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Steve's Cafe, Referendums and Opinion Polls

Referendums and Opinion Polls

Hi, there, Steve Kaufmann, here, with another one of these call them political videos. If you want to hear about language learning, go to my Lingo Steve channel here at YouTube. We are going to produce transcripts and we're going to put them all into LingQ (LingQ.com) where, for those of you who are working on your English, you'll see the video, you'll have the audio and you can download. You'll have the text and you can work with our LingQ tools to develop your vocabulary using these texts, if you're interested in them. There's nothing like learning languages from stuff we're interested in.

Today, I want to talk briefly about referendums or referenda, specific reference to the referendum in the Netherlands about the Association Agreement between the European Union and Ukraine and about polls. Today, of course, with a 32% turnout in the Netherlands, roughly two to one people voted against the Association with Ukraine. The way the European Union is set up if even one country is not in favor of the Association, then there won't be an Association Agreement. So, roughly, 20% of the population of the Netherlands was effectively able to prevent the European Union from having an Association Agreement with Ukraine.

I don't think that's very fair, not to mention the fact that there were so many factors at play in this referendum, the anti-EU sort of Euro-skeptic feeling in the Netherlands, anti-government feeling in the Netherlands, massive false propaganda by Russia again putting up videos of supposedly Ukrainian nationalists burning the Dutch flag and all kinds of other things that were at play. To me, if you're an elected government you decide these things. If you want to go to opinion polls, you can have those opinion polls as often as you want.

One of the problems with a referendum is people vote yes or no, so it's sort of a black and white situation. So many situations in life and in politics are not black and white, they're kind of gray. If you're in a condominium committee, you still want to make sure that everybody is kind of happy. So it's not just a matter of we won five to four and we're doing it this way, you still are influenced by the minority opinion.

In these referendums, basically, there's no room for accommodating some of the other interests and I think that's unfortunate. I feel sorry for the Ukrainians. Although, in reality I don't think it changes much. The tasks the Ukrainians have in front of them is to reform their country and make it a successful, modern country with full democracy without this control that the oligarchs seem to have certainly on the resource sector there, the judicial system is corrupt.

I mean these are the tasks in front of the Ukrainians and what the Europeans choose to do, the Dutch and so forth, really shouldn't have that much influence on them. Their bigger thing is to be a successful country and therefore prevent Russia from continuing to destabilize it. Basically, the Russians would like to see it as a failed state. Russian propaganda describes it as a fascist state, convinces their own citizens that it's a fascist state, but in fact it's not. Russia is a far more fascist state than Ukraine, but it's a corrupt state. It's a state without the normal trappings of call it Western democracy. So if we're talking about referendum, I say I prefer opinion polls and let the governments make their decisions themselves.

It was interesting. In Russia I saw a news item that 44% of Russians feel that Russian civilization is different from Western civilization. I find that very strange, what is the definition of civilization? Yes, Russia has had a different history, first of all, in terms of religion. They are predominately Russian orthodox, but then the Greeks are orthodox, the Rumanians are orthodox, the Georgians are orthodox. What is meant by the West, in other words?

The Russians, sure, they are different from the Portuguese, different from the Germans, but maybe the Russians, certainly insofar as language is concerned, are closer to other Slavic people in Eastern Europe, Poles, Czechs and so forth, than they are to Italians. So who's right? Is Poland part of Western Civilization, is the Czech Republic? It seems to be very arbitrary in so many ways today. If you go to Shanghai it's part of call it modern-influenced civilization, but in a Chinese way and similarly in Japan and in Spain. So every country is unique in its own way. Having learnt Russian, having learnt a majority of the European languages, I don't find that the Russians, in terms of a civilization, are uniquely unique compared to others. It's interesting.

I'll get on to these subjects, as well, but you hear a lot about Islam and the incompatibility of Islam and terrorism, so forth and so on. It is interesting to note that the problem in my mind, at least insofar as radical Islamism, aside from all of the sort of geopolitical resentment colonialism aspects and we look at the purely religious aspects, it's not so much that Islam is a religion of violence, it's that many of the Islamists are from the Middle Ages.

I'm reading a very interesting book which is entitled Evening in the Palace of Reason: Bach Meets Frederick the Great in the Age of Enlightenment. When you read about Europe in the Middle Ages, in the time of Martin Luther, in the time of the Thirty Years' War, the beliefs that people had, their belief in religion, their belief in the afterlife, their willingness to kill people of different religions, that was the time and so, to some extent, when we talk about differences in civilization these are moving targets. Things change. Today, we have different religions, different languages, different political systems, to some extent, we're living, many of us, in a modern civilization.

Thanks for listening, bye for now.


