Google Donates €1 Million To Help Refugees In Need 320
Mark Wilson writes: The on-going refugee crisis in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East has grabbed hearts and headlines around the world. As European governments argue over who should take in the thousands of desperate people, European citizens have criticized the speed and scale of the help offered, whilst simultaneously donating money, food, and equipment to help those in desperate need. Now Google has stepped in, offering €1 million ($1.1 million) to the organizations providing help to refugees. In addition to this, Google.org (the branch of the company 'using innovation to tackle some of the world's biggest challenges') is setting up a page to make it easier for people to make donations, and says that it will match any money donated by Google users.
That's nice (Score:4, Insightful)
but it's a drop in the bucket of resources needed for this migration. What I'm wondering is, where's the U.S pledge to take in migrants? After all, it's the U.S who is dropping bombs and seeding weapons into the regions these migrants are fleeing from. Or maybe they're just not interested because you can't have any cherry-picking under these circumstances?
Re:That's nice (Score:5, Insightful)
Where is the Saudi and other muslim duty to take in their islamic brethren?
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Absent, clearly.
Now are you saying that the west should strive to be moral equals of middle eastern despots?
Re:That's nice (Score:5, Insightful)
Muslims don't view non-Muslims as "brothers and sisters." We are "Kafirs" to them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ [wikipedia.org]
Re:That's nice (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm non-Muslim and have friends who are Muslim. This may come as a shock, but they are not all the same, any more than all conservative Christians are ignorant xenophobes. They're not all ignorant xenophobes, right?
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Two words: taquiya, kitman.
Re:That's nice (Score:4, Informative)
Re:That's nice (Score:5, Insightful)
A long time ago, the folks in a country ruled by a formidable Imperialist Empire got up the courage to fight against them. The folks will ill-armed, untrained, and just country bumpkins, more or less. You can fight tyranny. But the will of the people needs to be there.
Islamic countries tolerate persecution of females wanting to get an education . . . because that is what Islam says. Get rid of Islam, and then your girls can go to school safely. Otherwise, don't bother me with your own problems.
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And now they're turning up with H1Bs in another country once ruled by that formidable Imperialist Empire.
Re:That's nice (Score:4, Insightful)
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A long time ago, the folks in a country ruled by a formidable Imperialist Empire got up the courage to fight against them. The folks will ill-armed, untrained, and just country bumpkins, and a large French army
FTFY
During the American Revolutionary War (American War of Independence; 1775–1783), France recognized and allied itself with the United States in 1778, declared war on Great Britain, and sent its armies and navy to fight Britain while providing money and matériel to arm the new republic. French intervention made a decisive contribution to the U.S. victory in the war.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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it's because of Muslims.
Hired actors. Nobody's doing this shit for free.
Only good cops themselves can solve this problem with bad cops. Ask your good cop friends to speak out in their union hall against bad cops . . . oh, they won't . . . I get it. That is the root of the problem. good cops condone bad cops. Once they reject it, it will be gone. When non-cops condemn bad cops, cops don't listen.
You confirm the power of propaganda over the weak, uninquisitive mind.
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Hired actors. Nobody's doing this shit for free.
Oh, for free? Muslims do the ISIS thing because they the buy teenage sex slaves and kill people, without any reason . . . except that they don't adhere to their abhorrent version of Islam.
If a few Muslims would stand up, and say, "This is not Islam!", it would help a lot. But Muslims won't do that, because they don't want to. They like it the way it is. We get our balls fried at the airport, and they get the free benefits of liberal democracies.
Is there anyone Muslim there that would dare to disagre
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You're just trolling with bullshit. Nothing to see there...
Re: That's nice (Score:5, Informative)
That's b'cos in most Muslim countries, the non-Muslim population has fled. Why did they flee? In most cases, it was b'cos under Islamic law, their status was that of dhimmis, or 3rd class citizens. That exodus has become more pronounced in recent years, w/ Egyptian Copts, Lebanese Maronites, Iraqi and Syrian Assyrians, et al moving to non-Islamic havens.
