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Germany: Merkel disgust at New Year gang assaults

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Averon

Member
The feminist left here is the epitome of "regressive left" when it comes to migration.

Well according to some feminists, white men are just as bad. They send bad emails to female writers for example.

The relativization from the feminist left has been pretty extreme here in Sweden.

Far too many on the left have responded horribly to this ordeal. Throwing women and LGBT people under the bus in their pursued to appear non-bigoted and not give the right ammunition is pretty disgusting. There's no reason why we can be honest about these problems and not be bigoted about it. Far too many on the left seems to think that isn't possible and any sort of acknowledgment about migrant criminality is racist.
 

El Topo

Member
Thats why it is kinda hard when people say "but the statistics say its not that bad/its about the same."

Yes and no. The important part of statistics is the proper interpretation and handling of data. The article does not claim that all statistics treat crime this way, there are (after all) studies on whether or not there is a correlation between migrational background and crime (such as the study/report I linked to). That said, statistics are still the best starting point for a discussion.
 
Some of the frustration doesn't come from a place of racism and fascism -- There is a legitimate concern with how to integrate these refugees. You can be both overly PC and overly generalising.

I think a possible solution is to break them up such that they have opportunity to absorb new culture as opposed to sticking together so they can have their own opinions bundle up and feel like they shouldn't have to as much as they are expected to.

It's like international students all sticking together, it's hard to remove their accent. Segregating the refugees in "refugee hotspots" is a terrible idea.

Same as the turks. They will live in parallel societies.
 

patapuf

Member
Some of the frustration doesn't come from a place of racism and fascism -- There is a legitimate concern with how to integrate these refugees. You can be both overly PC and overly generalising.

I think a possible solution is to break them up such that they have opportunity to absorb new culture as opposed to sticking together so they can have their own opinions bundle up and feel like they shouldn't have to as much as they are expected to.

It's like international students all sticking together, it's hard to remove their accent. Segregating the refugees in "refugee hotspots" is a terrible idea.

While a good solutions, the problem we have here is scale and time of preparation. There are a huge amount of new arrivals in a very short timespan, you won't have enough time to organise such a distribution programm (and you need the goodwill of the population to have enough places to boot).

Aditionally, there are already huge, established communities with similar cultural background in german cities. Preventing them from forming is an impossibilty since they already exists.


And a whole other issue you'll have is refugees that don't get granted asylum. Sending them back will take a lot of time if it's at all possible. And these will be people that are pretty much forbidden to do any legal work and won't get much integration effort since they aren't supposed to be here in the first place.

It's maddening that the political discourse is so focused on fearmongering and downplaying to score political points instead of the very real challenges that will come.
 
Tried to answer to everybody, so it become a little messy with all the quotes, I hope I didn't fuck up at some point.


It is an actual problem. Just like the immigration crisis is an actual problem. Yet you seem to want to silence one matter and not the other. You mention crimes again refugees, but seem happy to ignore crime caused by people abusing the current immigration process or immigrants who fail to integrate and participate in society in a productive way.

Crimes against refugees are terrible and the people responsible for that should be locked away for a long time. But that does not mean the problems the current immigration crisis is causing can be ignored and should not be reported.
All true. But all the problems are heavily reported on by everybody.
The issue is the unimportant stuff thats beeing reported in order to polarize, in order to incite people.

The current EU policies are at least partially responsible for that. The German government said "come here, you are all welcome" - or at least it sounded like that to the people coming - and that is why they make the journey and people die along the way.
Germany said that because they had no where else to go and where dieing everywhere between borders.
Germanys reaction was in order to lead by example. Unfortunately not many followed.

This is not a choice between letting everybody in or letting them die. People from Algeria and Morocco aren't dying. There are refugee camps for Syrians which we can fund and then transfer people from in a safe way instead of letting them cross on crappy boats and funding smugglers.
They aren't dying in their countries, but they still start the dangerous journey for various reasons. We can't take them in, but we also can't blame them for it.
The thing is that the question where to stop them is a hard one. When they're coming over the ocean not letting them in will probably result in their deaths.
But the countries at the coasts can't handle all the people landing on their coasts, so they let them cross the borders. Should the neighboring countries just close their borders and leave Italy and other alone with the problem? Thats not how it works in the EU.

What are the solutions you propose for people who come from safe countries? "Not letting them in" is not a feasible solution.

It is not. It is the medias job to report facts and give insight into important matters. It is not their job to censor information just because some may use it for political goals. Since when is it the medias responsibility to shape public opinion?
Not reporting on crime commited by the germans while focussing only every crime with refugees involvement is distroting the facts. Thats not an accurate depiction of reality. Thats biased.
There is the usual crime happening everywhere, everyday. Just because some of it is commited by refugees doesn't make it more important and worth reporting in national newspapers and shows.

Yet here you are advocating for growth of the lower class with low education, lots of unemployment and primarily young males. Why is that a smart idea?
Because this isn't about us and what good this is going to do for the german economy, this is about helping people in need.
Germany can afford that and if done right Germany will also benefit from it in the long run.


You seem to have a very black and white view about the issue. Better checks at borders does not equal not helping anyone.

You can not open your borders to everybody and expect it to work out.


You seem to have no understanding of what the EU is.
Borders are open within the EU, thats the normal thing. You can just go wherever you want, there are no patrols, fences or checkpoints, most of the time you don't even notice when you cross a border.
The only border where checks are even possible is the one people cross when they come into the EU for the first time and these countries are completly overburdened by the situation.
So when you say "better checks" what do you even mean? Should Germany build a fence around the whole country in order to control where people are coming in, in order to be able to check them?

The next problem is, what do you do after the checks. If someone is from a safe country he will just tell you that he lost his papers and you'll have a hard time figuring out where he is actually from. As long as you don't know who he is and where he is from you also can't send him back.


Germany and Europe should find moral integrity with first taking care of their own people, than taking in anyone in fear of being called out as "the bad guys".
Germans are more than taken care of. What more do they want?
Also don't forget that the vast majority of germans is very pro refugees. We're talking about ca. 10% of germans who are actively against it.
This is what german people want to do. And germany is a democracy afterall.

lol what?
on what grounds?
Western intervention in the middle east is the reason we have this problem now.
Germany was sometimes part of these interventions.


This is political naivety of the worst kind. I can't believe that someone after seeing the failure of the multicultural experiments of the past decades and the ongoing migrant crisis (with reports of rapes, harassment of gay and trans gendered people, crime, terrorism, etc) will keep his/her head in the sand and wants to invite even more people because otherwise "Germany/Europe would lose its moral integrity.
I feel like in the comment section on Infowars...

What has to happen before you get some common sense in your head and begin to realize its far, far better to help people in the region? Better for us, better for them?

"Help the people in the region"
"Check all the people at the border"
"Don't let the ones from safe countries in or send them immediately"
Thats all nice and everything, but how would you do that? That not something you can just do.
You can't just fix the middle east.
You can't tell people in their little nutshell boats to turn around.
You can't send someone back when you don't know where he came from.
You can't check everyone at the border when your border is just a line on a map and in reality its just random fields and forrest.

