Oct 272015
 
 October 27, 2015  Posted by at 9:24 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,


LIFE How to kiss 1942

On the day after a bunch of European countries headed into yet another -emergency- meeting, and as the refugee situation in Greece and the Balkans was more out of hand than ever before, not in the least because the numbers of refugees arriving from -in particular- Turkey are larger than ever, let’s reiterate what should always be the guiding principle driving the response to issues like this.

That is, the only way to approach a crisis such as this one is to put the people first. To say that whatever happens, we will do what we can, first and foremost, to not allow for people to drown, or go hungry or cold, or contract diseases. Because that contradicts our basic morals. The loss of lives and prevention of misery should be the most important thing for everyone involved, all the time, from politicians to citizens.

If we cannot approach both the issue and the people with decency and humanity, we are as lost as they are. If only because we have no claim to being treated better than we ourselves treat others. After all, if someone else’s life is neither sacred nor valuable, why should yours be?

Looking through the response across Europe to the growing numbers and the growing crisis, what’s remarkable is the difference between individual citizens and the governments that are supposed to represent them. Apart from outliers like Hungary PM Victor Urban and the ubiquitous fascist groups from Greece through Germany, citizens win hands-down and across the board when it comes to humanity.

The arguably worst record is set by the European Union, ironically the one body that claims to represent everyone in the 500 million strong continent. Individual politicians in leading nations like Germany, France and the UK are close behind. European ‘leaders’ are not looking for a European solution, they’re all only trying to deal with their own part of the problem. As long as the refugees don’t burden their nations, they’re satisfied.

After a year of increasing refugee arrivals it’s safe to say that the pan-European approach, to the extent that it can even be said to exist, is a dismal and deadly failure.

Yesterday’s ‘Balkan+’ mini-summit was no exception. The AP headline says it all: “EU Agrees To Tighten Border Controls And Slow Migrant Arrival”. Europe’s priority is not to fight or minimize the suffering, it’s to make the problems go away by making the people go away. The new deal that came out of the summit cannot possibly work because it is based on unrealistic predictions of stopping the flow of refugees.

Greece has agreed to ‘host’ 50,000 refugees, but with 10,000 arriving daily that is a meaningless number. Apart from that, this is supposed to take place in ‘holding camps’, and the term all by itself should make one shiver. The ‘hotspots’, another EU initiative, are already making the refugee situation even worse than they have been for months.

Moreover, these people don’t want to stay in Greece, because in Greece economic prospects are so bleak as to be non-existent for the simple reason that the EU itself has demolished the Greek economy. Those responsible for that demolition now seek to force Greece to keep refugees from traveling north in holding camps and severely undermanned fingerprint facilities.

Disgrace comes in spades. It was therefore good to see that Greece had the pretty perfect answer:

Greece Says Refugees Are Not Enemies, Refuses to Protect Borders From Them

Greece’s migration minister has rejected accusations by Germany and other European countries that Greece is failing to defend its borders against mass migration, insisting that the refugees and other migrants trekking to Europe constitute a humanitarian crisis, not a defense threat. “Greece can guard its borders perfectly and has been doing so for thousands of years, but against its enemies. The refugees are not our enemies,” Yiannis Mouzalas said in an interview.

Greece is under pressure from other European governments to use its coast guard and navy to control the huge influx of migrants who are making their way, via the Aegean Sea and Greece’s territory, from the Middle East to Northern Europe, especially Germany. [..] leaders from Greece and other countries on the latest migration route through the Balkans are facing allegations from Germany, Hungary and others that they are passively allowing migrants to pass through.

“In practice what lies behind the accusation is the desire to repel the migrants,” said Mr. Mouzalas. “Our job when they are in our territorial sea is to rescue them, not [let them] drown or repel them.”

Last week alone, Greece received about 48,000 migrants and refugees on its shores, the highest number of weekly arrivals this year, the International Organization for Migration said Friday.

Athens opposes an idea floated by European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker to set up joint Turkish-Greek border patrols. Greece and Turkey have long-standing disputes over their territorial waters, which have led to military tension over the years.

“This was an unfortunate statement by Mr. Juncker,” Mr. Mouzalas said. “The joint patrols have never been on the table. They have no point anyway, as they wouldn’t help ease the situation.”

Mr. Mouzalas said Turkey should have been invited to Sunday’s summit. “Turkey is the door and Greece is the corridor; Europe should not treat Greece as the door..”

