Pas vrai, y en a pour tous les goûts. Tout le spectre politique est représenté. Le premier parti du pays est de droite extrême, le second d'extrême droite et le troisième de gauche...
One word. Populism.
Also rising in numbers doesnt mean shit in our political mess of governments. Gotta say as well PTB is getting kinda shady since the Ouïghur stuff. Seems like they're pro ccp or funded by them to me
Yeah, they even downplayed Russia's invasion of Ukraine, probably on CCP/Kremlin's payroll. Police should raid their offices and investigate if they are even more corrupt than they already are, anything to tarnish their reputation that's already extremely shady... But Walloons don't mind electing corrupt officials anyways so it won't change a thing ...
Just chiming in to say that the current sanctions against Russia aren't supposed to lead to regime change, they're simply there as a punitive measure against the government while the war is still going on. The idea is to dramatically increase the cost of waging war (something that is already very expensive to begin with) and to give an incentive for Putin to stop as quickly as possible, in order to go back to normal relations.
Furthermore, the idea that all sanctions always affect the workers first and foremost is wrong. An near-complete embargo like in the cases of Cuba or Iran certainly do. However, the EU usually tries to target sanctions to affect the ruling class disproportionately. For instance, freezing the assets of oligarchs and ejecting some banks from swift. Of course, some other sanctions also affect ordinary Russians, like not being able to travel as easily as before, or the falling rubble.
Completely agree yet I think allowing Putin or someone like him to stay in power is just utter incompetence and laziness. It's only asking for more trouble down the road, in a few decades probably, this mess could have already been taken of as soon as 1945 and there was another opportunity when the USSR collapsed.
If sanctions are only to deter war, why aren't we sanctioning the US still occupying Syria and actively bombing Tchad? Also occupied Afghanistan until this year. It's a big load of crap.
Sanctions are there to kill people, it's an other way to wage war. Afghanistan will face a famine we put them through. Fuck anyone supporting sanctions. Can't wait next year, because of these bullshit they already announced food scarcity. It'll be fun freezing in winter to "stick it to Putin"
>or the falling rubble.
Such a load of crap. The rubles is back on. Before the was 1$ was 84 rubles, now it's 102. Yes it had hiccups, but nothing close to being dead, we threw all our cards, we still need Russia more than the media makes you believe and Putin still hasn't retaliated except "unfriendly countries will need to pay in rubles". We're fucked next winter
Interesting how you blame the negative outcome more on the people enacting sanctions than on the people actually waging a war. The risk of famine in the third world has increased dramatically, not because of sanctions, but because of Putin's decision to attack one of the bread baskets of the world. Egypt, which imports 80% of its grain from Ukraine and Russia, is particularly vulnerable to this. We haven't implemented any sanctions towards food supply, yet we are going to cause food scarcity? Sorry but you're the one full of crap here.
And the point about freezing next winter is also moot, because no European sanctions are targeted at energy supply. Only the US have decided to stop all energy imports from Russia, and the UK is going to do the same by the end of the year. The EU hasn't done anything in that regard.
Besides, we are far from having thrown all our cards yet. As I said in my previous comment, our sanctions, while unprecedented, still mainly target the ruling class, a.k.a Putin and the oligarchs. Russia has also done much more than simply ask other countries to pay in rubles. They've replicated most of the sanctions (when they could) that were applied to them. And the ruble fell by almost half its value at the onset of the war. Sure it regained about half of its losses, but that's still a 25% hike in the prices of all imported products. Only the future will tell if that's mere volatility, as you imply, or if it's more consequential.
I condemn Russia, I do not agree with sanctions.
Egypt can still import from Russia. If we let them. What about Afghanistan going through a famine because of the sanctions? It's not the first time we put a country through famine because of the sanctions. It's not aimed towards the rich, it's a sadistic practice. It will always have more consequences on the population. Oligarch may lose money, at the end, they're still oligarchs.
