pouët.net

sulta_san: do you actually believe the situation in other european countries is any better than that? for example, here in holland it was discovered some years ago that practicallly all major building contractors were scamming the government for a couple of billion euros by making illegal price agreements and pre-dividing construction contracts. should this news have come from italy, we would have called these people "maffia" without a doubt. but this is holland, not italy, so we give it a different name and go to sleep without doubts in our mind (well, at least some of us).

havoc: i think that corruption in any case is physiological when it comes to power. but generally things over there work. holland is efficient at least, here it is not. there is no meritocracy, here.

over there people would make the revolution if the politicians' corruption made holland an inefficient country, and you sleep without doubts because at least, if politicians steal, they do it without damaging their citizens, imo.

i doubt there's meritocracy anywhere, if you see what kind of twats manage to make it up to ministerial functions occassionally.

Hehe, the point is occasionally, Maali ;)

The political class is old and outdated with the main candidate of the left being presented as refreshing at 53, being the main candidate of the right 72 (and the announced winner).
The society is busy deciding wether they should be indifferent, decepted, disgusted or outraged.
Meanwhile, grandads notice young people are not singing anymore.

makc facciamo una demo di protesta o/

yes! the italian jumalauta! hmm "porco dio"?!

makc: i think the indifference of the youth is probably the reason why Il Douche still get the majority of the votes then. Start a civil war :)

oh and also the 24-yo-age-limit is ridiculous.. the EU should force .it to standardize to 18+ or 21+ for that matter..

sulta_san, you are overrating us surely... really, you should try living here for a few months. dutch people like to make themselves and others believe the country is being run in an efficient manner, but there is remarkably little factual evidence to prove that point.

(actually, i live in germany nowadays, and it's just as bad there... see the recent liechtenstein-tax-evasion-case for example...)

havoc: is it true it's illegal to wash your car on your own driveway in .de? (ground pollution?)

Silvio is like Highlander.

Maali:

Seriously speaking, Fascism had a right and a socialist wing. Berlusconi's party has a right (ex-fascist) wing and a conservative wing.
Still, the leader's own talent as a showman and offers of small tangible things makes it to fascinate the Italian working class.

The left governance has been an almost complete failure, and young leftists are just a very vocal minority.

Now, I wouldn't mind for the 25yo thing (it's just for one of the Chambers), as they're talking about pretty much screwing up the constitution... and now have the power to do so.

Now the real part: Communist party is dead, and "porcodio," yes :D

Even with a "working political system" you have plenty of issues:

We have our showmen and -ladies as well. the current successfactor in Holland is shouting how much the islam is retarded, oldfashioned and undermining our society.. Two 'one-man-parties' already managed to get the same # of parlementary chairs (one of them still only in prognoses thank god) as the more conventional parties (that are like over 50 years old (disregarding some fusions here and there)). this 'us and them' thing + populism is working just as nicely as fascism did in italy before ww2.

Eventhough some might disagree, most conventional dutch parties are originally from right/left, but currently all acting very central anyway. the infamous dutch 'poldermodel' where you discuss till you die is even today working like a charm and doesnt get anything fruitful going eventually. Hence the tendency that the more extremer parties, such as those anti-islam ones or those vegetablesworshippers are getting more and more sympathy just because they might bring some change towards the endless same-old-same-old. Next to that, the current worldwide terrorism campaign is only making the average joe even more convinced these unnuanced politicians have a point.

Im not happy with this, current politics is also too busy tackling down the threats from the 'extremists' rather than making wise decisions for our country.

You make it look like fascism is some kind of superset that implies socialism but that's incorrect. Fascism considers the individual subordinate to the interests of the state, party or society as a whole. Those interests could be socialist kind of interest (interests of society as a whole) but they could just as well be the conservative kinds of interests.

Or to look at it from another viewpoint, protecting the weak ones in society is an important part of socialism, and we all know that the fascist regimes from the 40's weren't really about protecting the weak, more the opposite.

Actually, not doing anything is sometimes the best option (just look at all the changes in the dutch educational system in the last few decades that only made things worse to name an example), so maybe the 'poldermodel' is working better then you think :-)

havoc:

dunno, i don't live there and i haven't been living there either...
but, try to live here, and make a comparison. i've been in france for six months and the difference, i have to admit, was impressive, expecially as far as public services were concerned (strangers reception, lessons, canteen, students' houses, public transports...) maybe strasbourg is just a happy island, since it hosts the european parliament and council of europe and human rights court... but the overall feeling was: "damn beyond-alps cousins!!!" :)

makc:
no commies? no party! :D well, i won't miss pecoraro scanio nor dilbert diliberto nor bertinotti for sure... they are no more representative: the working class exists no more, in italy. no class awareness. just tv and fear. thus they vote pdl and lega nord.

sparcus: tho you forget that during paars (so before those changes) our education system was already declining slowly. it was just a wrong innovation. :)

wat?

lol.. finland fascist? like we had any change to do any proper damage :D

at least finland don't have problems that countries like sweden,britain,holland and france have. when huge economic collapse comes because usa, certain type of people who live in ghetto can't get money from "weird money walls" and riots starts. they will be fucking huge. maybe it will escalate into civil war. suddenly nobody speaks here about lack of workforce and about bringing third world towelheads here to drive bus. we just wait until situation stabilizes and start importing goods at russia :D

is it true it's illegal to wash your car on your own driveway in .de? (ground pollution?)

An important question.
It depends on how you define illegal actually. It is not a crime, but it is also not allowed unless you have a permission from your local administration.
(assuming i understood this correctly):
http://kos-live.ionas.de/werkedirekt/abwasser/allgemeines/sonderabwaesser/autowaesche_am_strassenrand_bzw_auf_privaten_grundstuecken_hinweise_zur_rechtlichen_beurteilung_stand_27_09_2006/autowaesche.pdf.phtml?PHPSESSID=ed0c3430c216ab999f8b8e0271e1901a

maali, i don't know about washing cars on driveways, but much more importantly, i do know that automated carwashes are quite a bit cheaper and more common here in germany :) what is damn irritating about germany, though, is that they sell only 2 kinds of vla in the supermarket here :(((

sulta_san, i’ve made some short trips to italy and met only a couple dozen italians during my lifetime… so i don’t regard myself as an expert on italian issues as such. also, i would be the last to deny that there are big cultural differences between our countries. these cultural differences define how we respond to criminality, wasteful government, xenophobia, etc: in holland, politicians talk about our problems for a couple of years, and in the end nothing really changes. in italy, people see the problem, make banners and take the protest to the street, go on strike and send the government home, organize a new election, install their 17th government since 14 months, and in the end nothing really changes. the bottom line is imho that such problems exist in all countries of mentionable size, and are a cause of human nature rather than culture (aka: even strasbourg has some streets i don’t wanna visit ;))

unseen: that's because other than nokia mobile stuff, finland has nothing interesting to export and thus does not rely that much of foreign/the world market(s)

maali again bullshit remember we have marimekko, kone elevators at least...