But count on Brussels and Berlin to issue Athens with more threats. It worked over the summer, so… Still, Europe as a whole, the 28 nations that make up the EU, can and will not agree on the entire issue and all its aspects. And that is why Yanis Varoufakis is wrong in his approach, and his call to Britain (which he shares with Xi Jinping of all people) and the rest of Europe:

Yanis Varoufakis Says Britons Should Vote To Stay In Union

Yanis Varoufakis, the former Greek finance minister, has called on Britons to vote to remain in the European Union in the upcoming referendum. The bête noire of the European political elite was speaking at a Guardian Live event at Central Hall in Westminster, central London, on Friday night. He said: “You have a referendum coming up. My message is simple yet rich: those of us who disdain the democratic deficit in Brussels, those of us who detest the authoritarianism of a technocracy which is incompetent and contemptuous of democracy, those of us who are most critical of Europe have a moral duty to stay in Europe, fight for it, and democratise it.”

Yanis is wrong because the EU is not a democratic institution, and can therefore not be “democratized”. It’s a pipedream gone horribly awry. It should be exorcised. And even if “democratization” were possible in theory, before you can reform the EU, you’re 10-20 years or more down the road. And there’s no such time available. The problems exist in the presence, not just in the future.

The EU is a loose collection of separate sovereign nations that came together in times of plenty. These nations will always, when pressured, seek their own advantages, never that of the collective if it means a disadvantage for themselves. The whole idea behind the union has been, from the start, that of a tide that lifts all boats. And that promise has already been smashed into a corner, bruised and broken beyond repair.

After Greece there can be no doubt of that. And the other separate EU-member economies are not exactly doing well either. Mario Draghi pumps €60 billion a month into the eurozone engine, but it keeps leaking just as hard and the best it can do is sputter.

In institutions such as the EU, organized like the EU, power will inevitably flow towards the center. And at some point in that process, democracy will vanish into thin air. Draghi’s €60 billion will just as inevitably benefit the power center most, and leave the periphery ever poorer. This is not an unfortunate coincidence, it’s built into the union’s structure. Which is therefore not merely undemocratic, it’s inherently anti-democratic.

Nobody in Europe ever voted for Jean-Paul Juncker -or had the chance to- to represent them, at least not in any direct democratic fashion. And nobody outside of Germany ever voted for Angela Merkel -or had the chance to- . Yet, these are arguably the most powerful people in the EU. That in a nutshell is what’s wrong with and in Europe.

Financial and political power reside with the rich and powerful nations, and they acquire more of each as they go along. This is unavoidable in the present situation. It can only be corrected by decentralization of power, but since that would run counter to what Brussels and Berlin envision (more power for themselves), it’s not going to happen. Europe will not be ‘democratized’.

Or put it this way: the only way EU nations can regain democratic values is by leaving the union. That is also the only real vote Europeans have left; a vote within the EU structure goes wasted. Ask the Greeks.

Europeans need to acknowledge that the EU has failed, and inexorably so. Schengen is already dead, walls and fences are popping up everywhere. All the rest is just make-believe. There will never be a consensus on the ‘distribution’ of the numbers of refugees. Views and national interests are too far apart.

And the vested interests in the centers of power are too strong. Merkel may be Europe’s unelected leader, but she will always put German interests before those of the 27 other nations. This may be accepted in 7 years of plenty, but it won’t be in the 7 lean years.

Meanwhile, it’s the hundreds of thousands of refugees who pay the price for the fundamental faultlines in what was supposed to bring and hold Europe together. And an interesting additional issue, which so far flies largely under the radar, arises.

First, refugee numbers keep rising, as Reuters reports:

Immigration flows to Greece surged to 48,000 in the five days to October 21, the highest weekly total so far this year, bringing the number of Mediterranean migrant arrivals in Europe to 681,000 the International Organization for Migration said today. Amin Awad, the Middle East director for the UN refugee agency UNHCR, said Russian airstrikes and increased fighting around the Syrian city of Aleppo had contributed to the “dynamic of displacement”, with about 50,000 displaced, but had not contributed much to the refugee exodus. But he said the number of internally displaced people within Syria had fallen from 7.6 million people to 6.3 million, a decline that could be attributed to the refugee flows to Europe, as well as people being missed from the latest count.