This is a border:
us-mexico-border-500x210.jpg

This is a border within europe:


Of course germany has unemployment. While the official data is at about 2.8 unemployed people, you seem to forgot that after Schröder they changed it, so that "Maßnahmen" and "1€ jobs" dont count as being unemployed.
But its not a problem in germany.
When you're not living in the middle of bumfuck nowhere or you are willing to resettle for a job you will easily find a job.
In most areas employers even complain about too few applicants and thats usually for jobs with low requirements like mechanic, construction worker etc.*
In cities like munich employers actively bring people in from other countries because there aren't enough germans to fill all their vacant positions.(especially in hospitals, tons of spanish people with good education come here because they can't find a job in spain)

*Thats actually an area where many refugees started by now. When they were so lucky to get their work permit after waiting between 1 and 3 years they were allowed to start training for a job.
In germany that training(Ausbildung) is paid and takes about 3 years, after that you are a certified mechanic for example and employers actively seek these people.
Employers who had refugees in training were very positive about it because they were usually more motivated than germans. Working a daily job with german colleagues combined with language courses also leads to them learning the language pretty quickly.

Well according to some feminists, white men are just as bad. They send bad emails to female writers for example.

Gamergate reporting in?


Who cares about "moral integrity" if your daughter, wife, sister or mother is being raped?
The rule of law.
Or what is your solution? Let people die in the middle east because that non of our business. And when a german guys rapes your daughter we're going to kill that motherfucker ourselfs because fuck that maximum sentence.
Understandable but not feasible.

And again, put things into perspective! Germany isn't facing a wave of crime by any stretch...

Throwing women and LGBT people under the bus
Refraining from generalizations, xenophobia and islamophobia ≠ throwing women and LGBT people under the bus.


I see we have reached the point where people pretend to be well-versed when it comes to statistics. Finally I can dig out this link in German by BpB (Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung). Though obviously one should take the conclusions from this article (as usual) with a grain of salt. Simply put, one has to be very, very careful when it comes to statistics.

Get outta here with that nuance! Let me have prejudices. Let me have my hate. Let me hate on muslims. Let me hate on uncivilized africans. Let me feel better than them.


Quote from this article by the Federal Agency for Civic Education:
Dennoch sind im öffentlichen Raum immer wieder Aussagen zu hören, die sich auf die PKS berufen, um zu belegen, dass Ausländer krimineller seien als Deutsche. Darin spiegelt sich im besten Fall eine unreflektierte Dateninterpretation wider. Häufig sind solche Aussagen aber auch politisch motiviert, etwa um durch das Bedienen von Ängsten vor den vermeintlich "Anderen" die eigene Gruppenidentität zu stärken.
"People repeadetly use statistics to prove that immigrants are more likely to be criminals than germans, this is at best a nonreflective interpretation of data but often its politically motivated and fearmongering."
 
You can't check everyone at the border when your border is just a line on a map and in reality its just random fields and forrest.

Well yeah, but whose fault is that? The Schengen agreement was predicated on the external borders of the zone being strengthened, using resources saved by dismantling the internal borders. It was written into the agreement, but noone bothered to do it. And the Schengen agreement ain't exactly a new thing - there's been plenty of time to do this.
 
All true. But all the problems are heavily reported on by everybody.
The issue is the unimportant stuff thats beeing reported in order to polarize, in order to incite people.
What you think is unimportant while others think it is not. People can make up their own minds about that.

Germany said that because they had no where else to go and where dieing everywhere between borders.
Germanys reaction was in order to lead by example. Unfortunately not many followed.
Which was a bad call and other solutions had to be explored.

They aren't dying in their countries, but they still start the dangerous journey for various reasons. We can't take them in, but we also can't blame them for it.
The thing is that the question where to stop them is a hard one. When they're coming over the ocean not letting them in will probably result in their deaths.
But the countries at the coasts can't handle all the people landing on their coasts, so they let them cross the borders. Should the neighboring countries just close their borders and leave Italy and other alone with the problem? Thats not how it works in the EU.

What are the solutions you propose for people who come from safe countries? "Not letting them in" is not a feasible solution.
Why is not letting them in not a feasible solution? If somebody comes here from such country they can be sent away. If that is not possible we need to change the rules so it is. I seriously don't get this. This happens literally all over the world if you want to cross a border.

As for refugees:

1) Fund camps in the region
2) Take families and the most vulnerable groups and give them a place to stay in Europe

Because this isn't about us and what good this is going to do for the german economy, this is about helping people in need.
Germany can afford that and if done right Germany will also benefit from it in the long run.
Opinions differ if this will be a benefit in the end. A lot of people don't think so. And we can help more people by putting funds to more effective use. A refugee here costs tens of thousands of euros a year. For that money you can fund a whole lot of food and housing in other countries.

You seem to have no understanding of what the EU is.
Borders are open within the EU, thats the normal thing. You can just go wherever you want, there are no patrols, fences or checkpoints, most of the time you don't even notice when you cross a border.
The only border where checks are even possible is the one people cross when they come into the EU for the first time and these countries are completly overburdened by the situation.
So when you say "better checks" what do you even mean? Should Germany build a fence around the whole country in order to control where people are coming in, in order to be able to check them?
I'm European, I know perfectly well what the EU is. The Schengen area is free for travel and trade. That does not mean you can't put checks on the outer borders.

The next problem is, what do you do after the checks. If someone is from a safe country he will just tell you that he lost his papers and you'll have a hard time figuring out where he is actually from. As long as you don't know who he is and where he is from you also can't send him back.
Which is why you shouldn't let them come to that point in the first place. No country just lets people through their borders without papers. Good luck trying getting into the US without papers for example. As for refugees from Syria who lost their papers, that can be settled in the refugee camps. There is no reason we should be letting in people from Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, etc without papers.

Germans are more than taken care of. What more do they want?
Also don't forget that the vast majority of germans is very pro refugees. We're talking about ca. 10% of germans who are actively against it.
This is what german people want to do. And germany is a democracy afterall.
I wonder where you got that 10% number from. If I point to a source that says 51% of the people don't want more refugees you'll be OK with closing the borders then, because it is a democracy after all?

Here you go: http://www.dw.com/en/poll-germans-increasingly-skeptical-of-refugees/a-18982943

A rising number of Germans believe the country cannot handle the massive influx of refugees, are concerned of rising crime and a threat to their culture, and question Chancellor Angela Merkel's policies, according to a poll by public broadcaster ZDF published on Friday.

For the first time, a majority of Germans say the country cannot manage the influx of asylum seekers, compared to 46 in December. Meanwhile, only 37 percent find the crisis manageable.

A vast majority of 70 percent of respondents expect crime to rise due to a large increase in refugees, compared to 62 percent with the same view when asked in October. Only 27 percent do not expect crime to rise.

Meanwhile, 73 percent of respondents believe laws and procedures for deporting asylum seekers who commit crimes should be strengthened, in a nod to the government's recent moves in that direction.

56 percent of respondents now say that they do not believe Merkel is doing a good job handling the refugee crisis.

And again, I'm not saying we should not help people, but the way Germany and other EU countries are doing it right now is not the way to do it.
 

hoola

Neo Member
I only have anecdotal "evidence", but the bf of my sister is working in one of the refugee camps (he is a soldier). When they try to break up an argument, what usually follows are assaults/a fight.
Another thing he told me is, that usually the older dads do not really care about their children. He really likes to play with the children and some children call him "dad", while the real dads are in some group, playing cards and drinking beer.

That is interesting. In high school we had some speakers who had served in various countries in the Middle East (Iraq and Afghanistan are the two that I know of) and all three speakers said the same thing about the men in those places. They described them by saying that they "were lazy, sat around all day, went to prostitutes at night and that women there were the real workers.." Supposedly one women serving in the Army was prostituting herself and brought home $100,000 in one year.