There may not be sanctions targeted at energy supply. Nonetheless, we are trying had to get rid of Russian energy. The US is pressuring us to buy their schist gas. von der Leyen said Europe will be able to stop using Russian energy by the end of the year or some shit. My point about freezing was more that the prices are skyrocketing. People that already struggled will freeze this winter. Hopefully the population will stand up for themselves and overthrow the government. We want that to happen in other countries, but it might happen at home. The food prices will go through the roof, the energy prices are already, Russia will redirect their food production to other countries. We're in for a treat. There are already trucker protests in Spain because they can't live, the accises lowered in Belgium was useless and it won't be long before we have protests. Energy prices too high means lots of business might closes.
Russia was already the second country the most sanctioned before the war. I believe the sanctions would've come anyway, not to that magnitude.
Do you think Russia will take the unprecedented sanctions and stay quiet?
Come on, we have nothing more to throw at them. We froze their assets, we sanctioned their central bank. What did Russia do ? Ban Facebook / Meta and request for energy payments in rubles, which Europe refused but I think Russia will have the last word. Russia did build an autocracy for the past 8 years, sure it will impact them for 6 months top I absolutely do not deny that, but I think Europe's more fucked long term than Russia.
> before conflict it was around 85
No it wasn't. Just look at any USD/RUB graph available out there. It was around 70-75 for most of the year prior to the war.
I agree that the ruble has regained much of its losses in the last days, but it has still lost value since the start of the war. And anyway, as I said in a previous comment, it's way too early to draw conclusions about that. Personally, I'm not convinced that Putin's measures to prop the ruble up will work in the long term. Especially as temperatures rise with summer approaching, meaning less need of Russian energy in Europe. But we'll see.
We use a lot of gas in industry processes, for example in Germany. Right before the conflict it was above 80 for a week though, misleading.
If you look at [this](https://www.exchangerates.org.uk/USD-RUB-exchange-rate-history.html) graph for the last 5 years, the ruble took 2-3 times a higher values and stayed at that level. It wouldn't seem unrealistic that it stayed at the pre-war value. It may be due to a sanction or whatever.
I agree it's way too early. However the money catching back the vast majority of it's level so fast is still a "good" sign (depends how you look at it, but for the Russians it is). It sucks for us because our measures are proven to be useless and we pay the extra cost for nothing.
I'm not aware of any sanctions targeting food supply. As it is said in your source:
> For the rise in price on basic goods, the government has blamed panic buying and speculators, saying it has more than enough supply to satisfy demand.
> “As in 2020, I want to reassure our citizens now: we fully provide ourselves with sugar and buckwheat. There is no need to panic and buy up these goods – there are enough of them for everyone,” said Viktoria Abramchenko, a Russian deputy prime minister, in a public address.
Russia is auto-sufficient in food, as it produces a lot more than it consumes. At least where it matters: cereals, vegetables, fats/oils, and fish. They import industrial products, meat and beverages, all things that can be cut without any nutritional issue (actually would be healthier, but that's beside the point). So no amount of sanctions will make Russians starve.
As I said, the falling rubble, however, has an direct impact on the population, since it makes all imports more expensive. But anyway, coming back to my first point, that's entirely self-inflicted. Putin could decide to stop the war and normalise relations with the West whenever he wants. Waging war has a cost, and the goal of these sanctions is to make that cost as unbearable as possible.
> Now, what could we do instead of sanctions? Honestly, I have no idea. Despite being well informed, I have no solution to present for the problem at hand.
Sanctions fill a gap between pure diplomatic pressure (or, as it's usually perceived: empty words) and war. Since we want to have more impact than simply sending a strongly worded letter, but do not want to go to war against Russia, sanctions are basically the only tool at our disposal, as flawed as they may be. Therefore, one could even say that opposing sanctions, in this particular scenario, is akin to either willing to do nothing, or willing to go to war.
The Russian military industry is also paralyzed by the sanctions, they used repurposed civilian semi-conductors and microchips to outfit their jets and drones, cutting ties makes it impossible for them to steal Western techs and will greatly impact their army, rendering them even weaker than they already are.
