All of Netanyahu's allies in the world seem to have profited from this relationship by obtaining military grade surveillance inorder to suppress human rights of journalists and opposition.
This is Netanyahu's legacy, a proto dictator, arming dictators.
I'm convince pegasus was used against Israeli journalists, opposition leaders and law enforcement officials. Too bad our political system is still under his thumb and doesn't shed light on this crap even now that he's no longer PM.
Hungary aside, most of Israel's allies in the region are dictatorships, actaully all of them: Egypt, Jordan, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Morocco (arguably, let's agree it's not a liberal democracy) and so on and so on. There are zero democracies in the area. So it's easy to see Israel's interest in supplying technology to those regimes and assuring good relations; it's not like the oppositions to these dictators are any better, the Muslim Brotherhood is appalling.
Now Hungary isn't really important to Israel and is part of the EU, may have been wiser to not do that.
> This is Netanyahu's legacy, a proto dictator, arming dictators.
If there is one single lasting international effect of Orbán and his party, it's how he demonstrated how EU is completely helpless against rouge states (as well). The delicate political balance of its parliamental politics make it impossible to react to any complex, even if lethal threats. The EU funds and fuels a Belorussian-style regime in its own heartland for a decade now, and all they can do are angry notices and legal disputes that take years without a noteworthy resolution. Due to how alliances within the union work - Hungary has the full support of Poland and the V4 - any major blowback would result in shattering itself.
There is a point where politics depend on good intent. It does not matter if it is the EU, USA or China. If there is a part of the population that is radicalized and hate rhetoric is used that will destabilize any society.
The main defense against this situation is that it does not work to improve citizens lives. It only benefits a small part of society and it will make the rest suffer. Hate calls for win-lose deals and an unproductive zero sum mentality. Hungarian business will suffer, and Hungarian workers will suffer. That is not sustainable long term.
EU can be improved, but if millions of citizens support a far-right government there is little to be done. Orbán is a problem, but that people follows him is another one. It will only make Hungary poorer and the EU poorer and more dangerous.
"Hungary has the full support of Poland and the V4"
Oversimplified view. There was common interest of V4 against accepting refugees, but Czech & Slovak rep. generally support EU's side in judicial and media independence issues.
Elsewhere, German automakers have vast investments in the eastern EU and they have been holding Merkel back against Orban, together with conservative faction of CDU.
> The EU funds and fuels a Belorussian-style regime
Afaik Orban's party has won the last rounds of elections pretty conclusively, with no fraud allegations involved (unlike what currently happens in the US, I'm talking about election fraud allegations). What's with this "Belorussian-style regime" nonsense?
Don't underestimate the EU. It's a slow beast but it can bear a grudge. The language used to address Hungary is slowly becoming more and more aggressive. A head of state from a small EU country explicitly called for Hungary to leave.
You also have to remember that the EU is an union of sovereign countries. Plenty can be done by EU members where the EU is powerless. History shows that messing with France and Germany can be costly.
EU offers a lot to the Hungarian people in terms of travel, freedom of business, employment etc. In 10 years Orban likely will be gone. In the long run the liberal values of Europe will prevail.
> If there is one single lasting international effect of Orbán and his party, it's how he demonstrated how EU is completely helpless against rouge states (as well).
Helpless and hypocritical. If Orban rolls out surveillance he is a dictator. If UK or Germany do it, it's the noble fight against terrorists, pedophiles and kids downloading moviez from the internet.
There were thin provisions against member states getting out of hand, but they became useless the second Poland conspired with Hungary.
I'm not sure if I would've liked en EU with stricter punitive measures over its member states before all this, but it's clear that the measures to prevent situations like these have all failed.
Orban exists because of EU overreach. If the Brussels set weren’t intent on turning the EU into a federal United States of Europe, none of these “rogue states” (a completely absurd label for Hungary, btw) would have any political interest in Fidesz/PiS/etc.
It has actually elicited a response. Through many mechanisms now big countries in Europe have gained much more power than before, when the model was very egalitarian.
And you can look at it in a very different light if you see it as Hungary becoming a small vassal state of Germany (an autocracy helps it to stay that way, and German manufacturers want the situation to remain like this) rather than a "rogue fascist" state. Just follow the money.
If you look at things this way you expect to see a war of sphere of influence of big countries in the near future. I think the Balkans will be the next soft battlefield between German and Italian influence.
The EU is still, at core, an economic/trade union, not a geopolitical actor. That's both cultural and structural.
Meanwhile, european people's appetite for "international" politics is been mostly satisfied with world politics... especially US politics, which was good and saucy for the last few years. The most animating issues of recent years have been: Trump, BLM related US politics, Israel-Palestine conflicts & climate change. Most of what happens in EU parliament attracts very little interest in the greater citizenship-journalism-politics sphere. National politics is, by far, still the main political sphere.
European politics rarely becomes primary news/politics "stories." That applies to both Hungary, within the Union and Belarus, an immediate neighbor. It also applies to Ukraine and the Russia-Ukraine conflict, which was largely about EU affiliation.
Notable exceptions are Brexit, peek refugee migration and the Greek/Euro crisis... 12 years ago. The ironic exception to "EU politics doesn't exist" is the nationalist, eu-skeptical camp which has been developing an EU-wide audience.
