Crisis in Europe - gays on danger?
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ihihihihihi
this answer has made me smile a little myr cause, would you believe it? A nearly exactly symmetrical claim has been raised against Italian presidency cause it spends almost the triple than the … English crown. Unbelievable these coincidencies aren't they? ;D Of course while a so said "spending review" has been invoked for all the so said Piigs countries and it could even prove to be of a certain usefulness, just to keep a medical metaphor if, as a doctor you wanted to treat a brain cancer patient's headache with aspirin you could even get a certain momentary success but if you pretended to treat her only with aspirin your act would be surely deemed as a medical malpractice. So, since you have kindly conceded me at least a half of the truth have you also other personal ideas about my part? 
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ihihihihihi
this answer has made me smile a little myr cause, would you believe it? A nearly exactly symmetrical claim has been raised against Italian presidency cause it spends almost the triple than the … English crown. Unbelievable these coincidencies aren't they? ;D Of course while a so said "spending review" has been invoked for all the so said Piigs countries and it could even prove to be of a certain usefulness, just to keep a medical metaphor if, as a doctor you wanted to treat a brain cancer patient's headache with aspirin you could even get a certain momentary success but if you pretended to treat her only with aspirin your act would be surely deemed as a medical malpractice. So, since you have kindly conceded me at least a half of the truth have you also other personal ideas about my part? Certainly you can justapose the info however what is your point that all the piigs had that in the desease menu it's far from the case, Portugal Ireland IceLand Greece Cyprus Italy Spain (and Belgium and Hungary) had different realities so to invoque a symmetry is a bit off, there are relationships actually even France and the Uk feel it severely… and I mentioned it was symptoms not the diagnostic, our biggest problem is the government inability and lack of competence it made the wrong decisions in bad timing, being it when and where and how to inject money in the services, and how and how much loans to ask and what to sign with troika, we could had made a far easier deal but ulterior motives ro say the very least were overlapped much to the convenience of markets and banks, not to mention how rating agencies created terrorism against the country every time we actually grew they would cut the rating 1 point, earning billions at that with bets, but I am sure you know that system from the goldman sachs downfall.
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Certainly you can justapose the info however what is your point that all the piigs had that in the desease menu it's far from the case, Portugal Ireland IceLand Greece Cyprus Italy Spain (and Belgium and Hungary) had different realities so to invoque a symmetry is a bit off, there are relationships actually even France and the Uk feel it severely… and I mentioned it was symptoms not the diagnostic, our biggest problem is the government inability and lack of competence it made the wrong decisions in bad timing, being it when and where and how to inject money in the services, and how and how much loans to ask and what to sign with troika, we could had made a far easier deal but ulterior motives ro say the very least were overlapped much to the convenience of markets and banks, not to mention how rating agencies created terrorism against the country every time we actually grew they would cut the rating 1 point, earning billions at that with bets, but I am sure you know that system from the goldman sachs downfall.
Surely myr we could invoke many differences between the European countries hit by the crisis exactly like there are many differences between the the so said "core" ones (Gemany, Netherlands, Finland…) which have not been striken (yet). But if the crisis more or less, sooner or later hit the all of them, it could seem udeniable that we should have also a common denominator unifying all these differences. A well known one and very mentioned by the mainstream media at least for the Greece and Italy cases has been the relationship public indebtment/GDP. What do yo think about it?
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Surely myr we could invoke many differences between the European countries hit by the crisis exactly like there are many differences between the the so said "core" ones (Gemany, Netherlands, Finland…) which have not been striken (yet). But if the crisis more or less, sooner or later hit the all of them, it could seem udeniable that we should have also a common denominator unifying all these differences. A well known one and very mentioned by the mainstream media at least for the Greece and Italy cases has been the relationship public indebtment/GDP. What do yo think about it?
