The last bit was awesome *promote

Self promoting this video and sending it back into the queue for one more try; last queued Monday, September 28th, 2015 7:02am PDT - promote requested by original submitter eric3579.

Days of our Lives is totally like that.

Saw an episode where someone was broadcasting holograms through kitchen appliances to try and escape from some Mad Scientist's liar...

The internet is full of the kind of bullshit that was shown on the train.

"Those refugees have an ISIS flag!"
No, they're not refugees

"This guy fought for ISIS!"
No, you fucking liar, he fought AGAINST ISIS

and plenty more

Oh, and one last thing. They're not migrants, they're refugees. There's a big difference.

I look forward to these precious 17 minutes every Monday. Thank you again eric!

I'm somewhat miffed that everyone is calling them "migrants" when they are clearly refugees of a freaking civil war.

Kicking kids is terrible and preventable.

This is leadership from behind. America has failed the world. Obama has failed the people of Syria.

The Days of Our Lives bit at the end made me cry like a bitch.

I take issue with the part about birth rates and the 35-year population forecast.

Firstly, the premise that we (Germany) need to stabilise our population level stems primarily from the depopulation of parts of the country, the north-east most of all. However, the cause is not low birth rates. It's urbanisation, which is part and parcel of capitalism. Everything gravitates towards the centres while the rest becomes hinterland to be exploited for resources.

Secondly, population forecasts turn into horseshit real fast. If we were to look at a 35-year forecast created in 1980, we'd miss the reunification, the breakup of Yugoslavia by NATO, about a dozen wars in the Middle East and the destabilisation/desolation in large parts of Southern Europe. Nevermind the EU with all its freedom of movement agreements that were recently suspended.

If we had made a 35-year forecast in 1910... well, you get my point.

Thirdly, Europe is not a singular unity. Our ongoing assault on the economies of Southern Europe (aka austerity) lead to a mass exodus already, Same for the Baltic countries. Unfortunatly, those countries who lost a significant portion of their young and educated over the last years are also the countries who are least equipped to deal with mass immigration in an orderly fashion.

Which brings me to my fourth point: many folks make the argument that we cannot possibly pay for the integration of 800k refugees, much less for 400k a year. Well, we payed for reunification in the most inefficient, corruption-inducing and anti-social way imaginable by piling the cost exclusively on our version of social security. And you know what? It still fucking worked. If Germany can shoulder the cost of reunification, the EU can pay for 2-3 million refugees. End of story.

Finally, we need immigration. Not to maintain population levels, not to even out low birth rates. We need it to not become too homogenous, especially Germany. Too much consensus, too much group think, not enough confrontation and cultural diversity. Shake things up before people start believing their own bullshit again about their own superiority. We've seen it already vis-a-vis Greece.

@eric3579

Does the Polish Six Flags guy look familiar? It's the very same racist imbecile who described the plan to create a unified driver's license across Europe as "Ein Reich, ein Volk, ein Ticket" while doing the Nazi salute.

I'd rather have a thousand Syrian refugees than people like him.

Its not just about money. Integrating Muslim refugees (well mostly migrants) has proved to be difficult bordering on impossible in Europe. Ghettos, antisemitism, sectarian violence, attempts to impose islamic law on communities etc.

Nonetheless if a refugee asks for asylum in any EU country he will be given asylum in that country. Migrants are different, but since we do not have much of a mechanism for sending them back where they came from... not so very different.

Now some of these migrants and refugees that want to live in Germany and Sweden are supposed to be distributed by "quotas" among the other EU countries, how is that supposed to work in practice?

Dont get me wrong, we have hundreds of thousands of recently (within say 20 years) migrated foreigners in our country, but none of them are bitching about what I eat and drink, how often I pray or what my wife wears to the beach. So no big deal.

As long as these people get asylum and then get evaluated before getting citizenship and there is a limited number of citizenships available over a given period of time everything might yet work out fine.

It will not work out fine just by inertia and political correctness..

I would rather have one crazy polish fascist than a thousand people claiming to be syrian refugees come to my doorstep. I could deal with maybe five at most.

Please explain to me how you know that these people fleeing near certain death in an incredibly destructive and deadly civil war are 'mostly migrants' rather than refugees. I've heard that line before, but never a word to back it up.

3 things, I may have mixed them a bit.

1 - past experience specifically with muslim migrants (some may have been refugees) in Europe - overall not great, mostly they consider our social system and political correctness as signs of weakness. They consider themselves superior, the first generation may be grateful for a better life than back home but the second and third generations feel superior to non-muslims (especially jews and atheists, but also christians) and entitled to benefits while hating the secular state. Will the current and future waves accomodate better? This has nothing to do with our imperative to help those in need, it is a practical problem. Also not racist - although I do admit racism and xenophobia are a major problem in many parts of Europe and trouble me very much in my own country. More so than the Vietnamese or Ukrainians or people from the Balkans "these people" organize in clans and tribes and will try to impose their view of the world on us, who organise in tiny families and on facebook. Albanian thugs are well organised but they dont hold the view that everyone else should be an Albanian thug too.