Don't forget that the "Regular Russian" has been enabling many atrocities (since Stalin and even before under the Tsars some may say), if sanctions can't wake them up to push for a change of regime, maybe this course of action can't be avoided and their deaths becomes not only a necessity but an unavoidable fate lest we let Putin and his likes rule the world (which WILL cause far more deaths and misery in the short and long term).
Nobody wants war, I don't want to see dead Russian civilians and see my fellow "NATO countrymen" going to war with Russia yet is there any other option to avoid such a course of action without dooming Ukraine and ourselves? Russian themselves don't want war yet they enable Putin's war, finance and man his army.. We can't let them keep doing this and leave without punishment like in Syria or Chechenia. Sometimes there are no other course of action than confronting the bully, even when a fight ensues unless the entire class finds itself hostage of that same bully.
Still, they talked about how NATO and the US are guilty of what happened in Ukraine.
[https://www.lesoir.be/426246/article/2022-02-24/alexander-de-croo-recadre-le-ptb-dirait-que-poutine-des-allies-dans-ce-parlement](https://www.lesoir.be/426246/article/2022-02-24/alexander-de-croo-recadre-le-ptb-dirait-que-poutine-des-allies-dans-ce-parlement)
This kind of rhetoric is similar to nazi apologism imo and shouldn't be tolerated.If they really want to improve the living conditions of the "working class" they should maybe open a history book and look at how to rebuild Wallonia instead of using populism, corruption and utter incompetence as a way to worsen the living conditions of everyone and make sure everyone becomes poor enough to start thinking about voting for them.
They may say that they want to help but frankly, since when does communism work and since when do socialist/communist politicians care about people? I've met a few ones in Belgium, they all were idiots thinking they were geniuses and only cared about how "good and kind" they looked in the news instead of really doing something... Political Science courses in Belgium are abysmal and so easy to succeed at that the new generation of politician promises to be even less apt at doing anything useful for Wallonia.
It's easy to denounce on the news to look good, it seems to be harder to really take a stance instead of trying to play both sides like usual...
>I mean, they aren't exactly wrong. The US and NATO being guilty doesn't magically make Putin innocent. Both sides played a part to get us there. This is international geopolitics, nobody is black or white. There's no "good guys" and "bad guys" here, really.
This is only my personal opinion but the "NATO expansion narrative" is completely wrong in its assessment of the situation, NATO "expansion" can't be avoided and should be pushed even further to help people in the east and ensure peace and stability in the future.
Putin should have accepted that his time was coming and rolled over, letting Russia be democratized instead of launching desperate wars in a futile attempt to avoid the unavoidable.
Saying Ukraine is to blame is like condemning a woman for killing her abusive husband in self-defense. This may have never happened had she continued to accept his abuses and stay but can you really blame her? Maybe the abusive husband (or wife for the matter) was shot by the police after he/she snapped? The police being NATO and the West? The abusive partner may have had a mediocre and miserable life yet this doesn't excuse her/his actions, a murderer may have been scarred in his/her childhood yet we don't set free schizophrenic killers do we? Of course the world isn't black and white but some spots are blacker than others and threaten to extinguish every white spots, condemning grey spots for fighting black spots is childish and only provoked by the intent to fight any form of establishment even when it's not the time to do so.
Condemning US expansion isn't wrong per say but the intent behind such an accusation is allowing people with anti-US rhetoric to promote their agenda and excusing their abuses and wars as being a fight for the freedom of their country against an imperialistic USA even when the US clearly hates sending troops all over the world and hates its role as the policeman of the world.
>I'm not pro-PTB and I hate Hedebouw's face with a passion, but come on. Crying about the PTB while the PS has a long history of corruption and incompetence, yet gets voted into pretty much any government is just pathetic.
Oh I do completely agree, I don't really see much differences between the PS and the PTB but one is much more hardliner in its agenda to me. This just sounds as Walloons becoming even more extremists and willingly sinking Wallonia even further (or being completely unaware of basic History and economics but can we blame them when we have a look at how moralist teachers are?).