48,000 in 5 days in Greece from October 17-21, 12,000 in one day in Slovenia. Over 5,000 in 5 hours on Lesvos Friday. 52 refugees died off Greece in 10 days. That’s five lives lost every day. While Brussels stand by and watches, as does Merkel, paralyzed by fears of losing votes and power at home. And when they do act, it’s most of all to try and quell the refugee flood, not to minimize the suffering.

Turkey gets offered billions to built camps on its territory, Greece is threatened into doing the same. Makes you wonder where Juncker and Merkel think the people they want to lock up in these camps will eventually wind up.

Slovenia is the latest bottleneck, after many miles of walls and and fences and razorwire have been installed elsewhere.

Last Tuesday, Slovenia was first reported to be asking for “additional police forces”.

Slovenia Asks For EU Police Help As Thousands Enter Country

Around 19,500 have entered Slovenia since Friday after Hungary sealed its southern border with Croatia. Speaking after a meeting with European Council President Donald Tusk and EU chief executive Jean-Claude Juncker, President Borut Pahor said:

We need fast assistance of the European Union. Slovenia will formally ask for additional police forces to guard the border between Slovenia and Croatia and for financial help.

The country has deployed 140 soldiers to the border to assist police and hasn’t ruled out building a fence as part of its efforts to control the influx of migrants.

And I thought: police? What police? There is no EU police force. At least not a ‘boots on the ground’ one. There’s Europol, Europe’s own Interpol, but they do intelligence. There’s the European Gendarmerie Force, but that’s a (para-)military police force. And we’re dealing with sovereign nations here, so any police force, let alone a military one, would face huge legal issues; at least if people pay attention.

Then a few days later, Reuters had this:

Worried Slovenia Might Built Fence To Cope With Migrant Crisis

Slovenia said it will consider all options, including fencing off its border with Croatia, if European leaders fail to agree a common approach to the migrant crisis as thousands stream into the ex-Yugoslav republic. Migrants began crossing into Slovenia last Saturday after Hungary closed its border with Croatia. The Slovenian Interior Ministry said that a total of 47,000 had entered the country since Saturday, including some 10,000 in the past 24 hours. Slovenian officials said the country is too small and does not have enough resources to handle such large numbers of people. [..]

According to Slovenia’s interior ministry, the cost of fencing off the 670-km long border with Croatia would be about €80 million. Slovenia has asked for the EU for assistance and officials said Austria, Germany, Italy, France, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Poland offered to send police reinforcements.

That’s 8 different countries offering to send policemen. But what status would these people have? Would they be allowed to bear arms? In a foreign sovereign nation? I’d love to see the legal documents that justify such a move. Would these foreign police officials also enjoy immunity, as Europol officers do? Under whose command would they operate?

I can imagine perhaps these new policemen, or border guards, could be Frontex, but Slovenia is not on Europe’s border. And Frontex already lacks the personnel to execute its intended policies (halt the refugees) in places where Europe does have borders.

This looks like a deep and dark legal quagmire. So perhaps it’s not surprising that Slovenia digs a little deeper still, as the Guardian noted yesterday:

Slovenia To Hire Private Security Firms To Manage Migrant Flows

Slovenia is planning to employ private security firms to help manage the flow of thousands of migrants and refugees travelling through the country toward northern Europe, a senior official has said. Bostjan Sefic, state secretary at the interior ministry, said 50-60 private security guards would assist the police where necessary. More than 76,000 people have arrived in Slovenia from Croatia in the past 10 days. More than 9,000 were in Slovenia on Monday, hoping to reach Austria by the end of the day, while many more were on their way to Slovenia from Croatia and Serbia. The emergency measure was announced by the prime minister, who described the migrant crisis as the biggest challenge yet to the EU.

If a joint solution is not found, [EU] will start breaking up, Miro Cerar warned. About 2,000 migrants waited in a field in Rigonce on the Croatian border on Monday for buses to take them to a nearby camp to be registered before they are allowed to proceed north. [..] Slovenia, the smallest country on the Balkan migration route, has brought in the army to help police. Other EU states have pledged to send a total of 400 police officers this week to help manage the flow of people. Over the past 24 hours, 8,000 people arrived in Serbia en route to northern Europe, the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, said.

