Eurovision 2009 - Have your say! - & POLITICS!

[Jos Nelsh]

Jun 6, 2009 20:33:01 GMT 1 Hyde said:

I can't believe Italians vote for someone like that...

And of course, the whole thing becomes more worrying when you see most of those subjects I mentioned (among others) are becoming an issue all over Europe.
From here we have more contact with what happens in Spain and Italy, but as far as I know, even the Netherlands and the Nordic countries seem to be sort of drifting away from their welfare model. Is that right?
I ask because if that's right, it'd be pretty depressing for me. I've always considered these countries as some kind of "dreamed countries" (idealizing them a bit, I know, but still... hehe), and I think it would be a real shame if they leave the welfare model turning over to the neo-liberal model instead.

I too am puzzled as to why Italians would want to vote for Berlusconi. I guess it's because he gained a lot of popularity by taking really popular measures. Look at Venezuela's Chavez, for example. Another great example of a dangerous populist. He's done a lot of good for the country, but he has become dangerously powerful.

As to your question about drifting away from the welfare model, I have to say: Unfortunately, yes, we are drifting away from that. Not only in the Netherlands, but in a lot of European countries.

I grew up in the eighties and nineties, and although we were afraid of the cold war and a possibility of a third world war, it was a time when people were aware of the state of democracy. Oppressive communist governments so close to our countries constantly reminded us of the values of freedom of speech, the separation of church and state, the separation of the powers, etc.

After the fall of the Berlin wall and the decline of communism, the nineties were almost a 'golden age', where we didn't have to worry about anything. Immigration laws were very loose and the 'nanny state' attracted lots of people from poor countries. It wasn't really a problem untill 9-11 happened and suddenly everyone was worried about the numbers of immigrants, and the size of the muslim community.

9-11 changed everything. Just like in the US, measure after measure was taken that intruded upon our privacy. Nowadays we have cameras on every corner of the street. As a matter of fact there are cameras right outside my house and I am actually being filmed when I enter my own home. We have to carry our ID everywhere we go. In the streets, the police can stop and search us just like that. It used to be that the police couldn't do that unless they had valid reason to suspect you of criminal activity. Our email, instant messages and internet traffic in general is scanned for suspicious content and stored in huge databanks. Nowadays, the government has access to almost anything that should be private information, for example, even the books you read from the library are being logged. The list is endless, and I can go on and on. In fact Human Rights Watch has issued several human rights warnings for the Netherlands, because our privacy is being invaded more than anywhere else in Europe, and that's saying a LOT, especially when you recall that The Netherlands used to be about the most liberal country in the world.

Aside from all that, right wing populists are winning lots of votes, just like in Italy. Right now I'm really worried because the second most popular party is a rather right wing nationalist party. It's led by popular nutcake Geert Wilders who has won a lot of votes by being downright hostile about Muslims. And I really don't understand why so many people are voting for this man, because he's really dangerous. He wants to 'send home' criminal immigrants, even the ones who were born and raised here! (Just like Berlusconi is 'sending home' Libyans). He wants to stop the (in his own words) 'Tsunami of Islamization', while in fact there aren't any real big problems with muslims other than that a lot of white indigenous people living outside the big cities are afraid of anyone with a bit of colour on his skin. He wants to forbid the Qu'Ran, because he thinks it's a book that compels muslims to do evil. He calls his party the 'Party For Liberty', but he actually wants to outlaw an entire religion.

Ah well, you know how it goes, the economy goes down, so people have less money. As a logic result of diminishing welfare, crime rises and of course people will blame the immigrants. If Wilders gets the chance, he will change the entire judicial system because he thinks penalties for crime are far too soft, etc. etc. People need to understand that politicians shouldn't be deciding about the harshness or length of penalties. That is for the judges to decide, who are far more qualified to do so, and that is why we have separation of the powers. I'm really worried that people will put this man in a place of power where he will tear down our democratic constitutional state just to get his way.

I mean, you only have to look at Berlusconi of an example what can happen; he tried to order a Judge to forbid the performance of an abortion. Politicians shouldn't be able to have that much power. But apparently Hitler and Stalin are already too long ago to remember.