Referendums and Opinion Polls Volksabstimmungen und Meinungsumfragen Referendos y sondeos de opinión Référendums et sondages d'opinion Referendum e sondaggi d'opinione 国民投票と世論調査 국민 투표 및 여론 조사 Referendos e sondagens de opinião Референдумы и опросы общественного мнения Референдуми та опитування громадської думки 公民投票和民意调查 公民投票和民意調查

Hi, there, Steve Kaufmann, here, with another one of these call them political videos. If you want to hear about language learning, go to my Lingo Steve channel here at YouTube. We are going to produce transcripts and we’re going to put them all into LingQ (LingQ.com) where, for those of you who are working on your English, you’ll see the video, you’ll have the audio and you can download. You’ll have the text and you can work with our LingQ tools to develop your vocabulary using these texts, if you’re interested in them. There’s nothing like learning languages from stuff we’re interested in.

Today, I want to talk briefly about referendums or referenda, specific reference to the referendum in the Netherlands about the Association Agreement between the European Union and Ukraine and about polls. Today, of course, with a 32% turnout in the Netherlands, roughly two to one people voted against the Association with Ukraine. The way the European Union is set up if even one country is not in favor of the Association, then there won’t be an Association Agreement. So, roughly, 20% of the population of the Netherlands was effectively able to prevent the European Union from having an Association Agreement with Ukraine.

I don’t think that’s very fair, not to mention the fact that there were so many factors at play in this referendum, the anti-EU sort of Euro-skeptic feeling in the Netherlands, anti-government feeling in the Netherlands, massive false propaganda by Russia again putting up videos of supposedly Ukrainian nationalists burning the Dutch flag and all kinds of other things that were at play. To me, if you’re an elected government you decide these things. If you want to go to opinion polls, you can have those opinion polls as often as you want.

One of the problems with a referendum is people vote yes or no, so it’s sort of a black and white situation. So many situations in life and in politics are not black and white, they’re kind of gray. If you’re in a condominium committee, you still want to make sure that everybody is kind of happy. So it’s not just a matter of we won five to four and we’re doing it this way, you still are influenced by the minority opinion.

In these referendums, basically, there’s no room for accommodating some of the other interests and I think that’s unfortunate. I feel sorry for the Ukrainians. Although, in reality I don’t think it changes much. The tasks the Ukrainians have in front of them is to reform their country and make it a successful, modern country with full democracy without this control that the oligarchs seem to have certainly on the resource sector there, the judicial system is corrupt.

I mean these are the tasks in front of the Ukrainians and what the Europeans choose to do, the Dutch and so forth, really shouldn’t have that much influence on them. Their bigger thing is to be a successful country and therefore prevent Russia from continuing to destabilize it. Basically, the Russians would like to see it as a failed state. Russian propaganda describes it as a fascist state, convinces their own citizens that it’s a fascist state, but in fact it’s not. Russia is a far more fascist state than Ukraine, but it’s a corrupt state. It’s a state without the normal trappings of call it Western democracy. So if we’re talking about referendum, I say I prefer opinion polls and let the governments make their decisions themselves.

It was interesting. In Russia I saw a news item that 44% of Russians feel that Russian civilization is different from Western civilization. I find that very strange, what is the definition of civilization? Yes, Russia has had a different history, first of all, in terms of religion. They are predominately Russian orthodox, but then the Greeks are orthodox, the Rumanians are orthodox, the Georgians are orthodox. What is meant by the West, in other words?

The Russians, sure, they are different from the Portuguese, different from the Germans, but maybe the Russians, certainly insofar as language is concerned, are closer to other Slavic people in Eastern Europe, Poles, Czechs and so forth, than they are to Italians. So who’s right? Is Poland part of Western Civilization, is the Czech Republic? It seems to be very arbitrary in so many ways today. If you go to Shanghai it’s part of call it modern-influenced civilization, but in a Chinese way and similarly in Japan and in Spain. So every country is unique in its own way. Having learnt Russian, having learnt a majority of the European languages, I don’t find that the Russians, in terms of a civilization, are uniquely unique compared to others. It’s interesting.

I’ll get on to these subjects, as well, but you hear a lot about Islam and the incompatibility of Islam and terrorism, so forth and so on. It is interesting to note that the problem in my mind, at least insofar as radical Islamism, aside from all of the sort of geopolitical resentment colonialism aspects and we look at the purely religious aspects, it’s not so much that Islam is a religion of violence, it’s that many of the Islamists are from the Middle Ages.

I’m reading a very interesting book which is entitled Evening in the Palace of Reason: Bach Meets Frederick the Great in the Age of Enlightenment. When you read about Europe in the Middle Ages, in the time of Martin Luther, in the time of the Thirty Years' War, the beliefs that people had, their belief in religion, their belief in the afterlife, their willingness to kill people of different religions, that was the time and so, to some extent, when we talk about differences in civilization these are moving targets. Things change. Today, we have different religions, different languages, different political systems, to some extent, we’re living, many of us, in a modern civilization.

Thanks for listening, bye for now.