Hamburg, G20 Summit: pleb suppression device Mk III.

Berlin these days: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvXrqD6qNwU

*promote

Very, very good explanation of the wall and the oppression in Berlin after WWII. I've been pondering recently why the German people, and specifically Berlin, are such world-leading bastions of liberal and progressive ideas and this is part of the reason.

The German people know what it is like to be both the oppressor and the acutely oppressed, so they seek to reduce that suffering wherever it is found, helping other nations' citizens seeking solace from the horrors of war.

It also highlights the folly of walls, and those who would seek to build them.

Your video, Why Didn't Germans Just Go Around the Berlin Wall?, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

That was amazing! *doublepromote

Locations in order of appearance:

1:15 Pont de Bir-Hakeim, Paris, France
1:30 Berlin Wall Memorial, Berlin, Germany
1:43 La Sagrada Familia, Barcelona, Spain
1:56 Hoxton Alley, London, UK
2:11 Regents Park, London, UK
2:33 Calle Traghetto Vecchio, Venice, Italy
2:49 St. Pauls Cathedral, London, UK
3:08 Rooftop Terrace, Copenhagen, Denmark
3:25 Sand Dunes, Dubai, UAE
3:33 Red Square, Moscow, Russia
3:45 Gulfoss and Gljúfurárfoss Waterfalls, Iceland
4:01 Mrs. Macqauries Point, Sydney, Australia
4:19 Shibuya Crossing, Tokyo, Japan
4:36 Brooklyn Bridge, New York City, United States of America

The footage of 1920s Berlin is really interesting.

*promote

3 more comments have been lost in the ether at this killed duplicate.

This video has been seconded as a duplicate; transferring votes to the original video and killing this dupe - dupeof seconded with isdupe by ant.

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This video has been nominated as a duplicate of this video by eric3579. If this nomination is seconded with *isdupe, the video will be killed and its votes transferred to the original.

No it is not my video. I am living in Berlin and I like this funny video, in which you can see many places in the city near of my home.

Very, very interesting -- thanks for the sift!

I'd love to see more, specifically about the US / Cuba talks and the Pope's involvement. As an atheist, I tend to think of Catholicism / the Pope / organized religion in general as generally having a primarily negative influence on world affairs (Crusades, Inquisition, birth control, anti-condoms, molestation, homophobia, etc.), but negotiating peace and better relations between the US and Cuba is a pretty undeniably positive thing.

I knew Latin American countries were highly Catholic, but I kinda figured that some of the USSR anti-religious stance would have rubbed off on Cuba. I guess maybe it did, but the missile crisis and fall of the Berlin wall / end of the cold war was long enough ago that Cuba has greater freedom to make up their own minds on this sort of thing.

Enough so that perhaps the Pope's involvement was necessary, or at least very helpful, to act as a mediator between the two sides. Props where props are due.

Anyway, all quite interesting.

This is a fair and accurate example of how reasonably priced trains are in England.

By way of another example, a U-Bahn (subway) ticket in Berlin is around 1 euro to go anywhere in the city (perhaps it's gone up since but still). To do the same for a few stops in London can often be in the region of £20+.

They are also slow as shit due to the generally low speed limits across most of the network. If you are lucky enough to be on one and not a hastily co-opted bus.

We might possibly have the worst (or least least value for money) rail service in the 1st world, though I'm prepared to consider counter examples.

Italy:
Renzi is creating the conditons for a new bubble? Through deficit spending on... what? Unless they start building highways in the middle of nowhere like they did in Spain, I don't see any form of bubble coming out of deficit spending in Italy. The country's been in a major recession for quite some time now, with no light at the end of the tunnel and a massive shortfall in private spending. But meaningful deficit spending requires Renzi to tell Germany and the Eurogroup to pound sand -- not sure his balls have descended far enough for that just yet.

Referendum in Switzerland:
"Vollgeld". That's the German term for what the initiators of this referendum are aiming for: 100% reserve banking. It's monetarism in disguise, and they are adament to not be called monetarists. But that's what it is. Pure old-fashioned monetarism. Even if you don't give a jar of cold piss about all these fancy economic terms and theories, let me ask you this: the currency you use is quite an important part of all your daily life, isn't it? So why would anyone in his or her right mind remove it entirely from democratic control (even constitutionally)?
If you want to get into the economic nightmares of it, here are a few bullet points:
- no Overt Monetary Financing (printing money for deficit spending) means no lender of last resort and complete dependence on the market, S&P can tell you to fuck off and die as they did with PIIGS
- notion that the "right amount of money in circulation" will enable the market to keep itself in balance -- as if that ever worked
- notion that a bunch of technocrats can empirically determine this very amount in regular intervalls
- central bank is supposed to maintain price stability, nothing else -- single mandate, works beautifully for the ECB, at least if you like 25% unemployment
- concept is founded in the notion that the financial economy is the source of (almost) all problems of the "real" economy, thereby completely ignoring the fact that decades of wage suppression have simply killed widescale purchasing power of the masses, aka demand

Visegrad nations:
From a German perspective, they are walking on thin ice as it is. The conflict with Russia never had much support of the public to begin with, but even the establishment is becoming more divided on this issue. Given the authoritarian policies put in place in Poland recently and the utter refusal to take in their share of refugees, support might fade even more. If the Visegrad governments then decide to push for further conflict with Russia, Brussels and Berlin might tell them, very discreetly, to pipe the fuck down.

Turkey:
Wildcard. He mentioned how they will mess with Syria, the Kurds and Russia, but forgot to mention the conflict between Turkey and the EU. As of now, it seems as if Brussels is ready to pay Ankara in hard cash if they keep refugees away from Greece. Very similar to the deal with Morocco vis-a-vis the Spanish enclave. As long as they die out of sight, all is good for Brussels.

I would add France as a point of interest:
They recently announced that the state of emergency will be extended until ISIS is beaten. In other words, it'll be permanent, just like the Patriot Act in the US. A lof of attention has been given to the authoritarian shift of politics in Poland, all the while ignoring the equally disturbing shift in France. Those emergency measures basically suspend the rule of law in favour of a covert police state. Add the economic situation (abysmal), the Socialist President who avoids socialist policies, and the still ongoing rise of Front National... well, you get the picture.

Regarding the EU, I'll say this: between the refugee crisis (border controls, domestic problems, etc) and the economic crisis, they finally managed to convince me that this whole thing might come apart at the seams after all. Not this year, though, even if the Brits decide to distance themselves from this rotten creation.

I stabbed a woman in a bar in Berlin. But I am going nowhere near Berlin.