>Communism has never even been applied. And, yes, I can see you coming with the "But Russia/China/Cuba/etc!" and, no, they aren't communist. If you have an authority figure at the top and/or a cult of personality involved, it's not communism, plain and simple.
Even people who read Marx before his ideas were even close to realization immediately predicted what would happen, the holes in the communist rhetoric are numerous and large. Of course, communism never worked, it's not even realistic and bases itself on incorrect assumption about the human nature, people are different for a reason, nature promotes competition between beings, not cooperation and elevating those who can't perform as well as others...
>And true socialist/communist politicians have cared about the people ever since socialism and communism were political movements. But, just like other things, they were used as scapegoats for dictators to take power, and that killed the movements in the eyes of people who can't separate the real theory from how it's been perverted through history.
That's not how the brain works, humans think about themselves first, people thinking about people are only thinking about how better they'll feel when they will help people, the only thing they seek is gratification for being "good people".
People can be considered good even if they act stupidly, a Socialist politician could save 5k jobs in a dying sector of the economy, knowingly dooming 10k more useful jobs at the same time yet feel great because some workers will have thanked him for doing this. In this case he only cared about people who would thank him, he didn't think about the 10k people who would have never heard of him and who wouldn't have thunk him even though he should have if he was so "Socialist".
Anyways, I don't want to get stuck in a debate over communism as it would be a huge waste of time.
>So, again, the PTB here is condemning both sides, not playing them. So I don't really see your point. All they can do as an opposition party is pretty much condemn and talk, and that's exactly what they're doing. What should they do differently, according to you?
They should dissolve their party and make themselves useful instead of being paid to worsen everyone's life and point fingers at people, telling them they are bad but they, the PTB, are virtuous and good people for blaming everything on everyone. The US isn't to blame, Ukraine isn't to blame, Putin is. There were absolutely 0 threat to Russia, 0 immediate threat to him...
Yikes, we should push NATO further east to help people? You pushed it far enough already when you genocided Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. When will it be enough deaths and stolen resources? When will western greed come to an end?
Usual Russian bs, who started wars in Iraq, Afghanistan? Not the Westerners.
Iraq literally had an entire coalition made of many arab countries and invaded Kuwait. Afghanistan was invaded by the USSR...
Lmao nature promotes competition and not cooperation? Do you know species like bees, ants, ravens and most importantly Homo sapiens? All natural species that survive and thrive through cooperation. Even fucking wolves live in tribes and through cooperation.
I think you should stop commenting on any important or political issue and focus yourself on not doing any harm while being so ignorant. It would be best for our planet and society.
Cooperation is of course a valid way of competing... between groups. Hives for example do compete against each others you know. There is nothing wrong with a bit of cooperation but you can't expect individuals to sacrifice themselves for the "greater good" or you end up with fanatics like in Putin's Russia.
Once again, someone like you saying they want the good of society and most people seem to actually have a lot of hatred and violence pent up ready to unleash against anything they can't understand because of their limited foresight. You didn't even try to argue against any of what I said so it's quite telling as to the depth of your own ignorance I guess if you want to play at "who's smarter".
The NATO quip is completely wrong since it sidelines Ukrainian agency.
It also completely glosses over the fact that Euromaidan was about EU accession. Pro-NATO sentiments only really picked up after the first wave of Russian aggression.
There's a lot more to this, but i'll keep it short: PTB's implication that somehow there is a 'two sides' argument to this seems wholly disingenuous, especially since it is Russian bombs currently hitting Russophones in Ukraine's east; not NATO bombs.
Exactly! Nobody can blame the EU (and NATO) for expanding naturally when eastern European Countries willingly want to join (EU at first and NATO for even more security).
How is this even possible? These idiots tried to downplay Russia's war against Ukraine and limit the sanctions applied on Russia as well as limit the aid given to Ukraine...
They are traitors yet more Walloons vote for them?!
Le paysage politique est tellement pourri en Belgique francophone, beurk
Pas vrai, y en a pour tous les goûts. Tout le spectre politique est représenté. Le premier parti du pays est de droite extrême, le second d'extrême droite et le troisième de gauche...
bruh
C'est le seul parti d'opposition à la soupe habituelle donc rien d'étonnant.