In any case, IDK if "helpless" is the right word. It's more like "uninterested." Hungarian freedom of the press and such just aren't on anyone's agenda. The fact that they're EU doesn't really mean much.
I think the issue is that EU was founded with an idea that they can copy US creation pattern, but without sufficient consideration of the simple fact that there is a thousand plus years of history that is being crammed into respective citizens' heads including, but not limited to wars with neighbors. It is hard to forget blood; especially if survivors still have a state.
Do not get me wrong. I like the idea of EU. I see its benefits, but the idea ignores lessons of creating new federations. Apart from everything else, I doubt EU would be willing to do the same things US did to maintain its grip.
> Hungary has the full support of Poland and the V4 - any major blowback would result in shattering itself.
Countries can only be kicked out of the EU with unanimity of all states except the one being kicked out. But Poland and Hungary have a pact to support each other, so that can't happen. I suspect though that if Hungary and Poland pissed off the EU in a big way, the other states would all leave and simultaneously form a new EU2021.
Orban was actively supported by the EU center-right wing parties. Do not assume morality, no one was angry they were in fact joking about it. Actions are reserved for countries with left wing governments. Funniest moment, if it wasn't so tragic for hungary:
True. But EU also repeatedly ignores a decent chunk of people that want a stable social state without LGBTQ agitprop and unlimited illegal immigration. I have a hunch that the western left wing would have much more support if they focused on the wellbeing of the common worker, not on the countless minorities. Instead the choice always seems to be between a reactionary right-wing degenerate and a hyper-progressive left-wing degenerate. And to think Americans call them communists. In communism most of the shit we see today from left and right politicians wouldn't fly at all.
I'd argue that it's in their interests. Right populist politics and bland status quo centrism need the other to justify themselves.
Bland centrism needs the threat of the right to keep the left in their box (see Biden, Macron, Chirac), then through representing the interests of the status-quo and not addressing any systemic change they create the conditions for right populists.. and so it goes on.
Which is an indication that the whole system is simply too weak. EU was originally founded to make trade easier. Even the temporary removal of borders for EU citizens was only done to fasciliate trade, the free travel amongst EU states was a nice side effect which could also be used to lure the citizens into believing the EU was actually more. The social apsect was originally only a side effect of fasciliatating trade. And now that it starts to show that the different member states have different political agendas, and not everything can be pacified by just making commerce happy, the system starts to crumble. I still remember the biggest fear of EU when brexit came up. That more member states could have a similar idea. That isn't particularily showing strength and confidence.
So far Orban's regime is the only eu/western government involved in this scandal. I see that no surprise.
There is no need of official government approval to conduct such surveillance. It's enough to have weak access contol to such technologies, political roles within the agencies, and poor work ethics in civil servants: there alway will be someone with will and motive to act in favor of the system, off the record. Orban deliberately shaped the government this way.
I came to the conclusion that politicians are a big problem. Not sure we can get rid of them but they are.
FWIW I just see them use the money of others for their own purposes coactively and provoke a lot of polarization. Many times with bad intention for selfish interests. I am talking about ALL of them.
I think people should be able (Hungarian case at hand) to choose whether they want certain contents to be taught at certain age for their kids. No matter which ones. It should be a free to choose thing.
The minimum stuff we must all agree upon should be not killing, discriminating, etc. in legal terms. But when you try to force people to like or dislike something, instead of respecting others (whether they like or not other people ideas) then you have this highly polarized environment because you will always find the other half resisting, since it is imposed contents highly ideological.
I think that things could be way better with fewer of these people.
Holy shit, there's literally a dozen of Apple products exploited.
It's not a single "Apple music exploit", it's dozens of separate services. Music, messenger, safari, iOS, etc...
I never want to hear Apple cares about security again.
I could forgive 1 mistake, but this seems like negligence. (Don't put me down as a defender of MS or Android, but at least they don't use "Security" in their marketing)
Orban used EU money to take total control of the country (media, poor voters). If EU lets China come into Hungary, it will backfire for the whole EU in my opinion.
China has already targeted Serbia and Montenegro - infrastructure mainly. I can't find the source now, but I have heard they already started investing in Hungary.
I don't know much about Hungary so could you provide a reason why it is bad "if EU lets China come into Hungary"? Unless it is because China Bad, then I'm not interested, but I'm hoping for something more interesting than that. Personally I would hate to see EU close in on itself and so it needs to align with outsiders. China seems just as good a partner as the other big markets to me.
I perceive this as an example why allowing privacy violation for one group for the "sake of greater good" does not work. Usually the same tools will be used with oppressive regimes.
In the beginning it will start with pretext that "we are using this tools to find terrorists, pedophiles and protect children" but more often it will end up prosecuting journalist, silencing whistleblowers and undermining political opponents creating perpetual state of oppression and corruption.
From my understanding, the attack can happen through multiple ways. Companies like NSO purchase vulnerabilities for this step and probably have a set of them on their disposal, ready to deploy ones as they get discovered. Pegasus is the rootkit which is installed once the attack is successful, and allows spying on the user. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegasus_(spyware)
I always am amazed by how many people value their nation over larger groups of human beings who are just like them... isn't it time to up our game as humans and start thinking bigger? Why not abolish nations within the EU and just become the EU with different provinces?
