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Polish Prime Minister calls for EU leaders to reject ACTA
- hastur 15y agoWow, this is actually quite big. I'd say, more significant than the previous decision by Poland (and then other EU counties) to suspend ACTA ratification. Suspension meant merely that they needed to think more about this. Now Poland comes out openly _against_ ACTA, and that's a _first_ among the participants and signatories of the treaty. Congrats to the participants of the anti-ACTA protests in Poland (possibly the biggest ACTA opposition in the world), who brought about this change.
- zalew 15y agothanks to #anonymous for making a scene that led to recognizing this issue in our media.
- kolinko 15y agoyeah, as much as I sometimes hate their juvenilish behaviour, this time it actually helped...
- slowpoke 15y agoWell, despite all the "juvenile behavior", Anonymous is a force to be reckoned with. They mean it when they say "Expect us.". I also think the fact that they don't care how you perceive them (by acting juvenile or otherwise immature) is one of their greatest strengths. Believe it or not, but it frees you from a lot of burdens if you don't have to be polite and politically correct, and makes it a whole lot easier to actually do something (whether or not that something is good and/or justified is certainly debatable).
- jwr 15y agoA major politician admits he was wrong. This doesn't happen often, and in spite of Tusk's many flaws should be recognized. He deserves respect for being able to admit he was wrong.
- ancymon 15y agoThat's one way to look at the situation. Another is that the politician "changes" his mind to gain popularity.
- zeeed 15y agowhich is, in fact, fine with me. if we're enough people that are convinced and the politicians act like we want them to, then that's called democracy.
- ancymon 15y agoMaybe in this case (which is quite "new") it's fine. But for example politician who before an election promises things but after he is elected changes his mind (so he won't lose popularity) it's bad. Same goes with opinions about "fundamental" stuff like e.g. abortion - I wouldn't like to see my representative to change opinions about such things.
- kolinko 15y agoIt isn't fine with me. a politician doing simply what the protesters or people in general want is a populist. Indirect democracy is all about choosing people we believe will make the right decision, even if then have to piss some people off. Tusk said he's not doing this because of the protests, but because the arguments presented to him made sense. That is what I'm expecting of a good politician.
- ajuc 15y agoSo majority making decisions once every 4 years - that's democracy, but majority making decisions on every issue - it's populism? I wonder how that magic that makes people wise enough once every 4 years works. One possible way is that politicians are better than regular people, and they have to lie before elections to ponder to stupid voters. After the election wise and benevolent politicians do what is Right, no matter their stupid voters opinion. Is THAT why indirect democracy is better? Because it depends heavily on the fact, that the most wise and benevolent politicians have to tell the best lies to the stupid voters. And it's not obvious to me, that this will be always true.