The European Project: the future of the EU.

Politicians must engage with people, and social media is now the main arena where that happens. Ignoring it isn't the solution, this should be accepted and we should adapt accordingly, but we're not mature enough to avoid its traps. We increasingly discard efforts to build a society that works for everyone, considering it prevents us from moving forward. We promote instead models where majorities impose their will on minorities.
I'd say the whole problem is actually the exact opposite : the model is about minorities imposing their will on majorities, and that's precisely why populists are able to amass such amount of votes.
 
Let me share this picture:
mmbe.webp


This is the still leader of BE (left block a far left party) at the night of the election. The party has been reduced to only one mp, her, they had 5. On their heyday 2015, fresh out of the troika years (the EU/IMF financial ransom) they reached 19mps. Such large representation made somewhat sense as the troika years affected many struggling workers.
Now we plainly see by this picture that the BE leadership priorities are clearly not the poor workers or other struggling compatriots, like poor elderly, children, young adults that can't get a house and so on. Good riddance.
...
People are joking she has been elected by the Gaza circle.
 
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We used to have a political party here in Canada (NDP) that was built around supporting workers, worker rights, and so on. In the last 5-10 years or so though they've completely abandoned that and embraced trying to out-progressive the Liberal party. In our last federal election all those blue collar workers who used to vote NDP either went conservative or liberal. The NDP lost most of their seats. A part of that is no doubt that all those tradespeople have been pulled into that right-wing media bubble that bashes "woke" politics and what have you. But a big part of it is that had the NDP stuck to their worker-supporting roots, they would have likely gotten a lot more votes.

No idea how many parallels are between the situation here in Canada and Portugal, but I have seen similar dynamics play out in other countries.. although to be fair, it's not easy to analyze a foreign country's politics, as on the surface a lot of this sort of stuff can be deceiving.

During these tough economic times though, it seems KEY to give blue collar and other common workers a political party that puts most of their focus on them, on worker rights, on supporting unions, etc. But many left-leaning parties seem to be turning away from this, for some reason.
 
Now we plainly see by this picture that the BE leadership priorities are clearly not the poor workers or other struggling compatriots, like poor elderly, children, young adults that can't get a house and so on. Good riddance.
Plainly? You mean, because she's wearing fancy clothes or something? :confused:
 
I think he is talking about the scarf or whatever it is called. It is a pro-palestinian symbol.
 

Spanish national channel asks Eurovision for a review of the voting system after Israel got the maximum points from 'popular' vote in Spain, which is pretty incredible since anti-Israel sentiment has become pretty widespread in Spain lately because Gaza. In Belgium happened the same but there the national TV apparently didn't even showed Israel song because Israeli human rights violations in Gaza.

Obviously something smells fishy here. Televote costs money and anyone can vote up to 20 times.

Eurovision counterattacks saying it will denounce Spanish television for political comments on Israel which are contractually forbidden or something.
 
Besides the obvious attempt to erase a people out of the face of the earth I can't stand their chicken song. So 0 points to them seems an accurate judgement when evaluating Israel for the time being on fastfood pop contest.
The chicken song:
 
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Never in European history have people received as much from their states/societies... and never have they shown as little appreciation for it.

Decades of unparalleled success have insulated people from reality. It seems that those who have failed in comparion to their neighbors also feel as failures deep down, and handouts from welfare states only breed more resentment - since people have forgotten how bad it can actually get.

And then there is social media, where idiots, witch doctors and saboteurs can all find each other.
 
(...)
Spanish national channel asks Eurovision for a review of the voting system after Israel got the maximum points from 'popular' vote in Spain, which is pretty incredible since anti-Israel sentiment has become pretty widespread in Spain lately because Gaza. In Belgium happened the same but there the national TV apparently didn't even showed Israel song because Israeli human rights violations in Gaza.

Obviously something smells fishy here. Televote costs money and anyone can vote up to 20 times.

Eurovision counterattacks saying it will denounce Spanish television for political comments on Israel which are contractually forbidden or something.

They did show it - but interest dwindled after the Belgian candidate was eliminated in semi-final, after that it was somewhat of a surprise that more people voted (for the Israeli song), while fewer people watched, causing some questions in regard to manipulation to be raised.


We at VRT have noticed that the Eurovision Song Contest as it is currently organised is becoming less and less of a unifying and apolitical event. It is increasingly at odds with the original norms and values of the event and with the norms and values of public broadcasting.


VRT works well with the EBU on many levels, but without a serious response to our concerns regarding the Eurovision Song Contest, we are questioning our future participation.”
 
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"We at VRT have noticed that the Eurovision Song Contest as it is currently organised is becoming less and less of a unifying and apolitical event."

A better question is when was the last time it was apolitical ^^
Or when was the last time it produced any music which stood the test of time.
 
Never in European history have people received as much from their states/societies... and never have they shown as little appreciation for it.
Considering the headway made by pro-private services in the last few decades, I think that we're today with less public services than in the 80s, being slowly replaced with pay-for-service companies.
I know that here at least, healthcare accessibility has gone down and people tend to have to drive to larger towns/cities because the smaller, local countryside hospital/maternities have been closed, and there is more overwork for health workers.
Same for railways, the amount of local train stations has been significantly reduced.
 
A better question is when was the last time it was apolitical ^^
Maybe sometime before Brexit.