2 - current wave of migrants and refugees - lets assume we are talking only about real Syrians boarding boats in Turkey trying to reach Greek islands and not people from all over north africa trying to reach Italy or anyone else trying to reach the EU (possibly pretending to be Syrian). So we have this exemplary Syrian family which has run away from a war to Turkey. They are safe there, only they have to either stay for a couple of years in a refugee camp before they can try to find work or they have to survive in a grey economy sort of like Mexicans in the USA. They know that if they dont apply for asylum in Turkey and manage to set foot on EU soil they can ask for asylum there and be treated better than in Turkey. So these boat people are actually not running from war to asylum but rather from one asylum to another. They make sure not to stop in Greece or Croatia or Austria or Hungary but head for Germany or Sweden. Mostly I believe they have no idea of political geography but they have mobile phones and friends who have already made the journey and know how to milk the local system. So for purposes of compassion they are refugees and totally need our help but from a clinically economic (yes, materialistic) point of view they are very much migrants. Migrants we feel obliged to help because they are sort of refugees too.

3 - the mass and speed of the exodus means we are stretched to accomodate them and they will later start to passionately hate us because Europe will not be the heaven they expected it to be.
A few thousand refugees every year are no big deal even for a small EU state. Hundreds of thousands will be very difficult to take care of in the entire union. Inviting more is just irresponsible.

The good news is that the real Syrian refugees who make it to Europe will probably be the more resourceful, better educated part of the current wave of incoming people and will be able to take care of themselves fairly quickly by my estimate. Also they are mostly variants of Shia - the less orthodox branch of muslims. I am worried more about future waves than the current one.

Maybe we have messed up a bit but we need to learn from our mistakes, and even Germany is now guarding its borders. It would be better if we were able to guard the Shengen perimeter.
Then if we wanted to save more refugees we could send trains or planes to pick them up in Turkey or Jemen. You know, set up an EU consulate there so they could directly apply for asylum in the EU country of their picking. But we have to make a conscious decision first - how many people from the desolate and failing parts of the world do we want to save over a given time period so that we dont fail ourselves. Are we failing? Ask the jewish families who used to live in Malmo until recently.

OK.
Point 1. I do agree, the inability of many migrants to assimilate to their new homeland, and to expect the new land to change to suit them, is an issue...one not limited to Muslims, but one they certainly share.
Point 2. I would say 'asylum' does not exist if one must wait 5 years to even APPLY for it, and during that time must not work. That's ridiculous, just like saying they're running from asylum to asylum. They are moving to where they believe they might be able to eat, and maybe live outside a small, overcrowded cage. If honest, working refugee camps were to be erected in Turkey on the borders, funded by the EU and others, most of the refugees would go no farther...but that hasn't happened...at least not in any working way for the numbers coming.
I won't assume there's much 'insertion' of non-refugee migrants in the masses, they would have to travel across numerous closed borders and through numerous wars just to join the group...I don't think that's happening. Maybe a few that crossed the Mediterranean to Greece, but that's not many if any.
Point 3. Yes, the numbers are overwhelming. That does seem to be a good incentive for the EU and America (and the other Arab nations), and eventually Russia to do more to stabilize Syria, however, and also a good incentive for them to create systems to deal with these people while treating them as people.
Obviously, though, the only permanent solution is to stop them from being forced out of their homeland. No?

I'm fine with your other points, but you really think there are not working, funded refugee camps in Turkey?

An_Aerial_View_of_the_Zaatri_Refugee_Camp.jpg

http://sheldonkirshner.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Turkish-refugee-camp-for-Syrians-e1413585834309.jpg

http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/MSNBC/Components/Photo/_new/pb-120411-syria-refugees-ps2.photoblog900.jpg

Are they amazing? No, but I've never stepped foot in a refugee camp that was (and, yes, for the record I have visited several). Compared to the 30-year-old jungle camps on the Thai-Burma border, these places look pretty well outfitted. They clearly have the infrastructure, support and funding to serve the populations that are there.

What they don't have is the economic infrastructure to allow for good, rewarding work for these refugees. Of course, that is generally the situation for every refugee population. The biggest difference here is that some Syrian refugees have the financial resources to reach Europe whereas most refugees in other parts of the world don't.

There's something wrong with all those pictures...all of those camps are almost completely empty. What's the story with that? There must be a reason...such as those staying there are not allowed to work, but must still pay for food and services, or something else untenable. People would not be paying thousands of dollars for a chance to take their familys on an overloaded rubber raft across dangerous waters and continuing on a dangerous voyage through hostile countries to unknown possible places of refuge if there was a reasonable, safe place for them on the border of Syria.
Also, to be sure, tent cities are less than ideal in Southern Turkey where the temperature is often deadly....but they are better than nothing.
I'm not sure, beyond the smugglers getting them to Greece and food on the trail, what the Syrians might pay for that helps them reach Europe. The train tickets they're buying don't cost much, do they? Certainly not the thousands they pay the smugglers....but perhaps paying the smugglers is what you mean.

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