Nationalism is an ancient mentality, get rid of it and start moving into larger groups who can do more.
I keep reading about the North American Alliance in sci fi books, how long until the usa, canada and mexico combine to create a bigger economic block?
>Why not abolish nations within the EU and just become the EU with different provinces?
Because outside of your bubble nobody wants this. A random person from Bulgaria is going to have a very different culture from a random person from Netherlands. What do you think happens with power in such conglomerate ?
If you want to see what happens when you create a forced conglomerate of different nations (but still more similar than EU member, languages were way closer and cultures were close as well) into a super state look up Yugoslavia.
People are tribal by nature. They will get into fights because their neighbour supports the "wrong" sports club, and you can extend that up to any level. Within a country there's city vs city, city vs countryside, and above country level there's EU vs US, or "the west" vs "the east".
People group together with others that share certain cultural values. Ever since borders, passports and standard languages have been the norm, this has only been reinforced.
I don't feel culturally similar to many other European countries, most notable Hungary, Poland and some other countries that have been sliding towards the far right. I wouldn't want the people who voted Orban into power to outvote me, either.
Grand unification of humanity is a good ideal, one we should work towards, but it's not something that will be possible within our lifetimes. There are very practical reasons against the North American Alliance; for example, Canada has socialised healthcare, while you can't even get the suggestion off the ground in the US. Such political differences don't just disappear.
I don't want a European superstate because I disagree with most people that would live in it. My ideals would no longer be represented by my government. I think that's enough reason not to go for complete European unification. Opinions can change, so maybe some day we can all agree, but with Hungary fighting the free press and its people cheering Orban on, I can't say I expect this situation to change any time soon.
As someone who moved countries within the EU, I started looking at things from global perspective, and what matters today is the power balance between EU, US, China. Whereas within EU most countries still look at their own interest, fueled by politicians and their 4-5 years election periods. This is really sad, because the EU is digging their own grave.
Re: your comment, it's not only on nation level. People have tendency to form groups and build their identity on "us vs them" basis. That's why you have rivalries between football clubs from different cities etc.
Anyway, language and culture/history is a powerful thing that people can't get over in us-vs-them thinking. There's also business in play which collides with politics a lot. For example Germany are fine doing business with Russia, while for Poland, Lithuania and other Russia-bordering countries, RU is #1 evil and existential threat.
> their nation over larger groups of human beings who are just like them.
Because when the going gets really tough that abstract "human being" from across the Continent won't care at all about you, while at the same time the person geographically closer to you and who might belong to the same nation might prove to be a better ally. Just think of the Greece crisis of 2012 when the "human beings" from The Netherlands were generally just assholes to their fellow human beings who happened to live in Athens or in Thessaloniki.
There are many practical problems to actually implementing this idea.
First, money. Some parts of the EU are way richer than others, with superior welfare systems. If every EU citizen is to be truly equal, then that would mean same standards of government services and welfare everywhere, which would be costly to the richer states. Of course, alternatively we could lower standards everywhere, but that's not good for people.
Then there's cultural, economic, geolocial differences in general, higher corruption in many members states of east/south... Plenty of things to consider. Leaders in some parts of the EU really won't understand the situation in other parts, which makes any kind of centralized government problematic. Perhaps a very decentralized model could work though, but then again that's not much different from what we have now.
Also, nationalism is hardly "an ancient mentality". Healthy nationalism, a common idea and identity is something pretty much all well-functioning countries have. United States of Europe would never work without a common European identity, and controlled outer borders. Cultural differences between different parts of the world are still way too large for anything like democratic one world government to work.
In some sense, maybe... The foundations are ancient. But...
The "world order" where the globe is divided into nation states is quite new. Before that, multinational empires were the dominant mode. We tend to think of west european empires as the canonical: french, british and spanish. These empires had clear "home countries," so the dynamic was "nation ruling other nations."
Other empires were more ambiguous. EG the Austro Hungarian Empire & the Ottoman empires. They had capitals, centres of power and such. But, geographic and ethnic national boundaries were much fuzzier within these empires.
The border changes, forced migrations and ethnic cleansing that created the modern nation state world happened mostly within the last 100 years. Take Warsaw, for example. Before WW2, ethnic Poles were about 50% of the population. Jews & Germans were the next biggest groups. This was typical of european cities. After the war, Warsaw and Poland within its new borders was/is >90% Polish. Also typical. Meanwhile, countries like Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Northern Ireland & Belgium that didn't fit into the "nation state" template were pretty unstable.
The USSR's dissolution pretty much cemented a world order where nation states dominate. That's recent.
What you are advocating for is, by some definition, the establishment of an EU Empire. Maybe a democratic empire is possible, but we don't really have example to draw on.
Lets merge all soccer clubs into one, then there will no longer be a need for matches since one club just has all the players they don't even need to be the best.
Nationalism is a very recent affair, the idea that people and not just the nobility have nations is a 19 century concept.