Now I know it all perhaps depends on what tasks the various ‘additional’ crew are supposed to handle. Frontex could be doing registration and finger printing. Europol could do some stuff behind the scenes, like sniffing out alleged terrorists. But actual policemen and soldiers and even private security operating inside a sovereign European nation?

The overarching question is how this is different, how far removed is it, from German soldiers and policemen patrolling in for instance Greece? And what would be the reaction from the Greek people to such a development? Or we can turn it around: how would Germans react to Greek soldiers operating on German soil? Once you provide a legal justification for one situation, this should cover all 28 nations, and equally.

Another question is Slovenia once hires private security, how far away are we from employing some subsidiary of Blackwater to patrol the Aegean and/or other parts of the Mediterranean? Or land-based border crossings for that matter?

It will become clearer, fast, what an awful mess Brussels and Berlin have created here, because with winter approaching more refugees will fall victim to the conditions under which they’re forced to live once they’ve entered Europe. Which, in their own eyes, will still be preferable to the conditions in their homelands. And then what will we do, when dozens start dying from cold and diseases? Send in more police and military?

This is a road to a very bleak nowhere. We can only possibly return to what I started out with: “the only way to approach a crisis such as this one is to put the people first.” That is, pay for and send in aid agencies, not officers bearing arms.

And perhaps Europe should begin to ponder the possibility that this is not something it can stop at will. That the 500 million citizens of the EU may have to share their bounty with a few million newcomers. Who, on the whole, look a lot fitter, more determined and more motivated than scores of Europeans do, by the way.

Home Forums Europe’s On A Road To A Very Bleak Nowhere

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  • #24602

    LIFE How to kiss 1942 On the day after a bunch of European countries headed into yet another -emergency- meeting, and as the refugee situation in Gree
    [See the full post at: Europe’s On A Road To A Very Bleak Nowhere]

    #24608
    Dr. Diablo
    Participant

    Interesting musings on the down-low problems of the refugee crisis but we should not lose sight of the big picture:
    A) the United States is the root cause of the disorder in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and as a large number are economic refugees from Eastern Europe, in Serbia from the war in the 90’s. So perhaps the U.S. should take them all?
    B) The refugee crisis is entirely synthesized and staged. There were no refugees for 5 years running until suddenly, one day in August, there are 4,000 a day or 2.5M annualized? Does that seem likely? Or were these bottlenecked for that time, then released by command to Turkey, where as former well-paid anti-Assad mercenaries and protesters, a well-known slice are either wealthy and staying in hotels, buying businesses in Serbia, or else as Austria officially reported were paid by the NGO’s to appear in Europe in flip-flops and a smart phone? And it’s been well-reported that they’re disproportionately young men without families? Where are their children, wives, aunts, grandparents except on the newsreels?
    C) The purpose of engineering a refugee crisis in Europe is specifically to garner support for a pan-middle-eastern war they have not been able to get off the ground otherwise. As the “Safe Zone” plan in Syria (the original need for the exodus) was shredded by Russia, they will convince the world the only way to solve the incredible problems of this exodus–that may end Europe as we know it (or at least Europe since 1945)– is to take over the whole Middle East, by bombing it—into “peace” of course–and return the refugees to their home countries.

    How convenient. So Europe can start or wildly support a war in the Middle East, or they can cease to exist. And we’re focusing on how mean Europe is not to have built cities of 250,000 per month in anticipation of guests they didn’t know were coming? Who could possibly do that? And meanwhile Turkey is kicking them out, and Saudi Arabia won’t take a single one of them, yet Europe is the big meanie here? NOT the bombers, NOT the instigators, NOT the fellow and bordering Muslim nations who recently expelled them? Is there some weird guilt here I don’t understand?

    Down on the street level, suppose there’s a fire in town and they ask you to take a homeless guy in your house. Okay, we can all only imagine the sort of disruption and hazard this might cause to have a war-beaten man, unemployed, on your couch, with your wife, meeting your kids after school while you’re at work all day. But okay, sure. Then they say you have to take his family of eight. Okay, so maybe, although that’s doubling up each household, or even outnumbering/outvoting you as we’ve seen at some border towns already. But at 2.5 Million annualized, you’re talking about Dr. Zhivago, where you come home to find 5 families living in your house, and you’ve lost the house and been relegated to an upper bedroom…if they’re feeling generous. How much can you take? But okay, go ahead and try it. Open your personal house and living room to all comers. I’ve done it. See what happens for yourself.

