The Finnish government is now a substantial way through its programme to cut €9 billion of public spending by 2027, including large reductions to social security (including housing, child, and unemployment benefits) healthcare, education, and municipal funding budgets, while it also increasing taxes on average earners. Cuts to healthcare provision have been particularly brutal, including a large reduction in hospital staff numbers, elderly care and disability services while redefining “minimum service obligations” to justify providing patients with lower quality care. The government has also slashed funding for organisations working on peace and initiatives which would address the new cold war-style relations with Russia.
And among the beneficiaries of a new tooled-up and aggressive Finland are the arms dealers of the Israeli apartheid-genocide complex, which in 2024 sold Finland its questionably functional “David’s Sling” air defence system for €316 million. Finland has also bought tank and ship missiles from the Israeli company Rafael which supplied most of the weapons and equipment used to commit the genocide of Gaza. The Finnish government said Israel’s genocide of Gaza would not stop it buying weapons from the country, a position which is par for the course among the morally bankrupt leaders of Europe.
Not a news source. This is a one-sided, agenda-driven editorial.
I don’t know if you were aware, but you can just not write imbecilic comments on public forums.
please stop spreading cia propaganda and stop trolling. the source uses a lot of valid data but i guess you libs are allergic to numbers and reality
Yeah, gotta use trustworthy sources like… CNN… or BBC… or Guardian… or other western media, surely no biases! (Just ignore their defensive coverage of “Israel”)
The entire post is propaganda. It’s enough to analyse the language used to see that. The author tries to show Finland’s conscious decision to, like most European countries, increase spending on defence, as “bad NATO is forcing them to cut children’s health care”
Nobody asked the population if we wanted to join NATO, if we even believed Russia to be a threat, fuckface! This whole shit was an incredible show how undemocratic the whole west has always been. And still there are unthinking fucking dipshits like you, liberal or fascist – which doesn’t even fucking matter cause you’re made of the same fucking cloth anyway, parroting the same fucking talking points that the western puppets in charge are making! Why do you choose to be so fucking blind? You fucking sheep, you absolute fucking infantile fool!
I’m sorry but Russia is invading Ukraine and keeps sending drones in nearby countries, including mine. That is a fact, not “talking points that the western puppets in charge are making”. Not everything a western nation says is false just because they’re a western nation. Western nations also say the Earth is not flat. So would you say the Earth is flat then? You are allowed to not trust any country, absolutely, but even if you think the West is a broken clock, guess what people say about broken clocks.
Two more things.
Firstly, being anti-Russia is not fascist. Russia isn’t even communist anymore, so even the angle of “being anti-communist means you’re a fascist” doesn’t work here. And even if Russia was still the USSR, fascism and communism are not the entire political spectrum. Under that reduction of political thought to just 2 options, that means the USA in WW2 was communist because they fought against fascists. And you surely wouldn’t claim that.
Secondly, I echo bstix’s question. You wanted Finland to ask its citizens if you wanted to join NATO or not, while at the same time saying voting solves nothing. So why did you want to be asked? Let’s say they held a vote on this, and the majority of your country voted against joining NATO and then the country joins anyway. What would you voting have accomplished then? You either cede that Finland needed to vote on this, or you cede that voting doesn’t work. Both opinions can’t be held by the same person without contradictions appearing.
oh hey, it’s shitlib and his little buddy turbolib. not gonna engage with you either.
I point out a contradiction you made and your response is this. You’re clearly in a bubble yourself, as you accuse others of being, and you shortcircuited on your own contradiction to the point you refuse to engage. Personally I don’t need you to engage with me. I left a comment that you are free to ignore, block me, whatever. But the contradiction doesn’t magically vanish if you plug your ears and ignore everyone else.
An election on this issue would not have changed a thing. At the time, polls showed that 84% of the population was for joining. The decision was made by the parliament with 188 for, 8 against and 3 who didn’t care.
It’s a representative democracy working as intended. If you’re unhappy with how your representative represented your vote, you need to vote for someone else.
That is literally the problem with western “democracy”. Incredible you consider this a good thing. Time and time again people are disappointed in their current political situation but hey, after a set amount of years a ritual called “VOTING(western style)” will initiate and you get to choose a pre-approved selection of candidates who promise things but will never deliver and also do completely different things in service of CAPITAL.
Oh we don’t even get to remove any politicians that are astoundingly unpopular until that ritual starts, what a “democracy” it is!
Instead of having direct voting on policies like any actual democratic country like China, DPRK or former-USSR. What a fucking idiot you are.
Voting doesn’t change shit you fucking imbecile, representative democracy is part of the problem along with capitalism.
So if not by voting, how exactly do you propose that they should have asked the population?
that’s the crux of my argument i’d say. there is no alternative for the people but to agree with their leaders, even if they personally disagree. My solution now would be a communist revolution with an armed vanguard party, followed by an immediate disentanglement from the west, NATO, EU and Euro, with stronger ties to both the AES countries and Russia, though Russia might not trust us for obvious reasons. This would facilitate the improving of the local workers’ material conditions and thus improve the living conditions degraded for the capitalist class’ interests. The revolution and armed class struggle is needed because without it we’d subject ourselves to possible coups by foreign capitalist forces empowering the local fascist elements. Though they’d keep trying this never the less obviously. NATO needs its frontline, after all. Unfortunately for us, no such vanguard party seems to exist in Finland and the workers are left forced to agree to whatever whims the rulers have for us.
So… if people can’t trust the leaders that they elect, who is going to lead your communist revolution?
I ain’t gonna engage in a bad faith argument with you, but good luck in the war to you.