[ORJ_Brand]

You raise some interesting points...

It is worrying that (right across Europe it seems) parties and politicians that used to be on the fringe are now winning votes. It comes from voters having a lack of confidence in the main political parties. In the UK, there was a lot of concern that the BNP (British National Party) would gain many seats in the local council elections. In the end they did gain 3 seats - their first ever seats - but that was nothing compared to predictions.

... politicians shouldn't be deciding about the harshness or length of penalties. That is for the judges to decide, who are far more qualified to do so, and that is why we have separation of the powers.

I'm not sure whether you meant that politicians shouldn't decide about individual sentences? If so, then I agree. But in order for judges to judge, they need to follow the law. And our law is passed by national and european parliaments and reflects present-day concerns and ethics. Always has been, probably always will be!

This brings me to the flaw of democracy: The majority isn't always right! (Let me be clear and state for the record that I support democracy - what alternative do we have?) Illustration: You mentioned people such as Berlusconi and Wilders. In order for them to be elected, a majority of voters have chosen them as the best representative of their views. Here in Britain, a majority of people in 3 wards have voted BNP...

So what's the solution?

We need our main political parties to LISTEN to voters and to address the issues they raise rather than promoting their own agendas all the time.

What I'd like to see is some thought given to how Banks can be prevented from over-investing in risky markets and therefore bringing the worldwide economy into recession!!!

[Jos Nelsh]

What I mean is this: Our right wing populists want minimum sentences of x years for offenses x, y and z. Because they feel judges are being too soft on certain forms of crime. (I'm talking about shocking crimes that cause a lot of public reaction) However, setting a minimum sentence is a real strange thing to do, because every case is unique and it is the judge who weighs the case, who knows historic precedents, who decides whether the sentenced person is better off by being punished harshly or by being given an alternative treatment, etc.

I mean ask average Joe on the street how they feel about punishments for, let's say: child rape, and the majority of them will say that such crimes should be punished by death. Populists counter to these 'underbelly' feelings in society. It is up to politicians to make the laws, not to do the judges' work. I'm talking about the separation of the powers of lawmaking, executive power and the power of jurisdiction. I'm sorry if I'm not using the right English words for this, I can't find any dictionary that knows these words.

The best way to handle these extremist parties is to analyze the issues they address, and integrate them in a civilized way in the mainstream politics.

What you say about 'direct government' (if I may call it that), is risky. They have experimented with that in California and it didn't work at all. The hype of the day will rule politics, but politics should mostly be about looking ahead of us.

[Hyde]

Ok, first, I have to say I love where this thread is going. I think it’s great being able to discuss this kind of things with you guys. Maybe we should open a new thread for this?

Anyway, back to our subject…
I’m afraid that’s quite the picture I had from what’s going on in the Netherlands, and most of Europe for that matter, Jos. I’m sorry to hear that… I honestly hope you find a way to avoid the path of these right wing populists.

I know from self experience how terrible it can be when they have their way. And even worse, when the majority of the society you live in agrees with that way of thinking. Here for instance, everyone is freaked out about how crime was raising, so the media and the wide majority of the people responded in a simplistic, spasmodic way, asking the government to take harder measures against criminals. Of course, the right wing parties and some others looking to take advantage of the situation gave the people what they wanted. They modified the penal code, aggravating the penalties for “shocking kind” of crimes, installing cameras on the streets and that sort of things. Not only they destroyed the whole penal system (and I’m a lawyer, so I can talk with some knowledge on that), but of course crime wasn’t reduced at all, if anything it got worse because while everyone is so concerned about aggravating penalties, the real reasons that cause crime to raise kept becoming worse as well…
Even so, people keep asking the government and the police to get harder on criminals and cut on their civil and human rights instead of looking for an structural solution for an structural problem like this. Thus, they keep invading our privacy and taking our rights away from us, and what’s most amazing is people are happy about it! As Padmé Amidala would put it "So this is how liberty dies—with thunderous applause.", or as Yoda would say “The fear of loss is a path to the dark side”… (both brilliant statements, I think).