So once they're gone, Muslims are only surrounded by other Muslims. Normally, that should make them all very happy, but guess what? There is that small question about what is the true Islam? In all other societies, people of different sects of a religion recognize their differences and move on. In Israel, you don't have Reform Jews or Orthodox Jews trying to obliterate each other. In France or Austria, you don't have Catholics try and persecute Protestants. In Britain or Germany or Netherlands, you don't have Protestants try making life hell for Catholics. Even in Russia, you don't have the Orthodox Church persecuting Catholics or Protestants. In Sri Lanka or Thailand, you don't have Mahayana or Theravada Buddhists trying to wipe out each other. In India or Nepal, you don't have Vaishnavs and Shaivyas try and obliterate each other. Main reason being none of their scriptures say anything on the subject.
It's a different story w/ Islam. Mohammed himself once was at war w/ a group of Muslim insurgents, and massacred them and destroyed their mosque. So the question of 'what is true Islam' is a pretty major one in any Muslim country, and usually, it's defined by the major sect/madhab in force in that country. So in Saudi Arabia, true Islam is Wahabism. In Iran and Iraq, it's Shi'ite Islam. In Yemen, Egypt, Indonesia and Malaysia, it's the Shafi'i. In most of North Africa as well as Emirates, it's Maliki. In most of Sunni Asia - Jordan, Turkey, Afghanistan, Pakistan and the 'stans', it's Hanafi. And in each of these countries, it's forcefully enforced (except in the stans, which still have their Communist era rulers).
So your implication above that Muslims are more tolerant of non-Muslims than they are of each other is hogwash. Best example being India's partition in 1947: there was a forced exodus of Hindus from the 2 Pakistans (one of which is today Bangladesh). In Muslim countries that still have significant non-Muslim populations, such as Malaysia or Indonesia, the majority of victims of Muslim violence are not Muslims: they are non-Muslims. In Iraq, ISIS still prefers persecuting non-Muslim Yazidis and Assyrians, even if they look at Shi'ites w/ equal contempt.
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In France or Austria, you don't have Catholics try and persecute Protestants.
I guess you intentionally didn't mention Ireland in this sentence?
In Israel, you don't have Reform Jews or Orthodox Jews trying to obliterate each other.
What about the assasination of the Prime Minister of Israel by a Jewish extremist, for starters? [wikipedia.org]
You can find extremist nutters in every religion, but the root of country-wide religious warfare is always economic and political, first and foremost. The difference between Islam and Christianity in terms of modern-day violence has everything to do with the fact that the Middle East has been continually torn up by colonial powers and local wa
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Up to a point, presently Europe is being driven into a situation where a future civil war with ethnic cleansing on a scale unknown in history is on our doorstep (regardless of who wins). Giving migrants more aid and convincing more people to try their luck in Europe is a dangerous game, easy to play for American liberals though who at worst have a bunch of Catholics with a few drug problems on their doorstep.
Google should spend that money in Africa and the Middle East.
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The nice thing about the people from Central America is that they are willing to work when they get here.
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The threat to Europe comes from nationalistic forces who would love to see EU dissolved and are usi
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It might if we had jobs going unfilled and land waiting for someone to farm it. Are you posting from modern Europe or 18th century America?
I'm not sure how gangs of
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For every job there's someone who needs some need fulfilled. Current economic crisis is ultimately due to lack of demand, which in turn is because our bookkeeping system has been incapable of dealing with increases in productivity. While a long-term solution requires some form of citizen wage to offset the falling job-derived ones, the ideological commitment to austerit
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For every incident that gets reported there are dozens that don't.
As for the mosque condemning it, well they would do, wouldn't they? They haven't got the numbers to just say "fuck off" yet. They're working on it, though.
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Why would war break out if the EU is dissolved? That's like pretending the US and Canada might fight a war if they're not integrated in the NAFTA. Well no it won't happen, and it won't happen in (most of) Europe for the same reasons : war would mean economic ruin, would not be supported by the population and is ultimately prevented by nuclear weapons.
In fact, EU membership is now almost synonymous with NATO membership, esp. after enlargement and then France joining in in 2009. So NATO is good for peace, rig
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Are they really? The very same people? That's quite an accusation, coming from the very same person who bombed the hell out of Iraq.