Finland is feeling the crisis too, going through it less affected but feeling it, however the nordics had the overall crisis come decade ago remenber? They are already a bit ahead. And surely there is many things that link all of the european crisis, the way Germany frozen the paycheck of workers is one, the way governments are way too linked with markets and less and less with their people other, about the public indebtment you would have to say what actually is in origin and the issue itself, there are some countries with greater public indebt, Iceland had bank indebt, and by public are we saying individuals people or the state indebt? Because USA top any other country in proportion and well they were not rank garbage were they, no because that would destroy most of the market… For me to say that you spent it now you pay it's ok, however who didi spent it and in what, and how were the payments arranged, this is what the portuguese public is furious about, did you know that while Spain used the money from the CEE to make plantations, our government spent it on jeeps... That they spent billions with the euro building soccer fields that were never since used? And let's address other problem, the euro as a coin was the stupidest idea ever... all economists were against it and advise otherwise than a stronger and a weaker coin would be advised. But this was not the issue I wanted to debate my fear is the extremist wave that is being politically created, and the possibility that gay rights might take a turn to the worse in Europe, we all know how the ex urss countries feel about that subject, hypocritally were does the gay porn come from?
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Olá, myrea! Ciao, agis!
It's obvious to anyone who has read your posts that you're both eloquent, and the opinions expressed by both of you have merits. This Board is indeed about Politics & Debate, and you're doing an excellent job at debating.
It seems to me, however, that all your recent posts are off topic. The original post was about the effect the European Crisis has on the rights and liberties of the gay community. You've turned it into a political debate about the crisis and its causes, and you've both strayed from the topic.
Just a friendly reminder.
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:true: Thank you for the observation :), has I lastly mentioned "But this was not the issue I wanted to debate my fear is the extremist wave that is being politically created, and the possibility that gay rights might take a turn to the worse in Europe,(…)" I'll try and see what I can find about recent issues in the subject, meanwhile I wonder if anyone from Polony, Estonia, Russia or other would like to speack of their experience and nowadays events.
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@Dax:
Olá, myrea! Ciao, agis!
It's obvious to anyone who has read your posts that you're both eloquent, and the opinions expressed by both of you have merits. This Board is indeed about Politics & Debate, and you're doing an excellent job at debating.
It seems to me, however, that all your recent posts are off topic. The original post was about the effect the European Crisis has on the rights and liberties of the gay community. You've turned it into a political debate about the crisis and its causes, and you've both strayed from the topic.
Just a friendly reminder.Very well my dear. For what concerns me then, in this case, the discussion ends here. Just a friendly reminder
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Any political changes across Europe which might result in a worsening of the rights we have fought so long to gain, is unwelcome, but I think the OP overstates the case with regard to other parts of Europe.
In my own country, England, public sentiment is usually far ahead of the political curve with regard to social issues like gay rights. The haters tend to be the usual neo-Nazi knuckledraggers and so-called Christians, but they are far outnumbered by decent people. The situation is far from perfect, but we are much luckier here than in most other countries - even in Europe. In England, a person's sexuality has become a non issue for the majority of people. I doubt if that is not also the case throughout most of Northern Europe.
What complicates the picture in places like Portugal and Greece, in a way which simply does not happen to the same extent here, is the unchecked power of the churches. They have far more sway in Portugal and Greece than they would ever get here. The main opposition in England (and the wider UK) to issues like gay marriage has come mainly from the Roman Catholic church. Two decades ago, it might have stood a realistic chance of having a major say on such matters as gay marriage, but a number of child sex abuse scandals has left the Catholic Church reeling and any cherished belief that it has moral authority any more, has simply evaporated.
It should also be remembered how right-wing parties and established churches seem to fit so well together in any part of the world you choose to look. Without the support of the Roman Catholic Church, the fascists in Germany and Italy would not have had such a rapid rise to power in the 1930s. Though a major factor was the fear that communism would spread throughout Europe from Russia and wipe out the church's power base, it cannot begin to excuse the church turning its gaze away from the horrors seen right across Europe between 1939 and 1945. I don't doubt it would do so again if it thought supporting right-wing parties would allow it to regain some of the power and authority it has lost.
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Any political changes across Europe which might result in a worsening of the rights we have fought so long to gain, is unwelcome, but I think the OP overstates the case with regard to other parts of Europe.