Of course, though, being in the Army they may have begun seeing the men there as the enemy, and had more negative perceptions of them than what the reality was. I've always wondered how accurate their descriptions were, and it is interesting that someone you know said something similar...
 

Izuna

Banned
While a good solutions, the problem we have here is scale and time of preparation. There are a huge amount of new arrivals in a very short timespan, you won't have enough time to organise such a distribution programm (and you need the goodwill of the population to have enough places to boot).

Aditionally, there are already huge, established communities with similar cultural background in german cities. Preventing them from forming is an impossibilty since they already exists.


And a whole other issue you'll have is refugees that don't get granted asylum. Sending them back will take a lot of time if it's at all possible. And these will be people that are pretty much forbidden to do any legal work and won't get much integration effort since they aren't supposed to be here in the first place.

It's maddening that the political discourse is so focused on fearmongering and downplaying to score political points instead of the very real challenges that will come.

Exactly. I agree. A million refugees is really huge and to have them all insert themselves into an entirely new culture with a new language is not easy at all.

This whole situation is exactly what it's called, a crisis. And no doubt there will be a percentage of fascist targetting them and refugees themselves causing terrible issues. There will be those will never integrate, and however small of a percentage, they will be the talking points of the debates on what to do and colour everyone's opinions and expectations of this situation.

I still think that these bases should be spread out a little more, but then again opposing views exist mostly in the most rural areas.

If only the government had the power to actually shape the way people think and act, but they don't have that sort of power nor should they. This crisis won't just be solved with policies, it will take a lot of human compassion and togetherness to make this sort of thing work. The fact that they are refugees cannot be the only talking point of support because it will wear out its significance over time.

I'd prefer a bit of positive propaganda here, instead of the focus on the actions of a few VERY bad apples.
 

nynt9

Member
Not reporting on crime commited by the germans while focussing only every crime
Quote from this article by the Federal Agency for Civic Education:

"People repeadetly use statistics to prove that immigrants are more likely to be criminals than germans, this is at best a nonreflective interpretation of data but often its politically motivated and fearmongering."

And of course a statement from this agency cannot be politically motivated in their own interpretation so we should take their word as the final word /s
 

54-46!

Member
Western intervention in the middle east is the reason we have this problem now.
Germany was sometimes part of these interventions.

The whole continent protested the war in Iraq, you're saying that a country's citizens should be punished for its leaders actions? dangerous road to follow.
 
What you think is unimportant while others think it is not. People can make up their own minds about that.
Its still wrong to report on certain crimes because of the ethnicity of the perpetrator and not on others because they're german.
The result of this kind of reporting is exatly what was stated in the bpb article above: A misinformed society.

Its not important to know that some refugees can be criminals. Thats obvious. Its important to know if thats a disproportionate problem compared to the usual crime out there.
And the answer to that questions is no. But the way the media focusses on refugee crime makes it seem like the answers is yes.
Thats bad.

The media is really powerful when it comes to scaring people. A few months ago people were scared that the whole thing about greece will have horrible consequences for germany. Hate towards greek people was coming up. "Lazy fucks. Why do we have to pay for their lazy asses. fuck them." Because people were scared by the reporting that greece will cost us our standard of living.
Now people apparently think the crisis over there is over because its not in the media anymore. Nobody has noticed any negative effect

Which as a bad call and other solutions had to be explored.
It was many months ago. We still haven't come up with any other solutiona.
There isn't unlimited time.

Why is not letting them in not a feasible solution? If somebody comes here from such country they can be sent away. If that is not possible we need to change the rules so it is. I seriously don't get this. This happens literally all over the world if you want to cross a border.
Okay, lets ask Italy to send the boats back.
Who cares if they make it?


As for refugees:

1) Fund camps in the region
2) Take families and the most vulnerable groups and give them a place to stay in Europe
Thats something we should do and I am pretty sure we're already planning on doing it, but that won't stop the stream of refugees. Thats just to help those people who can't make the dangerous journey.


Opinions differ if this will be a benefit in the end. A lot of people don't think so. And we can help more people by putting funds to more effective use. A refugee here costs tens of thousands of euros a year. For that money you can fund a whole lot of food and housing in other countries.
700 billion to save the banks? No problem.
100 billion to help people? Preposterous. I'm outraged! Send them away!

I'm European, I know perfectly well what the EU is. The Schengen area is free for travel and trade. That does not mean you can't put checks on the outer borders.
You were critizing germany for letting people in without checks. Germany has no outer border.
What exact is your issue here?

Which is why you shouldn't let them come to that point in the first place. No country just lets people through their borders without papers. Good luck trying getting into the US without papers for example. As for refugees from Syria who lost their papers, that can be settled in the refugee camps. There is no reason we should be letting in people from Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, etc without papers.
And we're back at sending the boats back.
Or when they are crossing on land and we're not letting them in they will just camp in front of the border until the humanitarian situation gets so bad that the EU has to do something.
The only possible solution were keeping these people from leaving the borders of their own countries, but how in the world would you do that?

I wonder where you got that 10% number from. If I point to a source that says 51% of the people don't want more refugees you'll be OK with closing the borders then, because it is a democracy after all?
Well, the only relevant party right to Angela Merkels party is the AfD and its polling at 10%.
Everything to the left of Merkels party is just as or even more pro refugee as Merkel.
All these parties combined make up 85% of the votes.
The are numbers from recent polls from the last few days.
So 85% of germans would right now for a party that is just as or even more pro refugees as Merkels.
That doesn't mean that these 85% all think Merkel is doing a good job or that the crisis is no problem. It just means that in light of the recent development they are still standing behind the pro refugee stance.

People outside of germany often forget that Merkels party is already considered a right-ish party in germany.
Thats the reason why I don't think the right wing in germany isn't a threat unlike in other european countries. Its just so small and lacks political influence. They just get a lot of attention because they're loud and do and say a lot of stupid shit.


Regarding the dw article:
a majority of Germans say the country cannot manage the influx of asylum seekers
Yet, they still vote pro refugee.

A vast majority of 70 percent of respondents expect crime to rise due to a large increase in refugees
70% of people have irrational fears. Thats nothing new.
At least they don't let their fear keep them from doing the right thing.

73 percent of respondents believe laws and procedures for deporting asylum seekers who commit crimes should be strengthened
Thats something everybody always wants. Merkel party and all the other parties are also working on this. But its not that easy because the right to asylum is in germanys constitution so everything we do about it has to be very well thought out otherwise the supreme court will just shut it down. This not something that can be done in a afternoon of brainstorming.
But I think we'll see some proposals soon.

56 percent of respondents now say that they do not believe Merkel is doing a good job handling the refugee crisis.
I am among these 56%.
I think she is communicating way to little and when she does its just some platitudes like "We can do it."
The people want to hear about specific plans, a specific budget etc.
Merkel has all that, but she isn't saying anything because its all still stuck in the political process, so many people start to think that she doesn't have a plan.


And of course a statement from this agency cannot be politically motivated in their own interpretation so we should take their word as the final word /s
They're scientists. Not journalists.
If we start doubting science we might aswell call climate change leftist propaganda and become like the US.


The whole continent protested the war in Iraq, you're saying that a country's citizens should be punished for its leaders actions? dangerous road to follow.
I wouldn't see helping people as punishment but as taking responsibility.


Well yeah, but whose fault is that? The Schengen agreement was predicated on the external borders of the zone being strengthened, using resources saved by dismantling the internal borders. It was written into the agreement, but noone bothered to do it. And the Schengen agreement ain't exactly a new thing - there's been plenty of time to do this.

