As evidenced by my recent posting activity (despite my claims that I wouldn't be posting for at least a week), study-induced procrastination is in full force. The most helpful procrastination tool is of course the wide wide world of web where I have come across some great findings:
How To Be An Evil Overlord
TV Lessons I've Learned
State Tetris Africa!
State Tetris France!
State Tetris Netherlands!
State Tetris UK!
State Tetris Europe!
May these serve your procrastination efforts as effectively as they have served mine - Peace out.
Monday, September 10, 2007
Sunday, September 9, 2007
Let's Talk Politics, Part 3: Where do I stand?
Sigh. Honestly, I don't know where I stand anymore. I have never been a fan of the SVP's political "style". I also feel that when it comes to a lot of topics, especially economic policy, they're very self-contradictory. Unfortunately so are the other parties and if they aren't, I often find myself not agreeing with anything they say (I'm looking at you, SP...).
So while the FDP might come closest to my political views, they're currently a mess, so I won't be voting parties this fall, but people, with the help of my good friend smartvote.
As for the current SVP campaign - well, I can't help but think that if someone chooses to move to Switzerland also chooses to rape, murder or what not, I'm not gonna be very enthusiastic about paying for his prison time with my tax francs...so I guess we'll see which way I lean by the time we get to vote on the issue in 2009 or so.
So while the FDP might come closest to my political views, they're currently a mess, so I won't be voting parties this fall, but people, with the help of my good friend smartvote.
As for the current SVP campaign - well, I can't help but think that if someone chooses to move to Switzerland also chooses to rape, murder or what not, I'm not gonna be very enthusiastic about paying for his prison time with my tax francs...so I guess we'll see which way I lean by the time we get to vote on the issue in 2009 or so.
Let's Talk Politics, Part 2: The current campaign
I think we've all seen the SVP's current campaign poster, with the white sheep kicking out a black sheep. First of all, I think the meaning of "black sheep" in German needs to be clarified: it normally does not apply to mere outsiders of a group, but is a word for people who do not obey the rules of said group. Looking at the SVP-poster, what it's saying is that we should kick out people who don't play by the rules, i.e. who do not obey Swiss law.While the SVP is no stranger to racist connotations, I don't believe that the sheep is black in this case to say we should kick out black people. The SVP doesn't like Ex-Yugoslavians either, and those are lily-white...;-)
The whole thing is at the moment at the stage of a pending "Volksinitiative". The SVP has proposed a new article for the Swiss constitution, which would postulate that any foreigner, regardless of his or her residency status, will be deported if he or she commits a serious crime (i.e. murder, rape, human trafficking, drug trafficking, etc.).
He or she would further be banned from Switzerland from 5-15 years, up to 20 in the case of repeat offenders.
100'000 signatures are necessary for there to be a referendum on this. If the Swiss people say yes, this article will become part of our constitution, if they say no, it will be dismissed. The deadline for the 100'000 signatures is January 2009 and I have no doubt that the SVP will have no trouble coming up with that number.
I also believe that when the referendum is held, the new article will be accepted. The only scenario where I can see that it won't, is if the Parliament comes up with an "Gegenentwurf" (i.e. a usually "milder" alternative to the article proposed by the initiative), which it quite often does (and which sometimes is accepted, sometimes it's not).
Note that collective punishments (i.e. deporting entire families for the crime of one of its members) is not part of this initiative, although it admittedly is something the SVP is considering to propose in the case of minors repeatedly committing crimes (with the reasoning that if the parents can't control them, they should all leave).
Let's Talk Politics, Part 1: Why is the SVP so popular?
After reading several articles, commentaries and blog posts about the current SVP initiative and what it means for Switzerland, I felt I wanted to add my 2 cents as well.
Disclaimer: I'm writing most of this from memory, if I get facts wrong, please correct me, I'd really appreciate it.
First of all the question, how is it that the SVP has become so popular in Switzerland?
There are a couple of traits that characterized Switzerland through most of the 20th century and that the Swiss people identified with strongly: independence, neutrality, individual responsibility, a liberal economic policy ("Weniger Staat - mehr Freiheit").
By the 1990s the political climate had changed considerably, the social-democratic party was one of the strongest political forces and the other parties had definitely moved their positions to the political left, at least to a certain extent (mainly regarding government payments for various interest groups).
Then in 1992 a referendum was held on the question whether or not Switzerland should become a member of the EEA (European Economic Area). Most major parties (FDP, CVP, SP) were in favour, it seemed like a done deal.
This was the moment Christoph Blocher emerged from the SVP, up to that point mainly known as a "farmer's party" and started questioning joining the EEA on the grounds of Swiss neutrality and independence. Being the only major voice criticizing an EEA-membership, he was sure to get a lot of attention and he garnered a major victory for the SVP: Switzerland did not join the EEA, the Swiss people had voted against it.