In my own country, England, public sentiment is usually far ahead of the political curve with regard to social issues like gay rights. The haters tend to be the usual neo-Nazi knuckledraggers and so-called Christians, but they are far outnumbered by decent people. The situation is far from perfect, but we are much luckier here than in most other countries - even in Europe. In England, a person's sexuality has become a non issue for the majority of people. I doubt if that is not also the case throughout most of Northern Europe.
What complicates the picture in places like Portugal and Greece, in a way which simply does not happen to the same extent here, is the unchecked power of the churches. They have far more sway in Portugal and Greece than they would ever get here. The main opposition in England (and the wider UK) to issues like gay marriage has come mainly from the Roman Catholic church. Two decades ago, it might have stood a realistic chance of having a major say on such matters as gay marriage, but a number of child sex abuse scandals has left the Catholic Church reeling and any cherished belief that it has moral authority any more, has simply evaporated.
It should also be remembered how right-wing parties and established churches seem to fit so well together in any part of the world you choose to look. Without the support of the Roman Catholic Church, the fascists in Germany and Italy would not have had such a rapid rise to power in the 1930s. Though a major factor was the fear that communism would spread throughout Europe from Russia and wipe out the church's power base, it cannot begin to excuse the church turning its gaze away from the horrors seen right across Europe between 1939 and 1945. I don't doubt it would do so again if it thought supporting right-wing parties would allow it to regain some of the power and authority it has lost.
It's a partially by me sharable analysis 200. Partially because while I don't want to belittle the responsiblities of the church(es) in your/my/our personal fate, in this case you overstimate their role imo. In Germany -which after all was the cradle of Protestantism much more than GB- for instance, the Roman Catholic Church role could be deemed as absolutely ambiguous and, believe it or not,in Italy too (!)…
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hxxp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPzZGujlKNk&feature=share
ah… you dunno Portuguese or Italian?
goto learn it right now...
RAUS!!!
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1st portuguese church has indeed too much media coverage, however the portuguese are not "lambs" some yes but not the majority, please do not portray them as such. I am far more worried about eastern europe than the north.
2nd Agis I can make a quick translation it's about after the fall of dictatorship how in less than 2 decades without a marshall plan, we alphabetised a country, we gave it sewers, and electricity, we went from a death rate at birth of 55,5 to 3,1 %, we went from 67 to 79 years of age had the average of life length. And also how money was also poorly spent, in car parks which have 41,3% of german made viatures, in electric car stations which were bought from the german which are yet to sell and deliver after all this years the electric cables to link to the viature batteries, a thousand millions of euros in submarines bought to the german, 675 millions to build soccer stadiums built in part by german companies… our trading every year gives 3 thousands millions of profit to germany, however in the last year we cut salaries, retirement pensions, subsidiary and social help, vacations, public organisms, health programs and education, we overtaxated our public services, grew our retirement age, taxes over salaries, consuption Iva, transportation , habitation, and anything that dared to move, we actually beat 2 records the greatest cut in spending and the greatest taxation in all the history of our democratic republic, however it seams that many still think we are party people always having fun, that we do not make effort or work hard enough, that we do not pay taxes... LET'S make this simple for you, we work 38,9 hours per week more than the german, we work untill we are 67 far more than the german, but should they not know that since we have 150 thousand people working there? We take 22 days of vacation to rest every year, less than the germans, we have less holidays than the german, the average wage/salary is 1171€ half than the germans, and we pay farrrrrr more taxes, and well yes we are the only 2 countries in europe to tax more than 50% of the weathy income of the rich, however you are rich in portugal over 80.000€ and in German over 500.000€, however we well doubled our imports of german products over the last 10 years, and our unemployment tripled, in 1990 germany unilateraly said that their external debt had expired, WE DID NOT PROTEST, in 2005 germany violated the limits in deficit and the EU forgave them of any sanctions...WE DID NOT PROTEST WE SUPPORTED THE DECISION.
This is a bit the very annoyed reponse the portuguese public is giving to Merkel the german chanceler after all her communications telling them to work or pay more taxes. -
1st portuguese church has indeed too much media coverage, however the portuguese are not "lambs" some yes but not the majority, please do not portray them as such. I am far more worried about eastern europe than the north.