Doesn't matter whos "fault" that is.
Stronger externals borders wouldn't fix anything either, unless, of course, you want some kind of Fort Europa and don't give a shit about the people outside the walls.
 
Its still wrong to report on certain crimes because of the ethnicity of the perpetrator and not on others because they're german.
The result of this kind of reporting is exatly what was stated in the bpb article above: A misinformed society.

Its not important to know that some refugees can be criminals. Thats obvious. Its important to know if thats a disproportionate problem compared to the usual crime out there.
And the answer to that questions is no. But the way the media focusses on refugee crime makes it seem like the answers is yes.
Thats bad.

The media is really powerful when it comes to scaring people. A few months ago people were scared that the whole thing about greece will have horrible consequences for germany. Hate towards greek people was coming up. "Lazy fucks. Why do we have to pay for their lazy asses. fuck them." Because people were scared by the reporting that greece will cost us our standard of living.
Now people apparently think the crisis over there is over because its not in the media anymore. Nobody has noticed any negative effect
The media didn't really focus on any negative refugee stuff until recently. If anything, the feeling was they were too positive. That is turning around now. Let's hope we end up in the middle and can just stick to facts.

It was many months ago. We still haven't come up with any other solutiona.
There isn't unlimited time.

Okay, lets ask Italy to send the boats back.
Who cares if they make it?

Thats something we should do and I am pretty sure we're already planning on doing it, but that won't stop the stream of refugees. Thats just to help those people who can't make the dangerous journey.
At some point, people have to be turned back. You can't have unlimited people coming into your country. There are a lot of people in the Middle-east and Africa having it a lot worse then we do. But you have to draw the line somewhere. You can't take in millions upon millions of people. That is just not realistic, no matter how good your intentions are. And in the end, people will have to be sent back.

The scenario will probably be to set up camps at the borders to handle who gets to come and who doesn't and sent people back there who try to get in illegally.

700 billion to save the banks? No problem.
100 billion to help people? Preposterous. I'm outraged! Send them away!
Who said I had no problem with bailing out the banks? But that is not the subject of this topic. Pointing at other problems does not make this problem go away or is a meaningful argument.

You were critizing germany for letting people in without checks. Germany has no outer border.
What exact is your issue here?
I am criticizing the current EU policy (or lack thereof) which has lead to this situation and will contribute to makings things worse if it isn't changed. Germany has a major role in this as the biggest EU economy and having the loudest voice in telling all immigrants they are welcome, without having an actual plan in place to follow up on that.

And we're back at sending the boats back.
Or when they are crossing on land and we're not letting them in they will just camp in front of the border until the humanitarian situation gets so bad that the EU has to do something.
The only possible solution were keeping these people from leaving the borders of their own countries, but how in the world would you do that?
You would do that by not letting people in here in such numbers that we can not handle with promises of a life we can not give them.

Well, the only relevant party right to Angela Merkels party is the AfD and its polling at 10%.
Everything to the left of Merkels party is just as or even more pro refugee as Merkel.
All these parties combined make up 85% of the votes.
The are numbers from recent polls from the last few days.
So 85% of germans would right now for a party that is just as or even more pro refugees as Merkels.
That doesn't mean that these 85% all think Merkel is doing a good job or that the crisis is no problem. It just means that in light of the recent development they are still standing behind the pro refugee stance.

People outside of germany often forget that Merkels party is already considered a right-ish party in germany.
Thats the reason why I don't think the right wing in germany isn't a threat unlike in other european countries. Its just so small and lacks political influence. They just get a lot of attention because they're loud and do and say a lot of stupid shit.
It is almost as if you can vote for a party and not share a 100% of their views for the lack of a better alternative.

Stronger externals borders wouldn't fix anything either, unless, of course, you want some kind of Fort Europa and don't give a shit about the people outside the walls.
Better border control does not equal not giving a shit. Again, the issue is not as black and white as that. The choice is not between "letting everyone in" and "letting everyone die". There is a lot of room between those two extremes.
 

Agremont

Member
People really need to abandon the black and white worldview if we're ever going to manage this whole thing. That goes for both the left and right.

It's proving real tough for some.
 

YourMaster

Member
People keep stating the need for more borders, which is something that provides inconvenience to natives and immigrants alike. However, immigrants are likely motivated enough to cross the border anyway, you can't protect the entire European border.

The thing is, we don't need more border control, just an office at the border and at the airport where everybody who wants to move into the country has to report. At this location your finger prints and identity are entered into a computer and you receive information on what to do to get into the system to be processed for asylum.
However, if you're one of the people that should have been stopped by the 'big border wall' a 'refused' is registered along with the finger prints. If you still walk into the country you'll have no work permit and don't get any food, shelter or money.

At this point, people will simply stop coming. Right now we have borders we don't want people to cross, but when they do manage to do so we reward them.
 
People keep stating the need for more borders, which is something that provides inconvenience to natives and immigrants alike. However, immigrants are likely motivated enough to cross the border anyway, you can't protect the entire European border.

The thing is, we don't need more border control, just an office at the border and at the airport where everybody who wants to move into the country has to report. At this location your finger prints and identity are entered into a computer and you receive information on what to do to get into the system to be processed for asylum.
However, if you're one of the people that should have been stopped by the 'big border wall' a 'refused' is registered along with the finger prints. If you still walk into the country you'll have no work permit and don't get any food, shelter or money.

At this point, people will simply stop coming. Right now we have borders we don't want people to cross, but when they do manage to do so we reward them.

The sad truth right there...
 

Kinyou

Member
Well, the only relevant party right to Angela Merkels party is the AfD and its polling at 10%.
Everything to the left of Merkels party is just as or even more pro refugee as Merkel.
Actually not anymore. The SPD (second largest party in Germany) demands now a reduction of the incoming refugees. The pressure on Merkel from the CSU also gets bigger and bigger.
 
The media didn't really focus on any negative refugee stuff until recently. If anything, the feeling was they were too positive. That is turning around now. Let's hope we end up in the middle and can just stick to facts.
Thats just wrong. The media(the good media) has always been attacking policy. They're just not attacking the refugees. They're not trying to incite people. They're trying to give perspective and nuanced information about things and they try to avoid generalizations.

At some point, people have to be turned back. You can't have unlimited people coming into your country. There are a lot of people in the Middle-east and Africa having it a lot worse then we do. But you have to draw the line somewhere. You can't take in millions upon millions of people. That is just not realistic, no matter how good your intentions are. And in the end, people will have to be sent back.
Nobody in germany is arguing that we should let people in who fled from save countries because of economical reasons.
But once they are at the border its usually to dangrous to turn them away, so we take them in register them and deport them. And that process has to be streamlined.

The scenario will probably be to set up camps at the borders to handle who gets to come and who doesn't and sent people back there who try to get in illegally.
Something germany and the border countries asked for, but that idea had little support from the rest of europe.

Who said I had no problem with bailing out the banks? But that is not the subject of this topic. Pointing at other problems does not make this problem go away or is a meaningful argument.
Its not to belittle the problem. Its to give perspective on the cost.
This will be WAY cheaper than the bank bail out, so people who are acting like this will ruin europe can fuck right off.

I am criticizing the current EU policy (or lack thereof) which has lead to this situation and will contribute to makings things worse if it isn't changed. Germany has a major role in this as the biggest EU economy and having the loudest voice in telling all immigrants they are welcome, without having an actual plan in place to follow up on that.
The lack of a EU policy is because many countries think they can avoid all responsibility whatsoever. Germany is constantly pushing for a solution where every country is involved, but only very few other countries are willing to tackle the problem at all.

