After having found out for France and the US where I've both lived, what is the biggest lie your country tells about itself through culture, political speeches, etc...?
@Michael Vogel it seems they are currently starting to realize that this is a lie and even start to clean up small parts. Which is already a big step for #Germany.
@Robert Biloute - on diaspora-fr.org France is touting itself as the Country of Human Rights, and yet it's been repeatedly and without reaction been judged violating several of its articles by the European Court of Human Rights.
I'm really worried about NYC. I'm afraid that the Mayor could lose control of the police. I keep hearing anecdotes about mysterious fireworks and/or gunfire every night. Can you tell us anything about that?
@**joe A little. For weeks now, every week night until 3 AM and every week-end night all night, people having been sporadically shooting fireworks in some predominantly black neighborhoods. These fireworks aren't available for sale in the state of New York, and there has been reports of people handing them out (selling?) from their vehicles.
A popular conspiracy theory is that the NYPD is providing illegal fireworks to black kids to wage a retaliatory psychological war against black people since the protests against police violence have started. It might be true in part but I don't believe they are responsible for all the illegal fireworks shootings.
@**joe Me neither, but there are multiple details that make me say it isn't entirely a subtle NYPD plot: - the NYPD doesn't have the reputation for subtlety. - fireworks are shot during the times unemployed or unschooled people would logically do it. Some are shot during the day, which doesn't really match a tight psychological warfare operation. - the NYPD has been openly engaging in sound warfare at least in one instance when several police vehicles slowly crawled all sirens and lights blaring along an avenue in a predominantly black neighborhood at 4 AM. - despite spotty reports of "professional-grade" fireworks, I do not believe that is what they are, but I can understand people would feel like it. Mostly they are consumer-grade rockets that you can't find for sale in New York State, but you can find in some neighboring states like Pennsylvania. - it's been going on in many cities across the US, and it doesn't seem to be related with George Floyd-related protests intensity.... show more
@**joe Me neither, but there are multiple details that make me say it isn't entirely a subtle NYPD plot: - the NYPD doesn't have the reputation for subtlety. - fireworks are shot during the times unemployed or unschooled people would logically do it. Some are shot during the day, which doesn't really match a tight psychological warfare operation. - the NYPD has been openly engaging in sound warfare at least in one instance when several police vehicles slowly crawled all sirens and lights blaring along an avenue in a predominantly black neighborhood at 4 AM. - despite spotty reports of "professional-grade" fireworks, I do not believe that is what they are, but I can understand people would feel like it. Mostly they are consumer-grade rockets that you can't find for sale in New York State, but you can find in some neighboring states like Pennsylvania. - it's been going on in many cities across the US, and it doesn't seem to be related with George Floyd-related protests intensity.
So I could believe that the NYPD is covertly supplying NYS-illegal fireworks to some black kids in the street, but only as fueling a behavior that was already going on for other reasons.
Thanks for your account @Hypolite Petovan Actually, at this time of year, fireworks have always been widely available in NYC. Yes they are illegal, but have you ever been to Chinatown on Chinese New Year? And all the middle class white suburbanites are well stocked up for the 4th by now.
I tend to agree with you, but this is because of a specific definition of democracy rather than a blatant contradiction like the ones I spelled earlier about France and the US.
For example, in the case of Germany, it could be that Germans actually are sloppy, going against the stereotype of high-quality German craftsmanship and efficiency. Or something going against Germany's motto, but I've learned that it doesn't have a national motto since the reunification!
@Hypolite Petovan So under democracy I understand, that the people decide what happens in a country. The next thing that comes close to democracy is the referendum in Switzerland. In most countries, you only have democracy on one day in an election period, and that is on election day.
The bad thing is the disproportion that the citizen can no longer decide in detail. You vote for a party and that's it, for the rest of the parliamentary term. That means, you give ONE vote to a party that then makes MANY decisions in your name for an election period and my experience shows me that in most cases the party votes for the opposite of what I would have decided for.
I find the principle of the referendums optimal, because the citizens can decide for each individual thing individually and if you have no opinion or are not affected by the matter to be decided, you can stay away from the election and let the people decide who are affected.
