this post was submitted on 10 Mar 2025
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Yup yup... A little scary though...
That is the reason why I gotta just trust that the people running the country and EU know what they are doing.
I am in Finland and I really do trust we are doing what we need to, our defense forces and government is very shush shush regarding defense, every government and defense outlet was adamant that we weren't joining NATO until the foreign minister and president announced the move. At least in a country of 5 million we are really thinking of each other here. Let's just hope that is the case for the rest of the EU and the overall union.
Slava Ukraini
Trust? I don't trust any politician... Here in Portugal we're almost certainly going for early elections because the government is gonna fail a confidence vote...
Having lived over 2 decades in a couple of countries in Europe (including Portugal, were I hail from), lets just say that Portugal is quite a lot more corrupt than average, sort of half-way between Western Europe and Latin America.
Mind you, that it's a scandal this kind of funny business (the family of the PM buying almost a million euros of realestate in cash using money undeclared to the political transparency authority) and that the Government is likely to fall for it, is actually a step forward from the Past - in the old days there wasn't even the obligation for sitting Government politicians and Parliament members to declare their incomes and the sources of it in an open way, so this would have never have come to light.
So this is an actual positive and reflects an improvement in Portugal (though painfully slow as it's fought every step by the two main parties who pretty much only ever vote together when it's to stop anti-corruption measures).
Hmmm I wonder about that... What you're saying about corruption is true, of course, but I wonder to what extent this is really a step forward and not just a nothing-burger from the opposition...
Well, it does seem to be already decided, anyway.
I'm curious; what party do you think will win the early elections? PSD? PS? Something else? I fear that this whole debacle might embolden Chega, which I think would be terrible... Though Chega has had some issues recently, so maybe they won't benefit from this, I don't know.
Who are you thinking of voting for? I wonder about Volt.
Sorry about all these questions, I just don't have a lot of people that I feel too comfortable talking about Portuguese politics with, IRL...
I'm thinking about the trend over time when I talk of improvement, rather than just this one event as especially meaningful - 2 decades ago not a single politician in Portugal had ever been convicted of Corruption but nowadays governments can fall for suspect funny business before anybody is convicted of anything (mind you, it would be an even greater improvement if Justice was swift rather than the incredibly overwhelment and slow-moving thing it is in Portugal).
As for parties, I'm still on the sidelines though a cursory reading of the Volt site does indicate they're aligned with my principles.
As for Chega, two points:
Fair point...
Yeah, I don't know much about them... The general idea I had of them was that they were libertarian. Sigh...
IL are Libertarian in the American sense (i.e. against the State, including those whose leadership has been elected by voters - i.e. Democracies - using its powers to regulate Money), and yeah, they're also morally liberal as part of the package, but their focus is on making sure the Power Of Money is not constrained by the Power Of The State (which in Democracy means the Power Of Voters).
It's not really about Freedom because in their worldview most people should still be constrained by the Power Of Money, most notably via things like maximum rights for ownership of exclusive resources such as Land - you can't be Free if you're born outside the Owner class in a World were all Land has an owner.
Essentially they're Reaganism (which ultimatelly brought us present day America, which is quite behind the America from when it started in terms of Social Mobility, Equality and even Average Quality Of Life), but even harder that it was.
Yeah, yeah.
Thank you, I totally understand what you're saying. I see they're not getting my vote, even if the sky falls.
I do have to do some more research on our parties, to be honest...
Because no one wants to work with Chega. No one trusts them with their luggage, much less with political power
That's the reason the government is falling? I'm not sure that's true...
Hilarious AND true!
Well it's either that or we'll end up being steamrolled by Russia, China or the US
Being able to defend your territory does not make you a "superpower" being able to step on other peoples territory does. The EU needs to build up good defensive capabilities, but it should refrain from offensive capabilities to project power like the US or Russia. Instead we need to focus on improving diplomatic ties with Africa, South America and non-China Asia to become the forerunners of a new Third World.
Okay, but let's say one of our allies gets regime changed by Russia for aligning with us and not them. Do we help them? If we do, how is that not a proxy war?
BTW my opinion is that there are just proxy wars, like Ukraine.
A proxy war comes from a fundamental power imbalance on each side. The proxy is at the whim of the power behind them. If we have a globally distributed alliance of equals, then the power imbalances will be much less pronounced.
This is also why the EU should be a forerunner, but not a leader of such an alliance. It is crucial that there is no one nation or block "leading" the alliance, also not informally. We see the US being the de facto leader of NATO now risking the entire alliance falling apart and of course making any war in that context subject to being a proxy war.
Okay, but how do we avoid these situations? Let's say we're in this big alliance, and Kazakhstan becomes a big trading partner in an effort to rid itself of corruption and Russian influence.
Russia keeps trying to influence politics in Kazakhstan, more and more overtly, and when the Kazakhs elect a government who are fully committed to join our alliance, Russia invades.
Do we (the EU) defend Kazakhstan, which would be a proxy war in your definition, as without us they have no chance of even staying independent so the power imbalance couldn't be greater?
This is not a hyothetical, but a close parallel of what's happening in Ukraine by the way.
Such an alliance would not be lead by the EU. If it would lead to half of Africa, most of South America, most of West Asia and the EU to apply meaningful sanctions to Russia (e.g. not buying Russian oil through the backdoor and buying gas directly) that would be a strong deterrence w.o. sending military or weapons directly.
Yeah, I do agree. I just... I'd rather not be steamrolled and not be worried about international relations, you know?
Interesting times we're living through indeed ...
Too many interesting times. Life was better when it was dull, when politics was boring.