Food prices

[cyrano]

please avoid ad hominem which is against the rules. (#4).

JR

Please stop seeing insults on one side. I thanked the guy for his demonstration. And that's what it is, if you know how to read, at least. I know what I'm talking about, as I have a phd in communication sciences.

 

[cyrano]

I didn’t read anything about Solidarity in the previous page and a half. It was collectivism and communism as a solution(sucks). I remember the solidarity movement from Poland which I thought was a workers union which I compare to the farmers in Nederland protesting heads of state climate change garbage. People need food and a living. God help the Nederlands.

Solidarity is just a word. I wasn't thinking about the Polish "Solidarity" movement. Solidarity is what drives things like health insurance. Collectivism is just another form of solidarity. Communism is in theory, at least, based on solidarity. The Soviets went awfully wrong and ended up with dictators.

The situation in the Netherlands is about another thing: the rules for farmers are a lot more stringent than those for industry. These rules were designed by the EU and are very hard for smaller countries. That said, it's been known for many years that fi, in Belgium, there are far too many pig breeders. Even the pig keepers themselves know that.

 

[JohnRoberts]

Please stop seeing insults on one side.

I am human so likely experience personal bias in my perspective.

I thanked the guy for his demonstration.

good

And that's what it is, if you know how to read, at least.

Asking if I/we know how to read?

I know what I'm talking about, as I have a phd in communication sciences.

So you should be a really good communicator?

cyrano[/URL]]
Thanks for demonstrating the effect of a century of propaganda and a failing school system.

I don't have a phd in communication, but I can read and my interpretation of that statement is that it is an insult (if not to one person, to the entire nation). Are you arguing that the statement not an insult, but an objective statement of fact? While the US school system and political parties are not above criticism.

JR

PS; I learned while coaching a basketball team in the adult city league... It is never productive to argue with the refs. This is not a veiled threat just an objective observation from my experience coaching.

 

[cyrano]

On immigration: despite housing many refugees, employers in Belgium are currently scouting Mexico and India as a source of trained workers...

 

[cyrano]

While the US school system and political parties are not above criticism.

What does this even mean?

 

[sahib]

Where exactly have I been unfair? In negotiations "unfair" is an emotional term used for leverage, without any actual intrinsic meaning, so it's best to be very vary of it...

Well, with your previous post "And the right wing straw man train rolls on. I am out of here." the impression I got is that the you were referring to those who do not agree with you as right wing. May be you meant something else but that's what I got.

I do not care for ideology. My focus is on what is objectively working the best with the least harm to anyone. You could call this left wing, because in psychological science harm reduction is a trait emphasized by left-leaning individuals, while being lower on purity and group loyalty than those leaning right.

I am not calling it left but I am assuming that since you label your opposition as right I assume that you must be on the left.

However, who in psychological science decides who is right or who is left on the basis of a trait being emphasised? When harm reduction trait has become the sole property of "left leaning" ?

I am not sure how old you are, but I am 62 and I grew up through '70s terrorism in Turkey and my experience of harm reduction was not a trait that you would see in the left. But, things must have changed since then.

Now, regarding immigration: It obviously presents huge challenges. I cited Peter Turchin's unideological findings more than once, that immigration has always been used by the elite to lower the average wage vs. GDP and thus transfer wealth from the bottom and middle to the top. But people on the right prefer to scapegoat groups of "others" rather than adressing this very real problem (after all purity and group loyalty are core emotional drivers). Well, they sort of get it sometimes, AnalogPackrat did mention corporations, but it's mostly kind of jumbled and unclear. The moment you actually adress the elephant in the room the well-learned ideological teachings kick in and phrases like "class warfare" are uttered.

Hold on, hold on here!!

People on the right are the ones labelled as anti-immigration. How come they've suddenly become the ones using it to lower wages? The left leaning elite is pro immigration, and therefore they must be the ones exploiting it. But somehow it is billed to the righ leaning.

As for Germany, a lot of mistakes were made wrt to immigration in the postwar era.

Does that mean the lessons are learned and we are not making the same mistakes now, or a couple of decades down the line people will be talking about the mistakes made again?

Integration of a wave of immigrants is never easy, it's hard to imagine today how much - for instance - Irish immigrants in 19th century United States were resented. There was a time, not long ago, when an Irish or Jewish US President or even Supreme Court Judge would have been unthinkable to a majority. But as you wrote, the dust eventually settles.

This Irish or Jewish (in my wife's case Italian too) analogy is used all the time, but there is a huge difference that people seem to avoid mentioning. In those days there was no such thing as state benefit or social security. You could not work? You were hungry. The end. But they still integrated over time ( for example my father-in-law being Irish and mother-in-law being Italian). They integrated because the cultural differences were miniscule in comparison to, say Middle-East or Norht Africa.