    Let’s not take our eye off the ball. The crisis is specifically engineered to allow the very people who openly broke international law, openly invaded a sovereign nation without even a U.N. rubber stamp, committed war crimes by bombing civilians flat, and to allow them to bomb yet more civilians in order for them to get even richer and have more of a choke hold on the world than they do now. DON’T LET THEM. Call them out and speak the whole truth, big as well as small.

    It’s not the refugee’s fault. Don’t aid their abusers.

    #24609
    Ceteris Paribus
    Participant

    I agree with Dr. Diablo. This article is wrong-headed, in my (European) eyes, since it fails to correctly address the background and motivation of the sudden “refugee” streams. This situation is obviously engineered, for the most sinister of motives, and it is unfair to assign blame to the overwhelmed and betrayed European governments alone.

    The EU in its current form is finished, I agree, but not from lack of humanity towards these misguided invaders; rather from lack of principle to stand by the rule of law, lack of will to defend their borders, lack of frankness about the situation, betrayal from within, and a total lack of backbone.

    Living in what may well become the eye of the coming storm, I am aghast at the total failure of our institutions (not just the EU) to protect us, now that a dire emergency is on our doorsteps. The mainstream media accounts are clearly orchestrated by outside forces and the people are getting more and more worried at the obvious manipulation, and angry, without outlet for their feelings. Sometimes I think this is what it must have felt before the Tutsis and Hutus clashed. “They are coming to massacre us all.” “We must defend ourselves.” “The government must be bought off/mad/blind, it is up to us.” etc. Articles like yours are not helpful in such a polarised atmosphere.

    Who has an interest to foment such conflict in our hitherto peaceful region? Turkey, obviously, but who else? It’s not hard to guess, though difficult to wrap one’s mind around such large-scale, wanton evil.

    #24610
    Dr. Diablo
    Participant

    Adding: 5 deaths per day in migrants, 75 per day in EU traffic fatalities. NYC has 152 deaths per day for 8M people, or about 5 deaths per 263,000.

    Imagine a mass-army maneuver with 2-300,000 men involved, cold weather, amphibious landings involved, etc. How many injuries even with with medics and airlifts on the spot? How many deaths are due to coyotes robbing and killing their transports? For that matter, what is the primary cause of death? In this polarized climate, are the numbers reliable?

    Remember 200,000 people walking 4 abreast would take some 55 hours — 2 days, day and night — to cross a bridge. While every unnecessary death is tragic, when you talk mass numbers, 5 may not be very high.

    #24611
    jal
    Participant

    Let’s have a bit more understanding/emphaty.
    There is no need to argue about the causes.
    You cannot build a doomstead against what is happening.
    Those refugees are not going to melt away like a snowball in hell.
    Their hell is going to impact into your life and become your hell.
    China has already built their cities to take care their refugees.

    #24614
    Supranational
    Participant

    If you think 1-2 million is problematic, it is estimated that 900 million people will be born in sub-Saharan Africa in the next twenty years. (>2 orders of magnitude). Chronically treating the crescendoing symptoms of a problem without treating the root causal factors lacks efficacy.

    Rational thought anyone? Anyone?

    The variable of Human Population is the single limiting and commensurable variable across all antagonistic factors facing humanity, at all scales of organization. The variable of population determines the magnitude, range, and intensity, of the selfish competition for limited, highly leveraged, mutually exclusive shares of biocapacity in a zero sum game. All antagonistic human phenomena and deleterious human behaviour have this game theory dynamic, biocapacity overshoot, and population longage etiology. All other variables are either not limiting, not commensurable, or both. Similarly, all other human problems are internally, subordinate to the problem of population. The variable of population has unique “Supraordinate Ontological Status.” The unique ontological status of the variable of population dominates both “Problem Spaces” and “Solution Spaces” at all scales of organization. The variable that is limiting and commensurable in problem creation is equally limiting and commensurable in problem resolution; the leverage of the variable of population goes both ways.