That's why the US has such an appalling record of bias. Each new wave of immigrants (not to mention the ones that were here, to start with, and those that were dragged over, against their will) has been met with torrents of hatred, abuse, and state-sanctioned terror. In most cases, it had little to do with skin color, and everything to do with cultural differences.
When I lived in Africa, I saw tribalism writ large. It gets bad. If we think it's only in the developing world, then we simply need to look at what happened to Yugoslavia, after Tito died.
I think that tribalism is in our DNA, and it takes a real, concerted, conscious, effort to fight it. That's hard, humbling, work, and most folks aren't up for it.
Externally-imposed structure (Tito) works, but it's a temporary band-aid.
Economic alliances have never been a particularly good way of forming tribal allegiances.
Belonging to a trading bloc doesnt make you actually care about the other group.
Also, replacing "French" nationality with "EU nationality" doesnt get rid of nationalism it just scopes it at a larger level. There exist "EU nationalists" and to be honest, I find them as annoying as any other kind of nationalist.
EU nationalism is actually stronger than local nationalism in many circles - I rarely see comments defending any nation state here (except the Swiss, cough, cough, mostly kidding) but any criticism of the EU is met with zealotry.
More pragmatically, the EU makes little sense as anything but an economic block.
The notion that Germans and Greeks are going to accept real transfer payments, common taxation, common fiscal policy and similar rights to healthcare quality is basically ... bonkers. Germany would be the first to split.
> Why not abolish nations within the EU and just become the EU with different provinces?
I can think of a few reasons.
- It would erase culture, a slow process already ongoing. National identity, regional culture, etc would all go.
- You'd have to reconcile the differences in rules, culture and law. Take drugs; the Netherlands is liberal with soft drugs, Portugal is more liberal with hard drugs, other countries still put you in jail for having any of those. Which one will it be? Who will pick what option?
- Wealth disparity. Euro-skeptics have long complained about how much money the wealthy countries pay to Europe, and how much is funneled to the poorer countries. Make it one nation and every city, every farm, every individual will instantly demand to receive and be paid the same amount. Same complexities with health care / insurance, government stipends, benefits, taxes, etc.
Just abolishing nations is infeasible. Europe as it is is slowly turning its members into a more uniformized whole, but it can't be an overnight thing. And we have made some really big steps towards erasing borders; see the Schengen accord, removing border posts and customs between member states. See the Euro, removing barriers for moving money from one country to the next. And see the UK, who decided that was not to their benefit and removed themselves from the EU again.
> Why not abolish nations within the EU and just become the EU with different provinces?
With the borders opened, it's very similar to what you describe. It just takes lots of time and stability which Orban and friends undermines all the time. That's why we can't have nice things.
Don't underestimate the power of cultural diversity, it's not like the US where everybody speaks English and you can fit in quite easily if you move a state or two.
Playing devil's advocate for a second: be careful what you're saying: some will interpret your call as an attack on their identity and attempt at hiding historical injustice. Same happens with people who say "I see no color" believing this is a good approach to nondiscrimination.
I think emphasizing differences at the expense of commonalities is a huge mistake, just as much as disregarding those differences. Diversity in unity and unity in diversity, always a difficult balancing act.
Isn’t it all just a question of what scale is the “best”? I agree with your premise but in practice, determining the best policies on trade - much less issues like education and poverty - on a smaller scale is much more tractable than thinking in terms of ever larger subsets of the human race. We should be just as saddened by civilians dying in Iraq as the US, but that doesn’t mean we know what’s best for them in terms of any of the above. Any grouping of people advocating for themselves ultimately needs an organizing body, and the cycle of tribalism continues.
I am not at all surprised by the popularity of Orbán.
An important part is the strong resistance to migrants, which would mean a great influx of mainly Arabs with an incompatible culture and religion compared to Europe.
Look to Sweden to see how it goes when you allow too many migrants into a European country.
On the other hand there are many serious problems with Orbáns rule, e.g. trying to control the free press, not respecting the rights of LGBT.
But to many hungarians it is better to have a controlled migration than all the listed downsides.
How do you abolish nation? What's wrong with current EU situation endorsing diversity? You can federate EU and abolish national governments and that's happening slowly.
You can't fully remove nationalism, it's always going to exist in some way or the other, even in things that have nothing to do with "nations". (Yankees vs. Red Sox for example)
The "no-borders" people are as out of touch with reality as Orban, though in different extremes.
While this is a very simplistical and easy to rebuff argument as other replies did, a non-national "country" could be theoretically doable - save for the landmass, which is all occupied by existing ~national countries. Culture has not that much to do with national borders anymore. Just think about a "nation" of Elon Musk Followers, a nation of LGBTQ+ supporters, Real Madrid fans, or admirers of Oprah Winfrey.
Whenever we will be able to colonize landmasses like the Moon or Mars, it would be possible that these kind of artificial communities could flurish. Colonisation will most likely be done by market-driven corporations, which could allege with these communities based on donations/taxation.
What a sick mentality. Globalism and mass immigration is the destructor of culture.
Nationalism is the only rational mentality for long term sustainability.
A people should never be ruled by those who have no blood in the soil or by those who don't serve the needs of that people.