I believe the only way to fight crime, economic crisis and most of the ills of society is by guaranteeing people’s rights, with more welfare politics, with more inclusion, etc, etc. Not by simplistic, xenophobic responses, by hardening penalties, and with a smaller “police state”, reducing welfare politics and generating more exclusion, that just makes things worse.

So for Latin America… the thing is even worse. Here the only option to right wing parties seems to be populists like Chavez (or even worse).
Besides, it seems we lost the ability to be scandalized about what our corrupted politicians do. Here for instance, much serious things than what happened with British MPs go on all the time, and it seems natural, nobody seems to care anymore.

And to make things worse, unlike in Europe or the US where the system works, maybe badly, maybe with flaws, but it works… here in Latin America the system doesn’t work, at all. So the foreseeable future looks pretty bad for us…

Anyway, now the right wing parties won in 24 out of 27 countries in the European elections, so I don’t like how things are looking…
I definitely agree with you, Jos. Like you say, “The best way to handle these extremist parties is to analyze the issues they address, and integrate them in a civilized way in the mainstream politics.”.
So since at least the people and the States in Europe are politically more “mature” and more stable than over here, and since you have a political system that works, hopefully things won’t get so bad over there, and maybe most countries will return to the welfare model, or at least avoid these right wing populists, before too much damage is done.

[ORJ_Brand]

One advantage we have with British politics is that we have the "first past the post" system rather than proportional representation. This means that in each ward, the person who is elected is the one who gets the most votes. (Compared to proportional representation, where minority right-wing, or other, minority parties win seats).

It normally results in a mainstream party with a clear majority in parliament - who then have the power to govern. (Rather than minor parties scheming to increase their power). It seems to work better than in most countries. (The main flaw is that we have adversarial politics - which can seem to degenerate into childish bickering at times).

I've yet to see a better system in another country...

[Jos Nelsh]

I too like being able to discuss this with you guys, Hyde, although Brand's original topic got hijacked in a really strange way. ;D

I agree with you Hyde, I think in general you can say that these populists try to exclude certain groups of people. But politics shouldn't be about exclusion.

And yes, contrary to popular belief, it's a well known and widely researched fact that harsher penalties do not lower crime. It's rather the opposite; murder occurs far more often in countries that execute the death penalty. (Sociologists believe that this is because the death penalty teaches people that killing is an acceptable form of punishment. If you want to teach people that killing is wrong, you shouldn't execute the death penalty. But actually I don't want to start that debate.)

It's social inequity and poverty that causes crime to rise, the same goes for terrorism. Fighting it will often only make it worse, it's much better to take away the causes, even though that may look harder.

What worries me most about current developments, is this. When our president was asked about the infringements upon people's privacy, he said: 'The principle is that the government is to be trusted'. I think that's about the stupidest thing he could have said. What if a guy like Wilders wins the elections? (He would, if there were national elections right now) I wouldn't trust him with people's private data for a billion. And besides, who's to say any government is to be trusted?

What's even more incredible, is that people are buying this. The entire debate about privacy infringements, police state and Big Brother measures in general boils down to this; The average Dutch person's opinion is: "What's there to fear if you have nothing to hide?". Can you believe such naivety? Go ask the Chinese that question.

I mean, it used to be that everyone was innocent until proven guilty.

These days, the principle is that everyone is suspect, and you have to prove your innocence. It's completely reversed. All in the name of the fight against terrorism. But it seems our fear has turned out to be our biggest enemy. It's not the terrorists who have taken away our liberties, it's our own government. Because they were afraid, and a lot of people with them. There are those who let themselves be led by fear, and there are those who let themselves be led by love and compassion.

I wish Europeans had the awareness of people in the US. The constitution, freedom of speech, civil liberties, etc. I wish we had it on a golden pedestal like the Americans do. I'm not saying the American system is perfect, but the mentality is so much different. Americans are very much aware of why their ancestors came to their country and for what reasons and on which principles the nation was founded. Over here, people seem to be only complaining about everything, and grateful for none of their freedoms. It almost feels like we don't even deserve it.