As far as I know this marked the beginning of a pattern where all major parties agreed on something and the SVP was the only party to go against it, citing sometimes reasonable and sometimes very polemic reasons (with campaign posters to match!) but always having Swiss neutrality and independence somewhere in there; a concept which is near and dear to most Swiss.
Personally, I blame the other parties for the SVP's success. Because some of the issues that the SVP was the only party to broach, were major issues most people were aware of, such as failed integration of foreigners or exploitation of social security. All other parties had a policy of "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" on all these problems, claiming that they didn't even exist.
Now, most people in their everyday life were confronted with these issues and had most politicians basically claiming that they were seeing ghosts. Considering this, I am absolutely not surprised by the SVP's ongoing success - they were the only ones assuring people that yes, the problems they were seeing were actually there and had to be dealt with.
But I think most people would agree with me that a party with nationalist tendencies on the right end of the political spectrum is probably not the ideal party to "deal with it". So in my opinion the social-democratic party has made major errors in judgment about the topics they do or do not want to discuss. Want to protect immigrants? Distinguish them from the minority of criminial immigrants and make sure the latter get punished for discrediting all the others. Want to protect and extend social security? Make sure it's not exploited, so the people who really need it can benefit for generations to come, without the money running out.
The attitude of the other government parties is starting to change, they are obviously starting to realize that a lot of issues can no longer be ignored. I'd say it's about time and probably the only way to curb the SVP's success.
Disclaimer: I'm writing most of this from memory, if I get facts wrong, please correct me, I'd really appreciate it.
First of all the question, how is it that the SVP has become so popular in Switzerland?
There are a couple of traits that characterized Switzerland through most of the 20th century and that the Swiss people identified with strongly: independence, neutrality, individual responsibility, a liberal economic policy ("Weniger Staat - mehr Freiheit").
By the 1990s the political climate had changed considerably, the social-democratic party was one of the strongest political forces and the other parties had definitely moved their positions to the political left, at least to a certain extent (mainly regarding government payments for various interest groups).
Then in 1992 a referendum was held on the question whether or not Switzerland should become a member of the EEA (European Economic Area). Most major parties (FDP, CVP, SP) were in favour, it seemed like a done deal.
This was the moment Christoph Blocher emerged from the SVP, up to that point mainly known as a "farmer's party" and started questioning joining the EEA on the grounds of Swiss neutrality and independence. Being the only major voice criticizing an EEA-membership, he was sure to get a lot of attention and he garnered a major victory for the SVP: Switzerland did not join the EEA, the Swiss people had voted against it.
As far as I know this marked the beginning of a pattern where all major parties agreed on something and the SVP was the only party to go against it, citing sometimes reasonable and sometimes very polemic reasons (with campaign posters to match!) but always having Swiss neutrality and independence somewhere in there; a concept which is near and dear to most Swiss.
Personally, I blame the other parties for the SVP's success. Because some of the issues that the SVP was the only party to broach, were major issues most people were aware of, such as failed integration of foreigners or exploitation of social security. All other parties had a policy of "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" on all these problems, claiming that they didn't even exist.
Now, most people in their everyday life were confronted with these issues and had most politicians basically claiming that they were seeing ghosts. Considering this, I am absolutely not surprised by the SVP's ongoing success - they were the only ones assuring people that yes, the problems they were seeing were actually there and had to be dealt with.
But I think most people would agree with me that a party with nationalist tendencies on the right end of the political spectrum is probably not the ideal party to "deal with it". So in my opinion the social-democratic party has made major errors in judgment about the topics they do or do not want to discuss. Want to protect immigrants? Distinguish them from the minority of criminial immigrants and make sure the latter get punished for discrediting all the others. Want to protect and extend social security? Make sure it's not exploited, so the people who really need it can benefit for generations to come, without the money running out.
The attitude of the other government parties is starting to change, they are obviously starting to realize that a lot of issues can no longer be ignored. I'd say it's about time and probably the only way to curb the SVP's success.
Thursday, September 6, 2007
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
Radio Silence
Until September 13th I will do exactly two things: teach the 10 lessons a week I have to teach and study for my last exam. I noticed today that the material for the latter is quite the mountain. So while eating and sleeping probably will become a necessity at some point, they will certainly not be a priority for the next 8 or so days. Wish me luck!
Sunday, September 2, 2007
Surprise!
Surprising people is fun! Just proven again this Saturday, when Simi and a bunch of us (okay, mainly Simi) organized for noonee to be surprised at this birthday party by three (!) surprise guests and one really awesome present (a camera he had been dreaming of owning for a couple of months now). Methinks we were almost as excited as he was!:-D But probably just almost.
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