Nationalism is what makes great nations. You can forget about that for a while and play the game of the inevitable failure of multiculturalism, but it will always fail, you will always destroy society, and from the ashes, a cohesive, homogeneous people will reemerge to build back from the ashes of your stupidity as has always been done
It’d be interesting to learn how the NSO group's marketing worked.
Did NSO go knocking on the doors of all these despotic regimes? Or was it the other way around?
And what was the hand of the Israeli government in the deal-making? For instance, reports state that the spying in India began right after the India’s PM met with Netanyahu in 2017 [1] So was NSO actively backed by the government?
> The son and one of the closest confidants of former oligarch Lajos Simicska. They were both selected as targets before the Hungarian national election of April 2018. Back then, Simicska was the owner of a media empire, and he was openly waging war against the Orbán government. (It would have been futile to target Simicska with this spyware as he did not use smartphones.)
There's literally no winning here. You can literally disconnect from the internet and they'll just target the people around you…
That's a PR piece by an upstart that sells MDM (mobile device management) suite to enterprises. There are many entrenched MDMs that can very well do as much, if not more.
"Pegasus takes advantage of so-called zero-day vulnerabilities of software running on mobile phones, meaning built-in flaws that not even developers and manufacturers are aware of."
When you don't do the EU's bidding, their propaganda machinery will work so hard that even Goebbels would be impressed. Then comes the sanctions and other bullying approaches to force your ways. God I hope more countries follow the UK and leave the world's fattest bureaucracy.
TL;DR: the government hacking into private mobile phones is completely legal practice according to Hungarian laws and nobody can be held responsible for it.
I read in the newspaper today that the EU issued an ultimatum to Poland: get rid of the unlawful special court that deems itself above the EU law, or face repercussions. Finally they're growing some teeth.
However, after Googling for an online source, I came across this article about another ultimatum for justice reform in 2017, and things only got worse after that :-/
Sure, and Orban would have never been able to have so much power if EU wouldn't give so much free money to him without verifying where that money goes.
Between the power/control being taken over by someone elected and supported by most of his country or being taken over by some bigger organization like EU with very twisted interests... well.. I thing the first is preferred.
Orbán too little "woke" ?
One would say "EU is a cancer for european nations and people", I strongly think that this techno-totalitarist institution is on the brink of total collapse. Brexit first, Hungary, Poland, I sure hope France is next with our "startup nation" CEO.
French people voted NO to EU in 2005, it was forced upon us. You may argue as much as you want EU and its supra-national institutions are not a democratic process.
If EU was good for Europe, US would not have set it up back in the days. Everything is about power. Before it was power of nations, now it is obviously power from a selected few over the mass, supra-national oligarchy.
Some comments were deferred for faster rendering.
mola|4 years ago
This is Netanyahu's legacy, a proto dictator, arming dictators.
I'm convince pegasus was used against Israeli journalists, opposition leaders and law enforcement officials. Too bad our political system is still under his thumb and doesn't shed light on this crap even now that he's no longer PM.
joelbluminator|4 years ago
> This is Netanyahu's legacy, a proto dictator, arming dictators.
Isn't the U.S selling arms to Saudi Arabia?
poisonborz|4 years ago
Hokusai|4 years ago
There is a point where politics depend on good intent. It does not matter if it is the EU, USA or China. If there is a part of the population that is radicalized and hate rhetoric is used that will destabilize any society.
The main defense against this situation is that it does not work to improve citizens lives. It only benefits a small part of society and it will make the rest suffer. Hate calls for win-lose deals and an unproductive zero sum mentality. Hungarian business will suffer, and Hungarian workers will suffer. That is not sustainable long term.
EU can be improved, but if millions of citizens support a far-right government there is little to be done. Orbán is a problem, but that people follows him is another one. It will only make Hungary poorer and the EU poorer and more dangerous.
rini17|4 years ago
Oversimplified view. There was common interest of V4 against accepting refugees, but Czech & Slovak rep. generally support EU's side in judicial and media independence issues.
Elsewhere, German automakers have vast investments in the eastern EU and they have been holding Merkel back against Orban, together with conservative faction of CDU.
paganel|4 years ago
Afaik Orban's party has won the last rounds of elections pretty conclusively, with no fraud allegations involved (unlike what currently happens in the US, I'm talking about election fraud allegations). What's with this "Belorussian-style regime" nonsense?
inglor_cz|4 years ago
Orbán has integrated Hungarian industry deep into German supply chains and milks this fact as much as he can.
WastingMyTime89|4 years ago
You also have to remember that the EU is an union of sovereign countries. Plenty can be done by EU members where the EU is powerless. History shows that messing with France and Germany can be costly.
throwaway4good|4 years ago
EU offers a lot to the Hungarian people in terms of travel, freedom of business, employment etc. In 10 years Orban likely will be gone. In the long run the liberal values of Europe will prevail.
underscore_ku|4 years ago
ganafagol|4 years ago
Helpless and hypocritical. If Orban rolls out surveillance he is a dictator. If UK or Germany do it, it's the noble fight against terrorists, pedophiles and kids downloading moviez from the internet.
jeroenhd|4 years ago
I'm not sure if I would've liked en EU with stricter punitive measures over its member states before all this, but it's clear that the measures to prevent situations like these have all failed.
ceilingcorner|4 years ago
sharikone|4 years ago
And you can look at it in a very different light if you see it as Hungary becoming a small vassal state of Germany (an autocracy helps it to stay that way, and German manufacturers want the situation to remain like this) rather than a "rogue fascist" state. Just follow the money.