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This comic claims that climate change is one of the triggers (combined with the authoritarian regime, of course):
https://www.upworthy.com/tryin... [upworthy.com]
The UN has warned for years that climate change will lead to water and food shortages, and therefore political instabilities. This seems to be the first clear example, with probably many to follow as deserts expand.
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Overpopulation is depleting resources far faster than climate change.
PS. yes, there's plenty for plenty more people ... but not correctly distributed among the people, which you can't redistribute without destroying civilization.
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Overpopulation is depleting resources far faster than climate change.
AFAIK there's no region on Earth currently over its carrying capacity with the sole exception of Antarctica, which has around 5,000 people total.
That's a rather extraordinary assertion, especially in the context of deciding over other people's life and death. Please give some concr
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I meant you can't redistribute the people to where the resources are without destroying civilizations (and productivity with it). You can obviously redistribute the resources as long as there is political will ... but that will can disappear and then you have countries with unsustainable populations and no food aid.
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Carrying capacity of land when farmed by well equipped, well educated farmers with a plentiful supply of oil and chemicals supplying a vegetarian diet is not exactly the same as the practical carrying capacity of land. Throw in economic disparity and meat consumption, throw in the fragility of international supply chains, throw in brain drain, white flight and dispossession and the carrying capacity can quickly go to complete and utter shit.
Re:That's nice (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes climate change is what is making people flee to Germany. Not Turkey, Greece, Macedonia, Kosovo, Serbia, Hungry, Slovakia, or the Czech Republic, but Germany (give or take a country depending on the path to German). Clearly Germany is the only place left in the world with food and water. This is all about climate change and they couldn't possible get food, water, or even a life free from war in any of the other countries they are passing through on the way to Germany. This has nothing to do with the almighty Euro at all.
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Give me a break, it's just a couple of thousand people. Millions are staying, in Lebanon and Turkey, because that is the region that they call home. There is no mass migration, that is a news bias.
Wrong by a factor of 300+ (Score:2)
True, for values of couple in the region of 750.
http://www.theguardian.com/wor... [theguardian.com]
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Has little to do with European values.
It's not like the media doesn't successful push the US in the same direction ... they just have neighbours and immigrants slightly less hostile to their way of life, thanks to geography.
Re: That's nice (Score:2)
Syria didn't have a problem with water until the oil dried up. The Middle East is trading water for oil and is fairly good at it. A decade ago the oil exports in Syria started tumbling and so followed it's food/water supply and then it's government as more pressure came from other groups to take the remaining oil fields.
Global warming is not a problem as long as you can afford fixing it (the Dutch have been submerged for over a century). But when people's livelihoods get threatened they'll take matters in t
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I know it's common to blame the US for everything - and I'm generally no big fan myself. But the US just hasn't been a big player in this thing up until recently. And their local "dog in the game", the FSA, hasn't exactly had the largesse showered down on them. Here's a rough timeline:
Re:That's nice (Score:4, Informative)
The second I in ISIS stands for Iraq. Which is a country that has been invaded by the USA and had its secular government destroyed.
So yep, they are to blame.
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Daesh and al-Nusra were tiny entities until the Syrian civil war - it's the Syria chaos that allowed them to flourish, and eventually conquer chunks of Iraq with forces armed and trained in Syria. And part of the reason that they flourished in Syria was because they were far better armed than their secular competition.
That said, the Maliki government too most definitely contributed to helping Daesh gain membership, he did a bang-up job of alienating Iraq's Sunni population. And Maliki would never have been
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Maliki government, Turkish government, Saudi Arabian government ... extremist Sunni militias rarely have to look very hard for sponsors.
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Take a dictionary, look up what a secular government is. And saying that the States have invaded a country and destroyed its government is not hate speech, it is just the sad truth. Even sadder is the fact, that Iraq was just one of too many countries USA has invaded and destroyed their governments.
