Wow Belgium, I thought you were a bit cooler than that
People, including many Europeans, make a lot of assumptions about Europe.
Americans in particular seem to assume that issues fall along the same political Dem/Rep divide as in the US. That gives them bad ideas. European countries have more solid social safety nets, more accessible and cheaper health care and education, more developed and usable public transport systems, …
On other issues like immigration or racism, they are on a MAGA-level. There is no big controversy because it is widely taken for granted that European nations are ethno-states. This is less so in the former colonial powers Britain and France. But they have their own baggage that gnaws at them from within, just like the history of racial segregation undermines the USA.
Another area where Europe is just different from the US is freedom of information. It’s just not respected in the same way. Intellectual property, on the other hand, is held in much higher regard. That’s how it has been for a long time.
Now that the copyright industry is waging an all-out lobby battle against citizens, you can expect much more like this.
Americans in particular seem to assume that issues fall along the same political Dem/Rep divide as in the US.
Yes. As someone who grew in Russia, if I’d talk freely and casually about politics in the way we do here, with Americans IRL nearby, I’d probably be literally lynched regardless of those being majority Democrat or majority Republican minded, and if those Americans were sufficiently inattentive, even by a mixed crowd. Things associated with freedom and dignity and just human treatment of each other here are associated with fascism there, and the other way around. And it’s very counterintuitive. And also honestly Americans and continental Europeans (but not Brits) generally feel more like peasants with pitchforks than like Russians, in every political-minded discussion. It really feels that they’d be perfectly fine with everyone disagreeing being relocated six feet under, and the purpose of the discussion is usually to let you atone and ask for mercy. Despite all the stereotypes about Russians, this is not the case here, you might get insults, but not that heavy unwillingness to accept your side’s existence.
Though that was 10 years ago, now in the Russian-language space there’s much wariness of propaganda and legal problems for speech and so on, so people speak less freely, while a loud minority of bootlickers likely outside Russia repeat some combination of American points, more similar to a Republican set, but at the same time certain they’d be loved by Democrats. It’s weird.
That be the country where the king records a “happy psychopath”-style videos where he talks with his subjects over video calls on a smartphone. Everything clean, bright smiles, the subjects’ selection is properly racially diverse. And you can just feel how with everything so perfect something is wrong, like - why that session of short video calls of the monarch with random (but very proportionally selected and similarly clothed in style) people even happens? What is it intended to show, that the king has empathy for every person? Were I a citizen of Belgium, I’d prefer the king to not care and tend to his garden instead. This feels so glowing and fake that one can’t help thoughts like “what if the king actually eats children for breakfast”.
Why?
You say this as if the problem isn’t American corporations and pooled special interests bribing, blackmail and rig elections in every country they can until they get what they want.
No.
The copyright lobby in the EU is homegrown. For example, the football league in Italy has achieved sweeping laws that can be used to block pirated live streams without much ado. Expect that to be rolled out across the EU.
It’s true that these EU corporations are in league with the US copyright lobby. After all, Europeans read American books, watch American movies, listen to American music. The books are usually badly translated and published by a European corporation, which gives Europeans a cut. European agencies, often government-sponsored monopolies, collect money and send much of it to the US. But a lot is doled out to European corporations. And the collecting agencies have a good thing going, as well.
It’s bizzare, you started off by saying “No” in a willful display of poor social skills but then went on to say very little that I’ve disagreed with.
I mean, I didn’t say that each country didn’t have their own lobby, now did I?
The pressure and the money to actually change things and control your country’s entire online media narrative is controlled by a very small number of US companies. They use this power to rig elections and force law like the above through. I understand that wi be difficult reading for some Americans who don’t like that they’re now the colonising Empire but, that doesn’t change that the main problem with sorting our own digital data laws hasn’t been meddling by American business interests.
Have you got anything more than “I don’t like this. So, it isn’t true?”
EU used to be cool I guess.
Stupid Ghents.