You would do that by not letting people in here in such numbers that we can not handle with promises of a life we can not give them.
But people are coming in large numbers and you can't expect Italy and others to turn them away.
Of course this whole thing would work a lot better if politicians would have listened to expert who said years ago that there will be millions upon millions of refugees from the middle east. But we ignored these warnings until we couldn't ignore it anymore.
Now we have to invest even more and faster.
Part of that investment should of course go to the border countries in order to help them with the registration of the refugees.

It is almost as if you can vote for a party and not share a 100% of their views for the lack of a better alternative.
Or maybe germans are just a little more senstive to racism, facism, xenophobia, "Deutschland über Alles" and "Deutschland den Deutschen".

There is a reason why the right wing is irrelevant in germany, unlike in other european countries.

Better border control does not equal not giving a shit. Again, the issue is not as black and white as that. The choice is not between "letting everyone in" and "letting everyone die". There is a lot of room between those two extremes.
Once these people are at the border - yes it is. Because the way back for them is deadly.
Letting them in doesn't mean you're allowing them to stay.




My points are very simple:
1. We are obliged to help the people who need help. This doesn't include people who leave their countries for economic reasons.
This is not only my opinion, this is also written down in the german constitution.

2. In order to effectively help people who are in need, we will have to deal with some people who try to abuse the system, this will cost us money but we just have to deal with that.
But we can streamline the processes to send these people back.

3. The racism, xenophobia, islamophobia, prejudice that is showing right now all across europe is disgusting. Its the medias job to keep people in line. Not give in to fearmongering, provide perspective etc.
The way of reporting on crime involving refugees plays a big part here.

4. This whole thing will cost a lot(not so much compared to other things like the bank bailout or climate change or the wars in the middle east that caused this mess in the first place), but the cost isn't what we should focus on.



But right now people are fearmongering, hating on refugees because they are seeing problems in the media and to them they seem much bigger than they actually are.(In germany the regions where the people are the most against immigrants are those regions where the least immigrants live. They are driven by irrational fear and hate/racism.)

This is bad for refugees here. But this also keeps political progress from happening because many countries outright refuse to carry their weight when it comes to finding a solution and fixing the problem.


Actually not anymore. The SPD (second largest party in Germany) demands now a reduction of the incoming refugees. The pressure on Merkel from the CSU also gets bigger and bigger.

The SPD can shut right up. They are part of the government. They walked along silently the whole time. And now that there are some problems and upcoming elections they suddenly come up with different proposals.
Not buying it.
Also, the SPD also acknowledges that Germany is obliged to take in refugees. They are not anti refugee, they just want to keep out the people from safe countries and streamline some of the registration stuff. The same stuff everyone else wants, too.

The CSU has been nagging since this whole thing started. In my opinion their only purpose is fishing for right wing voters in order to keep them from an actual right wing party. At the end of the day they always fall in line with Merkel.
 
Oh shut it. That was completely uncalled for.

I am reffering to an actual thing in Sweden. The incredible relativization of many leftist feminists here.

Please do elaborate.

On a different note.
I'm wondering if anyone here has given any thought about about what can and should be done regarding patriarchal oppression?
I've read about a Swedish group called "men for equality" who work with several municipalities concerning both sexual violence and violence.
This is a quote.
"The past week's news reporting has been flooded by reports of sexual harassment against women and young girls : At the festival We Are Stockholm last summer in whirlpools of Eriksdal and the New Year celebrations in Kalmar. But the assaults are no surprises Sofie Kindahl the organization Men for Gender Equality .

- That 's exactly what we work with every day . Young guys are overrepresented in violence statistics in terms of both assaults and sexual violence . The violence directed against both girls and themselves . We want to challenge stereotypical masculinity norms because we see such a clear link between norms and violence , she says. "


I really think that young men (native and national) could benefit from workshops like that.
Here is the link: https://akademssr.se/reportage/de-lar-unga-utmana-maskulinitetsnormerna
 

Kinyou

Member
The SPD can shut right up. They are part of the government. They walked along silently the whole time. And now that there are some problems and upcoming elections they suddenly come up with different proposals.
Not buying it.
Also, the SPD also acknowledges that Germany is obliged to take in refugees. They are not anti refugee, they just want to keep out the people from safe countries and streamline some of the registration stuff. The same stuff everyone else wants, too.
Point is that they're not "just as or even more pro refugee as Merkel" right now. If people really are all behind Merkel's politics then SPD numbers should take a hit now.
 

El Topo

Member
I think the intention of what Gigawatts is trying to say is clear, not that people should be kept docile, but simply that media is supposed to act responsibly, see the German press code for details.
This should be the official version, if I'm not mistaken, for those that have no idea about this.
 
Well according to some feminists, white men are just as bad. They send bad emails to female writers for example.

The relativization from the feminist left has been pretty extreme here in Sweden.

Last year in Germany, on average 22 women got raped every day. And those are just the reported numbers. Where were those people who are now so outraged? They did not say a fucking word. It is obvious that to them, rape is only a problem, when "black men rape white women". This is what our feminists are criticising. Suddenly so many people are interested in women's rights. But none of them is actually talking about the women, they are only talking about the alleged perpetrators and their ethnicity. Because they are racists. And "bad emails", really? That's a nice way to put it. Feminists in Germany received countless death threats, and messages that wished them to be raped and murdered by migrants. Those people really do care about women's rights!

This is political naivety of the worst kind. I can't believe that someone after seeing the failure of the multicultural experiments of the past decades and the ongoing migrant crisis (with reports of rapes, harassment of gay and trans gendered people, crime, terrorism, etc) will keep his/her head in the sand and wants to invite even more people because otherwise "Germany/Europe would lose its moral integrity.

And I can't believe that people are still using phrases like "the failure of the multicultural experiments" after Breivik. The number of reports isn't that high considering we have millions of refugees. This is a fact. Why are you ignoring it?

What has to happen before you get some common sense in your head and begin to realize its far, far better to help people in the region? Better for us, better for them?

Do you have any idea what this would cost?

The feminist left here is the epitome of "regressive left" when it comes to migration.

The "feminist left" is a lot more likeable and reasonable than those right wing loons with their hatred and zero empathy.

Who cares about "moral integrity" if your daughter, wife, sister or mother is being raped?

What the fuck are you talking about? There are currently less than 50 suspects out of a group of over a MILLION migrants. Your "fears" are completely irrational and paranoid. The amount of fear mongering coming from right wing extremists like you is terrifying, and it is sad that people like you care so little about the law and human rights. Who cares about "moral integrity". Jesus Christ.

People keep stating the need for more borders, which is something that provides inconvenience to natives and immigrants alike. However, immigrants are likely motivated enough to cross the border anyway, you can't protect the entire European border.

The thing is, we don't need more border control, just an office at the border and at the airport where everybody who wants to move into the country has to report. At this location your finger prints and identity are entered into a computer and you receive information on what to do to get into the system to be processed for asylum.
However, if you're one of the people that should have been stopped by the 'big border wall' a 'refused' is registered along with the finger prints. If you still walk into the country you'll have no work permit and don't get any food, shelter or money.

At this point, people will simply stop coming. Right now we have borders we don't want people to cross, but when they do manage to do so we reward them.

Treating people with dignity isn't a fucking reward. It is a human right.
 