What you describe is representative democracy, and however flawed it is, it still is democracy, in opposition to despotism (absolute monarchies, military juntas, theocracies,...)
Direct democracy isn't a panacea either, look at the Brexit referendum in the UK, many people ended up voting against their own interest. Propaganda ran full steam because of the high stakes of the vote. I believe it can work better in Switzerland because of the relatively low stakes of each vote and their frequency, but I'm pretty sure they are a little less than half of the Switzerland population that is not happy with the results of most referendums, so it isn't perfect either.
@Hypolite Petovan What kind of representation is that when the opinion of many is outvoted by the opinion of few? Well, the majority of the British voted for the brexite, that's the way it is, that was their will, influenced or not, they will accept this decision and we should start to accept their will too. Is my opinion worth less because it was influenced from outside? By the way, most of our opinions are influenced from outside, unless it is not exactly hunger or thirst. But that's what it comes down to in a referendum, to find a majority and not to enforce the will of the minority. Nor can I accept the argument of frequency. Many people are online several times a day nowadays. What is the problem with putting a check mark on a vote?
My argument about frequency is that a single big stakes referendum doesn't make a direct democracy. Frequent low stakes referendums is closer to the idea.
And referendums, as any elections, are finding majorities not among the whole population, but among people who voted non-blank, which will never be a majority of the actual people.
The question of influence is still important: can you still consider it the will of the people if they made a decision based on false or partial information and they end up regretting it when they realize the actual implication of their decision?
@Hypolite Petovan Ah okay, I'm having a little trouble interpreting English.
If I interpret your first objection correctly, we agree that even small and regional matters should be decided by a referendum.
That was my speech, not all people of a country have to take part if they don't care. There are yes and no votes and abstentions. If I am not interested in the vote about Germany remaining in the EU and I do not take part, I must not get upset about the result later.
I have to agree with you on that last point, and I am experiencing it right now. The media in Germany, and I believe in other places in the world, can no longer be described as independent. There are more and more reporters, journalists have become rare. Journalists still researched, went out, interviewed people, had their sources. Reporters sit in front of their computers and google their articles together. On top of that there is the pressure of the management, which of cours... show more
@Hypolite Petovan Ah okay, I'm having a little trouble interpreting English.
If I interpret your first objection correctly, we agree that even small and regional matters should be decided by a referendum.
That was my speech, not all people of a country have to take part if they don't care. There are yes and no votes and abstentions. If I am not interested in the vote about Germany remaining in the EU and I do not take part, I must not get upset about the result later.
I have to agree with you on that last point, and I am experiencing it right now. The media in Germany, and I believe in other places in the world, can no longer be described as independent. There are more and more reporters, journalists have become rare. Journalists still researched, went out, interviewed people, had their sources. Reporters sit in front of their computers and google their articles together. On top of that there is the pressure of the management, which of course listens to the owners, and in the meantime the newspapers are no longer making money by increasing their circulation but by making opinions in the sense of the owner's protege. When I think about such unfairness, I always get very emotional.
Yes, we do agree that keeping people engaged on regular referendums may increase overall political fulfillment. However, referendums are a limited political expression tool. What if you want to vote on a different outcome than those submitted to the vote? Blank votes aren't counted anywhere that I know of, despite being active political participation.
So even if you don't take part to a vote because casting a blank vote would be counted exactly the same as abstaining, you can still be upset at the outcome.
I tend to agree with you about the current state of journalism, but I have the feeling that it isn't a new trend. I don't believe there has ever been a truly independent press anywhere. Because popular media outlets depend on access to politicians, they can end up having aligning goals as they both deal in power and influence.
In French law this is yet another category where legitimate ballots have been written on, rendering them invalid. It is counted separately from blank votes (no ballot, white ballot, custom ballot) but it still counts as much as abstaining.
@Hypolite Petovan I don't know that from German voting. Here the ballot is either valid, then you have decided in some way, or it is invalid, then you have chosen nothing.
