Claes de Vreese ☑️As Vance 'lectures' Europe on free speech, it is good to be reminded that the United States ranks 55 (!) on the World Press Freedom Index.
The top 10 countries are ALL in Europe.
Tim Ward ⭐🇪🇺🔶 #FBPE@claesdevreese Ah, but, the gammon response would surely be to claim that whoever drew up that list was a woke conspiracy so the list itself is fake news.
Professor_StevensHere in America, all criticism from foreign sources is considered dismissible as envy. Indeed, a lot of my neighbors see such criticism as actually flattering.
Worth noting their details are a bit aged. It says, "The US government continues to pursue the extradition of WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange, who remains in detention in the United Kingdom." He's in Australia, having pleaded guilty with sentence of time served.
@Professor_Stevens @claesdevreese Envy of what? The guns? The lack of health care? The lack of holidays? And that was before Trump. Which did they have in mind that we should envy, I wonder.
Martijn Tonies ✅ 🧷@TimWardCam the opening of The Newsroom is still valid. 😉
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WxdaU9AsnU
@Professor_Stevens @claesdevreese
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WxdaU9AsnU
@Professor_Stevens @claesdevreese
The Newsroom Speech by Jeff Daniels (with subtitles)
@mt @Professor_Stevens @claesdevreese Hang on ... I've only just realised ...
If MAGA gammons think that America is already the best country in the world, then it's already "great", no?
So why does it need to be made great again?
Flic@TimWardCam @mt @Professor_Stevens @claesdevreese depends if you're measuring its greatness against all those communist countries in Europe (unbeatable) or against a made up version of America from roughly the 50s where racism was ok but minorities liked it and sexism was ok but women were happier at home anyway, and mediocre white men got all the plum jobs and mostly just drank and smoked at the office while their secretary typed their letters.
@TimWardCam @mt @Professor_Stevens @claesdevreese of course Britain has a version of this which is why we had to vote to "take our country back". Turns out it's very difficult to make your country "back" into a thing it never was, though
@Flisty @TimWardCam @mt @claesdevreese
I watched Brexit fairly closely (as much as one can, from over here). I think hearing the phrase "repatriation of power" is when I realized the United States has no monopoly on shameless right-wing bullshit.
Say, how has that worked out? Is there a general mood in the UK about whether or not Brexit was a good idea? Or is it all now just in the past?
@Professor_Stevens @TimWardCam @mt @claesdevreese Very much still a present, unhealed wound. A lot of visceral anger from many (eg me - why was my kids' citizenship taken away because the BBC bookers haven't got enough imagination to get anyone on except Farage, and our prime ministers don't know the difference between binding vs advisory referenda?!). There's been a flurry of 5 year anniversary polls and they pretty much universally support a closer relationship. eg https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/51484-how-do-britons-feel-about-brexit-five-years-on
@Flisty @TimWardCam @mt @claesdevreese
Wow, that's a great resource you linked to, thanks!
It's amazing to me that Brexit passed, except that I have come to learn the power of internet propaganda. If I lived in Europe and had the option to travel freely between countries there, I'd never stop riding the rails. Giving that up for some vague notion of reclaiming local autonomy no one ever really lost?
Sad that it happened. Maybe it can be fixed.
@Professor_Stevens @Flisty @TimWardCam @claesdevreese
What surprised me most, is that basically, it was a quite close referendum (48-52% without looking it up), where the "leave" wasn't plan at all, no-one knew what it was supposed to be.
Instead of saying "too close too call, we're divided, we'll create alternative possible plans and vote on that first", they juts went ahead ... resulting in multiple PMs and lots of idiocy.
@mt @Professor_Stevens @TimWardCam @claesdevreese yep. And it was only an advisory referendum. If it had been a legally binding one the electoral commission would have required a more carefully worded question and a high margin for it to pass. On top of that I think the numbers who would have gone for the "hard Brexit" completely outside all EU treaties is minuscule. Most people would have been happy with "we negotiated and you can have blue passports and curved bananas" tbh