2nd Agis I can make a quick translation it's about after the fall of dictatorship how in less than 2 decades without a marshall plan, we alphabetised a country, we gave it sewers, and electricity, we went from a death rate at birth of 55,5 to 3,1 %, we went from 67 to 79 years of age had the average of life length. And also how money was also poorly spent, in car parks which have 41,3% of german made viatures, in electric car stations which were bought from the german which are yet to sell and deliver after all this years the electric cables to link to the viature batteries, a thousand millions of euros in submarines bought to the german, 675 millions to build soccer stadiums built in part by german companies… our trading every year gives 3 thousands millions of profit to germany, however in the last year we cut salaries, retirement pensions, subsidiary and social help, vacations, public organisms, health programs and education, we overtaxated our public services, grew our retirement age, taxes over salaries, consuption Iva, transportation , habitation, and anything that dared to move, we actually beat 2 records the greatest cut in spending and the greatest taxation in all the history of our democratic republic, however it seams that many still think we are party people always having fun, that we do not make effort or work hard enough, that we do not pay taxes... LET'S make this simple for you, we work 38,9 hours per week more than the german, we work untill we are 67 far more than the german, but should they not know that since we have 150 thousand people working there? We take 22 days of vacation to rest every year, less than the germans, we have less holidays than the german, the average wage/salary is 1171€ half than the germans, and we pay farrrrrr more taxes, and well yes we are the only 2 countries in europe to tax more than 50% of the weathy income of the rich, however you are rich in portugal over 80.000€ and in German over 500.000€, however we well doubled our imports of german products over the last 10 years, and our unemployment tripled, in 1990 germany unilateraly said that their external debt had expired, WE DID NOT PROTEST, in 2005 germany violated the limits in deficit and the EU forgave them of any sanctions...WE DID NOT PROTEST WE SUPPORTED THE DECISION.
This is a bit the very annoyed reponse the portuguese public is giving to Merkel the german chanceler after all her communications telling them to work or pay more taxes.Thanks for the effort you have made myr especially for our English/German speaking friends since, being Italian, I could both understand the subtitles and get anyway the general sense of the speech as it often happens when I listen to Spanish or Portuguese (BTW the Genoan slang which is mine happens to be closer to Portuguese than Italian itself).
A thing I'd like to stress and underline of that tube thing is the frame in the image though.
There, in my opinion, they have caught the main point. Main cause the commercial unbalance doesn't concern Portugal only but, to different extents, many EU countries, Greece, mine and France included. Why exactly are you more worried about eastern Europe?
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Why exactly are you more worried about eastern Europe?
It was under Russian, orthodox, hard protestant or muslim influence, so their take on gays is not good for a start, the joining with the EU was good to them but with the crisis coming… remember that these were countries that vetoed gay parades and the revoque of gay crimes from the unicef and amnesty international, (human rights yeah yeah not for all) these countries decided that they would not sanction neither interfere with a country that killed gays... so I'm far more worried about gays living in that part of europe.
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Why exactly are you more worried about eastern Europe?
It was under Russian, orthodox, hard protestant or muslim influence, so their take on gays is not good for a start, the joining with the EU was good to them but with the crisis coming… remember that these were countries that vetoed gay parades and the revoque of gay crimes from the unicef and amnesty international, (human rights yeah yeah not for all) these countries decided that they would not sanction neither interfere with a country that killed gays... so I'm far more worried about gays living in that part of europe.
OK I see your point myr and I'm worried too for the eastern European countries but for a slightly different reason.
The bound of important countries like Poland, Serbia, Croatia or the Baltic countries to the euro cage is, in fact, not so tight yet and, even if
the crisis had to send you/me/us all into a spin, I don't think in those countries things would get worse than they actually are
and/or that we should see a tidal wave of homophobia coming and drowning us from there. If worst came to the worst the thing which seems more
likely to me is that they would lose the hope of an improvement. The tidal wave could more likely come instead from ourselves as you made us notice in your first post, from Greece, Italy or even sectors of the Iberian and French societies which still hold lower civilization profiles.
