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Humanity

EatLeadCommie said:
Sailor, that's a bit more involved and conspiratorial than I'd put it, but I think it's something like this. The migrants are hitching their wagons to the Syrians to get a more sympathetic ear from those who were previously apathetic. The media is happy to accommodate.
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Yeah, I'm sure that was a lot more involved than many would prefer but events have complex causes, which often cannot be accurately compressed into sound bites or even brief answers, especially when your audience has so little knowledge of the situation. I did not mean to sound conspiratorial. I think the best way to describe the several causes of this disinformation campaign is the confluence of interests. Interests can coincide, and sometimes the result is simply a distortion of reality. That is what has happened here. This is made much easier when your audience is uninformed about many of the basic aspects opf the situation and you fail to inform them of facts that interfere with your version.

Many, for various reasons, are attaching themselves to the Syrians. But that's only part of the story. Why is the media so happy to accommodate in a situation that they well know is far more complex and carries all sorts of long term difficulties and dangers? Short term profit is certainly a part of the answer but by no means the complete answer. I tried to point in the directions that might be pursued if one wanted a more complete picture.

Simplistic monocausal answers often distort more than they explain.


Sorry, everyone but it is much later here in Europe than it is for you, and I have some other things to take care of. I will get back to the various points raised and try to answer them as soon as I can.
 
EatLeadCommie said:
Sailor, that's a bit more involved and conspiratorial than I'd put it, but I think it's something like this. The migrants are hitching their wagons to the Syrians to get a more sympathetic ear from those who were previously apathetic. The media is happy to accommodate.
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What would you do if you were in the migrants' shoes?
 
Deacon923 said:
I mean, #anecdotes, but here is CNN's lead story today on the situation. The headline calls them "migrants", not refugees, and the lead photo is a bunch of young men sitting on grass. It says "some" of the migrants are Syrian, and acknowledges that they are fleeing war and poverty (i.e. refugees and economic migrants). I don't watch CNN on TV (or anything else on TV, really) so maybe that's what sailor is so exercised about but I do read the website regularly and I don't think they're covering up these issues at all. They regularly report the concerns of various public figures that terrorists might be mixed in with the migrants, for example.

Perhaps sailor expects CNN to seek out the opinions of the Hungarian government and give in-depth analysis of the Hungarian perspective? Does he really think CNN's audience outside Hungary is interested in that?

ETA: I just watched the video, lots of footage of young men, no babies, provides some coverage of the Hungarian perspective and concerns over national identity, etc. This is the CNN coverage that is so very misleading and beneath contempt? Really?
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Did not hear the NPR discussion, and so I can't comment. Most people have used the words refugee and migrant rather inconsistently throughout this crisis. My own preference is to call people fleeing from war torn countries refugees - after all they probably were forced to leave and did not depart by choice - and to call migrants, the people who have left countries not at war, primarily for their own economic advancement, and due to their own choice.

You are probably right, many people outside of Hungary are most likely not particularly interested in the opinions of either Hungarians or their government about a major European crisis taking place in part in Hungary. But then why does so much of the western media think that people living outside of Hungary are interested in Hungary/Hungarian government bashing? This is exactly what they have been doing in their reporting about Hungary ever since the former communists and their allies were clobbered in a general election in 2010. If you are interested, consider reading the following academic assessment:

https://dgap.org/en/think-tank/publications/dgapreport/hungary-media-2010-2014

Maybe CNN is reading Breitbart too and have decided to slightly modify their act. They can afford to do it now. The original hystericization has been accomplished and would be difficult to maintain anyway. What I saw at the beginning of the migrant crisis a couple of weeks ago was grossly distorted, one-sided, and dishonest reporting. After a few days I stopped watching.
 
Knight said:
This picture makes palatable the suggestion to arm these migrants, train them, and then absolutely fucking ruin and destroy everything that the warring factions in their home countries hold dear.

This picture...just...god damn. I mean, I know ELC is all gungho sometimes, but this image makes me want to fucking fight. Just fucking fight so hard against anything that could cause this little boy to be laying face down in the sand dead and alone.
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We already did, and now they are the ones turning these people into migrants with our weapons.
 
Knight said:
Dude, I've seen some shit on the internet. Like a lot of you, I've been around a long time.

That picture is fucking wrecking me.
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Speaking of shit on the internet, yesterday I was on the breitbart page Sailor linked to, and there were people opining that the little boy looked "too clean" and "not roughed up enough" to have drowned, so the whole thing was a fake meant to drum up sympathy for refugees. Now that's some shit on the internet.
 
Deacon923 said:
Speaking of shit on the internet, yesterday I was on the breitbart page Sailor linked to, and there were people opining that the little boy looked "too clean" and "not roughed up enough" to have drowned, so the whole thing was a fake meant to drum up sympathy for refugees. Now that's some shit on the internet.
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That unfortunate child is tragically dead. There is nothing more any of us can do for him. Maybe we ought to be asking, how many more children, and others, will die, if certain European politicians continue to encourage them to come?
 
sailordeac said:
That unfortunate child is tragically dead. There is nothing more any of us can do for him. Maybe we ought to be asking, how many more children, and others, will die, if certain European politicians continue to encourage them to come?
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They definitely waited.until Europe offered some hardtack and gruel to flee their war torn country.
 
sailordeac said:
That unfortunate child is tragically dead. There is nothing more any of us can do for him. Maybe we ought to be asking, how many more children, and others, will die, if certain European politicians continue to encourage them to come?
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If the risk is drowning in the sea so horribly, what must the conditions where they are from be like?

*ABSOLUTELY HORRIBLE IMAGE BELOW - YOU ARE WARNED*

http://i.alalam.ir/news/Image/original/2015/06/25/alalam_635708432218089263_25f_4x3.jpg[/img]]
 
vad, sailor must think they're too stupid to make reasonable decisions so that's why they're going to Europe instead of staying.
 
sailordeac said:
That unfortunate child is tragically dead. There is nothing more any of us can do for him. Maybe we ought to be asking, how many more children, and others, will die, if certain European politicians continue to encourage them to come?
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Telling them not to come isn't going to change anything. You do realize that people aren't going to be like, "Oh, Angela Merkel said that Germany doesn't want us. Guess we just have to take our chances here in war-torn Syria!", right? When it is this bad you do what you have to to get out. Political rhetoric isn't going to deter the flow of refugees.
 
Why not just go get them? Why make them undergo the dangerous and often deadly ordeal? Why enrich the human smugglers? Why? Hell, considering how much they pay to the smugglers, most could probably just literally buy legal tickets.
 
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sailordeac said:
Why not just go get them? Why make them undergo the dangerous and often deadly ordeal? Why enrich the human smugglers? Why? Hell, considering how much they pay to the smugglers, most could probably just literally buy legal tickets.
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That's an extremely good question - and something that's been done in the past, especially with the mass refugee crisis that followed the end of the Vietnam War. The UNHCR created what was known as the Orderly Departure Program to dramatically lower the number of people drowing and/or falling into the hands of pirates and human traffickers. The USA alone took in 458,367 refugees via the program before it's end in 1995.
 
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