Worldwide Politics

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I get to vote today.

Normally, I get very excited to vote, and I still am, but this election is so up in the air that I am quite afraid of the outcome. Canada is a centre-left country, at worst, but due to our outdated electoral system we give majorities to people who win 39% of the vote, and allow them to control the country for 4 years. I am quite afraid that might happen tonight, and that we might give a Conservative party 4 years of power.

I don't like Justin Trudeau very much. I never have, and his performance as PM has been mediocre and his history of blackface appalling. The act itself was appalling, but the fact that he hid it even more so.

I don't much like the NDP. While their progressive policies are in line with mine, their fiscal policy is fantasy. Jagmeet Singh has impressed during this campaign, though. I'd consider a vote for them if my riding had a chance for them to win.

I don't much like the Green Party. Elizabeth May is crazy and the Greens are too far left for me. I am pro-environment but there's no rational thought in the Green's assessment of how to fix our pollution problems.

I'm not an immigrant-hating, yellow vest-wearing racist, so I won't vote for the People's Party.

I don't live in Quebec, so I can't vote for the Bloc Quebecois.

Andrew Scheer is untrustworthy and unknown and the Conservative platform sounds like more tax cuts on the rich, a formula which has repeated itself ad nauseum in the West of late. I also don't trust the Conservatives as responsible stewards of the military. They promise to spend and then never do.

Which leaves me with the Liberals. Fuck, I feel dirty, but I'm gonna have to do it.
 
Onhell said:
Sooo... How did it go? Word on Facebook is JTs party won again.
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I just had this conversation with a conservative friend of mine from the U.S. According to him JT's party won, so he is still PM. He was upset over the "double standard" liberals have when it comes to scandals by one of their own. When I pointed to the fact same could be said about what is going on in the U.S, he proceeded to post a bunch of pics and gifs of JT as the one above. American's are so isolated and insulated from international news, it's said they have no clue just how serious and damaging this scandal was. That's why I'm asking LC for his take on it.
 
The Liberals have won a plurality, and indeed, have a good chance at building a working majority with the NDP.

Justin's blackface mattered, but many Canadians forgave him because in the present day he has worked to bridge gaps based on the colour of people's skin, the origin of their parents, the persons they love, and many other reasons. He was foolish and stupid and dumb, and even moreso to cover that stuff up. But he accepted that he made a mistake, and it is hard to say he has acted as a racist now.

Andrew Scheer failed to present himself as a trustworthy alternative, and so people reluctantly voted for JT.
 
I know there is not much power for the council seats .. but the Hong Kong elections cannot be seen as anything but a giant fuck you to China given the turnout and the results. I doubt it will do anything to change China's long term plans, but hopefully will at least change their tactics and cut down on the violence. If anything it destroys their narrative that the pro democracy movement was a loud minority.
 
The Radio and Television Supreme Council, the government body overseeing radio and TV broadcasts in Turkey, issued a 5-day blackout on the two most prominent opposition-leaning TV networks because of a guest's criticism towards the Directorate of Religious Affairs. There's also ongoing talks about a new law regarding restrictions on social media.

The government's actions toward non-submissive media entities have picked up steam in recent months, there were previous penalties levelled at the same networks but this particular one had not been used in more than two decades - and certainly not with such reasoning. The jailing of investigative journalists exposing the government's corrupt activities has also picked up steam in the meantime.

I hadn't written about the state of Turkish politics here in a long while, but a recent trend is the amount of agitative statements made by government officials, their allies and prominent pro-Erdoğan talking heads with regard to religion, and with regard to a supposed civil uprising against the government and how they would be acting in response to that.

Erdoğan has recently spoken about a "need to accord ourselves to our religion", that "Islamic economy" should be a new way forward, and that the "attempts to normalize historically denounced sickness of certain people should be opposed" - in reference to LGBT people of course. While Devlet Bahçeli, the leader of Erdoğan's ultranationalist allies MHP, recently threatened individuals aligned with the opposition "Don't you dare attempt to initiate a civil uprising for we will crush it." There are also ongoing attempts to interpret the statements of opposition figures with a "civilian coup" bend, even though it really doesn't make sense. Can't help but sense a calculated agenda by the government here.
 
The Flash said:
a "need to accord ourselves to our religion", that "Islamic economy" should be a new way forward, and that the "attempts to normalize historically denounced sickness of certain people should be opposed" - in reference to LGBT people of course.
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I'm sorry, what?
 
The Flash said:
The Radio and Television Supreme Council, the government body overseeing radio and TV broadcasts in Turkey, issued a 5-day blackout on the two most prominent opposition-leaning TV networks because of a guest's criticism towards the Directorate of Religious Affairs. There's also ongoing talks about a new law regarding restrictions on social media.

The government's actions toward non-submissive media entities have picked up steam in recent months, there were previous penalties levelled at the same networks but this particular one had not been used in more than two decades - and certainly not with such reasoning. The jailing of investigative journalists exposing the government's corrupt activities has also picked up steam in the meantime.

I hadn't written about the state of Turkish politics here in a long while, but a recent trend is the amount of agitative statements made by government officials, their allies and prominent pro-Erdoğan talking heads with regard to religion, and with regard to a supposed civil uprising against the government and how they would be acting in response to that.

