I am really glad that eastern European people are so vigilant about censorship and government control.
It should still be known, that a lot of bad stuff has crept into EU law. But people are starting to gain awareness on these issues. And East EU people have no enthusiasm about reliving the Iron Curtain days.
> I am really glad that eastern European people are so vigilant about censorship and government control.
And for good reasons. I'm Romanian myself, but I think I speak for a lot of other East-Europeans when I'm saying that all this censorship non-sense brings back awful things from the past. I was only 9 when the Communist regime fell, but I can still remember about how my parents or any other adults could have gone to jail only for listening to Radio Free Europe. As long as people who remember those times are still alive and active stupid stuff like ACTA will hopefully not pass.
Exactly. I am Polish and I have no desire to go back to a totalitarian regime, media control or censorship.
I think people from the former Soviet group are more attuned to abuses of power and attempts at censorship or rights abuse. As an example, I know my detectors went off full-scale when I saw the media coverage of the last Iraqi war on US television. Tightly cropped shots, showing only soldiers and their equipment -> obvious manipulation. And yet few other people around me noticed this.
Spot on. The former sov-block states and satellites are much more vigilant than the rest of Europe, to the point that they are now the European conscience when it comes to privacy.
The attitude in most of the other countries is one where people can't seem to give away their hard won right to privacy fast enough.
Yes, I think Eastern European populations are very vigilant about a return to dictatorship, mass surveillance and stuff like that. Plus, they remember how to do mass-protests since the fall of communism wasn't so long ago (~20 years).
I think Thomas Jefferson was spot on when he said that we need some kind of mass rebellion every 20 years just to keep the Governments in check, and remind them that they are there to serve us, not to control us:
"God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion.
The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is
wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts
they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions,
it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty.
And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not
warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of
resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as
to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost
in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from
time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
It is its natural manure."
Maybe the reason Americans have so blindly fallen for the politicians' lies over the past 10 years and accepted to let them remove their Constitutional rights (or simply ignore them), is because Americans don't really know what it means to lose your liberty, so they don't act as they fade away, until it's really obvious that they have no more liberties (and too late).
The web has quickly become a main culture-driving force. As long as an open information environment exists, our global culture has the capacity to enter an Age of Reason where tactics of oppression and manipulation in the past will rarely be revisited.
Making thinkers more proactive is the chief concern, though. Too often, they will philosophize until their tongues almost fall off, but when it comes to preventing future infringements upon their rights, they just assume they will be fine. Next thing they know, someone's cut off their tongue, and they are rendered speechless.
There is so much irony these days: the country that used to be the most active in fighting against communist dictators' censorship is now pushing new forms of censorship onto "free" eastern european peoples. No wonder they are fighting back.
>I am really glad that eastern European people are so vigilant about censorship and government control.
Ironic that they are "worried" about "government control" given how often their governments control huge chunks of the economy, private sector and the general distrust and vilification of capitalism (you think the OWS is bad, wait till you hear the ex-commies and philosophy professors talking about social justice to the plebs, these guys are in the government here). It's more about them being pissed off about piracy prevention which is common not only for personal use but also in businesses.
I don't downvote stuff on HN (I think you're just my third or fourth downvote), but I had to do it because you're factually wrong, and spreading misconceptions.
I'll just give you my country's example, Romania. Our biggest company, Petrom (it's an oil company) has been privatized just before our entry into the EU. Its new owner? The Austrians from OMV, which has the Austrian Government as its main shareholder.
Also, there are only 2 or 3 Romanian banks, which I don't think that control more than 10% of the market taken together, the rest of the banking sector is controlled by foreign-owned banks (some of them also having their Governments as major shareholders).
And I could go on and on.
I can give an example very close to home about gov't influence here in Hungary, and that is the tech/IT sector. A huge chunk of tech/IT SMBs are directly or indirectly living off government contracts, grants, gov't companies or companies that have been privatized but retain close ties to the gov't (and are dumb). A new thing here in Hungary is EU grants, which is the same, dumb money.