    Problem upscaling and “Problem Metamorphosis” have asserted overpopulation and biocapacity overshoot at the planetary scale. Overpopulation and carrying capacity overshoot are the quintessential archetypes of planetary problems. Planetary overpopulation and vast overshoot of planetary carrying capacity define the “Supraordinate Problem Space (SPS)” facing humanity; All problems are internally subordinate to the Supraordinate Problem Space. The selfish competition between sub-global actors for limited, highly leveraged, mutually exclusive shares of planetary biocapacity in a zero sum game is the principle dynamic of the SPS. The full spectrum of planetary problems facing humanity are nothing but sophisticated manifestations of the game theory dynamic of the SPS. The mathematical impossibility of large scale “Mutual coercion, mutually agreed upon,” the multi-decal failure of climate change negotiations, global militarization, nuclear posturing, warfare, and geopolitics are nothing but sophisticated manifestations of the game theory dynamic of the SPS.

    Upon encountering these sweeping antithetical propositions, many may question the role of the variable of population in the evils, selfishness, domination, violence, and warfare of the world. The game theory dynamic that defines the system is fundamentally a Mental game theory dynamic. The “evils” of the world are the direct result of a plurality of minds selfishly competing to maximize their “Will to Power.” The infinite subjective potential for maximization of Will Power, is contrasted with the finite ability to actualize it. Billions of subjective minds attempting to maximize their will power in a finite, objective, biophysical, domain, invariably leads to extreme competition, violent conflict, and hierarchical power structures of domination and submission. Collectively, we attempt to mitigate the maximization of individual wills, and optimize the will of the collective to achieve the “Greatest good for the greatest number;” We enact and enforce rights, freedoms, laws and polices to prevent the “Tyranny of the majority” from infringing on the basic rights and freedoms of individuals and to disincentivize criminality and deleterious human behaviour. “Rights and Freedoms,” are abstract (mental) constructs that only have meaning, subject to their ability to be actualized and reified in biophysical reality. If a right or freedom cannot be actualized and enforced in biophysical reality, then said right or freedom is an invalid mental fiction. Over and over, humanity strives toward the highest ideals while simultaneously destroying the foundation on which achieving those ideals can be realized. Planetary overpopulation and carrying capacity overshoot invalidate the narrative of the greatest good for the greatest number and make the actualization of rights and freedoms a biophysical impossibility; Maximizing equality under such constraints, maximizes catastrophe. Humanities “Right to Breed” has destroyed the ability for humanity to fulfill ALL other rights! The “Right to Breed” has paradoxically, invalidated the “Right to Life.” Maximization of the variable of population maximizes the magnitude, range, and intensity of selfish competition for limited, highly leveraged, mutually exclusive shares of biocapacity in a zero sum game. Maximization of this game theory dynamic, invariably maximizes all antagonistic human phenomena and deleterious human behaviour. Human selfishness and evils are as old as humans themselves and present at all scales of organization; The variable of population, however, determines our meaningful capacity to mitigate such evils and selfishness, and to reify human basic rights and freedoms in the biophysical world. The variable of population dominates both “Problem spaces” and “Solution spaces” at all scales of organization!

    The variable of human population dominates every aspect of human existence: The cannibalistic destruction of the planets’ natural capital, devastation of ecosystem services, collapse of common resource pools, compromise of life support systems, mass extinction of biodiversity, breach of planetary limits conducive to life, and perversion of global chemical cycles are human population problems. All human environmental, waste, and pollution problems are equally longages of population. Every human biocapacity, resource, energy, infrastructure, and space shortage is equally a longage of population. (GH)

    Organized religions exist by brainwashing successive generations of formative minds to grow and perpetuate their power hierarchies. Excessive breeding, patriarchal violence, subordination of the power and freedom of women, arranged marriages, honour killings, institutionalized rape, gender discrimination, caste structures, religious intolerance, rigid orthodoxy, educational retardation, militant theocracy, fundamentalism, and terrorism, exist because of breeding, and brainwashing of offspring. At its foundation, organized religion is a population issue! This fundamental conflict of interest is the principle reason that organized religion vehemently opposes population control; Population control is an existential threat to their continuity of power over impressionable minds.

    Liberating women from the bounds of patriarchal dominance is essential to tackling more that the population problem. The way Europe deals with the migrant/refugee crisis will determine much more than we anticipate.

    #24616
    sangell51
    Participant

    Rather absurd argument to suggest ” we will do what we can, first and foremost, to not allow for people to drown, or go hungry or cold, or contract diseases” when they put themselves at risk. Paying a criminal gang to smuggle you across the Mediterranean in an overloaded rubber dinghy is stupid enough but it becomes child abuse or manslaughter when you imperil or cause your own children to die. If it is the Swedes duty to ” do what they can, first and foremost, to not allow for people to drown, or go hungry or cold, or contract diseases” maybe the so called refugees have similar duty themselves and remain in Turkey, Jordan or wherever as long as they are secure and being fed.