The joining of the Eastern countries with the EU so, would be only to be feared if they had to be admitted in the euro because this would worsen those already serious unbalances whose a possible gay problem would be only a consequence.
For the things I've written you might have already understood that, as a gay and an European citizen,the only thing I wish to your/my/ourselves is the breaking of the euro cage and an ordered return to the previous national currencies. -
The tidal wave could more likely come instead from ourselves as you made us notice in your first post, from Greece, Italy or even sectors of the Iberian and French societies which still hold lower civilization profiles.
The joining of the Eastern countries with the EU so, would be only to be feared if they had to be admitted in the euro because this would worsen those already serious unbalances whose a possible gay problem would be only a consequence.
For the things I've written you might have already understood that, as a gay and an European citizen,the only thing I wish to your/my/ourselves is the breaking of the euro cage and an ordered return to the previous national currencies.ALAS for reason and logic, however after the euro goes apart there will be incredibly hard times, I think France well it has it's idiots but they won't have an antigay wave, that's really our worst case scenario there , and I do not know the Italian psyche, as for Spain I want to hold them in better light… but that's me, Portugal however well they have all the bishops hate let me tell you that, and well... it being channeled threw deaths of transsexuals, and others that never get the hate crime label they do have... but in many (not the majority but a great part of the population) the last 2 deaths of transsexuals here was fuel to a real wave of disgust with they not being trialed for hate crimes, this 2 women were stoned, beaten and left to die by starvation... and the latest gay crime, the one in New York In which the younger lover tortured and mutilated his older partner fired up the country, religious thrying to ilibate the boy saying he was corrupted and did it in defense, trying to purify himself and yadda yadda yadda (inserte the amazingly ridiculous apologies here) and the voices of reason saying that it was cold premaditated murder and the boy should be confined there in prison... we are hoping and waiting that the USA law get this guy for what he did.
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ALAS for reason and logic, however after the euro goes apart there will be incredibly hard times, I think France well it has it's idiots but they won't have an antigay wave, that's really our worst case scenario there , and I do not know the Italian psyche, as for Spain I want to hold them in better light… but that's me, Portugal however well they have all the bishops hate let me tell you that, and well... it being channeled threw deaths of transsexuals, and others that never get the hate crime label they do have... but in many (not the majority but a great part of the population) the last 2 deaths of transsexuals here was fuel to a real wave of disgust with they not being trialed for hate crimes, this 2 women were stoned, beaten and left to die by starvation... and the latest gay crime, the one in New York In which the younger lover tortured and mutilated his older partner fired up the country, religious thrying to ilibate the boy saying he was corrupted and did it in defense, trying to purify himself and yadda yadda yadda (inserte the amazingly ridiculous apologies here) and the voices of reason saying that it was cold premaditated murder and the boy should be confined there in prison... we are hoping and waiting that the USA law get this guy for what he did.
Myr, I agree with you on the fact that hard times could be about to come anyway but, if we wanted to think in a different way than that of those same churches we blame, we should imo always remember that a good and/or an evil never exist in themselves as the priests of many religions like to pretend but always inside a relationship.
So, even if the euro cage breaking had to lead us to hard times, we should always wonder about what kind of times could lead us to its preservation and then, and only then, with the support of this comparison, politically come to a decision. Politics, in fact, has been deemed amongst many other things as the art of the… lesser evil. Hasn't it? -
(…) we should always wonder about what kind of times could lead us to its preservation and then, and only then, with the support of this comparison, politically come to a decision. Politics, in fact, has been deemed amongst many other things as the art of the... lesser evil. Hasn't it?
By defenition that is politikos "of citizens or the state," from polites "citizen," from polis "city" as you surely know, Politic is the "study" in which we do indeed study and discuss ways of "sovereignty and regence" adequated to a circumstance, by circumstance we must define the region, it's cultural past, resources and so on…
How many politicians one does see today, that are even remotely aware of that, and dwell not so for the route of power and lobbyism?