The first question I routinely get as an entrepreneur is "what grant did you win?". When I say "none" and that I'm trying to bootstrap off the market they think I'm crazy or lying. (Not kidding.) Also, most SMBs that I've come in contact with over over the last 3-5 years fit the above description well.
Without going into the details of the problems with money from the gov't or the EU, this effect precludes any kind of real R&D or innovation to take place around here. In fact the word "innovation" has been hijacked here in Hungary to mean "grant money". You have gov't officials saying "there's a lot of innovation in the IT sector" which means "there's a lot of grant money given out in the IT sector". Unfortunately there are no results to show for it, it's a cargo cult culture. The succesfull tech companies we do have (LogMeIn, Prezi, IndexTools, Graphisoft) are all companies that to my knowledge stayed the hell away from gov't money.
They don't, it's "development programs" and "helping the economy". Startups don't have the money to lobby. It's not corruption per se, at least on the highest levels, it's simply buying votes and pretending you are accomplishing something. Technocracy at it's finest.
Government control and government ownership are two distinct concepts, with the latter not being a necessary condition for the former. That being said, it is more an issue of the same groups controlling most of both the political and economic landscape. However, as a Romanian I thought you'd pick on the irony of the situation: a politician finally admitting they have no clue about what they're doing - another thing that Romanians have not invented, but "optimized" :)
Signing a treaty is not the same as ratifying it. Ratification is necessary for it to go into force, and that hasn't happened yet. Countries fail to ratify treaties all the time.
I'm not surprised at all at Boc. I'm glad he resigned, but I don't think there will be a big improvement any time soon.
For the rest of HN: there were mass demonstrations lately requesting his resignation; even the President asked him and he kept refusing. In the end it looks like he left.
1. People still don't realize that the Boc administration was the best thing that could happen to us.
Our national debt is less than 40% of the GDP in a time of a global economic crisis. Of course it grew since 2009 from 25% so the trend is a little worrying, which is why the government implemented austerity measures, because 3 million people (the employees of private companies that pay taxes) cannot pay the bills for the rest without making cuts ... and all the money that came from privatization have been eaten by PSD.
During Boc our economy was stable without drowning us in debt (compare with Greece's debt at 173% of GDP, or with Italy's and Ireland's which are at over 100%). Also take the stability of our national currency which historically has never been so stable.
2. I sympathize with the couple of hundred people that went to the streets. I would have gone myself, but instead of bitching about it I just work my ass off and make my own money, instead of begging for it.
There's a reason why Germany recovered after 2 world wars in which they were bitch-slapped, plus the fall of the Berlin wall which left them in recession. And now they are again amongst the biggest economies (first in Europe, fourth world-wide) ... they aren't beggars, while we are.
->2. I sympathize with the couple of hundred people that went to the streets. I would have gone myself, but instead of bitching about it I just work my ass off and make my own money, instead of begging for it.
This. I know there are people who believe they have no opportunities, but most of the times they're wrong. There's ALWAYS an opportunity to make money and take care of yourself. Blaming the government and demanding that they take better care of you is just irresponsible.
Be serious. 2000 people protesting in a town of 2 million is not a mass protest. A couple of hundred people people protesting in several other towns, which have a population of 300.000 each, is not a mass protest.
Btw, do you remember what happened when one opposition politician tried to join the demonstrators? He had to be dragged out by police for his own safety. And to prove how dumb he is, he tried to do this once again a couple of days later, with the same outcome.
Now, about ACTA, I don't think that ANY Romanian politician knows what it means. They just signed according to the instructions received from their EU groups.
Romania (its administration) has proved many times that it cannot think by itself, it just fallows others, with the mentality if others say so who are we to say otherwise.
Finland. Whatever is penned down in Brussels is followed to the letter. Before EU, the prevailing thought was that anything that worked for the Swedes would work for us as well.
Slovenian ambassador in Japan, who signed it, was also sorry afterwards. When protests took place last Saturday, she asked people to be there on her behalf too.
Could be worse - if something works anywhere, the United States won't do it. Health care? How can we afford to keep everybody healthy when we have to fight bioterrorism?
