Merkel is Time's person of the year

[Traxa]

They should only be taking the doctors/engineers other technical professionals and sending the rest back to Syria to be honest.

Because those people should be tossed into mass graves or enslaved. Sounds enlightened.

Not everyone can be saved, and sadly simply existing is not really a positive thing, at least technical professionals are capable of contributing to society and be less of a drain on resources to the native population. We (being the west) should be supporting Assad anyway with conditions for a new constitution/government and possible re partitioning of territories that addresse grievances people had in the first place. The only thing that's going to happen in Syria with the way things have been going thus far is another power vacuum where radical extremists take swaths of land and start carrying out more attacks either on the west or groups in the middle east they dont like/agree with or more likely both, there are numerous credible reports that the very people we (the west) are supporting are carrying out atrocities of their own why bother replacing a tyrant with radical extremist tyrants. We arent making anything better for anyone.

[Luminesa]

Ahhhh, because Greece is having so many problems of their own, and Bulgaria...I don't know, what happens in Bulgaria?

Yeeeaaaah, the EU needs some major changes in how they run things...good grief. One of the worst migrant crises in a long time and the EU is completely clueless.

Bulgaria's one of the poorest EU members.

Ooooh...Ergh. Wow. I'm sorry for that comment, then. I apologize!

Note to self: Pay more attention to international politics.

[Luminesa]

Okay! Geez, no need to get angry at me! I don't pay that much attention to Germany anyway. Gosh...cool your heels, Kray.

Sorry Lum, you didn't deserve that.

It's all good. Life goes on, brah. Love ya, my fellow TETian!

[Tolko Temnota]

Because those people should be tossed into mass graves or enslaved. Sounds enlightened.

Not everyone can be saved, and sadly simply existing is not really a positive thing, at least technical professionals are capable of contributing to society and be less of a drain on resources to the native population.

Like Gallo said, taking only the doctors and engineers is actually worse than taking nobody, as it creates a brain drain from the country.

And thousands of people's lives being saved arguably outweighs the negative effects of a "drain on resources".

[Valaran]

No worries c:

Effectively that was idea in the EU's resettlement plan - to distribute numbers of refugees across the bloc. However, it was only for 120,000 and was (to some degree), forced through. Though, honestly getting even that far was an achievement.

The thing is, most migrants (and this is a generalisation), don't want to stay in Greece, or in Bulgaria. They typically head to France/UK/Germany/Scandinavia if they can. But the EU's legislation required them to register at the countries they first joined, creating natural friction between who has to actually deal with them. Just to take a recent example of this friction.

I won't go into more detail, since its complex as fuck. But basically, the EU system for dealing with migrant is broken, and to some degree, this is the result.

Ahhhh, because Greece is having so many problems of their own, and Bulgaria...I don't know, what happens in Bulgaria?

Yeeeaaaah, the EU needs some major changes in how they run things...good grief. One of the worst migrant crises in a long time and the EU is completely clueless.

Welcome to the Europe

It can work well. But in a crisis like this, national pressures tend to fracture the unity, and it becomes exceedingly hard for any form of 'common solution' to be imposed. Arguably Merkel's greatest success has been her ability to create such solutions at all in the EU.

I should add, the border situation with the EU has this been shaky since 1989 - take this report from 2010, for instance. But they'd basically done localised deals with all the dictators, which they though would stop this, but instead only papered over the problems. Then the Arab Spring happened, and places like Syria/Libya have completely disintegrated (interestingly, the non-collapse of Ukrainian civil society presents a counterexample - they had many displaced persons, but they mostly fled to other parts of the same nation; places like Syria collapsed completely). The EU system,was at best a cold war compromise. Now its totally defunct.

The best border system right now is that of the Spanish, who have had to deal with such problems for years with regards to their African enclaves. They have developed workable solutions and have gained quite some expertise, mostly since they work at the roots of the problem - cooperating properly with the nations of West Africa. The result is that they haven't anything like the migrant surge that is blossoming to the East.

Changes will undoubtedly be made to the European system. But unless Syria stabilises, they probably won't be not enough; the damage has already been done.

Its not exactly light reading, but here's some deeper analysis or European Border controls.

[Valaran]

Note to self: Pay more attention to international politics.

ooh, that's never a good idea

[Geilinor]

No it isn't.

And this seems deserved. From the whole Greek financial crisis, to the situation with the refugees, Merkel's been at the forefront of Europe the entire year.

Sure, she's been taking an active stance in European politics. Sure as hell doesn't mean her role was beneficial to the people of Europe.

I don't think you know how Person of the Year works. Baghdadi was in second place and he's done nothing but evil.