I think the intention of what Gigawatts is trying to say is clear, not that people should be kept docile, but simply that media is supposed to act responsibly, see the German press code for details.
This should be the official version, if I'm not mistaken, for those that have no idea about this.

The press should ideally report news as they are as objective as possible. But that's hard to do, and with all the sexual assault coverups and downplaying they had been doing for the last year they aren't exactly making people want to trust them.
 
Point is that they're not "just as or even more pro refugee as Merkel" right now. If people really are all behind Merkel's politics then SPD numbers should take a hit now.

The SPD(especially when you take the base of the party into account) is in my opinion more pro refugee than Merkel. They just have differences about how to handle the situation.


This viewpoint (and the same one expressed by Gemüsepizza) is basically authoritarian. You really want a Russian-style, illiberal, semi-democracy.
Reporting responsibly so that the public doesn't come to wrong and extremist viewpoints is authoritarian?


Man, this is a weird perspective of the role of the free press.
Keeping the public in line by reporting responsibly, giving perspective and informing people without sensationalism.

I think media in the west has two problems.
The first one is right wing bias(for example Fox News in the US), the other one isn't left wing bias but, as Jon Stewart put it once, bias towards sensationalism(for example CNN or in germany BILD).
Both is bad because it leads to a misinformed public and a misinformed public tends to vote for the wrong people and/or tends to go to political extremes.
Thatswhy good media should try to avoid that and keep the public in line by informing them accurately.
 

Chairman Yang

if he talks about books, you better damn well listen
Reporting responsibly so that the public doesn't come to wrong and extremist viewpoints is authoritarian?
Yes, it absolutely is.

What exactly is your solution if a newspaper reports something that is factually true but "irresponsible" according to you? If you say "do nothing", congratulations, you're not an authoritarian. If you say "fine them", "suppress them", or "shut them down", you're authoritarian.
 

neorej

ERMYGERD!
Yikes...

@Neorej; Can you elaborate?
Sure.
I was working with a moving company at the time, we got hired by an AZC (asylumseekerscenter).
They had created temporary living arrangements for the asylum seekers by placing caravans on a slab of unused land just outside the center, while the center itself was being renovated and upgraded. Now the work was done and theasylumseekers were back living in the center.

We were hired to get the fridges, TVs and lockers out of the caravan, into our trucks and take them to a warehouse for storage.

We didn't have much interaction with the asylumseekers themselves, but our contract tells us we can't enter the center, in fear of our safety. We have to eat our lunch in the trucks and we're being brought fresh supplies of bottled water every hour. If we needed to use the restroom, we would have to call security, and they'd escort is to the toilet, stand guard there and escort us back. We're warned though; if a fight breaks out while we're in the restroom, the guard will leave, and we best stay in the stall until things calm down.

While we were working, we had a clean view of the yard, where at least 6 fights had erupted over the course of the day while we were working. One of them involved a stabbing.
Our crew were big strong guys, we all decided to take our leaks in the bushes instead of risking our lives in there.
 

El Topo

Member
The press should ideally report news as they are as objective as possible. But that's hard to do, and with all the sexual assault coverups and downplaying they had been doing for the last year they aren't exactly making people want to trust them.

This coverup narrative is getting old, especially since people have little show for it. Sexual abuse and sexual assault in general are not covered by media with the attention these crimes deserve, as e.g. recent news regarding the extent of sexual and/or physical abuse at Regensburger Domspatzen did not gain much public attention. Jimmy Saville? Barely mentioned. The idea that all media covered up events or downplayed problems is simply not reasonable in any way. When media for a decade believed the stories of a mysterious foreign mafia murdering people (which then turned out to be NSU), was that a cover up?

A journalist might screw up, might ignore things, might have the wrong impression or just not care about certain things. These things happen.
 
Gemüsepizza;192568572 said:
What the fuck are you talking about? There are currently less than 50 suspects out of a group of over a MILLION migrants. Your "fears" are completely irrational and paranoid. The amount of fear mongering coming from right wing extremists like you is terrifying, and it is sad that people like you care so little about the law and human rights. Who cares about "moral integrity". Jesus Christ.

The number of suspects does not equal the number of perpetrators...
 
What difference does it make for my argumentation, if there are 75 or even 100 perpetrators? There are still over 1 million refugees in Germany, and even more migrants.
 
Thats just wrong. The media(the good media) has always been attacking policy. They're just not attacking the refugees. They're not trying to incite people. They're trying to give perspective and nuanced information about things and they try to avoid generalizations.
What you see as attacking refugees, I see as reporting newsworthy situations. It is not the medias responsibility to keep people in line or push a certain view. As long as they stick to the facts, they should be fine. Right now the immigration crisis is a big thing, so of course there is more coverage about it. Not doing so would ignoring a newsworthy situation.

Nobody in germany is arguing that we should let people in who fled from save countries because of economical reasons.
But once they are at the border its usually to dangrous to turn them away, so we take them in register them and deport them. And that process has to be streamlined.
At the moment, the process is so slow and full of flaws, it is unbelievable. We have reports about people just returning multiple times, showing up under different names, finger prints not being shared among centers so they can just try again, people not showing up for deportation and the list goes on. Until that has been settled, we should not continue to add more people to the system that can not handle it.

Something germany and the border countries asked for, but that idea had little support from the rest of europe.
And that was wrong, you got no argument from me there. Northern Europe has been pushing this problem off for ages and left Southern Europe to deal with it, but that is no excuse to not change things now.

But people are coming in large numbers and you can't expect Italy and others to turn them away.
How exactly do you think this is going at other borders around the world? The Moroccan - Spanish border is secure, they turn people away. Until Libya collapsed we were fine with a dictator there securing our borders. You can turn people away, that is why there are borders. It's not a pretty thing, but at some point it has to be done. What do you think will happen when the US just removes their border with Mexico?

I think we all agree that people from safe countries should not even apply here. But the way we have now set stuff up does not punish them for doing so, but instead rewards them.

TI think media in the west has two problems.
The first one is right wing bias(for example Fox News in the US), the other one isn't left wing bias but, as Jon Stewart put it once, bias towards sensationalism(for example CNN or in germany BILD).
Both is bad because it leads to a misinformed public and a misinformed public tends to vote for the wrong people and/or tends to go to political extremes.
Thatswhy good media should try to avoid that and keep the public in line by informing them accurately.
I don't think you should use the words "keep the public in line" since this implies that they should control the population and that is in no way the role of the media.

Gemüsepizza;192571782 said:
What difference does it make for my argumentation, if there are 75 or even 100 perpetrators? There are still over 1 million refugees in Germany, and even more migrants.
The difference is you are talking about one evening at one location. If you then add up all the other things we learned after that and the reports coming out from refugee centers about the situations there - and people sharing their experience in this very thread - it is clear that we are dealing with nor just 50 or 100 people but a larger problem.
 

El Topo

Member
The difference is you are talking about one evening at one location. If you then add up all the other things we learned after that and the reports coming out from refugee centers about the situations there - and people sharing their experience in this very thread - it is clear that we are dealing with nor just 50 or 100 people but a larger problem.

Well, how many are we dealing with? What are the numbers we can expect?
 
Well, how many are we dealing with? What are the numbers we can expect?
That's the problem, we don't know a number. We don't know how to handle the situation or what is going on, since there is no plan in place from either the countries government or the EU. And this uncertainty leads to a whole lot of trouble, since people will feel unsafe because they don't see their leaders stepping up and actually leading.
 