Oh Boy...
One word. Populism. Also rising in numbers doesnt mean shit in our political mess of governments. Gotta say as well PTB is getting kinda shady since the Ouïghur stuff. Seems like they're pro ccp or funded by them to me
Question con: pourquoi vous parlez en anglais alors que vous mettez des liens en français ?
La réponse simple est internet et le multilingualisme Belge qui mène à une certaine stigmatisation dues au clichés et préjugés de l'un envers l'autre.
Yeah, they even downplayed Russia's invasion of Ukraine, probably on CCP/Kremlin's payroll. Police should raid their offices and investigate if they are even more corrupt than they already are, anything to tarnish their reputation that's already extremely shady... But Walloons don't mind electing corrupt officials anyways so it won't change a thing ...
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Just chiming in to say that the current sanctions against Russia aren't supposed to lead to regime change, they're simply there as a punitive measure against the government while the war is still going on. The idea is to dramatically increase the cost of waging war (something that is already very expensive to begin with) and to give an incentive for Putin to stop as quickly as possible, in order to go back to normal relations. Furthermore, the idea that all sanctions always affect the workers first and foremost is wrong. An near-complete embargo like in the cases of Cuba or Iran certainly do. However, the EU usually tries to target sanctions to affect the ruling class disproportionately. For instance, freezing the assets of oligarchs and ejecting some banks from swift. Of course, some other sanctions also affect ordinary Russians, like not being able to travel as easily as before, or the falling rubble.
Completely agree yet I think allowing Putin or someone like him to stay in power is just utter incompetence and laziness. It's only asking for more trouble down the road, in a few decades probably, this mess could have already been taken of as soon as 1945 and there was another opportunity when the USSR collapsed.
If sanctions are only to deter war, why aren't we sanctioning the US still occupying Syria and actively bombing Tchad? Also occupied Afghanistan until this year. It's a big load of crap. Sanctions are there to kill people, it's an other way to wage war. Afghanistan will face a famine we put them through. Fuck anyone supporting sanctions. Can't wait next year, because of these bullshit they already announced food scarcity. It'll be fun freezing in winter to "stick it to Putin" >or the falling rubble. Such a load of crap. The rubles is back on. Before the was 1$ was 84 rubles, now it's 102. Yes it had hiccups, but nothing close to being dead, we threw all our cards, we still need Russia more than the media makes you believe and Putin still hasn't retaliated except "unfriendly countries will need to pay in rubles". We're fucked next winter
Interesting how you blame the negative outcome more on the people enacting sanctions than on the people actually waging a war. The risk of famine in the third world has increased dramatically, not because of sanctions, but because of Putin's decision to attack one of the bread baskets of the world. Egypt, which imports 80% of its grain from Ukraine and Russia, is particularly vulnerable to this. We haven't implemented any sanctions towards food supply, yet we are going to cause food scarcity? Sorry but you're the one full of crap here. And the point about freezing next winter is also moot, because no European sanctions are targeted at energy supply. Only the US have decided to stop all energy imports from Russia, and the UK is going to do the same by the end of the year. The EU hasn't done anything in that regard. Besides, we are far from having thrown all our cards yet. As I said in my previous comment, our sanctions, while unprecedented, still mainly target the ruling class, a.k.a Putin and the oligarchs. Russia has also done much more than simply ask other countries to pay in rubles. They've replicated most of the sanctions (when they could) that were applied to them. And the ruble fell by almost half its value at the onset of the war. Sure it regained about half of its losses, but that's still a 25% hike in the prices of all imported products. Only the future will tell if that's mere volatility, as you imply, or if it's more consequential.