If you look at things this way you expect to see a war of sphere of influence of big countries in the near future. I think the Balkans will be the next soft battlefield between German and Italian influence.
dalbasal|4 years ago
Meanwhile, european people's appetite for "international" politics is been mostly satisfied with world politics... especially US politics, which was good and saucy for the last few years. The most animating issues of recent years have been: Trump, BLM related US politics, Israel-Palestine conflicts & climate change. Most of what happens in EU parliament attracts very little interest in the greater citizenship-journalism-politics sphere. National politics is, by far, still the main political sphere.
European politics rarely becomes primary news/politics "stories." That applies to both Hungary, within the Union and Belarus, an immediate neighbor. It also applies to Ukraine and the Russia-Ukraine conflict, which was largely about EU affiliation.
Notable exceptions are Brexit, peek refugee migration and the Greek/Euro crisis... 12 years ago. The ironic exception to "EU politics doesn't exist" is the nationalist, eu-skeptical camp which has been developing an EU-wide audience.
In any case, IDK if "helpless" is the right word. It's more like "uninterested." Hungarian freedom of the press and such just aren't on anyone's agenda. The fact that they're EU doesn't really mean much.
unknown|4 years ago
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unknown|4 years ago
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A4ET8a8uTh0|4 years ago
Do not get me wrong. I like the idea of EU. I see its benefits, but the idea ignores lessons of creating new federations. Apart from everything else, I doubt EU would be willing to do the same things US did to maintain its grip.
cabalamat|4 years ago
Countries can only be kicked out of the EU with unanimity of all states except the one being kicked out. But Poland and Hungary have a pact to support each other, so that can't happen. I suspect though that if Hungary and Poland pissed off the EU in a big way, the other states would all leave and simultaneously form a new EU2021.
antman|4 years ago
https://youtu.be/1hl83Jpd_OI
kristjank|4 years ago
mcosta|4 years ago
AnimalMuppet|4 years ago
TheFreim|4 years ago
Is Hungary a rogue state?
dreen|4 years ago
this is not going to last forever, its already diminished a lot since 2015
gghhzzgghhzz|4 years ago
bwb|4 years ago
cabalamat|4 years ago
States that wear lots of lipstick? It's a word often mis-spelt.
mlang23|4 years ago
zsellera|4 years ago
There is no need of official government approval to conduct such surveillance. It's enough to have weak access contol to such technologies, political roles within the agencies, and poor work ethics in civil servants: there alway will be someone with will and motive to act in favor of the system, off the record. Orban deliberately shaped the government this way.
germandiago|4 years ago
FWIW I just see them use the money of others for their own purposes coactively and provoke a lot of polarization. Many times with bad intention for selfish interests. I am talking about ALL of them.
I think people should be able (Hungarian case at hand) to choose whether they want certain contents to be taught at certain age for their kids. No matter which ones. It should be a free to choose thing.
The minimum stuff we must all agree upon should be not killing, discriminating, etc. in legal terms. But when you try to force people to like or dislike something, instead of respecting others (whether they like or not other people ideas) then you have this highly polarized environment because you will always find the other half resisting, since it is imposed contents highly ideological.
I think that things could be way better with fewer of these people.
janjones|4 years ago
deregulateMed|4 years ago
It's not a single "Apple music exploit", it's dozens of separate services. Music, messenger, safari, iOS, etc...
I never want to hear Apple cares about security again.
I could forgive 1 mistake, but this seems like negligence. (Don't put me down as a defender of MS or Android, but at least they don't use "Security" in their marketing)
xiphias2|4 years ago
bkovacev|4 years ago
Dah00n|4 years ago
raverbashing|4 years ago
This (and the events of January 6th) are a good reminder that the law is worth the paper it's printed on if no one acts on it.
NiceWayToDoIT|4 years ago
iamnotwhoiam|4 years ago
This is some kind of code injection attack that can go through a text message?
abhiminator|4 years ago
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/research/2021/07/forensic-...
est31|4 years ago
swiley|4 years ago
The rest of it sounds like a Metasploit-esque framework along with some telemetry tools.
fulafel|4 years ago
nuker|4 years ago
bwb|4 years ago
Nationalism is an ancient mentality, get rid of it and start moving into larger groups who can do more.
I keep reading about the North American Alliance in sci fi books, how long until the usa, canada and mexico combine to create a bigger economic block?
reader_mode|4 years ago
Because outside of your bubble nobody wants this. A random person from Bulgaria is going to have a very different culture from a random person from Netherlands. What do you think happens with power in such conglomerate ?
If you want to see what happens when you create a forced conglomerate of different nations (but still more similar than EU member, languages were way closer and cultures were close as well) into a super state look up Yugoslavia.
jeroenhd|4 years ago
People group together with others that share certain cultural values. Ever since borders, passports and standard languages have been the norm, this has only been reinforced.