And Brand, I forgot the particulars of the British political system, but one of the most often heard criticisms of it, is that it's not really a perfectly democratic system. But like I said, I don't know enough about it to have an opinion. If I'm not mistaken it boils down to this: The biggest parties get all the seats in parliament, right?

Let me explain to you how it works in the Netherlands.

(I think all in all it works great)

A certain percentage of votes will guarantee a seat in parliament. This means that is possible for small parties to get one or two seats. I think this is great. For instance, we have an Animal Rights Party. They only have one or two seats in parliament, but at least the animals have a voice now. Their rights are being represented. Sure, the party can't do whatever they want because they'll never get a majority, but at least their issues are brought to the table and widely discussed in parliament.

To form a government, a party must have a majority of two third of the seats in parliament. Now thanks to way the system works (small parties can win seats), we have a fairly large number of political parties. So, it's not like in the US, where you have basically only 2 options because two parties are giants and the rest is fragmented. We have several medium size parties and because none of them ever win two third of the votes, they always need to form coalitions with one or two other parties. This makes for all kinds of great compromises in politics.

One great example of a government we had in the early 90's was the so called 'purple coalition'. Christian democrats (center right) became very unpopular and so the socialist parties and the right wing liberals had to form an unlikely coalition. Everyone thought it would fail, but instead it made for an era of unexpected progression. In those days our country was at its most liberal.

Anyway, when a government is formed (one Minister-President and about 15 Ministers), they need to lay out their plans and in order to carry their motions they need to debate against the opposition in parliament to win a majority.

What happens when extremist parties become big, is that the other parties will form a 'Cordon Sanitaire', by agreeing with eachother never to ally with a certain party, and so isolating them.

However, right now I'm worried because the Christian Democrats haven't joined the Cordon Sanitaire to isolate Wilders' party. They said they don't want to exclude anyone this time. So basically they're so power hungry that they'll even consider allying with this madman, which means he would be able to form a government if there were elections right now. Now that is a dangerous situation.

I'm really sorry to hear about the state of affairs in your country, Hyde. I have been to South America and I must say it's indeed very different. I was in Peru when Fujimori was president. Now he turned out to be a real character, didn't he? Although I must admit I don't know anything about the current state of politics in your country. I remember stuff from the eighties though. But hey, if it gets too bad, you could always move. I know that isn't an easy decision, but there is a point where things may become intolerable. I sincerely hope not though.

[Hyde]

Yeah, how we went from those guys dancing and playing the violin to this, I'll never know...

The same argument is used here, "If you don't have anything to hide, you have nothing to worry about". It's such a lame argument! I've also heard that "Government is to be trusted" argument... I wouldn't trust any government myself, but even if I did, that argument implies to blindly trust the government to do whatever they please with your human rights. I think trusting a government in such way is suicidal.

Even worse, here until 1983 we were under one of the most brutal dictatorships of recent history, and even when now it seems to be repudiated by most people, a majority seems to think the dictatorship was bad, the streets were safer back then. Of course regular crime types were not so common when the military were all over the streets free to do whatever they pleased with anybody, but you couldn't feel so safe if you didn't like the state of things, if you thought different somehow, or even if they came after you simply because your name was in somebody's phone book, that's how over 30.000 people were killed by state terrorism and many more were tortured or had to go into exile. But even in this case, it seems it was too long ago to remember.

China is another a good example of what happens when the state has so much power over people's lives, but I don't think it's privative to them, I think. Occidental countries are not excent of this at all, they just tend to do it in a more subtle way so, except in extreme cases, it passes unnoticed, which could be even more dangerous.

As for what you say about the awareness of people in the US... Well, I agree that they have a healthy respect for their own freedoms most of the times, and I think that's something we should all take as a good example. But if you look at what happened after 9/11, people in the US reacted by fear more or less the same way, letting the Bush government cut many of their freedoms, and even self censoring their freedom of speech. And needless to say, it would be nice if people in the US had the same respect for other nations freedoms as they have for their own's (although that's not about the US alone, of course)... but that's a matter of another debate...

About the political system in Britain and the Netherlands... I find both of your descriptions really interesting. And what can I say? I think there is no perfect system, they all have brighter and darker sides.