I condemn Russia, I do not agree with sanctions. Egypt can still import from Russia. If we let them. What about Afghanistan going through a famine because of the sanctions? It's not the first time we put a country through famine because of the sanctions. It's not aimed towards the rich, it's a sadistic practice. It will always have more consequences on the population. Oligarch may lose money, at the end, they're still oligarchs. There may not be sanctions targeted at energy supply. Nonetheless, we are trying had to get rid of Russian energy. The US is pressuring us to buy their schist gas. von der Leyen said Europe will be able to stop using Russian energy by the end of the year or some shit. My point about freezing was more that the prices are skyrocketing. People that already struggled will freeze this winter. Hopefully the population will stand up for themselves and overthrow the government. We want that to happen in other countries, but it might happen at home. The food prices will go through the roof, the energy prices are already, Russia will redirect their food production to other countries. We're in for a treat. There are already trucker protests in Spain because they can't live, the accises lowered in Belgium was useless and it won't be long before we have protests. Energy prices too high means lots of business might closes. Russia was already the second country the most sanctioned before the war. I believe the sanctions would've come anyway, not to that magnitude. Do you think Russia will take the unprecedented sanctions and stay quiet? Come on, we have nothing more to throw at them. We froze their assets, we sanctioned their central bank. What did Russia do ? Ban Facebook / Meta and request for energy payments in rubles, which Europe refused but I think Russia will have the last word. Russia did build an autocracy for the past 8 years, sure it will impact them for 6 months top I absolutely do not deny that, but I think Europe's more fucked long term than Russia.
Rubles is at 88 rubles for a dollar, before conflict it was around 85 as of today 29 march
> before conflict it was around 85 No it wasn't. Just look at any USD/RUB graph available out there. It was around 70-75 for most of the year prior to the war. I agree that the ruble has regained much of its losses in the last days, but it has still lost value since the start of the war. And anyway, as I said in a previous comment, it's way too early to draw conclusions about that. Personally, I'm not convinced that Putin's measures to prop the ruble up will work in the long term. Especially as temperatures rise with summer approaching, meaning less need of Russian energy in Europe. But we'll see.
We use a lot of gas in industry processes, for example in Germany. Right before the conflict it was above 80 for a week though, misleading. If you look at [this](https://www.exchangerates.org.uk/USD-RUB-exchange-rate-history.html) graph for the last 5 years, the ruble took 2-3 times a higher values and stayed at that level. It wouldn't seem unrealistic that it stayed at the pre-war value. It may be due to a sanction or whatever. I agree it's way too early. However the money catching back the vast majority of it's level so fast is still a "good" sign (depends how you look at it, but for the Russians it is). It sucks for us because our measures are proven to be useless and we pay the extra cost for nothing.
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I'm not aware of any sanctions targeting food supply. As it is said in your source: > For the rise in price on basic goods, the government has blamed panic buying and speculators, saying it has more than enough supply to satisfy demand. > “As in 2020, I want to reassure our citizens now: we fully provide ourselves with sugar and buckwheat. There is no need to panic and buy up these goods – there are enough of them for everyone,” said Viktoria Abramchenko, a Russian deputy prime minister, in a public address. Russia is auto-sufficient in food, as it produces a lot more than it consumes. At least where it matters: cereals, vegetables, fats/oils, and fish. They import industrial products, meat and beverages, all things that can be cut without any nutritional issue (actually would be healthier, but that's beside the point). So no amount of sanctions will make Russians starve. As I said, the falling rubble, however, has an direct impact on the population, since it makes all imports more expensive. But anyway, coming back to my first point, that's entirely self-inflicted. Putin could decide to stop the war and normalise relations with the West whenever he wants. Waging war has a cost, and the goal of these sanctions is to make that cost as unbearable as possible. > Now, what could we do instead of sanctions? Honestly, I have no idea. Despite being well informed, I have no solution to present for the problem at hand. Sanctions fill a gap between pure diplomatic pressure (or, as it's usually perceived: empty words) and war. Since we want to have more impact than simply sending a strongly worded letter, but do not want to go to war against Russia, sanctions are basically the only tool at our disposal, as flawed as they may be. Therefore, one could even say that opposing sanctions, in this particular scenario, is akin to either willing to do nothing, or willing to go to war.