Gemüsepizza;192572529 said:
So you are just making stuff up?
Yes, that is exactly what I am saying... /s

So tell me, what has the EU planned to keep this situation under control when next year another million people show up at the borders and make sure the people staying here will integrate well into society?
 
Yes, it absolutely is.

What exactly is your solution if a newspaper reports something that is factually true but "irresponsible" according to you? If you say "do nothing", congratulations, you're not an authoritarian. If you say "fine them", "suppress them", or "shut them down", you're authoritarian.


Criticising them is the way to go.
Thats usually what you should do when people are bad at what they do.




What you see as attacking refugees, I see as reporting newsworthy situations. It is not the medias responsibility to keep people in line or push a certain view. As long as they stick to the facts, they should be fine. Right now the immigration crisis is a big thing, so of course there is more coverage about it. Not doing so would ignoring a newsworthy situation.
How is "some refugees are criminals" newsworthy? They are humans like everybody else, so of course some of them tend to be criminals, too.
Putting the focus on that is biased, irresponsible and just plain bad journalism.

One sided journalism is not fine, even when you stick to the fact.
Imagine in the US the media would only report on black crime, would that be okay as long as they stick to the facts?



At the moment, the process is so slow and full of flaws, it is unbelievable. We have reports about people just returning multiple times, showing up under different names, finger prints not being shared among centers so they can just try again, people not showing up for deportation and the list goes on. Until that has been settled, we should not continue to add more people to the system that can not handle it.

This shows a basic misunderstanding of the situation on your part.

"Dear middle east, could you please stop sucking for a while until we have our shit figured out?"
Doesnt work like that.



And that was wrong, you got no argument from me there. Northern Europe has been pushing this problem off for ages and left Southern Europe to deal with it, but that is no excuse to not change things now.
Then why is everybody refusing to work together now?

How exactly do you think this is going at other borders around the world? The Moroccan - Spanish border is secure, they turn people away.
Yeah, why wouldn't they? Its not like these people have a deadly way back from the border to their homes.

Until Libya collapsed we were fine with a dictator there securing our borders. You can turn people away, that is why there are borders. It's not a pretty thing, but at some point it has to be done. .
We can't invade every country where there is a dictator, just because we aren't invading doesn't mean we like them.
Also, the situation under north african dictators weren't as bad as the situation in Syria and Iraq right now. People weren't dying like that.
If turning people away implies a high chance of them dying, then thats not an option for civilized countries.

What do you think will happen when the US just removes their border with Mexico?
Compare it to cell biology. You have a border(cell membrane) and different concentrations of a certain substance on each side(socio economical environment in the countries).
When the difference in concentration is high and you open the border the substances will mix to even the concentration gradient.(People from the worse country will migrate over the other).

The requirement for open borders to work is a similar socio economical environments between the countries who share the open border.


But that doesn't mean that you shouldn't open your borders for people who face death in their countries.
And you also shouldn't turn these people away just because some of them aren't facing death and are coming for economic reasons. You need to get rid of these people later, but they shouldn't delay the help for they ones who actually need it.



I think we all agree that people from safe countries should not even apply here. But the way we have now set stuff up does not punish them for doing so, but instead rewards them.
Yeah they shouldn't, but you also can't blame people for doing it. They see an injust world and they see that they're on the losing side, so they try to do something about that.
We can't help them, but we also shouldn't blame them for trying.

I don't see how they are rewarded, though. They stay here for some time, live miserable lifes away from their families and then they go back.
In many northern african countries and easter european countries they have ads on TV and radio how great it is in germany and elsewhere. So these people are misinformed by human traffickers in order to get them to pay them money and make the journey.


I don't think you should use the words "keep the public in line" since this implies that they should control the population and that is in no way the role of the media.
Doesn't sound nice but thats what it is.
Informing the public accurately is a form of control, just like propaganda is.


The difference is you are talking about one evening at one location. If you then add up all the other things we learned after that and the reports coming out from refugee centers about the situations there - and people sharing their experience in this very thread - it is clear that we are dealing with nor just 50 or 100 people but a larger problem.

But not an overproportionally large problem.
In fact, psychologists in the refugee centers warned months ago that we have a bad mix here, but so far it goes way better than they expected.
Mostly males, completely new environment, not allowed to work or do anything, no money to do anything, unable to speak the local language, potentially traumatic experiences on their way here, potentially traumatic situation because they are away from their family or unsure about their well beeing, hostile local population, lack of privacy, completely uncertain future.

And people wonder why there is aggression? Seriously?
And then blaming it on their race, culture or religion... thats just pure, disgusting racism.

I honestly expected way more problems given these circumstances.
 

Agremont

Member
Please do elaborate.

Well there's been a multitude of deflective blogs/articles/forum posts along the lines of "but europeans do it too!" as if anyone's denied that. The debate about "honor culture" that some women tried to start a while ago

Gemüsepizza;192568572 said:
Last year in Germany, on average 22 women got raped every day. And those are just the reported numbers. Where were those people who are now so outraged? They did not say a fucking word. It is obvious that to them, rape is only a problem, when "black men rape white women". This is what our feminists are criticising. Suddenly so many people are interested in women's rights. But none of them is actually talking about the women, they are only talking about the alleged perpetrators and their ethnicity. Because they are racists. And "bad emails", really? That's a nice way to put it. Feminists in Germany received countless death threats, and messages that wished them to be raped and murdered by migrants. Those people really do care about women's rights!

No disagreements here. That does happen a lot. And I agree with the point.
Still obvious parts of the left have an extremely hard time criticising anything related to immigrants/immigration in fear of seeming bigoted. The debate about "honor culture" that some women tried to start a while ago was met largely with silence from the swedish feminists for example. The reason for that is pretty obvious.

The last bit that's just semantics. I'm sorry I didn't use a more apt term. Dispicable. Is that better?

Gemüsepizza;192568572 said:
The "feminist left" is a lot more likeable and reasonable than those right wing loons with their hatred and zero empathy.

Fortunately, you don't have to choose either side.


Getting a bit OT now though...
 

Chairman Yang

if he talks about books, you better damn well listen
Criticising them is the way to go.
Thats usually what you should do when people are bad at what they do.
Ok, let's say you criticize them. However, they refuse to change their coverage and continue to report facts that you think are irresponsible and may indirectly promote anti-refugee attacks. What now?
 
How is "some refugees are criminals" newsworthy? They are humans like everybody else, so of course some of them tend to be criminals, too.
Putting the focus on that is biased, irresponsible and just plain bad journalism.

One sided journalism is not fine, even when you stick to the fact.
Imagine in the US the media would only report on black crime, would that be okay as long as they stick to the facts?
You are pretty much asking "why is reporting crime newsworthy". Because it is. Why are wars news worthy, why is a natural disaster, why is corruption. Because it is news.

And the media is not only reporting crime about refugees. They are also reporting a ton of other crime - including violent anti-refugee protests and crime to show there are idiots doing that. Let's not pretend all media now suddenly switched to non-stop refugee crime reporting and nothing else.

This shows a basic misunderstanding of the situation on your part.

"Dear middle east, could you please stop sucking for a while until we have our shit figured out?"
Doesnt work like that.
And how is adding thousands of people every day to an overloaded system and refusing to see that doesn't work any less of a misunderstanding from your side?

Then why is everybody refusing to work together now?
Because nobody wants to deal with this mess and come with a clear plan, since everything they do will upset their voter base. The right will scream that we are still letting in too many people. The left will scream we are giving into the right and should be ashamed to turn people away. The whole center in the discussion is gone and nobody is willing to group together and take the hurt. I'm not in charge of the EU, so I don't know how to fix that either.

