's why the US has such an appalling record of bias. Each new wave of immigrants (not to mention the ones that were here, to start with, and those that were dragged over, against their will) has been met with torrents of hatred, abuse, and state-sanctioned terror. In most cases, it had little to do with skin color, and everything to do with cultural differences.
When I lived in Africa, I saw tribalism writ large. It gets bad. If we think it's only in the developing world, then we simply need to look at what happened to Yugoslavia, after Tito died.
I think that tribalism is in our DNA, and it takes a real, concerted, conscious, effort to fight it. That's hard, humbling, work, and most folks aren't up for it.
Externally-imposed structure (Tito) works, but it's a temporary band-aid.
Belonging to a trading bloc doesnt make you actually care about the other group.
Also, replacing "French" nationality with "EU nationality" doesnt get rid of nationalism it just scopes it at a larger level. There exist "EU nationalists" and to be honest, I find them as annoying as any other kind of nationalist.
EU nationalism is actually stronger than local nationalism in many circles - I rarely see comments defending any nation state here (except the Swiss, cough, cough, mostly kidding) but any criticism of the EU is met with zealotry.
More pragmatically, the EU makes little sense as anything but an economic block.
The notion that Germans and Greeks are going to accept real transfer payments, common taxation, common fiscal policy and similar rights to healthcare quality is basically ... bonkers. Germany would be the first to split.
I can think of a few reasons.
- It would erase culture, a slow process already ongoing. National identity, regional culture, etc would all go. - You'd have to reconcile the differences in rules, culture and law. Take drugs; the Netherlands is liberal with soft drugs, Portugal is more liberal with hard drugs, other countries still put you in jail for having any of those. Which one will it be? Who will pick what option? - Wealth disparity. Euro-skeptics have long complained about how much money the wealthy countries pay to Europe, and how much is funneled to the poorer countries. Make it one nation and every city, every farm, every individual will instantly demand to receive and be paid the same amount. Same complexities with health care / insurance, government stipends, benefits, taxes, etc.
Just abolishing nations is infeasible. Europe as it is is slowly turning its members into a more uniformized whole, but it can't be an overnight thing. And we have made some really big steps towards erasing borders; see the Schengen accord, removing border posts and customs between member states. See the Euro, removing barriers for moving money from one country to the next. And see the UK, who decided that was not to their benefit and removed themselves from the EU again.
Abolishing nations is totally feasible, what it is replaced with is just democracy on a local to global level.
It will take time but I have high hopes it will get there.
With the borders opened, it's very similar to what you describe. It just takes lots of time and stability which Orban and friends undermines all the time. That's why we can't have nice things.
Don't underestimate the power of cultural diversity, it's not like the US where everybody speaks English and you can fit in quite easily if you move a state or two.
In all seriousness, the issue is trust. And I have no idea how we could possibly get there as a human kind.
It might take a hundred or a thousand years, but that is where I'd like to see us go. And, it seems like that is where we are going given the global nature of business. Do you think people working at FB or Google who are working with people in 15+ countries don't realize how similar we all are? And, that this entire concept of nations is largely a farce?
To your point:
But what kind of human are they? Do they share belief A? Do they use position B on Tuesdays? Do they not associate with Cs? Do they have righteous gene D?
I think emphasizing differences at the expense of commonalities is a huge mistake, just as much as disregarding those differences. Diversity in unity and unity in diversity, always a difficult balancing act.
An important part is the strong resistance to migrants, which would mean a great influx of mainly Arabs with an incompatible culture and religion compared to Europe.
Look to Sweden to see how it goes when you allow too many migrants into a European country.
On the other hand there are many serious problems with Orbáns rule, e.g. trying to control the free press, not respecting the rights of LGBT.
But to many hungarians it is better to have a controlled migration than all the listed downsides.
Many people in the west saw and see the eastern Europeans just as the eastern Europeans see the "Arabs".
I'd honestly rather see my tax money spent on helping a refugee from Africa than see it funneled to corrupt Orban in Hungary.
I don't think language differences are a problem. There are a couple of nations with multiple official languages.
But if you abolish these local governments as well, then you're basically imposing central diktats on a population, correct?
How do you resolve the dichotomy?
The "no-borders" people are as out of touch with reality as Orban, though in different extremes.
Whenever we will be able to colonize landmasses like the Moon or Mars, it would be possible that these kind of artificial communities could flurish. Colonisation will most likely be done by market-driven corporations, which could allege with these communities based on donations/taxation.
We are resilient and these current conflicts are merely the by product of growth, learning, and building a stronger community and culture.
Nationalism is the only rational mentality for long term sustainability.
A people should never be ruled by those who have no blood in the soil or by those who don't serve the needs of that people.
Nationalism is what makes great nations. You can forget about that for a while and play the game of the inevitable failure of multiculturalism, but it will always fail, you will always destroy society, and from the ashes, a cohesive, homogeneous people will reemerge to build back from the ashes of your stupidity as has always been done
In what way? It might change the cultural landscape but that happens all the time, even the most nationalistic state does not have the exact same culture it did 100 years ago. Old culture will go away to make place for a new one, or rather, culture is always evolving.