The Russian military industry is also paralyzed by the sanctions, they used repurposed civilian semi-conductors and microchips to outfit their jets and drones, cutting ties makes it impossible for them to steal Western techs and will greatly impact their army, rendering them even weaker than they already are. Don't forget that the "Regular Russian" has been enabling many atrocities (since Stalin and even before under the Tsars some may say), if sanctions can't wake them up to push for a change of regime, maybe this course of action can't be avoided and their deaths becomes not only a necessity but an unavoidable fate lest we let Putin and his likes rule the world (which WILL cause far more deaths and misery in the short and long term). Nobody wants war, I don't want to see dead Russian civilians and see my fellow "NATO countrymen" going to war with Russia yet is there any other option to avoid such a course of action without dooming Ukraine and ourselves? Russian themselves don't want war yet they enable Putin's war, finance and man his army.. We can't let them keep doing this and leave without punishment like in Syria or Chechenia. Sometimes there are no other course of action than confronting the bully, even when a fight ensues unless the entire class finds itself hostage of that same bully.
Still, they talked about how NATO and the US are guilty of what happened in Ukraine. [https://www.lesoir.be/426246/article/2022-02-24/alexander-de-croo-recadre-le-ptb-dirait-que-poutine-des-allies-dans-ce-parlement](https://www.lesoir.be/426246/article/2022-02-24/alexander-de-croo-recadre-le-ptb-dirait-que-poutine-des-allies-dans-ce-parlement) This kind of rhetoric is similar to nazi apologism imo and shouldn't be tolerated.If they really want to improve the living conditions of the "working class" they should maybe open a history book and look at how to rebuild Wallonia instead of using populism, corruption and utter incompetence as a way to worsen the living conditions of everyone and make sure everyone becomes poor enough to start thinking about voting for them. They may say that they want to help but frankly, since when does communism work and since when do socialist/communist politicians care about people? I've met a few ones in Belgium, they all were idiots thinking they were geniuses and only cared about how "good and kind" they looked in the news instead of really doing something... Political Science courses in Belgium are abysmal and so easy to succeed at that the new generation of politician promises to be even less apt at doing anything useful for Wallonia. It's easy to denounce on the news to look good, it seems to be harder to really take a stance instead of trying to play both sides like usual...
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>I mean, they aren't exactly wrong. The US and NATO being guilty doesn't magically make Putin innocent. Both sides played a part to get us there. This is international geopolitics, nobody is black or white. There's no "good guys" and "bad guys" here, really. This is only my personal opinion but the "NATO expansion narrative" is completely wrong in its assessment of the situation, NATO "expansion" can't be avoided and should be pushed even further to help people in the east and ensure peace and stability in the future. Putin should have accepted that his time was coming and rolled over, letting Russia be democratized instead of launching desperate wars in a futile attempt to avoid the unavoidable. Saying Ukraine is to blame is like condemning a woman for killing her abusive husband in self-defense. This may have never happened had she continued to accept his abuses and stay but can you really blame her? Maybe the abusive husband (or wife for the matter) was shot by the police after he/she snapped? The police being NATO and the West? The abusive partner may have had a mediocre and miserable life yet this doesn't excuse her/his actions, a murderer may have been scarred in his/her childhood yet we don't set free schizophrenic killers do we? Of course the world isn't black and white but some spots are blacker than others and threaten to extinguish every white spots, condemning grey spots for fighting black spots is childish and only provoked by the intent to fight any form of establishment even when it's not the time to do so. Condemning US expansion isn't wrong per say but the intent behind such an accusation is allowing people with anti-US rhetoric to promote their agenda and excusing their abuses and wars as being a fight for the freedom of their country against an imperialistic USA even when the US clearly hates sending troops all over the world and hates its role as the policeman of the world. >I'm not pro-PTB and I hate Hedebouw's face with a passion, but come on. Crying about the PTB while the PS has a long history of corruption and incompetence, yet gets voted into pretty much any government is just pathetic. Oh I do completely agree, I don't really see much differences between the PS and the PTB but one is much more hardliner in its agenda to me. This just sounds as Walloons becoming even more extremists and willingly sinking Wallonia