Re:That's nice (Score:5, Informative)
Refugees in Greece arrive with money and iPhones, checking with friends on the best places to go. Many arrive in Greece, Italy and Hungary, but very few stay in those countries even though they are safe there. They prefer Germany, Sweden and the UK, where the welcome is much warmer and comes with a house, medical care, a generous stipend, and the possibility of work. In Belgium, they see a large influx of young males (mostly from Iraq), all with identical rehearsed story about Syria and of course no papers to prove their identity. A great example is the story behind little Aylan, made famous by that heart-wrenching picture showing him washed ashore on a beach in Turkey. As it turns out, his family was already living in prefect safety in Istanbul for a few years, after fleeying the troubles in Syria. The father had tried to get asylum status in Canada (he has a relative there) but was denied. He then decided to try Europe, possibly because here he'd get the $14k in dental work he needed for free. He loaded his family in a crappy little boat and tried the crossing, which failed terribly as we know. The father lived, and is now back in Syria of all places to bury his family. This is a great tragedy, but it was brought on not by the war in Syria, not by ISIS, not by cold-hearted Europeans denying such people refuge, not by ruthless human trafficers, but by the man's own god-damned stupidity.
We in Europe (the vast majority of the people, not the politicians) do not want these people here. We'll take real refugees and care for them as best we can, but there are limits to what we can take. The social fabric in Sweden, Germany, France and other countries is already under tremendous strain, despite desperate attempts by media and government to paint a rosy picture. Should we do nothing? Of course not. One of the things we can do for example is to help Turkey manage the vast influx of refugees, help set them up in decent camps, and ensure that they stay there. Another thing we can do is what Australia does: tow these immigrants back from where they came, and destroy the boats. But the one thing we should be doing is to make it crystal clear: if you are not a real refugee, there is no future for you here.
Re:That's nice (Score:5, Insightful)
People who complain about people from other countries having cell phones and stuff like that have a strange concept of what life is like in poorer countries, As if everyone either lives like they do in America, or they're a mud farmer who sleeps in the dirt every night.
Travel to a poorer country some time and see how people live. You still find things like smartphones, TVs, washing machines, etc. They're generally lower quality or older, but most definitely present. You find a lower average number of "modern conveniences" per household, but that number is certainly not "zero". Buildings aren't built to as high of standards, but they're still fine for getting a night's sleep. People still have cars, even if the number per capita is lower and they average older/cheaper models. People in countries with ~$5k/yr per-capita GDP are not mud farmers. And that's exactly what Syria's per-capita income was before the civil war.
Different refugees have had different levels of luck. Some have lost everything they had, such as shells hitting their house. Others are simply in areas about to be overrun, but still have their possessions. When a person flees, they sell everything they can't take with them, and take with whatever they can. In a country where so much has been destroyed, there's always a market for replacement possessions - as well as a market for opportunistic groups to get goods for cheap. The money from selling whatever they couldn't take with becomes their funds for their trip. Small, important things like phones are one of the least likely things a person would sell. The biggest worry of a fleeing family is of becoming separated. The ability to get information is also critical. We live in a modern era.
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We in Europe (the vast majority of the people, not the politicians) do not want these people here.
Please speak for yourself.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
We in Europe (the vast majority of the people, not the politicians) do not want these people here.
Please speak for yourself.
He is, and, for better or worse, he's also speaking for a lot more people than you'll probably be comfortable admitting feel the same way as he does.
A straw poll on Friday at my place of work, one person in thirty was pro taking these people in, so there's a wee bit of a difference betwixt what I'm hearing from people at work and on the street, and what I'm being fed by the media and the politicians.
(For the record, I wouldn't be here if my country of origin hadn't taken in my Huguenot ancestors)
Re:That's nice (Score:5, Informative)
Sweden and the United States give asylum to about the same number of refugees every year. Not per capita, but in absolute numbers. Also, the US gives 0.19% of their gross national income to foreign aid, compared to 1.02% of the above example.
It's the usual scenario. USA creates a big mess, other countries are stuck in it or have to clean it up.
And the US funds 22% of UN operating needs. Then it's Japan (19%), Germany (9.8%), France and the UK. That rounds out the top 10.
Sweden isn't in there. Neither is Saudi Arabia (sitting on piles of cash and basically a neighbor), neither is Russia (who contributes mightily to the Syrian war effort).
You should spend some quality time understanding how the world works. It's complicated.