> You can forget about that for a while and play the game of the inevitable failure of multiculturalism, but it will always fail, you will always destroy society, and from the ashes, a cohesive, homogeneous people will reemerge to build back from the ashes of your stupidity as has always been done
Do you have any examples?
Globalism is one of the best things to happen to our planet. I look forward to the next 1,000 years and hopefully reaching a point where everyone realizes we have a responsibility to every other person on this planet, as well as the planet itself. And, that a base level of respect and acceptance should be granted to every person on this planet. Nationalism is an interesting step on which we climbed. But, it is an arbitrary marker to divide people and I look forward to history washing it away in xxx years.
I do not think people should be ruled, I think people should rule themselves through some form of democracy.
Are you advocating something other than democracy?
And what was the hand of the Israeli government in the deal-making? For instance, reports state that the spying in India began right after the India’s PM met with Netanyahu in 2017 [1] So was NSO actively backed by the government?
Sigh. So many questions.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/jul/19/key-modi-rival-...
There's literally no winning here. You can literally disconnect from the internet and they'll just target the people around you…
Isn't Android and iOS supposed to investigate what's the security vulnerability that allows the remote hacking through SMS and patch it?
Vulnerabilities, eh - 'flaws'?
Or backdoors there by design?
What's in a name?
https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/short_news/europea...
However, after Googling for an online source, I came across this article about another ultimatum for justice reform in 2017, and things only got worse after that :-/
Hopefully the UN gets enough funding to occupy the roles of state and municipal police soon. Then we can free the common man from the tyranny of local government.
If people they don't like the laws they've committed themselves to, they can choose not to follow them anymore. However, the advantages they receive in return, in this case the freedoms and economic benefits of being in the EU, will also disappear if they decide to play by their own rules. With the massive benefits Poland has gotten from the EU, I don't think it's in their interest to leave, especially since it doesn't have the negotiating power the UK had (and Brexit has been a series of catastrophes nonetheless).
Nobody is forcing these people to follow foreign laws, it's just that they want the benefits without doing anything in return. The EU is not just a trade bloc, it's an institution to create a shared European ideal. They may not like the deal, but they're free to refuse it and negotiate a better one.
They're written by the politicians who were voted into power and who have certain vested interests in voting them. They were not voted by a population, sorry.
Yeah, then you will all become yanks with government in Washington you can't vote for (why are we suddenly talking about the UN?)
Where do they get that right? By treaty?
Or perhaps the European Court of Justice simply 'ruled' that it's laws were 'supreme' in a bizarre act of defining it's own jurisdiction outside of treaty agreements?
Europeans never agreed to give the ECJ supremacy. The ECJ just 'took' that power.
It's a baffling bit of legal history [1][2] and it demonstrates just how powerful these institutions can become outside of democratic norms.
A quote: "The principle was derived from an interpretation of the European Court of Justice, which ruled that European law has priority over any contravening national law, including the constitution of a member state itself. The majority of national courts have generally recognized and accepted this principle, except for the part where European law outranks a member state's constitution. As a result, national courts have also reversed the right to review the conformity of EU law with national constitutional law."
Because of this and the resulting vaguery, it's still not always perfectly clear which 'court' is supreme in exactly what ways.
The Germans resolve that EU laws cannot contradict their Basic Law - to be determined by their own Supreme Court, which is kind of a backwards way of saying 'our national courts still have supremacy'.
It would be pretty interesting to see Poland take on the ECJ in this case, because it might cause an EU level constitutional crisis as they'd probably challenge the legitimacy of the 'Supremacy' ruling from 1964 that set the precedent.
It's not as clear cut as the headlines would have us believe, like for example a US State taking on the Supreme Court.
Even in Canada, the provincial leaders invoke Constitutional shenanigans to make up their own laws that can't be rescinded by the constitution.
We'll have to see what happens.
[1] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/summary/glossary/primacy_of_eu_law...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primacy_of_European_Union_law
> It should be noted that the primacy of EU law only applies where EU countries have ceded sovereignty to the EU — fields such as the single market, environment, transport, etc. However, it does not apply in areas such as social policy and taxation.
They would have to leave the EU first, which they are free to do at any time. Of course, then they would also not get any membership benefits.
If you don't want that part of the deal, you shouldn't get the money either.
My feeling is that even most of his voters don't like him, they just hate change more.
Orbán too little "woke" ? One would say "EU is a cancer for european nations and people", I strongly think that this techno-totalitarist institution is on the brink of total collapse. Brexit first, Hungary, Poland, I sure hope France is next with our "startup nation" CEO.
French people voted NO to EU in 2005, it was forced upon us. You may argue as much as you want EU and its supra-national institutions are not a democratic process.
If EU was good for Europe, US would not have set it up back in the days. Everything is about power. Before it was power of nations, now it is obviously power from a selected few over the mass, supra-national oligarchy.