From Europe or about Europe

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From Europe

or about Europe

Basics:

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From Europe or about Europe.
Europe is Iceland and Georgia but not Israel or Turkey.
In English for news unless breaking with translation provided. Other European languages are allowed for things where meaning can be inferred from context.
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Mods are people. Mods will make mistakes and sometimes not own to it for some time.
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Bias disclaimer:

I was trigger happy on Reddit. This should be more lax but some things can still merit outright ban without warning.
I’m mostly concerned with economic violence rather than culture wars. This will affect things subject to mod taste but not the general rules.
I’m a member of Razem, a left wing political party. This will not affect taste decisions but please hold me accountable where this party affiliation specifically made me biased. This community is not intended to be affiliated with Razem.
I refrained from modding not to end up on !yepowertrippingbastards but now I intend to because this community is going to be curated according to the rules above. Cheers.

founded 3 days ago

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A cartoon by Yuliy Ganf lampooning the US (1953). Sadly now applies to Europe too. (i.postimg.cc)

submitted 2 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 29 points 2 days ago (3 children)

Maybe sadly, but definitely necessarily in Europe's case.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago

perhaps they can grow their military while being wise enough to prevent a politically powerful military-industrial complex

[–] [email protected] 23 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I disagree, we don't have to sacrifice social benefits and public service to divert all the money to the defense. We can tax the rich fairly and get both, a welfare state with strong public service and social security, and a strong army for our defense!

Neo-liberals are using the current situation as a new justification for the same shitty policies they are pushing for 3 decades. No change in strategy, just a new excuse.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

No disagreement here, though I'd say the image is probably not meant to be taken literally. After all, if it's originally about the US, it doesn't seem to factor in how much more funding actually goes to healthcare over the military. Basically, thinking of this idea:

We can tax the rich fairly and get both, a welfare state with strong public service and social security, and a strong army for our defense!

In practice, I think there will always be disagreements on where government spending can be best used, which is an argument that exists and will continue to exist regardless of how much extra revenue a country is able to obtain via changes in tax policy.

Increase taxes on the rich and get more money on principle, because the rich should be paying their fair share regardless, but someone will always make the point that the extra revenue could still be better used by social programs over defense.

It's hard to put into numbers exactly how expensive it is for a government to prevent an existential crisis like the EU is currently seeing, but at this point they have a lot of catch-up to do after decades of assuming their American "allies" would continue to have their backs when needed.