Erdoğan has recently spoken about a "need to accord ourselves to our religion", that "Islamic economy" should be a new way forward, and that the "attempts to normalize historically denounced sickness of certain people should be opposed" - in reference to LGBT people of course. While Devlet Bahçeli, the leader of Erdoğan's ultranationalist allies MHP, recently threatened individuals aligned with the opposition "Don't you dare attempt to initiate a civil uprising for we will crush it." There are also ongoing attempts to interpret the statements of opposition figures with a "civilian coup" bend, even though it really doesn't make sense. Can't help but sense a calculated agenda by the government here.
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Responding to this post in the USA Politics thread here so as to not derail that one.

Zare said:
I've read that Erdogan is a direct product of demands from EU liberal camp that wanted more religious freedom and less military in the state affairs. That this was in the 90s and Turkey had to drop some laws where military takes over if Islamists came to power.
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I was going to keep the response brief but I have the time to do a tl;dr post giving a fuller picture.

I'd say a direct product not of the EU liberal camp, but the thing EU liberals were alluding to having played out in the late 90s. Welfare Party, an Islamist party, of which Erdoğan was a member, came first in an election for the first time in the late 90s and headed a coalition until the military essentially forced them to resign not via an actual coup but through a memorandum. One of the many colossal mistakes that came to shape Turkish politics, an unjust act that actually ended up heavily exacerbating the problem it sought to solve.

The coalition that replaced the one led by WP inherited an bubbled-up economy that was doomed to fall into crisis - due to the widespread economic mismanagement and political upheavals of the 90s. It consisted of liberal conservative ANAP, social democratic DSP and liberal conservative DYP. ANAP and DYP were more responsible for than anyone else for the oncoming crisis. What this coalition did do, was to capture PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan, which gained DSP immense popularity while ANAP and DYP faltered as they were rightfully blamed for the economic issues. In the next election DSP formed a coalition with ultranationalist MHP and ANAP. WP's successor, Virtue Party, had come 3rd in the election so they were essentially pushed out.

The crisis ended up hitting Turkey pretty badly during the time of that coalition. It resulted in much political and social unrest. The Virtue Party got shut down for the same reason as the Welfare Party was - the charge that they had become the center of activities seeking to overthrow the secular state - and it was precisely during this time that Erdoğan, alongside fellow reformist, pro-EU, pro-US, liberal conservative-leaning members of the Welfare Party, formed AKP - Justice and Development Party. The Virtue Party members following the old-school tradition formed the Felicity Party. Erdoğan had previously been the Mayor of Istanbul as a member of the Welfare Party, and recently spent time in prison for religious agitation and had a ban from serving public office.

DSP brought in Kemal Derviş as the Minister of Economy, and economist who had spent 22 years in the World Bank, essentially to "save" the economy. The economy did start to recover somewhat due to his policies, but it wasn't enough to prevent a complete collapse of DSP, as well as everyone else blamed for the economic upheaval including ANAP, DYP and MHP, in the 2002 elections.

On the back of having been the perceived victims of military intervention in politics, having campaigned on being the party that would end long-lasting corruption and instability, initiate a time of economic growth with a liberal economic program, promising to facilitate the accession to the European Union, and gaining the support of many think-tanks and groups of international policy and strategy in the United States and in Europe (the EU liberals you mentioned), and, very significantly as it would soon turn out, winning an ally in Fetullah Gülen, an Islamist cleric with a wide movement centered on building schools and dorms with teachings that follow those of Gülen who had ties to the United States, more specifically to the CIA, since the era of the anti-communist Islamist organizations - AKP won the election in 2002 with a parliamentary majority, something that hadn't happened in Turkey for a over a decade. The 10% threshold for entering the parliament proved decisive, as DYP, MHP and newly-formed GP all just missed out. The voter bases of the center-right parties that went into irrelevancy would soon commit to AKP.

I'll leave it there, because if I keep going and also start to explain how he strengthened his popularity, how the corruption and unlawfulness began much earlier than when Westerners started hearing about Erdoğan being a tyrant and how the US and the EU glossed over them for years and continued to symphathize with Erdoğan amidst all of it, how he bought into his own hype and subtlely fell back in love with Islamism after seeing the Muslim world's response to his Davos shenanigans and aligned himself with the Muslim Brotherhood, how AKP went from being a movement to being a platform centered on a cult of personality and alienated so many of its former members in the process, how the nationalism angle and approach to the Kurdish issue did a complete reverse and he's now allied with the ultranationalists after having received the support of pro-Kurdish elements in early 2010s, how they fell out with Gülen after a strong collaboration lasting a decade that involved an infiltration of the judiciary and the military by the Gülenists and how that led to a coup attempt, and how he arrived where he currently is where he contradicts what he supposedly set out to do on almost all levels, with Justice and Development Party being the obstacle to Justice and Development in Turkey, this'll turn into a damn book.
 
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What does China flying planes to Taiwan's airspace have to do with politics? They're doing it because they want to eventually take over Taiwan as their own.
 
Awesome news. Fans of one of the biggest bastards of the moment, Bolsonaro, (which usually are Lula haters, at least in Brazil) can suck this. Judge Sergio Moro became a Minister of Justice(!)for Bolsonaro in 2018. Making him biased.

 
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Why aren't we talking more about the fact that somebody drew a giant penis in the water and then went on to block 10% of the world's trade for a week causing a loss of 6-10 billion dollars?

I mean, if that story isn't worth talking about, no story is.
 
I thought of it to be honest. Impressive sight as well, this traffic jam of huge ships.

 
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