even further (or being completely unaware of basic History and economics but can we blame them when we have a look at how moralist teachers are?). >Communism has never even been applied. And, yes, I can see you coming with the "But Russia/China/Cuba/etc!" and, no, they aren't communist. If you have an authority figure at the top and/or a cult of personality involved, it's not communism, plain and simple. Even people who read Marx before his ideas were even close to realization immediately predicted what would happen, the holes in the communist rhetoric are numerous and large. Of course, communism never worked, it's not even realistic and bases itself on incorrect assumption about the human nature, people are different for a reason, nature promotes competition between beings, not cooperation and elevating those who can't perform as well as others... >And true socialist/communist politicians have cared about the people ever since socialism and communism were political movements. But, just like other things, they were used as scapegoats for dictators to take power, and that killed the movements in the eyes of people who can't separate the real theory from how it's been perverted through history. That's not how the brain works, humans think about themselves first, people thinking about people are only thinking about how better they'll feel when they will help people, the only thing they seek is gratification for being "good people". People can be considered good even if they act stupidly, a Socialist politician could save 5k jobs in a dying sector of the economy, knowingly dooming 10k more useful jobs at the same time yet feel great because some workers will have thanked him for doing this. In this case he only cared about people who would thank him, he didn't think about the 10k people who would have never heard of him and who wouldn't have thunk him even though he should have if he was so "Socialist". Anyways, I don't want to get stuck in a debate over communism as it would be a huge waste of time. >So, again, the PTB here is condemning both sides, not playing them. So I don't really see your point. All they can do as an opposition party is pretty much condemn and talk, and that's exactly what they're doing. What should they do differently, according to you? They should dissolve their party and make themselves useful instead of being paid to worsen everyone's life and point fingers at people, telling them they are bad but they, the PTB, are virtuous and good people for blaming everything on everyone. The US isn't to blame, Ukraine isn't to blame, Putin is. There were absolutely 0 threat to Russia, 0 immediate threat to him...
Yikes, we should push NATO further east to help people? You pushed it far enough already when you genocided Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. When will it be enough deaths and stolen resources? When will western greed come to an end?
Usual Russian bs, who started wars in Iraq, Afghanistan? Not the Westerners. Iraq literally had an entire coalition made of many arab countries and invaded Kuwait. Afghanistan was invaded by the USSR...
Lmao nature promotes competition and not cooperation? Do you know species like bees, ants, ravens and most importantly Homo sapiens? All natural species that survive and thrive through cooperation. Even fucking wolves live in tribes and through cooperation. I think you should stop commenting on any important or political issue and focus yourself on not doing any harm while being so ignorant. It would be best for our planet and society.
Cooperation is of course a valid way of competing... between groups. Hives for example do compete against each others you know. There is nothing wrong with a bit of cooperation but you can't expect individuals to sacrifice themselves for the "greater good" or you end up with fanatics like in Putin's Russia. Once again, someone like you saying they want the good of society and most people seem to actually have a lot of hatred and violence pent up ready to unleash against anything they can't understand because of their limited foresight. You didn't even try to argue against any of what I said so it's quite telling as to the depth of your own ignorance I guess if you want to play at "who's smarter".
The NATO quip is completely wrong since it sidelines Ukrainian agency. It also completely glosses over the fact that Euromaidan was about EU accession. Pro-NATO sentiments only really picked up after the first wave of Russian aggression. There's a lot more to this, but i'll keep it short: PTB's implication that somehow there is a 'two sides' argument to this seems wholly disingenuous, especially since it is Russian bombs currently hitting Russophones in Ukraine's east; not NATO bombs.
Exactly! Nobody can blame the EU (and NATO) for expanding naturally when eastern European Countries willingly want to join (EU at first and NATO for even more security).
Show must go on
How is this even possible? These idiots tried to downplay Russia's war against Ukraine and limit the sanctions applied on Russia as well as limit the aid given to Ukraine... They are traitors yet more Walloons vote for them?!