Comment by bojan
3 days ago
The Netherlands won't do it. Personally I think it shouldn't, as it'd set a sort of precedent that would be easy to abuse in the future, but the actual reason is that the Russian influence found a fertile ground in the NL, with about a third of the votes going to pro-Russian parties and with the destruction of MH17 basically gone from the public discourse.
> but the actual reason is that the Russian influence found a fertile ground in the NL
Are they stupid and can't think for themselves? The Netherlands have strong democratic tradition and great public education system. Why would they be influenced by a foreign government? I always find it amusing.
> The Netherlands have strong democratic tradition and great public education system.
Unfortunately, for the same reason that Russian influence found fertile ground in the US (MAGA), France (both le Pen and Melenchon), Germany (AfD and BSW), Italy (Berlusconi, Salvini), Hungary (Orban/Fidesz), Poland (PiS), Slovakia (Fico), the UK (UKIP, Reform, and relating to Brexit, the Tories)...
Unchecked globalization has led to serious economic devastation, and Russian propaganda picked that up and blamed it all on immigrants, and added a bunch of LGBT hate on top because that serves as a decent wedge issue for a group of the population that the anti-immigrant stuff doesn't catch that much. And on top of that, they made the immigration issue so much worse - Libya, Syria, Afghanistan and Iran all have Russia's bloody fingerprints all over them.
And as we're seeing, even the best democratic tradition doesn't stand a chance against economic misfortune.
> And as we're seeing, even the best democratic tradition doesn't stand a chance against economic misfortune.
This fact is why I think regardless of governing ideology, it's in the interests of any government to not write off wide-spread destitution and inequality as merely the cost of participating in a global economy. Even the Romans two thousand years before us understood all regimes require their bread and circuses, and the first one is the more important of the two.
As a Briton it's a particularly frustrating time to live here. We have wasted the 'peace dividend' on luxury policies like giving incumbent homeowners massive regulatory power to constrain the housing supply with lots of harmful knock-on effects, putting economic stupidity like Brexit to a constitution-breaking and divisive referendum, and harmfully constraining the energy supply by letting every self-interested QUANGO and NIMBY block renewable/nuclear power and the associated infrastructure. We spent more on the paperwork before a single shovel entered the ground on a tunnel under the Thames than Norway did building the longest road tunnel in the world. We cannot continue enacting nonsense policies like this and expecting everyone to muddle through as things get bleaker and bleaker, it'll come to a head one day and when it does it'll be destabilising.
Economic prosperity, or at the very least not having lost decade after lost decade, is necessary to avoid more authoritarian forms of politics coming to power.
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While I agree with your point, I don't agree that the unchecked globalisation is to blame, rather unchecked capitalism. Even without globalisation unchecked capitalism would lead to the same result, only per country.
And the countries that did the work to rein capitalism in, in a proper way, are doing well, also in the circumstances of globalisation.
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> Italy (Berlusconi, Salvini)
As Italian, I would say that the most pro Russia party are M5S (Conte even invited Russian soldiers to help us against COVID) and Futuro Nazionale (Vannacci). Even AVS and part of the PD are "pro-peace", AKA pro-Russia.
Salvini said that he is pro Putin, but Legal voted to send weapons to Ukraine.
Social media
Definitely not an answer to my question.
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> The Netherlands won't do it. Personally I think it shouldn't, as it'd set a sort of precedent that would be easy to abuse in the future
Would you stand by this statement if we did s/Netherlands/United States/g ?
It's not about the governments of today, but those of the future.
Yes.
There is imho very little to gain from such a move, and potentially a lot to lose. Disconnecting a whole society in such a way would make the total government control even easier.
Edit: typo
The USA has gone ahead and done it anyway. We shouldn't trust any government with that much power.
Could this be that having to buy Russia oil from US isn't good for the people of Netherlands for example?
The fact that you're mentioning oil and not gas tells me you are not really familiar with the situation.
But no, getting yourself in a situation where you're dependent on cowboy regimes for critical resources is not good for the people.
Well, I didn't mention Gas because US is not selling Gas to EU, but they do in fact sell Oil to EU while buying Oil from Russia. It might not be the exact same oil and cycled through the reserves, but same thing.
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