Well, concerning "German craftsmanship and efficiency": I don't know if you heard of "BER" and "Stuttgart 21"? Since 2006 a new airport in Berlin had been built. They think that it will finally be opened in October this year - 9 years later than planned. Also it had been created as an airport hub for an airline that doesn't exist any more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Brandenburg_Airport
"Stuttgart 21" is a project to built a new train station in Stuttgart that replaces the old one. The new one will be an underground station. In 1995 they estimated 2.1 billion Euro - now it is more likely 10 billion. It is expected that the new station is less efficient than the old one (it has fewer tracks): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuttgart_21
Oh, and in Hamburg a new opera had been created, the "Elbphilharmonie". It was planned to be finished in 2010 - it lasted... show more
Well, concerning "German craftsmanship and efficiency": I don't know if you heard of "BER" and "Stuttgart 21"? Since 2006 a new airport in Berlin had been built. They think that it will finally be opened in October this year - 9 years later than planned. Also it had been created as an airport hub for an airline that doesn't exist any more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Brandenburg_Airport
"Stuttgart 21" is a project to built a new train station in Stuttgart that replaces the old one. The new one will be an underground station. In 1995 they estimated 2.1 billion Euro - now it is more likely 10 billion. It is expected that the new station is less efficient than the old one (it has fewer tracks): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuttgart_21
Oh, and in Hamburg a new opera had been created, the "Elbphilharmonie". It was planned to be finished in 2010 - it lasted until 2017. It was expected to cost 77 million Euro - but costed 866 million Euro instead: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elbphilharmonie
On the list of failed projects I could also put the "E-Perso" and "De-Mail".
Our identity card has got an NFC chip with cryptographic keys on it. It was meant as a safe way to prove your identity online. Many years after it started, there still are nearly no services that use this chip.
"De-Mail" was meant as a German only e-mail service that was legally equivalent to a physical letter sent by the postal service. It started in 2011 and still I don't know anyone who has got a De-Mail address: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De-Mail
Really, I believe that only foreigners still believe in Germans being efficient.
Yes, I agree with Michael on the "biggest lies" Germans are telling themselves.
We are very efficient and hard-working.
There is no corruption in Germany. (see BER... and also look at politicians who get the best paid jobs on corporation boards after their political careers)
Nazism was totally stopped after 1945 (actually, many Nazis continued working for German government agencies after the war and helped (re)building them, and as Michael said, there are huge problems with far-right extremists in the police and military - and always have been, but at least now many Germans are slowly stopping to ignore that)
Of course, most Germans were Nazis before 1945, but not my parents/grandparents/great-grandparents - I know they are good people and I'm sure they even helped some Jewish neighbors or so. (Ha ha. Not true for the vast majority of us, but it's so uncomfortable to think about that, that many people are just not able to face it.)
@KAOS It is also a big French cultural lie that all modern French people would necessarily have joined the Resistance during the Nazi occupation. It wasn't true back then, and it definitely still isn't true now.
@KAOS concerning my ancestors: I know that my grandfather had been in the Wehrmacht and that he fought in France. I don't know if he was involved in war crimes. (I still have to investigate) But I know that my grandmother had always looked positively at that time period - because of the benefits like the "Kraft durch Freude" vacation stuff. (Yes, I feel ashamed for my grandmother)
I personally don't believe you should feel ashamed for your grandmother. Everybody does their best at any given time so in this sense, we don't have much of a choice.
This doesn't mean that people aren't responsible for their bad acts, rules and their enforcement are meant to steer our behavior towards a greater good that we can't necessarily appreciate individually.
But this means that everybody does what they can with what they have. If the rules change, it will change people's behavior accordingly whether they agree with the rule change or not.
@Hypolite Petovan well we also have a deep traumatism about délation (which is interestingly translated into whistleblowing by GT !), we perfectly know what we're capable of in that sense.
Anyway France is full of contradictions, that's what the most frustrating but also the most interesting IMO. Now that you talked about the freedom as USA's fundamental lie, I would pick the lie about equality for France. We are obsessed about equality on a more and more superficial level, but we're still fundamentally aristocratic and elitist, and the neoliberal-orwhateverwemaycallit tsunami is not improving any of that.
