Ukraine Thread

[Greyblades]

People are asked to vote against or in favor of the Association Agreement between the EU and Ukraine. Yet in fact it is like asking people to give their opinion on the Collected Works of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. It is not even important whether you read it – it is such a complex document that can be interpreted by laypersons in so many ways that it does not make sense.

Strange that gilrandir's article is presenting this as a reason not to do away with an agreement when it sounds like a great reason to get rid of it, or at least replace it..

People want to see strawberries on their Dutch table in December, but they do not want globalization. People want to be sure their yogurts are fresh and safe and with an appropriate expiration date, but they don’t want EU rules and regulations. People want to surf their smartphones 24 hours a day, but they don’t want modern technology to make jobs redundant. People want all the pleasures but not the other side of the coin. Quite normal, of course, but any intelligent person knows you can’t have one without the other. Yet the majority of those who will vote “no” on April 6 in Holland want only one, and not the other.

Yeesh what an elitist asshole, he'd fit right in here.

He also seems completely ignorant of the concepts of greenhouses, dutch rules and regulations, and protectionism

You can call Parliament a “fake Parliament”, male refugees “testosterone bombs” that need to be locked up in camps and shout “No more Maroccans” and somehow every time well-educated Dutchmen adjust their levels of acceptance and let him continue.

I take it back, he wouldnt fit in here, even the worst of us arent complaining about free speech in action.

However, by now he has reached a level that reminds me painfully of the gentlemen Joseph Goebbels and Julius Streicher, who had the same type of stereotype slogans regarding Jews in the 1930s. A person who would have hibernated for twenty years and wake up now would not believe his eyes and ears, yet we have basically accepted his sick behavior because it is a step by step process, every time a little bit further. Just like Hitler in the 1920s and early 1930s; don’t forget, Germany was a democracy then, and Hitler came to power in a democratic fashion, not through a coup d’état like the Soviets!

Wow nazi comparison combined with historical ignorance of the night of long knives, this guy is a gift that keeps on giving.

The truth is that Europe is a war zone. Putin and his criminal buddies have brought the war to Europe. They stimulate discontent through their social media trolls, they support the earlier mentioned right-wing politicians because they are a destabilizing factor, they do anything to bring Merkel down (even if only because she is a “people’s traitor” from East Germany); they create havoc in Syria to keep the refugees coming.

This makes it very hard for the “yes-campaign”. How to make a population understand that this is not about Ukraine, but about something else? How to explain that by voting “no” they play right into the hands of a criminal state that is collapsing and as a result all the more dangerous? And I wonder, what would have happened if in the late 1930s Germans had a referendum vote on the Jews: how many would have voted against their expulsion?

Wait...Wouldnt the jewish community be better off right now if germany had expelled them before the nazis got into power?

Unfortunately, my political party D’66 created an instrument that is now fundamentally abused. My only hope is that it will open people’s eyes before it is too late. Democracy is in mortal danger, but it is not too late. We can still stop the process.

This would carry more weight (which is to say any) if he had actually tried to explain to the supposedly ignorant masses what the agreement is.