So yes, opening the gates won't work in the long time. It's a hard pill to swallow for the left. But then the western countries are often responsible for people coming to their country in one way or another, so what is needed there is, as Matator said, is solidarity. In our current framework we don't seem to be capable of doing any of that.

Solidarity? Yes. As I mentioned before I am an immigrant. I am all for it. But not for blind solidarity. We now have do-gooders who are showing solidarity for those who do not have a legal basis to stay in this country (in my case the UK).

 

[living sounds]

Well, with your previous post "And the right wing straw man train rolls on. I am out of here." the impression I got is that the you were referring to those who do not agree with you as right wing. May be you meant something else but that's what I got.

I was mostly referring to sodderboy's latest post.

I am not calling it left but I am assuming that since you label your opposition as right I assume that you must be on the left.

However, who in psychological science decides who is right or who is left on the basis of a trait being emphasised? When harm reduction trait has become the sole property of "left leaning" ?

This is science. I read scientific studies all the time, hardly any ideological stuff no, no TV or videos, and may assume other people do the same thing. I do cite studies, but people often don't seem to care.

I am not sure how old you are, but I am 62 and I grew up through '70s terrorism in Turkey and my experience of harm reduction was not a trait that you would see in the left. But, things must have changed since then.

I am referring to the liberal mainstream left, not radical terrorists. Those are left wing extremists (usually authoritarians). It's no accident that many people with left wing extremist views in their youth switch over to right wing extremism as they grow older. Both are authoritarians, liberals are the opposite (even though the right wing likes to caricaraturize them as such).

Also, the corporatist centrist left really hasn't much to do with actual economic leftism or even classical (non-authoritarian) liberalism.

Hold on, hold on here!!

People on the right are the ones labelled as anti-immigration. How come they've suddenly become the ones using it to lower wages? The left leaning elite is pro immigration, and therefore they must be the ones exploiting it. But somehow it is billed to the righ leaning.

At least in the US the GOP includes both the purist/ingroup-affirming working class right and the corporatist, market fundamentalist elitist right. The actual economic interests of the two factions are in opposition, so the market fundamentalists have hammered home their message of lowering taxes and gutting state institutions in tandem with anti-gay, anti-poor, anti-liberal, anti-immigrant, anti-ethnic-minority, anti-women's rights, anti-mysterious-elites-pulling-the-strings-in-the-background (often codeword for Jews) messaging. This kind of scapegoating reflects anger felt from the deterioration of the working classe's condition onto these third parties, while those responsible in the same party and those corporate "centrist" powers on the left, who also benefit from the unequal status quo, are off the hook.

Does that mean the lessons are learned and we are not making the same mistakes now, or a couple of decades down the line people will be talking about the mistakes made again?

Immigration is mostly a problem if it supresses wages or massively increases crime. The former depends on the current state of demography and latter on the conditions those immigrants live under at the country of immigration and the immigrants themselves.

There tend to be a lot of benefits down the line, of course. Democraphic, culinary, culturally... And yes, it cannot happen without limits.

This Irish or Jewish (in my wife's case Italian too) analogy is used all the time, but there is a huge difference that people seem to avoid mentioning. In those days there was no such thing as state benefit or social security. You could not work? You were hungry. The end. But they still integrated over time ( for example my father-in-law being Irish and mother-in-law being Italian). They integrated because the cultural differences were miniscule in comparison to, say Middle-East or Norht Africa.

Can you back that up with any good science?

We had the biggest problem here in Germany in the 90s, with immigrants from the former Soviet Union, ethnic Germans, coming from an authoritarian, partriarchical culture. The young men disproportionally committed violent crime.

Crime statistics for Middle-Eastern immigrants (from Asabiya Black Hole places like Syria, Iraq or Afghanistan) on the other hand show comparably low incidence.

Solidarity? Yes. As I mentioned before I am an immigrant. I am all for it. But not for blind solidarity. We now have do-gooders who are showing solidarity for those who do not have a legal basis to stay in this country (in my case the UK).

What is right and what is legal are not always the same thing, ist it...

 

[cyrano]

It's all very simple for Saudi Arabia. Just shoot them...

https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/08/21/saudi-arabia-mass-killings-migrants-yemen-border

Saudi officials are killing hundreds of women and children out of view of the rest of the world while they spend billions on sports-washing to try to improve their image.

 

[sahib]

sahib said:
This Irish or Jewish (in my wife's case Italian too) analogy is used all the time, but there is a huge difference that people seem to avoid mentioning. In those days there was no such thing as state benefit or social security. You could not work? You were hungry. The end. But they still integrated over time ( for example my father-in-law being Irish and mother-in-law being Italian). They integrated because the cultural differences were miniscule in comparison to, say Middle-East or Norht Africa.

Can you back that up with any good science?