Biggest lie? I think that's simple. A slogan every schoolkid is taught to recite in a daily loyalty oath ritual: "Liberty and Justice for All". (But I guess that might also be it's biggest ideal.)
Michael Vogel
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utzer [Friendica]
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Hypolite Petovan
The US is calling itself the Land of Freedom, and yet it has the world highest incarceration rate, far ahead of famously authoritarian countries.
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I keep hearing anecdotes about mysterious fireworks and/or gunfire every night. Can you tell us anything about that?
Hypolite Petovan
A popular conspiracy theory is that the NYPD is providing illegal fireworks to black kids to wage a retaliatory psychological war against black people since the protests against police violence have started. It might be true in part but I don't believe they are responsible for all the illegal fireworks shootings.
Brad Koehn at Mammoth
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- the NYPD doesn't have the reputation for subtlety.
- fireworks are shot during the times unemployed or unschooled people would logically do it. Some are shot during the day, which doesn't really match a tight psychological warfare operation.
- the NYPD has been openly engaging in sound warfare at least in one instance when several police vehicles slowly crawled all sirens and lights blaring along an avenue in a predominantly black neighborhood at 4 AM.
- despite spotty reports of "professional-grade" fireworks, I do not believe that is what they are, but I can understand people would feel like it. Mostly they are consumer-grade rockets that you can't find for sale in New York State, but you can find in some neighboring states like Pennsylvania.
- it's been going on in many cities across the US, and it doesn't seem to be related with George Floyd-related protests intensity.... show more
- the NYPD doesn't have the reputation for subtlety.
- fireworks are shot during the times unemployed or unschooled people would logically do it. Some are shot during the day, which doesn't really match a tight psychological warfare operation.
- the NYPD has been openly engaging in sound warfare at least in one instance when several police vehicles slowly crawled all sirens and lights blaring along an avenue in a predominantly black neighborhood at 4 AM.
- despite spotty reports of "professional-grade" fireworks, I do not believe that is what they are, but I can understand people would feel like it. Mostly they are consumer-grade rockets that you can't find for sale in New York State, but you can find in some neighboring states like Pennsylvania.
- it's been going on in many cities across the US, and it doesn't seem to be related with George Floyd-related protests intensity.
So I could believe that the NYPD is covertly supplying NYS-illegal fireworks to some black kids in the street, but only as fueling a behavior that was already going on for other reasons.
**joe
Actually, at this time of year, fireworks have always been widely available in NYC. Yes they are illegal, but have you ever been to Chinatown on Chinese New Year?
And all the middle class white suburbanites are well stocked up for the 4th by now.
Richard
Hypolite Petovan
For example, in the case of Germany, it could be that Germans actually are sloppy, going against the stereotype of high-quality German craftsmanship and efficiency. Or something going against Germany's motto, but I've learned that it doesn't have a national motto since the reunification!
Richard
The bad thing is the disproportion that the citizen can no longer decide in detail. You vote for a party and that's it, for the rest of the parliamentary term.
That means, you give ONE vote to a party that then makes MANY decisions in your name for an election period and my experience shows me that in most cases the party votes for the opposite of what I would have decided for.
I find the principle of the referendums optimal, because the citizens can decide for each individual thing individually and if you have no opinion or are not affected by the matter to be decided, you can stay away from the election and let the people decide who are affected.
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Hypolite Petovan
Direct democracy isn't a panacea either, look at the Brexit referendum in the UK, many people ended up voting against their own interest. Propaganda ran full steam because of the high stakes of the vote. I believe it can work better in Switzerland because of the relatively low stakes of each vote and their frequency, but I'm pretty sure they are a little less than half of the Switzerland population that is not happy with the results of most referendums, so it isn't perfect either.
Richard
But that's what it comes down to in a referendum, to find a majority and not to enforce the will of the minority. Nor can I accept the argument of frequency. Many people are online several times a day nowadays. What is the problem with putting a check mark on a vote?
Hypolite Petovan
And referendums, as any elections, are finding majorities not among the whole population, but among people who voted non-blank, which will never be a majority of the actual people.
The question of influence is still important: can you still consider it the will of the people if they made a decision based on false or partial information and they end up regretting it when they realize the actual implication of their decision?