[Geilinor]

That's right, you don't. Know who won the award in 1938 was? One Adolf Hitler. He was followed by Joseph Stalin the next year. Time isn't making any sort of claim on how good/bad they believe the policy of the person to be. They're saying who they think was most influential. A person that "for better or for worse...has done the most to influence the events of the year."

I'm aware of this, I made it through APUSH.

That said, I can still critique the winner.

It isn't an award for doing good, or else Hitler and Stalin wouldn't have won.

[The Nihilistic view]

Well at least she is in infamous company.

[Teemant]

I don't think Germany or Merkel has done anything exceptional when it comes to refugees. There are more refugees in Turkey than in Europe combined so they should've given it to Erodgan instead when the criteria is who lets most refugees in their country.

[Baltenstein]

Then again, they have a nice love of putting powerful German Chancellors who do disastrous things for Europe as person of the year.

They also made Willy Brandt and Konrad Adenauer person of the year. Not everything in German politics can be connected to Hitler, ya know?

[Asherahan]

She hasn't fixed jack shit in the eu and my country is still fucked.

So no.

[Havenburgh]

She is a great leader and does her job well, and I accept and honor her addmitance to the refugee's, she was being compassionate. But, it was a poor mistake. And not a popular one among the German people. Overall though, stellar job.

[Gigaverse]

What do you think? Does she deserve this accolade?

More than Trump.

[Rusozak]

I don't think Germany or Merkel has done anything exceptional when it comes to refugees. There are more refugees in Turkey than in Europe combined so they should've given it to Erodgan instead when the criteria is who lets most refugees in their country.

This. Plus, even if they did, Merkel doesn't deserve "person of the year" amounts of credit.

[Bill Cosby Island]

She hasn't fixed jack shit in the eu and my country is still fucked.

So no.

Where you at fam? Somewhere in South or Eastern Europe I'm guessing?

[Kilobugya]

She should be remembered as the one who stomped her boot in the face of the greek people, couped their elected government, sentenced them to eternal austerity and debt prison, and may have killed the eurozone in the process.

[Asherahan]

She hasn't fixed jack shit in the eu and my country is still fucked.

So no.

Where you at fam? Somewhere in South or Eastern Europe I'm guessing?

Greece.

[Luminesa]

What do you think? Does she deserve this accolade?

More than Trump.

Pssh! I deserve it more than Trump does!

*Walks in living room to make breakfast, FOX is on.*
Girl Reporter: And so we're going to have Donald Trump on in a few minutes.
Me:...*Makes breakfast and heads to room to eat it.* Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope!



Lol. If that's the sort of people who get picked, why not pick Putin? I mean, at least he's more interesting than all three of the other candidates combined, even if he is the walking definition of sketchy.

[Luminesa]

I don't think Germany or Merkel has done anything exceptional when it comes to refugees. There are more refugees in Turkey than in Europe combined so they should've given it to Erodgan instead when the criteria is who lets most refugees in their country.

This. Plus, even if they did, Merkel doesn't deserve "person of the year" amounts of credit.

It should be something the whole EU is coming together to do, to handle the refugee crisis. Unfortunately, that's not happening at the moment. I guess she's trying, but letting in 1.2 million all at one time...that's too much. I mean, we should help as many of them as possible, but no one country can handle that many people coming in all at one time.

[Herrebrugh]

This. Plus, even if they did, Merkel doesn't deserve "person of the year" amounts of credit.

It should be something the whole EU is coming together to do, to handle the refugee crisis. Unfortunately, that's not happening at the moment. I guess she's trying, but letting in 1.2 million all at one time...that's too much. I mean, we should help as many of them as possible, but no one country can handle that many people coming in all at one time.

Yes it can... About a million Belgians fled to Netherland during the first world war. At this time the population of Netherland was vastly smaller than it is now (about five million in 1900), and even more vastly smaller than the current population of Germany (about 80 million). That coupled with the fact that all Netherland's neighbours were bashing eachother's heads in, which isn't particularly great for your economy.

[Saiwania]

It ought to have been Francois Hollande instead, because here we have a leftist who at least for a brief time, grew some balls after the Paris terrorist attacks and has been willing to actually crack down on the "no go zones" of France.

[Ashworth-Attwater]

al-Baghdadi deserved it better than her.

[MERIZoC]

I heard the suggestion of "The Refugee" today, and I thought that was an interesting one, though I guess Time doesn't want to do non-specific winners back to back.

[Gauthier]

Become Sweden? Fucking hope not.

something something rape capitol of the world something something cucksheds