To give (an utterly ridiculous) example, the irish government copied a model of university funding from the UK. Now there is one major difference between the two systems. In the UK, the government controls the number of university places, while in Ireland, the universities do.
The department of education rammed through this new funding system that divided up money based on the number of students per discipline (arts, science, medicine, business all having different modifiers). Now, this system worked in the UK as the universities couldn't increase their places themselves, but caused a lot of problems in Ireland.
Trinity College had a strategic goal to stay the same size as they were for undergrads, and increase postgraduate intake. When this funding model was introduced, they then had to increase UG numbers or lose loads of money (as the amount allocated was fixed, and other universities were expanding).
I think its a more general problem though, politicians are hesitant to try anything new as they can be blamed, which leads them to copy solutions that appear to be used elsewhere, as they can then blame the other country.
And the proposed post code system (which they occasionally talk about introducing) was going to just be a copy of the UK system instead of learning from the mistakes.
Staying out of the Euro (for now) hasn't been so bad. They're on track to be admitted eventually, but their euro-skeptic government probably slows that down...
well, that's debatable. It annoys normal folks (who have to exchange money when going abroad) and businesses (who have to hedge against exchange rate changes). And in the end when shit goes down in Hungary it takes CZK down too.
The upside is they can devalue their currency to address trade balance and solvency issues. Something Ireland, Greece, and Spain can't do. It beats the pants off trying to lower wages.
I see many European countries mentioned from East to West, from North to South. So if everyone points to the others, who's the mastermind? Maybe it's just the effect of the EU?
> For the majority of European countries? Can you give some examples?
You seem to think otherwise.
Name five countries where the current political leaders can do a better job running your life than you can. In how many cases could all of their predecessors over the past 50 years have done a better job than you?
There are lots of countries and lots of political leaders over time, and I've yet to find more than a small minority who I'd trust to walk my dog, let alone run my life. (And yes, the same applies to other types of leaders, but that's not particularly relevant because reducing the powers of political leaders doesn't give other leaders power. Ford can't make me buy.)
Absurd, but not unusual today. Members of the US congress have admitted freely that they have voted for bills without having read them. Indeed, our speaker of the house even once said that it was necessary to "pass the bill to find out what's in it", because apparently reading it was out of the question: http://youtube.com/watch?v=KoE1R-xH5To
Is the article really suggesting that there might be a connection between ACTA and Boc's resignation ? Because that would be hilarious. (He resigned for an entirely different reason)
No, there is no link between ACTA and the resignation. The resignation is a political move trying to calm down the Romanian revolts started in January.
Yes, but I think the OP is saying that the article added an update to the end in a way that makes it seems like ACTA and his resignation are associated.
"Update: And... um... just like that, he's no longer Prime Minister, offering up his resignation today."
More likely, he was asked to resign in order to hold two sets of elections at the same time (parliamentary and county/mayoral). Resignation allows for earlier than planned parliamentary elections.
This is clearly a political move in preparation for the coming elections. For example the resignation took place right AFTER the IMF visit (and I just lost a bet to an older friend who anticipated this since December).
The current president is on the 2nd term and he cannot run for any more terms (in Romania you cannot be president more than twice). So a new candidate must be prepared. Because of this, the ex-prime minister made the most unpopular (but needed) reforms, and paved the way for a new person to become prime minister now, and presidential candidate soon.
Basically, the ex prime minister will now take all "the bullets", from crap like ACTA, to pension reform, no matter how much it depended or not on him.
BTW: let's not forget when the opposition party was in power 10 years ago and they used to send journalists to jail because they dared to uncover their theft (ie: "Armaggedon Reports"). So I doubt that they really are concerned about ACTA. It is more likely something extra to throw in the political battle.
Romania has lobbyists, and i'm sure that RIAA or some Motion Picture association paid for someone's car or vacation or something. Of course, they didn't have to work as hard as in the US for SOPA, because as it was said before, our politicians are little copying puppets.
It should still be known, that a lot of bad stuff has crept into EU law. But people are starting to gain awareness on these issues. And East EU people have no enthusiasm about reliving the Iron Curtain days.