Richard
If I interpret your first objection correctly, we agree that even small and regional matters should be decided by a referendum.
That was my speech, not all people of a country have to take part if they don't care. There are yes and no votes and abstentions. If I am not interested in the vote about Germany remaining in the EU and I do not take part, I must not get upset about the result later.
I have to agree with you on that last point, and I am experiencing it right now. The media in Germany, and I believe in other places in the world, can no longer be described as independent. There are more and more reporters, journalists have become rare. Journalists still researched, went out, interviewed people, had their sources. Reporters sit in front of their computers and google their articles together. On top of that there is the pressure of the management, which of cours... show more
If I interpret your first objection correctly, we agree that even small and regional matters should be decided by a referendum.
That was my speech, not all people of a country have to take part if they don't care. There are yes and no votes and abstentions. If I am not interested in the vote about Germany remaining in the EU and I do not take part, I must not get upset about the result later.
I have to agree with you on that last point, and I am experiencing it right now. The media in Germany, and I believe in other places in the world, can no longer be described as independent. There are more and more reporters, journalists have become rare. Journalists still researched, went out, interviewed people, had their sources. Reporters sit in front of their computers and google their articles together. On top of that there is the pressure of the management, which of course listens to the owners, and in the meantime the newspapers are no longer making money by increasing their circulation but by making opinions in the sense of the owner's protege.
When I think about such unfairness, I always get very emotional.
Hypolite Petovan
So even if you don't take part to a vote because casting a blank vote would be counted exactly the same as abstaining, you can still be upset at the outcome.
I tend to agree with you about the current state of journalism, but I have the feeling that it isn't a new trend. I don't believe there has ever been a truly independent press anywhere. Because popular media outlets depend on access to politicians, they can end up having aligning goals as they both deal in power and influence.
Richard
I don't understand what you mean by "blank votes"?
Hypolite Petovan
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Richard
Michael Vogel
"Stuttgart 21" is a project to built a new train station in Stuttgart that replaces the old one. The new one will be an underground station. In 1995 they estimated 2.1 billion Euro - now it is more likely 10 billion. It is expected that the new station is less efficient than the old one (it has fewer tracks): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuttgart_21
Oh, and in Hamburg a new opera had been created, the "Elbphilharmonie". It was planned to be finished in 2010 - it lasted... show more
"Stuttgart 21" is a project to built a new train station in Stuttgart that replaces the old one. The new one will be an underground station. In 1995 they estimated 2.1 billion Euro - now it is more likely 10 billion. It is expected that the new station is less efficient than the old one (it has fewer tracks): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuttgart_21
Oh, and in Hamburg a new opera had been created, the "Elbphilharmonie". It was planned to be finished in 2010 - it lasted until 2017. It was expected to cost 77 million Euro - but costed 866 million Euro instead: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elbphilharmonie
On the list of failed projects I could also put the "E-Perso" and "De-Mail".
Our identity card has got an NFC chip with cryptographic keys on it. It was meant as a safe way to prove your identity online. Many years after it started, there still are nearly no services that use this chip.
"De-Mail" was meant as a German only e-mail service that was legally equivalent to a physical letter sent by the postal service. It started in 2011 and still I don't know anyone who has got a De-Mail address: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De-Mail
Really, I believe that only foreigners still believe in Germans being efficient.
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Hypolite Petovan
This doesn't mean that people aren't responsible for their bad acts, rules and their enforcement are meant to steer our behavior towards a greater good that we can't necessarily appreciate individually.
But this means that everybody does what they can with what they have. If the rules change, it will change people's behavior accordingly whether they agree with the rule change or not.
Robert Biloute - on diaspora-fr.org
Anyway France is full of contradictions, that's what the most frustrating but also the most interesting IMO. Now that you talked about the freedom as USA's fundamental lie, I would pick the lie about equality for France.
We are obsessed about equality on a more and more superficial level, but we're still fundamentally aristocratic and elitist, and the neoliberal-orwhateverwemaycallit tsunami is not improving any of that.
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Richard
**joe
"Liberty and Justice for All".
(But I guess that might also be it's biggest ideal.)