I don't feel culturally similar to many other European countries, most notable Hungary, Poland and some other countries that have been sliding towards the far right. I wouldn't want the people who voted Orban into power to outvote me, either.
Grand unification of humanity is a good ideal, one we should work towards, but it's not something that will be possible within our lifetimes. There are very practical reasons against the North American Alliance; for example, Canada has socialised healthcare, while you can't even get the suggestion off the ground in the US. Such political differences don't just disappear.
I don't want a European superstate because I disagree with most people that would live in it. My ideals would no longer be represented by my government. I think that's enough reason not to go for complete European unification. Opinions can change, so maybe some day we can all agree, but with Hungary fighting the free press and its people cheering Orban on, I can't say I expect this situation to change any time soon.
jakub_g|4 years ago
Re: your comment, it's not only on nation level. People have tendency to form groups and build their identity on "us vs them" basis. That's why you have rivalries between football clubs from different cities etc.
Anyway, language and culture/history is a powerful thing that people can't get over in us-vs-them thinking. There's also business in play which collides with politics a lot. For example Germany are fine doing business with Russia, while for Poland, Lithuania and other Russia-bordering countries, RU is #1 evil and existential threat.
paganel|4 years ago
Because when the going gets really tough that abstract "human being" from across the Continent won't care at all about you, while at the same time the person geographically closer to you and who might belong to the same nation might prove to be a better ally. Just think of the Greece crisis of 2012 when the "human beings" from The Netherlands were generally just assholes to their fellow human beings who happened to live in Athens or in Thessaloniki.
rorroe53|4 years ago
First, money. Some parts of the EU are way richer than others, with superior welfare systems. If every EU citizen is to be truly equal, then that would mean same standards of government services and welfare everywhere, which would be costly to the richer states. Of course, alternatively we could lower standards everywhere, but that's not good for people.
Then there's cultural, economic, geolocial differences in general, higher corruption in many members states of east/south... Plenty of things to consider. Leaders in some parts of the EU really won't understand the situation in other parts, which makes any kind of centralized government problematic. Perhaps a very decentralized model could work though, but then again that's not much different from what we have now.
Also, nationalism is hardly "an ancient mentality". Healthy nationalism, a common idea and identity is something pretty much all well-functioning countries have. United States of Europe would never work without a common European identity, and controlled outer borders. Cultural differences between different parts of the world are still way too large for anything like democratic one world government to work.
dalbasal|4 years ago
In some sense, maybe... The foundations are ancient. But...
The "world order" where the globe is divided into nation states is quite new. Before that, multinational empires were the dominant mode. We tend to think of west european empires as the canonical: french, british and spanish. These empires had clear "home countries," so the dynamic was "nation ruling other nations."
Other empires were more ambiguous. EG the Austro Hungarian Empire & the Ottoman empires. They had capitals, centres of power and such. But, geographic and ethnic national boundaries were much fuzzier within these empires.
The border changes, forced migrations and ethnic cleansing that created the modern nation state world happened mostly within the last 100 years. Take Warsaw, for example. Before WW2, ethnic Poles were about 50% of the population. Jews & Germans were the next biggest groups. This was typical of european cities. After the war, Warsaw and Poland within its new borders was/is >90% Polish. Also typical. Meanwhile, countries like Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Northern Ireland & Belgium that didn't fit into the "nation state" template were pretty unstable.
The USSR's dissolution pretty much cemented a world order where nation states dominate. That's recent.
What you are advocating for is, by some definition, the establishment of an EU Empire. Maybe a democratic empire is possible, but we don't really have example to draw on.
wrnr|4 years ago
Nationalism is a very recent affair, the idea that people and not just the nobility have nations is a 19 century concept.
ChrisMarshallNY|4 years ago
Not just nationalism, but tribalism.
That's why the US has such an appalling record of bias. Each new wave of immigrants (not to mention the ones that were here, to start with, and those that were dragged over, against their will) has been met with torrents of hatred, abuse, and state-sanctioned terror. In most cases, it had little to do with skin color, and everything to do with cultural differences.
When I lived in Africa, I saw tribalism writ large. It gets bad. If we think it's only in the developing world, then we simply need to look at what happened to Yugoslavia, after Tito died.
I think that tribalism is in our DNA, and it takes a real, concerted, conscious, effort to fight it. That's hard, humbling, work, and most folks aren't up for it.
Externally-imposed structure (Tito) works, but it's a temporary band-aid.
pydry|4 years ago
Belonging to a trading bloc doesnt make you actually care about the other group.
Also, replacing "French" nationality with "EU nationality" doesnt get rid of nationalism it just scopes it at a larger level. There exist "EU nationalists" and to be honest, I find them as annoying as any other kind of nationalist.
jollybean|4 years ago
EU nationalism is actually stronger than local nationalism in many circles - I rarely see comments defending any nation state here (except the Swiss, cough, cough, mostly kidding) but any criticism of the EU is met with zealotry.
More pragmatically, the EU makes little sense as anything but an economic block.
The notion that Germans and Greeks are going to accept real transfer payments, common taxation, common fiscal policy and similar rights to healthcare quality is basically ... bonkers. Germany would be the first to split.
