The Non-American Politics Thread

[Akratus]

​

I have aped many a criticism of american policies, because it is easy to pick those things up on the internet. But I am woefully ignorant of the politics of my own 'continent' and even my country. I've found it hard to find reliable sources of smart commentary on the political situation of Europe. But this video is one of the first things I've found and been so excited by.

I once said a political forum would be a good policy, to compartmentalize those vile political discussions. And I've made various statements on the sillyness or stupidity of online political discussions. But I was kidding myself in saying that the discussions we've had on feminism and sexism are real, proper political discussions. And we can't let ourselves be discouraged.

The threads on eastern european military action and tensions with nato and russia seem better on their face, to me, than my previous experiences on this forum, though some very negative emotions are raised by certain positions and the locations and compassion some posters have for their countries or neighbouring countries and so on, though I will say I know almost nothing about those feelings and those situations.

Also I want to keep it to non-american issues so as to avoid the americentrism which plagues my own mind, and many parts of our culture and discussions. Which is not necessarily bad, but I strongly dislike at the moment.

Raise whatever political point you wish here. Let us educate ourselves and each other. That is the difference between a successful debate, whether the subject is politics has nothing to do with the possible negative connotations of a discussion, even online. It is about what you bring to it. Bring an open mind, good jokes, and good points. And also, awareness of where your own ignorance and knowledge lies.

 

[Crni Vuk]

#Germanysavesall

 

[Gonzalez]

Argentina is a corrupt neoliberal colony again, Falklanders are happy and they congratulated the new president. The announcement of the changes he proposes are already damaging our economy before he even takes office as he seeks to destroy everything previous governments did for the last twelve years. There are protests planned already for the very day he takes office, I wonder how long will he last before he has to flee the government building by helicopter...

 

[Askorti]

Poland had a complete change of leadership with the opposition seizing both the president and the parliament and the media went completely batshit crazy.
And German media is on it too, as it means that they will not be able to basically tell Poland what to do anymore.

 

[Gonzalez]

Well, the new Argentine president has the parliament against him, but the media and the economical elite are on his side. There is a running gag already, Argentina is now "served by it's owners", as in the people who own Argentina (oligarchs) now also run it.

I wish all the luck to the new president of Poland. If the media is against him then he must be doing something right. Also, you should defend your sovereignty, having other countries tell your president what to do is not good.

 

[34thcell]

Australia has changed prime minister four times in five years and there's already questions as to whether this one will survive until the next election (popular with the people, but not the party).

 

[Akratus]

There's a politician here who seems to think we're "mopping with the tap open" in regards to our policy on cannabis. He thinks we need to become stricter towards it, thinking that it would improve the situation in regards to criminal activities. Clear example of a person speaking of something that he does not know the realities of. The size of the market for cannabis can be shrunk by decreasing it's legal status but of course you achieve exactly the opposite if you try to do that for the purposes of halting criminal activities. You're actually throwing them a bone in that regard I would think. I think it's obviously a politician trying to score moral points from his voters by raising these concerns.

Also very interesting and topical news:

 

[CloudlessDruid]

I'm sad Macri won the elections over there, I really thought the Argentinians would know better. Scioli seemed like a good candidate, and at the same time, to me at least, he seems distant enough of the Kirchner clique (a diet peronist, I guess?) to indicate some change at least. Just read a post in his Facebook page saying the prices are already rising there, because of the new elected government (which seemed strange to me. At least here in Brazil, the president just takes office three months after the elections).

Anyway, I'm a bit more hopeful about Mercosur now. It has been weakened for years now, due to Argentinean protectionism, and now I sincerely believe that duo to Macri closeness to international capital, Argentina will distance itself even further from it. Not exactly a bad thing, Brazil has been trying to strike a free trade agreement with the European Union that would help us Brazilians a lot for a few years now, but the Kirchners have been stopping it from happening. Maybe Macri, being more market oriented, will help with that.

But I'm seriously worried about Argentinean domestic policy. From what I've seen, Macri is pretty mucha neoliberal, and another liberalism shock in Argentina will probably have the same effects it had in had 90s. We definitely don't need another country in deep crisis here in South America.

Also worried that, since the liberals might win here in Brazil in 2018, Mercosur either will be completely strip of its original purposes (a free trade area and common customs area that could help develop industry in South America) and they'll probably ban Venezuela, which is absolutely dumb and is nothing more than opening their legs to the Americans.