Anyway... I wasn't talking so much about the formal system, The formal system here is pretty similar to the one Jos described for the Netherlands, except a wide majority of the votes are concentrated into one or two factions. But I was thinking beyond that. More about how either way, aside from the differences between each formal system, in European countries the system works most of the times with the aim to benefit the people, not only in the benefit of the politicians or the great corporations. I think that's one of the greatest differences between Latin American and European countries. Here, all that drives politics is the hunger for power of each group of interest.

As for Fujimori... oh yeah! He was definitely quite a character. He was one of the Latin American "right wing" presidents from the neo-liberal wave that swept the continent during the '90s, like Menem here in Argentina, and many others in almost all Latin American countries. I think that wave was one of the most damaging processes in Latin American history since the populists governments from around the '50s and the dictatorships from around the '70s.

Particularly in Argentina, the same politicians change parties according to their electoral agenda and act like they are opponents of the previous government even when, most of the times, they were an integral part of it. And what I find most amazing is people doesn't seem to notice it.

Yes, I have thought many times about leaving, and a few of my friends did. Actually, me and my family got our Italian citizenships mainly because, although I was born after the last dictatorship, my family had some pretty rough times back then, so we were afraid something the story could repeat itself, and we wanted to have an easy way out, just in case.

Right now it doesn't seem like there's a big risk of that happening again, so the main concerns for me are the typical issues of a "third world" nation, like the social inequity, the extreme poverty, the lack of opportunities for most of us, and of course the constant economic and political crises going on around ever decade or so, to name a few. And of course the consequent raging crime and other unpleasant effects of such an unfair system are always there too. The bad thing, and what makes me think so much about leaving, is I don't believe things can change around here, at least for the foreseeable future.

Even so, there are a couple reasons that kept me from leaving until now. For starters, I'd hate having to leave because of how bad things are in my own country, so you kindda resist to it, you know? It's not like just choosing to go some place else. Other than that, to find a job elsewhere, my degree is pretty much worthless, so that's kind of a drag. Besides, although I'm not too well adapted to the society I live in, I'm worried of how I'd fit in somewhere else. So... for now I guess I'll keep bitching about everything around here and try to put my two cents, but whether things get worse, or in case I get tired of struggling, I guess the option of leaving is always there. At least it's knowing I have one is strangely comforting....

[Jos Nelsh]

Yes, I remember the Junta in the eighties and of course the 'Crazy Mothers' (Las Madres de Plaza de Mayo) are -unfortunately- world famous.

As you may or may not know, in Holland we have a royal family. (They have only a ceremonial function, no political power) Our crown prince (the heir to the throne) is married to Máxima Zorreguieta, an Argentinian woman. When he got engaged with her, there was quite an uproar in the country because her father, Jorge Zorreguieta, was part of Videla's military Junta government. As part of that government, it seemed reasonable to assume that he must have known about the abductions. So, a lot of people didn't want our prince to marry her, because it would be 'wrong' for the Dutch royal family to get involved with these affairs. My opinion was 'who cares who her father is, they love each other so let them marry', but that's more because I don't really care about the royal family or its reputation. (They have quite a bad reputation as it is actually - haha - the husband of a former queen was a part of Hitler's SA before the war, and he was also involved in the Watergate affair)

Anyway, they investigated the case and it turned out that Zorreguieta at least hadn't been directly responsible, although he may have known. Zorreguieta claimed he'd known of only one single abduction, a person who had been found again later. But pretty girl Máxima learned the Dutch language real quick and won over the hearts of our people by speaking openly about this on national television, in Dutch. Our prime minister arranged that her father would not be present on the wedding, and now she's a Princess of the Netherlands, with two kids.

So this is how the Dutch are related to Argentina.

It's incredible how people in Argentina seem to have forgotten about the Juntas. As for safety in the streets, there were no streets safer than the ones during Nazi Germany, so there you go. It's a stupid argument that people make. The grass was greener in the old days.

I looked some stuff up on the internet. It seems that despite democratic reforms, the president in Argentina still holds a lot of power for one person.