Cthulhu_|4 years ago
I can think of a few reasons.
- It would erase culture, a slow process already ongoing. National identity, regional culture, etc would all go. - You'd have to reconcile the differences in rules, culture and law. Take drugs; the Netherlands is liberal with soft drugs, Portugal is more liberal with hard drugs, other countries still put you in jail for having any of those. Which one will it be? Who will pick what option? - Wealth disparity. Euro-skeptics have long complained about how much money the wealthy countries pay to Europe, and how much is funneled to the poorer countries. Make it one nation and every city, every farm, every individual will instantly demand to receive and be paid the same amount. Same complexities with health care / insurance, government stipends, benefits, taxes, etc.
Just abolishing nations is infeasible. Europe as it is is slowly turning its members into a more uniformized whole, but it can't be an overnight thing. And we have made some really big steps towards erasing borders; see the Schengen accord, removing border posts and customs between member states. See the Euro, removing barriers for moving money from one country to the next. And see the UK, who decided that was not to their benefit and removed themselves from the EU again.
tiborsaas|4 years ago
With the borders opened, it's very similar to what you describe. It just takes lots of time and stability which Orban and friends undermines all the time. That's why we can't have nice things.
Don't underestimate the power of cultural diversity, it's not like the US where everybody speaks English and you can fit in quite easily if you move a state or two.
A4ET8a8uTh0|4 years ago
In all seriousness, the issue is trust. And I have no idea how we could possibly get there as a human kind.
visarga|4 years ago
I think emphasizing differences at the expense of commonalities is a huge mistake, just as much as disregarding those differences. Diversity in unity and unity in diversity, always a difficult balancing act.
seaknoll|4 years ago
sharken|4 years ago
An important part is the strong resistance to migrants, which would mean a great influx of mainly Arabs with an incompatible culture and religion compared to Europe.
Look to Sweden to see how it goes when you allow too many migrants into a European country.
On the other hand there are many serious problems with Orbáns rule, e.g. trying to control the free press, not respecting the rights of LGBT.
But to many hungarians it is better to have a controlled migration than all the listed downsides.
unknown|4 years ago
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apexalpha|4 years ago
daliusd|4 years ago
raverbashing|4 years ago
The "no-borders" people are as out of touch with reality as Orban, though in different extremes.
poisonborz|4 years ago
Whenever we will be able to colonize landmasses like the Moon or Mars, it would be possible that these kind of artificial communities could flurish. Colonisation will most likely be done by market-driven corporations, which could allege with these communities based on donations/taxation.
biscotte_|4 years ago
swiley|4 years ago
workallday21|4 years ago
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fallingknife|4 years ago
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bagacrap|4 years ago
bluthund|4 years ago
Nationalism is the only rational mentality for long term sustainability.
A people should never be ruled by those who have no blood in the soil or by those who don't serve the needs of that people.
Nationalism is what makes great nations. You can forget about that for a while and play the game of the inevitable failure of multiculturalism, but it will always fail, you will always destroy society, and from the ashes, a cohesive, homogeneous people will reemerge to build back from the ashes of your stupidity as has always been done
mayank_vashisht|4 years ago
And what was the hand of the Israeli government in the deal-making? For instance, reports state that the spying in India began right after the India’s PM met with Netanyahu in 2017 [1] So was NSO actively backed by the government?
Sigh. So many questions.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/jul/19/key-modi-rival-...
saagarjha|4 years ago
There's literally no winning here. You can literally disconnect from the internet and they'll just target the people around you…
giorgioz|4 years ago
Isn't Android and iOS supposed to investigate what's the security vulnerability that allows the remote hacking through SMS and patch it?
ignoramous|4 years ago
re-al|4 years ago
Vulnerabilities, eh - 'flaws'?
Or backdoors there by design?
What's in a name?
unknown|4 years ago
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londons_explore|4 years ago
gypsyharlot|4 years ago
freakynit|4 years ago
freakynit|4 years ago
immmmmm|4 years ago
https://medium.com/@maribst
haspok|4 years ago
Vaderv|4 years ago
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known|4 years ago
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unknown|4 years ago
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alexseman|4 years ago
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dang|4 years ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
(and no, we don't care what your ideology is)
NicoJuicy|4 years ago
dstick|4 years ago
https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/short_news/europea...
However, after Googling for an online source, I came across this article about another ultimatum for justice reform in 2017, and things only got worse after that :-/
https://euobserver.com/justice/138627
xiphias2|4 years ago
labster|4 years ago
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biscotte_|4 years ago
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jsbdk|4 years ago
ipatec|4 years ago
tarere|4 years ago
Orbán too little "woke" ? One would say "EU is a cancer for european nations and people", I strongly think that this techno-totalitarist institution is on the brink of total collapse. Brexit first, Hungary, Poland, I sure hope France is next with our "startup nation" CEO.
French people voted NO to EU in 2005, it was forced upon us. You may argue as much as you want EU and its supra-national institutions are not a democratic process.
If EU was good for Europe, US would not have set it up back in the days. Everything is about power. Before it was power of nations, now it is obviously power from a selected few over the mass, supra-national oligarchy.