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Sweden isn't in there.
Sweden pays 1% of the UN funding. The US pays 22%, since they have a GDP that is 28 times bigger (they should have paid even more, but of course they've always whined about it, often by refusing to pay their fair share, and the UN reduced their quota accordingly).
Anyway, back to the refugees. If the US took in the same amount of refugees per capita as Sweden, they would receive about two and a half million refugees per year. That would alleviate a lot of suffering, and is all that matters in the end.
"Fairl"ly stupid argument (Score:3)
The US pays 22%.., often by refusing to pay their fair share
Since the U.S. has a GDP of around 17.4 trillion, and the world GDP is 77.3 trillon or so... 22% seems just about right.
Not wurde why it's a good idea to fund "world" military forces to go forth and rape little kids though.
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http://www.thelocal.se/20051214/2683
Re:That's nice (Score:5, Informative)
The ISIS war in the Middle East is Muslim against Muslim. Any action from the U.S. or other civilized nations is irrelevant. It's Muslim against Muslim, they cooked their own stew,
Not quite right. ISIS was founded by former Sunni members of Saddam Husseins armed forces. After the invasion of Iraq, the US had the genius idea of sanctioning all military personnel that served under Saddam by permanently excluding them from serving under any new government. This left thousands of officers and ten thousands of other enlisted personnel without any perspective at all in the new, Shia dominated Iraq.
The leadership of ISIS are disgruntled, unemployed former officers of the Iraqi army. The whole religious undertone is a means to attract foot soldiers and to keep the simple minded folk in line. The real war is about power and control of resources, as it has always been.
Had the US followed a policy of reconciliation and inclusion, none of this might have happened.
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Had the US followed a policy of reconciliation and inclusion, none of this might have happened.
It's hard to sell mass quantities of weaponry that way. If you want them to buy more, they have to use what they already have.
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There is an ancient Arab Proverb, that goes something like this:
I fight against my brother. But my brother and I fight against others in my neighborhood. The boys in my neighborhood fight together with us, against people in other parts of the city. All the people in my city fight against people in other cities.
Scale that as you will.
Shias have been fighting Sunnis since day one. When Muslims are not killing Westerners, they are killing each other.
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Whatever the history was, there is a strong pattern in the Islamic world that breeds aggression, oppression and backwardness. For the most part of their territory, even many of the richest oil states look like Third World countries where human rights are stomped on as a way of life. There is also the pattern that while many of their countries got a fortune, in the form of oil, they haven't spent that to diversify their economy, educate their people or improve their surroundings. Instead of that, they are at
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
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There's already lots of people in Syria who want to fight both Daesh and Assad, but are poorly armed. If you want a military solution, why don't you start with actually arming them properly rather than involuntarily drafting refugees?
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If you want a military solution, why don't you start with actually arming them properly rather than involuntarily drafting refugees?
We tried arming Muslims with Iraq . . . guess where all those armaments are being used now . . .
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So your plan is to send 200,000 people unarmed against Assad's tanks and air force? Do you also plan to send in several dozen bulldozers to dig the mass grave for them?
And really, the concept that sometimes weapons get taken by groups they're not intended for, and therefore, the world is always better if no weapons are used in any concept... please. Should nobody have armed Nazi resistance groups because the Nazis might perchance get ahold of the weapons? Does the fact that a student don't always get 100%
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It's not about the arms or the training . . . it's about the will of the people to fight. Germany could give 200,000 folks all the arms and training they need . . . including anti-tank weapons and flak weapons. But the will of the soldiers must be there. They must want to end the Islamic Tyranny . . . otherwise the project is doomed to failure. Read some von Clausewitz for more ideas about what war really is.
Taking in refugees is not going to solve the root of the problem.
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As I just said - there's large numbers of people, in Syria today, who want to fight both Daesh and Assad. By now, almost all veterans. So again, I'll repeat: If you want a military solution, why don't you start with actually arming them properly rather than involuntarily drafting refugees?
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The folks in Syria are voting with their feet . . . they are trotting up to Hungary, and trying to get into Germany.
Who should you arm in Syria? The Kurds, who were until recently on the list of terrorist organizations?