Yeah, why wouldn't they? Its not like these people have a deadly way back from the border to their homes.
Is there a war in Turkey going on I don't know about? Since that is where they cross into the Schengen zone. Or maybe in Russia, from where people crossed into Norway?

We can't invade every country where there is a dictator, just because we aren't invading doesn't mean we like them.
Also, the situation under north african dictators weren't as bad as the situation in Syria and Iraq right now. People weren't dying like that.
If turning people away implies a high chance of them dying, then thats not an option for civilized countries.
Just taking in millions of people is also not an option for any country.

Compare it to cell biology. You have a border(cell membrane) and different concentrations of a certain substance on each side(socio economical environment in the countries).
When the difference in concentration is high and you open the border the substances will mix to even the concentration gradient.(People from the worse country will migrate over the other).

The requirement for open borders to work is a similar socio economical environments between the countries who share the open border.

But that doesn't mean that you shouldn't open your borders for people who face death in their countries.
And you also shouldn't turn these people away just because some of them aren't facing death and are coming for economic reasons. You need to get rid of these people later, but they shouldn't delay the help for they ones who actually need it.
Again and again, I am not advocating for sending people to die. Here we go again:

1) Fund refugee centers in the region
2) Take in families and the most vulnerable from there and sent them over in manageable numbers to Europe.

This will

1) Help the most vulnerable instead of mostly young men able to make a hard journey
2) Keep out people who are from safe countries and after months or years will be sent away, but meanwhile take a lot of space in the system that can be put to better use. These are also the people over represented in crime stats.
3) Keep a good ratio of men/women and doesn't break up families, leading to better dynamics and less trouble

Yeah they shouldn't, but you also can't blame people for doing it. They see an injust world and they see that they're on the losing side, so they try to do something about that.
We can't help them, but we also shouldn't blame them for trying.

I don't see how they are rewarded, though. They stay here for some time, live miserable lifes away from their families and then they go back.
In many northern african countries and easter european countries they have ads on TV and radio how great it is in germany and elsewhere. So these people are misinformed by human traffickers in order to get them to pay them money and make the journey.
I can blame the ones coming here and committing crimes, have unreasonable demands and don't try to fit into our society. Which is the major problem people are afraid of now and in years to come when we let in large numbers of people.

Doesn't sound nice but thats what it is.
Informing the public accurately is a form of control, just like propaganda is.
No, you want to censor the media about certain issues because you are afraid it plays into the hands of political parties you don't agree with and call it fair and just reporting. That is not how it works.

But not an overproportionally large problem.
In fact, psychologists in the refugee centers warned months ago that we have a bad mix here, but so far it goes way better than they expected.
Mostly males, completely new environment, not allowed to work or do anything, no money to do anything, unable to speak the local language, potentially traumatic experiences on their way here, potentially traumatic situation because they are away from their family or unsure about their well beeing, hostile local population, lack of privacy, completely uncertain future.

And people wonder why there is aggression? Seriously?
And then blaming it on their race, culture or religion... thats just pure, disgusting racism.

I honestly expected way more problems given these circumstances.
Yes, I wonder why there is aggression from people who come to another country that takes them in, provides safety, housing, food and even healthcare and education for free.
 

Morrigan Stark

Arrogant Smirk
Two German transgender women 'are STONED in the street' by a gang of three North African teenagers in Dortmund who said 'such people' should be killed
http://www.*****************/news/ar...le-killed.html
edit: ah fuck, dailymail is blocked. eehh let me see if I find another english source

meh my google-fu is weak, whatever, better than nothing
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2016/01/16/t/
So your two sources are Daily Mail and Breitbart. lol ok

I always knew Breitbart was so concerned about the well-being of transgender folks!
/s
 
Ok, let's say you criticize them. However, they refuse to change their coverage and continue to report facts that you think are irresponsible and may indirectly promote anti-refugee attacks. What now?

Nothing.
We have lots of outlets like that.
In germany they're thankfully irrelevant and don't reach a lot of people, in other countries, like the US they have a huge influence(Fox News for example).*
All you can do is continuing to educate people so that they don't fall for it anymore at some point.

*So people say its good to have a counter weight like Fox News. I disagree. Bullshit has no bright side.
The only positive thing I get from looking at shitty outlets like that is that apprechiate the good ones more.



No disagreements here. That does happen a lot. And I agree with the point.
Still obvious parts of the left have an extremely hard time criticising anything related to immigrants/immigration in fear of seeming bigoted.
Can't talk about sweden, but from a german view that is a complete strawman.
Everyone vehemently condemned what happened in cologne.
But some people were smart enough not to judge a huge diverse group based on the actions of very few, others however used it to push an anti immigrant-, anti muslim - narrative.
Thats not even remotely okay.

The debate about "honor culture" that some women tried to start a while ago was met largely with silence from the swedish feminists for example. The reason for that is pretty obvious.
What did the debate look like?

I think I know what its about. The whole honor thing in some muslim families where girls are basically controlled by their male family members and if they for example have a boyfriend the family doesn't approve of it can end in an honor killing.
Is it about that?

If its that, we have that debate in germany, even though we're not calling honor culture debate. Its more about teaching kids in school the value of the german constitution, that these laws are above other laws, including religious ones or cultural norms they may have learned at home.
Teachers than have the opportunity to call in parents of kids who reject that way of thinking.
I don't think there is much more you can do without significantly interfering with peoples personal freedoms.
 

El Topo

Member
So your two sources are Daily Mail and Breitbart. lol ok

There are (somewhat) reliable German sources, which are not quite as sensationalist. Given the information we have, it seems two transgender women were first verbally assaulted (e.g. that they should be stoned) by young men (between 16 and 18 from what I recall), then after a verbal exchange physically assaulted. This assault included the men throwing gravel ("Kies") at the women. It seems a bit much to call it an attempted stoning, but it's unquestionably a horrific experience for these women.
 

ElTorro

I wanted to dominate the living room. Then I took an ESRAM in the knee.
So your two sources are Daily Mail and Breitbart. lol ok

I always knew Breitbart was so concerned about the well-being of transgender folks!
/s

There is als a news report from German TV channel Sat 1 that includes interviews with the attacked transgender women and the police.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99AgW_CAcNg

As I said, though, I don't think that anecdotal single cases either way, from sexist/homophobic refugees to highly educated and well-meaning refugees, are particularly helpful. Nevertheless, as I wrote earlier in detail, it should be uncontroversial that we are having an issue here with regressive cultural backgrounds.
 

Mrmartel

Banned
well I could've given several german sources but the majority here would prefer english sources and those were the only ones I could find ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Whatever the policy is here on gaf (or gaf users personal tastes) about daily mail and Breitbart I can understand for certain topics.

But for the European migrant/immigration issue, these outlets should be look upon as a legit source for news. Breitbart has been on this issue like a hawk the whole time. They have broken multiple stories of varying levels of worth. That the big outlets, slowly and stubbornly (eventually) followed. Anytime anyone calls bullshit on one of their stories, undoubtedly someone finds the original source in it's native language. Then the accuser crawls back into their Daily Kos/Huffington post bubble.

Very sorry that the messiah's at the Guardian and NYT aren't reporting these stories, whether because they are choosing not to do so, or don't think they should, or don't think they are worthy (I have a hard time believing they are unaware). But it is, as it is. If the only outlets that are reporting on migrant/immigration issues, are sites that leave a bad taste in some peoples ideological and political mouths, then so be it.
 
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