Or when was the last time it produced any music which stood the test of time.
I don't think any of us is enough of a EuroVision fanatic to answer that, but those people do exist. My humble opinion, the last time ABBA participated.:lol:
 
"We at VRT have noticed that the Eurovision Song Contest as it is currently organised is becoming less and less of a unifying and apolitical event."

A better question is when was the last time it was apolitical ^^
Or when was the last time it produced any music which stood the test of time.

I quite enjoy many of the Eurovision songs and the live performances,
but the superfluousness of the surrounding presentation totally puts me off.

On Saturday, I watched the interstellar song contest on the BEEB's Doctor Who.
 
"We at VRT have noticed that the Eurovision Song Contest as it is currently organised is becoming less and less of a unifying and apolitical event."

A better question is when was the last time it was apolitical ^^
Or when was the last time it produced any music which stood the test of time.

Yes, in the meantime some more research has been conducted, some of the people that voted 20 times for the Israeli song without actually viewing the festival have been identified and interviewed in todays paper.

As it turns out they are not necessarily Jews or even Israelis, nor were they influenced by the Israeli state campaign for support since that was targeted specifically at European Jews.

No, there were apparently several thousand Belgians that considered the Eurovision contest as a good opportunity to manifest their support for Israel and specifically for this singer whom they perceive as being unfairly treated amidst what they consider to be pro-Palestinian stance of the public and mainstream media.

A "protest vote" for the underdog, if you will, don't know what to make of it, or what conclusion to draw from it tbh.

Fact is that while the number of viewers halved in comparison to last year, the number of votes was higher (in Belgium), indicating political motives on the part of the voters, they apparently see the contest as an alternative election, one they can influence directly with limited numbers and multiple votes per voter, unlike real elections.
 
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Yes, in the meantime some more research has been conducted, some of the people that voted 20 times for the Israeli song without actually viewing the festival have been identified and interviewed in todays paper.

As it turns out they are not necessarily Jews or even Israelis, nor were they influenced by the Israeli state campaign for support since that was targeted specifically at European Jews.

No, there were apparently several thousand Belgians that considered the Eurovision contest as a good opportunity to manifest their support for Israel and specifically for this singer whom they perceive as being unfairly treated amidst what they consider to be pro-Palestinian stance of the public and mainstream media.

A "protest vote" for the underdog, if you will, don't know what to make of it, or what conclusion to draw from it tbh.

Fact is that while the number of viewers halved in comparison to last year, the number of votes was higher (in Belgium), indicating political motives on the part of the voters, they apparently see the contest as an alternative election, one they can influence directly with limited numbers and multiple votes per voter, unlike real elections.
It’s also the case that a strong minority support can easily swing a vote like this.

If there are 25 options to vote for, on average each gets 4%. So if 10% of people support Israel, it can easily be the case that Israel gets the most votes.

The only way around this is to introduce negative votes - so you can use your votes to vote up for songs you like or down for songs you don’t. Unlikely to be introduced however!
 
Yes, in the meantime some more research has been conducted, some of the people that voted 20 times for the Israeli song without actually viewing the festival have been identified and interviewed in todays paper.

As it turns out they are not necessarily Jews or even Israelis, nor were they influenced by the Israeli state campaign for support since that was targeted specifically at European Jews.

No, there were apparently several thousand Belgians that considered the Eurovision contest as a good opportunity to manifest their support for Israel and specifically for this singer whom they perceive as being unfairly treated amidst what they consider to be pro-Palestinian stance of the public and mainstream media.

A "protest vote" for the underdog, if you will, don't know what to make of it, or what conclusion to draw from it tbh.

Fact is that while the number of viewers halved in comparison to last year, the number of votes was higher (in Belgium), indicating political motives on the part of the voters, they apparently see the contest as an alternative election, one they can influence directly with limited numbers and multiple votes per voter, unlike real elections.
I guess good for those several thousand belgian pro-genocide voters? ^^

Eurovision songs typically range from meh to absolute trash.
 
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The NDP has *always* been more progressive than the Liberals, @warpus. They didn't "change" to be that way in the past five to ten years. Paining them as a purely pro-worker party that lost its way by embracing minority rights or environmental protection is a wild mischaracterization.

Not to say the drifting apart didn't happen, but it had precious little to do with the NDP suddenly becoming progressive, and more with (as you note) (some) workers increasingly prioritizing socially conservative policies over pro-labor ones.

Also missing from your summary is that this election basically boiled down into two voting blocs: "Anybody but Liberals", fueled by ten years of Liberal government, housing shortages and (in relation) perceived excesssive immigration, deficit worries and concerns about wokeness (who therefore voted conservatives), and "Anybody but Conservatives", fueled by Pierre Poilievre's similarities in political style with Donald Trump, concerns about anti-wokeness, the destruction of public services and established political success, and perceived affinities between Poilievre-conservatism and MAGA in a time when Canada is under attack from Trump (who therefore voted Liberal). At the national level, the swing was mostly from NDP to Liberals (as one would expect), though in some specific especially industrial regions there was a quite notable NDP-to-conservative crossover.
 
It’s also the case that a strong minority support can easily swing a vote like this.

If there are 25 options to vote for, on average each gets 4%. So if 10% of people support Israel, it can easily be the case that Israel gets the most votes.

The only way around this is to introduce negative votes - so you can use your votes to vote up for songs you like or down for songs you don’t. Unlikely to be introduced however!
Still it is strange that in Belgium with roughly 600k viewers there were 220k votes, for comparison in Spain with over 6 million viewers, there were only 143k votes.

Either my countryfolk voted early and very often, or something else was going on there 😊
 
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