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(…) we should always wonder about what kind of times could lead us to its preservation and then, and only then, with the support of this comparison, politically come to a decision. Politics, in fact, has been deemed amongst many other things as the art of the... lesser evil. Hasn't it?
By defenition that is politikos "of citizens or the state," from polites "citizen," from polis "city" as you surely know, Politic is the "study" in which we do indeed study and discuss ways of "sovereignty and regence" adequated to a circumstance, by circumstance we must define the region, it's cultural past, resources and so on…
How many politicians one does see today, that are even remotely aware of that, and dwell not so for the route of power and lobbyism?
Possibly none of them and, to variable extents all over the world myr :). But it might prove impossible for a politician to completely avoid the route of power and lobbyism for the very nature of democracy itself which, after all, was born as the power (kratos) of a district (demos). You have done well though remembering those "sovereignity and regence" we could even simplify into a sort of "management" of a nation. If we are facing now a potentially dangerous crisis concerning many nations it depends in my opinion on a mismanagement not only of the Portuguese politicians but of the politicians of the whole Europe Germany, Netherlands and Finland included. And as things went and are going we can even give it a name: Euro (which is not Europe luckily but only a strange kind of currency).
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Possibly none of them and, to variable extents all over the world myr :). But it might prove impossible for a politician to completely avoid the route of power and lobbyism for the very nature of democracy itself which, after all, was born as the power (kratos) of a district (demos). You have done well though remembering those "sovereignity and regence" we could even simplify into a sort of "management" of a nation. If we are facing now a potentially dangerous crisis concerning many nations it depends in my opinion on a mismanagement not only of the Portuguese politicians but of the politicians of the whole Europe Germany, Netherlands and Finland included. And as things went and are going we can even give it a name: Euro (which is not Europe luckily but only a strange kind of currency).
To start I do not believe in this "united states of europe" ideology, we're nothing like the americans, the culture and past is so completely apart between regions, that the idea of a joined europe strikes me as lunacy.
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Possibly none of them and, to variable extents all over the world myr :). But it might prove impossible for a politician to completely avoid the route of power and lobbyism for the very nature of democracy itself which, after all, was born as the power (kratos) of a district (demos). You have done well though remembering those "sovereignity and regence" we could even simplify into a sort of "management" of a nation. If we are facing now a potentially dangerous crisis concerning many nations it depends in my opinion on a mismanagement not only of the Portuguese politicians but of the politicians of the whole Europe Germany, Netherlands and Finland included. And as things went and are going we can even give it a name: Euro (which is not Europe luckily but only a strange kind of currency).
To start I do not believe in this "united states of europe" ideology, we're nothing like the americans, the culture and past is so completely apart between regions, that the idea of a joined europe strikes me as lunacy.
Concerning that I think instead 2 things myr.
In the first place the (cultural?) diversity has often been and not only now but along all the history of this continent a factor of dynamism and even a source of opportunities. So when Cristoforo Colombo got this idea of opening a new course towards the Indias he didn't see particular problems in addressing the king João II of Portugal first and the queen Isabel I of Castilla then. Both these sovereigns were quite clever and it doesn't seem they had something against the free circulation of manpower ;). In the same way the Dutch humanist Desiderius Erasmus from Rotterdam was not worried by the study of the works of his Italian colleague Lorenzo Valla, one of the most known middle age theologians, the Italian Thomas Aquinas had as his most important teacher and friend the German Albert der Große and the examples could of course go on.
Secondly, while it's true our American friends speak all a language which is very similar to English, they enjoy an efficient common currency and a totally free mobility of the labour amongst all the 50 States are we really sure they are so (culturally?) uniform? Is it so easy and gayforward to compare and equalize States like Hawaii and Montana or Alaska and Florida? Even if it was easier this greater cultural homogenity wasn't up to avoid for instance the costful historical episode named Secession War… ??? and then what Myr?...
Well I have this feeling that if it was only for the cultural bit Europe would be already united for good and after all when I think to Portugal I could think to many things like this one (a fado? ^-^ )
hxxp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjRm2BsmDZ4
not particularly to the same euro coin buying the same cup of coffee in Lisboa, Berlin or Roma.
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