    A terrible precedent is being set that will only result in third world people taken insane risks to reach nations that cannot provide for them.

    #24626
    Dr. Diablo
    Participant

    Your fancy rhetoric belies a variety of errors in your fundamental assumptions. I’ve laboriously covered a couple before, no need to do so again. You forget that game theory itself is simply a construct of your mind, as are most things things humans deal with and get excited about. Population is catagorically NOT the primary driver at all levels of organization: my house has a lot of room, perhaps a little too much. And arguably my town and region as well. It therefore does not apply at the family/household level for me, and perhaps a billion like me throughout the world–the household level being what humans primarily interact with, outside of their minds and theories.

    Where is the “will to power” you speak of, the competition? For 10,000 years, first nations lived throughout the planet without the overpopulation you cite as primary. Where did this overpopulation and will to breed suddenly come from? Where did this “will to power”, to dominate whole other nations, continents, planets, suddenly arise? So is this a primary function, a wholly human function and fault, or is it something about the specific paradigm and culture we have had for the last 500 years? A small, almost meaningless anomoly in geologic time?

    The population causes violent competition for resources you say, driving wars, deaths, cultures like leaves on the wind. Yet 5% of the world’s population uses 25% of its resources, probably the other 5% (europe) uses most of another 25%. It’s well-established that the top 1%–or rather 0.01%–controls 90% of the world’s wealth. So if those people were to be cut down to 50% of the world’s wealth, the rest distributed to re-enrich the people, wouldn’t we solve the poverty/hunger/desperation issue overnight? Or put another way, isn’t there still enough for all our need, but not all their greed?

    And would this still demand ever-increasing population? No. I’ve already cited that cultures lived 10,000 years without overpopulation, we can go there if we choose. But beyond that, we have dropping birthrates throughout much of the world already, including the enormous population of China, as well as Europe, the US minus immigration, and Africa is roughly steady, not wildly rising. The high population areas are demographically young and will statistically age and fall. Even aside from that, with $23Trillion used to bail out bankers in the U.S. alone, don’t you think we could colonize an entire planet for that? That’s one nation, one crisis.

    Yet there is nothing but population as a driver. That will be the case if you lack imagination to look at history, at resources, at science, and imagine us using a tiny fraction of the solutions at our disposal. Yes, if we do nothing, your future may come true. But only in that one condition. When have you ever seen humans try nothing at all when they are put to the test? History shows they will try a lot of things. Let’s hope, despite everyone focusing on inevitable doom rather than our potential and obligations, that they will try the right things.

    #24643
    galacticsurfer
    Participant

    USA colony BRD takes commands from headquarters to direct the results of banking crisis, sanctions against russia, now this. All the same. If there were a free press and democratically elected govt. there would be none of these problems. Your line is brainwashing of CIA propaganda. Wikileaks had the scoop. Empty syria to weaken it then weaken and confuse Europe. So intelligent when it comes to banking but to fall for the simplest tricks of the teary eyed refugees. 80% male and young not from Syria seeking work or welfare plus free housing in paradise. Thank American war machine. European press is mouthpiece of usa/nato/cia policy and govts. all parrot this policy blindly. Killing of Russians is humanitarian aid. Ukronazis are saints.Beheadings in Saudi Arabia is an internal affair as is drug smuggling, bombing of yemen and tsking in no refugees while funding a war in fellow arab countries. Instead germany supplies weapons to saudis and takes these refugees caused by taliban funded by saudis, usa. Polar bears is not GW debate, solved by electroautos. Similarly shallow is your discussion of this problem, while your technical prowess in economics is unparalelled. It shows that specialists are specialists. I read Saker or RT or local alternnative press in Europe for background. It is too easy to let superficial arguments of do gooderness without context blind you as German lapdog press has done. Why does same press lie night and day about greece, ukraine, etc.? Maybe they have an agenda?

    #24644
    GetAbike
    Participant

    Please include a discussion of consequences when suggesting an “open Europe” policy.
    I can think of one not-so-minor consequence: The furious right-wing/ nativist reaction and the short time frame required to up-end the governments who promote such policies.
    What will become of the refugees then?

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