Europe
News and information from Europe 🇪🇺
(Current banner: La Mancha, Spain. Feel free to post submissions for banner images.)
Rules (2024-08-30)
- This is an English-language community. Comments should be in English. Posts can link to non-English news sources when providing a full-text translation in the post description. Automated translations are fine, as long as they don't overly distort the content.
- No links to misinformation or commercial advertising. When you post outdated/historic articles, add the year of publication to the post title. Infographics must include a source and a year of creation; if possible, also provide a link to the source.
- Be kind to each other, and argue in good faith. Don't post direct insults nor disrespectful and condescending comments. Don't troll nor incite hatred. Don't look for novel argumentation strategies at Wikipedia's List of fallacies.
- No bigotry, sexism, racism, antisemitism, islamophobia, dehumanization of minorities, or glorification of National Socialism. We follow German law; don't question the statehood of Israel.
- Be the signal, not the noise: Strive to post insightful comments. Add "/s" when you're being sarcastic (and don't use it to break rule no. 3).
- If you link to paywalled information, please provide also a link to a freely available archived version. Alternatively, try to find a different source.
- Light-hearted content, memes, and posts about your European everyday belong in other communities.
- Don't evade bans. If we notice ban evasion, that will result in a permanent ban for all the accounts we can associate with you.
- No posts linking to speculative reporting about ongoing events with unclear backgrounds. Please wait at least 12 hours. (E.g., do not post breathless reporting on an ongoing terror attack.)
- Always provide context with posts: Don't post uncontextualized images or videos, and don't start discussions without giving some context first.
(This list may get expanded as necessary.)
Posts that link to the following sources will be removed
- on any topic: Al Mayadeen, brusselssignal:eu, citjourno:com, europesays:com, Breitbart, Daily Caller, Fox, GB News, geo-trends:eu, news-pravda:com, OAN, RT, sociable:co, any AI slop sites (when in doubt please look for a credible imprint/about page), change:org (for privacy reasons)
- on Middle-East topics: Al Jazeera
- on Hungary: Euronews
Unless they're the only sources, please also avoid The Sun, Daily Mail, any "thinktank" type organization, and non-Lemmy social media. Don't link to Twitter directly, instead use xcancel.com. For Reddit, use old:reddit:com
(Lists may get expanded as necessary.)
Ban lengths, etc.
We will use some leeway to decide whether to remove a comment.
If need be, there are also bans: 3 days for lighter offenses, 7 or 14 days for bigger offenses, and permanent bans for people who don't show any willingness to participate productively. If we think the ban reason is obvious, we may not specifically write to you.
If you want to protest a removal or ban, feel free to write privately to the primary mod account @EuroMod@feddit.org
view the rest of the comments
For whom though? Who's quality of life is improving amidst an increase of right wing propaganda and populism, an increasing divide between citizens, an increase in wealth inequality, staggering amounts of dying refugees on Europe's borders, etc pp?
Let's be honest: I'm living in a small town in Germany and the quality of life is awesome here. No problems with street criminality. It's secure as fuck. I can buy everything I want in the stores. I have a job with vacation days and I have health insurance. I can't be fired at will. I'm not getting arrested by masked ICE agents. And migrants are also not arrested by masked agents. We bitch about our roads and traffic, but they are safe and one of the bests in the world. I have reliable public transportation (yes, really! The bus comes on time and I had two occurances where he was late in the last 5 years). Nature is great and not polluted as fuck. I have high speed internet, clean water, reliable electricity and a rich cultural environment. It's awesome and that is something you really do not have everywhere.
In which small town does one have reliable public transportation and high speed internet? Srsly utopian
Also cost of living is rising faster than (most) wages and the healthcare system is heading towards disaster
Its not unusual for small villages/towns under 1000 population to have fiber optic internet in europe. There are still remote places with shitty connection, but fast and affordable internet is common in the EU.
In the EU it's common, but Germany is very bad at it. The most I get is 50Mbit/s over copper wires and I don't even live in a village.
Uhm, that's wrong. Refugees get arrested by masked agents, and around half of those arrestments are unlawful (and I'd argue that the other half shouldn't be lawful either).
And while you might live a good life, that is all but true for everyone in germany, especially marginalized groups and minorities. There is an increase in violence against queers and migrant-looking people, an increase in hate speech against all kinds of marginalized people and minorities, our own government works to lower the standards of living of unemployed and unemployable, works on dismantling socieal security and public health sectors, which decreases the standard of living of disabled and chronically ill people.
Of course, many, if not most places are off worse. And I, as a queer, disabled person still consider myself lucky to not live in many other places. But the standard of living was better a few years ago.
You are very privileged, even compared to many other germans.
There really is a difference between german police and what ICE is doing. Masked is not the perfect word for that, sorry. One of the big issue with ICE is that they are totally unmarked. They are wearing no uniforms. They do not identify themselves. German police is not perfect and their riot police especially is a band of assholes, but they are far from ICE.
And yes, Germany and Europe have their problems. But they are still great places to live. And yes, one of the reasons is that other places are even worse for minorities or queer people.
As a member of such groups, I am surely biased. But I cannot cheer for "Europe becoming a standard of living powerhose" when that is simply not true for so many of its population. And to add to that: the article argues with the average standard of living across Europe closing in on the average standard of living in the United States. Where a fascist wannabe dictator just took over, uses ICE like his SS and likely doesn't need the 'wannabe' much longer. Where in many cities, more and more people become homeless despite working full time jobs. The article even states that some european countries have long surpassed the US in quality of life.
So maybe we should not compare to that (decreasing) standard to measure the poorer european countries against, but to set a more objective standard (like, how well do the weakest, most vulnerable fare in society) and measure ourselves against that. And then look how to improve things.
A big TV and a fast internet connection is worth nothing when I mostly get informed about how the C*U and SPD want to make my life harder and how much the AfD hates me.
I don't think @JensSpahnpasta@feddit.org was doing that either.