I think the difference in politics between the third world and the first world countries is a logical thing. Over here we have relative wealth, and it is in everybody's interest to protect what we have achieved. In the third world, there is only inequity, and the people in power are the ones who profit from this, and often don't want to change the situation at all. Where there's poverty, there's corruption. It's not a thing that can be solved easily. In fact the first world is in a big way partly responsible for third world poverty because of unfair trade and all that.

And I agree with what you said about the US, but even though people supported Bush at the time, they are now aware of the dangers and damages of the Patriot Acts and such. I'm really glad the new US president is one who actually wants to cooperate internationally. There's a fresh breeze coming from the US, and if you ask me, it was about time. But enough about that.

I can see why it's not an easy decision to leave your country. On the other hand, even though your degree may seem 'worthless', it's a degree from university, right? I don't see how that would be worthless. If you moved to Italy, you'd be a EU citizen, and that would make it possible for you to live almost anywhere you like in the EU. With your degree, I think you should be able to live in the Netherlands (if you would even want to, that is - haha). And in case your degree would be considered 'inferior' or something, you could get a scholarship (anyone over here can!) and 'upgrade' it, so it's worth more. After all, you're still young. It will be more difficult (but not impossible) when you get older. Of course there would be the big disadvantages of learning a new language etc., not to mention leaving everyone and everything behind.

In my opinion, you can't blame people for moving to a better place if they live somewhere where they don't have a lot of opportunities.

[Hyde]

Ok, I’m finally back, I changed my ISP so I was with no interned access at home for a while.

Yes, Jos. That issue with Máxima Zorreguieta was all over news back then. Although her father was definitely involved with Videla in the military government, he wasn’t a famous character until all this happened. As far as Máxima and the royal family, to be honest, I don’t pay much attention, since I don’t care much for either one of them. As far as I know she’s a rich oligarch, and as for the Holland’s royal family, heh… I don’t care for any royal families to start with, hehe

Back to Argentina’s state of affairs… What you found is correct. It’s something that comes from way back in the history, when the power was exercised by provincial “chieftains”. Aside that historical reason, our constitution adopted the presidential system (it was almost copied from the US constitution) instead of the parliamentary system like in most European countries (which I think it’s 10 times better, btw). This mix came to present times with almost all of the power being exercised personally by the president.

I’d much rather having a parliamentary system, but that’s pretty unlikely. In fact, the way most people think about the government is through a charismatic leader exercising power almost at his will, hopefully solving everybody’s problems, or in the worst case, people still have a person to blame for what went wrong. A good example of this concentration of power is that constitutionalists define our system as hyper-presidential, as something beyond than just a presidential system.

I think you’re absolutely right, Jos. Where there’s poverty, there’s corruption, and the system is so rotten that makes it almost impossible for honest people to get involved, so it’s a vicious circle. Corruption generates poverty and at the same time, poverty and exclusion generate the perfect environment for more corruption. And yes, the state of affairs in the third world is obviously functional to first world nations, so that makes it even more difficult to change things around here.

Now we’re once again witnessing the military (together with the church, conservative parties and international corporations) overthrowing the constitutional government in Honduras, which is not only a worrying situation for people in Honduras, but for all the region, since most processes like these tend to start somewhere and then spread all over Latin America. At least this time, unlike most of the times before this one the US didn’t seem to support the overthrow, and most Latin American countries as well as the OAS condemned it, so we'll see what happens now.

What I said about my degree is because it’d be much easier to validate any other degree than mine, because mine is mostly based in Argentine law, and for each country it’s based on its own law. I could validate it for another country, but it’s a longer and more difficult process than in any other case (I mean, if I had any other kind of degree).

Yes, of course I’d absolutely love to live in the Netherlands! It’s definitely one of the best places in the world, if you ask me… Although now with Wilders it probably might not be such a smart move to go there, huh? lol.
Other than that, the language thing would be a pretty big issue… Spain might be the easier choice for me with that in mind…

Anyway, for now I intend to at least give it a shot here. I know it could be more difficult if I decide to leave when I get older, but at least being an Italian citizen the option is always there.