Who is fighting with ISIS . . . or, who is against them . . . ? Does anyone know for sure?
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The easiest way is to do it afterwards, just like you do.
Re: That's nice (Score:2)
I think perhaps the op should've mentioned or at least meant pre-gulf war Iraq. The U.S. funded, trained and armed Iraqi citizens. They grouped into Al-Qaeda to fight of the invading Soviet oppressors and installed Hussein as the leader. In hindsight, they would've been better off being a Soviet vassal state like Poland.
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It's ironic that the result of what is essentially a Muslim - Muslim fight (irrespective of the West breeding instability or not) is the outpouring of Muslims to Europe, i.e. the continued, aggressive Islamization of Europe. Not only will there be large cities where the original citizenry feel like visitors to some different country, but also it'll make it remarkably easy to establish jihadist cells, train and brainwash the Muslim masses.
It is established that even a minority can impose its will and its way
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While you're at it, you might want to do a quick search for "The Crusades".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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The thing is, at the time there had to be a f..ing WAR to claim territory, because the defense mechanisms of European countries worked at the time.
Now Muslim masses just show up, gently escorted through Europe by Europeans with humanitarian thinking. Add a bit of family unification, birth rate differences, adhesion to their traditional way of life and the inevitable resentment of their first few generations against European values, and bingo, Europe is part of the Muslim world.
Buy real estate in Eastern Eur
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They did, until Europe (and then the US) started engaging in colonialism and exploitation.
Hell, Iran was the most liberal, pro-Western country in the Middle East until the CIA installed the Shah.
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To add to this: while Vienna wasn't captured by the Muslims, 1/3rd of neighboring Hungary was occupied by the Ottoman empire for a whopping 150 years, and another 1/3rd, Transylvania, retained its nominal independence as a vassal state partner of the Ottoman empire.
Another difference is that while the Ottoman empire was pretty lax about religious freedom and Christianty and local languages could be practised, good luck with that if something like the Arab Spring sweeps over Europe that's rapidly becoming Is
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Crazy idea, but how about starting their own?
cheap pr, not real help scaled to google revenue (Score:2, Insightful)
Google yearly revenue is about 55 billion dollars
Google yearly profit is about 12 billion
so, by my math, 1 million in charity is less then, roughly, doing the math in my head, 6 hours profit ??? and it is probably tax deductible ?
and they are getting lits of great PR like this slashvertisement ????
another way to look at this would be to take the total salary of the top 100 google employees and ask what % of that google does in charity
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another way to look at this would be to take the total salary of the top 100 google employees and ask what % of that google does in charity
What percentage of your money goes to charity? Just curious.
Mainly this article is on Slashdot because it is an important world event......Google just gives it a tech angle (and I for one like world events with tech angles appearing on Slashdot).
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Nonetheless, a small gift from a big name will cause eyes to fall on the problem.
Mix enough publicity, compassion, & a little guilt; couldn't hurt the cause.
Spend you money here, Google (Score:3)
Blanket the Middle East with free, open and ubiquitous internet, by every practical means, together with Tor. These people have been living in the dark too long.
Then put a fence around the place and let them settle their own differences.
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If Google provides the internet through satellites they won't even need Tor.
Developing and air dropping a couple million Young Boy's/Lady's Illustrated Primers into the Middle East, now that would be useful ... not very politically correct of course.
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It's not PC but the problem is that most of the world has inferior cultures compared to the U.S. and Western Europe. In addition we are vastly outnumbered. There is no way to take in all of the people that need help and keep our culture. One of the reasons the U.S. was able to take in so many people in the 1800's was because we didn't have a welfare state and they were European and had similar cultures and ethics and we much more republican (as in the rule of law) and less democratic (as in rule of the majo
Throwing away water and food (Score:5, Informative)
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Counter-productive (Score:3)
Solve the root of the problem, spend this money on education in the ME instead. Given a limited budget, spending it on the current refugee problem, knowing full well that bigger suffering is just around the corner, is counter-productive.
Google's yearly revenue is about $70 billion (Score:2)
So them giving 1 million euros is about proportionate to me giving 1 dollar to help refugees.