Why do you need a scientific reference for that? If you need a scientific paper to see the gap between Middle-Eastern and European cultures then I am afraid you lack contact with reality.

Irish integrated because apart from Catholic/Protestant drift their day to day living was not hugely different than say Scottish.

On the other hand, I acknowledge my oversight on Jewish. That's quite different than Irish. Although you would not see difference in any of my Jewish friends, as they are of mostly of European heritage, now there is nevertheless specific Jewish communities that can be quite reserved.

However, I can give you chapter and verse on the Islamic Middle-Eastern culture. How long have you got?

A first example. Irish does not have the honour killing of their daughters and burying them in their backyard.

What is right and what is legal are not always the same thing, ist it...

Sometimes,

But wrong and legal are also not the same thing.

How about morality?

I mentioned this before in another thread. Would it be morally acceptable to pay criminals to ferry you to say Italy, because you are running away from another criminal?

 

[cyrano]

I am a bit baffled.

In Dutch, solidarity means common care and responsibility. No political annotation at all.

In English, solidarity means:

agreement between and support for the members of a group, especially a political group.

(Cambridge dictionary)

unity or agreement of feeling or action, especially among individuals with a common interest; mutual support within a group.

(Oxford languages)

So, there are some semantics at play here. Need to think about this.

 

[sahib]

In English solidarity generally refers to showing support among a group of people over a particular issue or cause.

 

[living sounds]

Why do you need a scientific reference for that? If you need a scientific paper to see the gap between Middle-Eastern and European cultures then I am afraid you lack contact with reality.

Irish integrated because apart from Catholic/Protestant drift their day to day living was not hugely different than say Scottish.

On the other hand, I acknowledge my oversight on Jewish. That's quite different than Irish. Although you would not see difference in any of my Jewish friends, as they are of mostly of European heritage, now there is nevertheless specific Jewish communities that can be quite reserved.

However, I can give you chapter and verse on the Islamic Middle-Eastern culture. How long have you got?

A first example. Irish does not have the honour killing of their daughters and burying them in their backyard.

People are often running away from the (religious) violence in these countries. How many honor killings have been perpetrated among the many millions of refugees from the Middle East in Europe?

 

[living sounds]

So, there are some semantics at play here. Need to think about this.

Yes, and I also think some culture differences. German people don't mince words, we tend to just state plainly what we think. No pleasantries required. This may sound offensive to other cultures...

 

[sahib]

People are often running away from the (religious) violence in these countries. How many honor killings have been perpetrated among the many millions of refugees from the Middle East in Europe?

I do not know the recent statistic but that is irrelevant. I gave you one example of cultural differences between the two.

 

[cyrano]

Yes, and I also think some culture differences. German people don't mince words, we tend to just state plainly what we think. No pleasantries required. This may sound offensive to other cultures...

Ah, but the question is "is it my problem, or theirs?" Or, "can we measure offensiveness?"

If someone tells me I'm an idiot, my reply is "why?" and I'm not offended. After all, we're all idiots in one way or another...

I do get mildly offended by intellectual dishonesty, though.

 

[john12ax7]

I do get mildly offended by intellectual dishonesty, though.

That is the problem with politics. Team above principles, logic, and reason.

 

[AnalogPackrat]

People are often running away from the (religious) violence in these countries. How many honor killings have been perpetrated among the many millions of refugees from the Middle East in Europe?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honor_killings_by_region
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/1849/honor-killings-in-europe


How many were there before the recent large scale migrations occurred? Certainly fewer per-capita. And what would you consider an acceptable number?

But it's not just killing.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-56977771
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-45419466

 

[living sounds]

I do not know the recent statistic but that is irrelevant. I gave you one example of cultural differences between the two.

So basically you paint huge populations with a broad stroke and would them deny entry on this basis...

What I can tell you from personal experience with quite a few people from the Middle East is that not one of them was in favor of honor killings. Or Sharia law. Or even wearing headscarfs...

 

[sahib]

No. I am not. But you will say that as now you are running out of your middle-east vocabulary. With all due respect you will need more then meeting a few people to understand the culture in depth.

For somebody to say they are not in favour of Sharia law or headscarf means zero. I am not suggesting distrust, but it means nothing. Here, one of the tricks is to (suddenly) become a Christian as it can be very effective against deportation.

 

[cyrano]

Frankly, I don't associate honor killings with the middle east, but with Turkey. Nothing to do with Islam. Everything to do with tradition.

I used to live amongst Turkish immigrants in Antwerp. Nice people, except for the grey wolves. My neighbour's kids accepted 5€ bills as a gift from a gentleman in a grey suit. The neighbour told me he was afraid to refuse. Resisting the grey wolves in that neighbourhood was very bad for your health. The only ones who opposed the grey wolves, were people from Kurdish decent. That usually ended in fights and worse. Antwerp police had no clue how to deal with this.