Plus they get useful good PR from this, unlike me.
So this isn't especially impressive.
Re:How is this news for nerds (Score:5, Insightful)
clearly, they are fleeing from war to another country. That makes them refugees.
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Exactly. They are on the losing side in a civil war. That's just what you want to take in, an army. The problem with this group of refugee's is the political makeup of the group. The last thing anyone wants is importing a few thousand ISIS followers. There are a lot of military aged males in these groups. The media shows women and children suffering but I watched mostly men of military age boarding the buses for Europe. It makes you take pause.
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In that case they stopped being refugees when they left the other side of turkey. Then they became economic migrants. But maybe they are escaping arab nations and want some western values. Looks like Greece didn't tickle their fancy either. Or Bulgaria, Serbia, Croatia, Romania, Hungary, Macedonia, Bosnia, Albania, Montenegro, Slovakia, or the Czech Republic. Last I checked, none of those countries were war torn, but Germany has something that sets it apart from all those other countries, money.
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You act as if they were allowed to live in Turkey as regular Turks do. Which is, of course, not the case. This [google.is] is how Turkey makes them live.
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Versus, you know, how normal Turks live [google.is]
Turkey doesn't give them a chance to do that. It keeps them behind barbed wire in tents exposed to the weather, with their daily activities being to queue for a ration of rice and bread.
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Terrible, just terrible. If I was in a situation like that I'd go back to Syria to be raped, tortured or gassed.
Re:How is this news for nerds (Score:5, Insightful)
A migrant wants to get to place X. A refugee is just desperate to get out of Y.
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Both refugees and migrants want to find a place where they are safe, can build decent lives, and can provide for their families. Exactly like you would, under comparable circumstances. This idea that they should have no preferences about where they might best do these things is more than a little bizarre (but typical of the dehumanization by many people of others they perceive to be unlike themselves). "Gee, honey, it's a shame that we lost our home and you and the kids are going to be tortured and starved,
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Only the first of those is a right under international law, hence the first country rule.
Perhaps they'd like a pony too?
It's not bizarre at all when that place is in someone else's fucking country.
I could pr
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So, 600000 people getting in Germany is a big problem and a huge burden on that country, but somehow it would be fair if they all stayed in say Bulgaria? That is weird.
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I don't know who these people are or what is going on here but it seems to be a question that Europe doesn't dare ask.
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The normal price for traffickers is several dozen to a several hundred euros, depending on the situation. Syria's pre-war GDP was about 4000 Euros per-capita. People leaving sell any assets that they have left (home if it's still standing, car if it's not bombed out, appliances, etc) to pay for their journey.
They're well fed and clean shaven because of the pro-refugee European volunteer groups who've been assisting them. And they most definitely have not been allowed to just go wherever, hence the train in
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Have you seen how Turkey treats them? Has Hungary exactly rolled out the red carpet? It should be obvious why they move on.
Europe needs a common policy to spread the load around on this issue. Heck, it needs such policies on a lot of issues.
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There is no significant number of truly committed bleeding heart liberals. There's only the media and sheep.
In the end liberalism in society is bought with money, conservatism will have to be bought with blood and raped daughters.
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So... does this mean that Rubert Murdoch is a bleeding-heart liberal? Or did you mean all the media which isn't owned by megacorps and billionaires?
Which implies lots of commitment. "Putting your money where your mouth is" is the very verbal image of commitment. So if there aren't a "significant number of truly committed bleeding heart liberals",
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Invading Libya and Syria will be cheaper than 10 billions a year? Right.
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Maybe they practice good personal hygiene with the facilities that are available to them. That alone is no reason to kick them out.
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They're being given a lot of support by local pro-refugee groups, I know at least that much. There's even a caravan today of volunteers offering to drive refugees to their destinations so they don't have to walk.
A lot of pro-refugee people are driven to be even more accommodating in order to counter what they see as the attacks from the anti-refugee side. The anti-refugee side makes them feel unwelcome, so they want to do more than they otherwise would to make them feel welcome.
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If the ISIS inspector-general of cunning plans hasn't thought of slipping a few 5th columnists in among them, then he or she isn't very bright.