 

[Walpknut]

Colombia's decades (half a century) long civil war might actually be comign to it's conclusion, not by killing the other dudes harder (because that has worked so well....) But rather by peace negotiations between the government and the main paramilitar groups. At least that's the plan, most people re-elected our current president because he ran on a "Not fucking insane" plataform opposed to his oppoent who wanted to redouble efforts on this pointless armed conflict of ours. And I mean it, nobody liked him during his first run but we basically had to chose the lesser of the two evils when the time for persidential elections came.

Lot's of people are still opposed to the peace negotiations(both politicians and civilians), some are convinced we should just keep throwing more money and bodies at this fucking shit.... Hell our previous President is basically confirmed to have ties to para militar groups too. Isn't Latin Amrica just a paradise?

Soon we'll know, altho I doubt that will really solve much.

 

[zegh8578]

Colombia's decades (half a century) long civil war might actually be comign to it's conclusion, not by killing the other dudes harder (because that has worked so well....) But rather by peace negotiations between the government and the main paramilitar groups. At least that's the plan, most people re-elected our current president because he ran on a "Not fucking insane" plataform opposed to his oppoent who wanted to redouble efforts on this pointless armed conflict of ours. And I mean it, nobody liked him during his first run but we basically had to chose the lesser of the two evils when the time for persidential elections came.

Lot's of people are still opposed to the peace negotiations(both politicians and civilians), some are convinced we should just keep throwing more money and bodies at these fucking shit.... Hell our previous President is basically confirmed to have ties to para militar groups too. Isn't Latin Amrica just a paradise?

Soon we'll know, altho I doubt that will really solve much.

A decade and a half ago I read a sensationalistic article in a sensationalistic magazine about how the Colombian gvt was giving "here u go :0" a huge piece of territory for FARC to have fun in, and then I never heard another peep about it.
In retrospect, it seems like something highly unlikely to happen, and that some article journalist have been eagerly misinterpreting something or other

I guess some of the anti-peace people look at Peru, where they indeed seem to have more or less killed every last unconventional soldier in the jungles, where both Sendero Luminoso and Tupac Amaru group have been crushed. Then again, a complex thinking human will understand that every situation is unique. It also cost Peruvian society and integrity a lot to take that hard-line approach, as Fujimori had to go to prison when it was all done

Hey, at least you guys got it exciting.
But yeah, I'm totally fine with the unexcitingness of political stability

 

[Walpknut]

Hehehe, you know, that actually did happen. Pastrana granted them 42,000km2 of "neutral ground" back in 1998, but they then went crazier and the land was taken back. Man, Colombia. Such a funny place grow up in.

 

[zegh8578]

Hehehe, you know, that actually did happen. Pastrana granted them 42,000km2 of "neutral ground" back in 1998, but they then went crazier and the land was taken back. Man, Colombia. Such a funny place grow up in.

South America scares me, to be honest.
The stories I hear don't make things much better either. I have distant family members I have never met in Lima, and I know very little about them, except that they do indeed live in the ghetto, and carry guns o_o

My aunt and lil chubby grandma went there (they live in Spain) and showed me vacation footage. Not often family members vacation footage include walls with dead gangster portraits and stuff... man...

Yeah, nooot in a hurry to go visit! And how am I gonna keep introducing myself to people, all pale, "I'm Norwegian! Yeah, that country made of salmon and money! Hmmm? Oh, sure we negotiate with hostage takers, we are very humanistic : ) What, get into the van, what for?"
Maybe I am being unfair... I'm sure I'd be safe in like... a securely gated hotel or something

 

[Walpknut]

Nah, It's not all like that. In Colombia for example you will be hard pressed to find someone that carries a gun with them on a daily basis. Actually someone carrying a gun on the street is either a Cop/soldier or a criminal. I actually live on the interior, pretty nice place, actually. We are third world, but we aren't THAT third world. Unless you specifically go into the ugly parts. You won't get kidnapped if you come visit, my sister brought her Polish boyfriend here 2 years ago and they are coming back for christmas. It's all wildly exaggerated.

 

[zegh8578]

Nah, It's not all like that. In Colombia for example you will be hard pressed to find someone that carries a gun with them on a daily basis. Actually someone carrying a gun on the street is either a Cop/soldier or a criminal. I actually live on the interior, pretty nice place, actually. We are third world, but we aren't THAT third world. Unless you specifically go into the ugly parts. You won't get kidnapped if you come visit, my sister brought her Polish boyfriend here 2 years ago and they are coming back for christmas. It's all wildly exaggerated.

That's good to hear!

A friend of mine travelled central-America by car, and I kept telling him, you're gonna die man, they're gonna take you, put you in a sack, and send a ransom note with a chopped off ear

What happened? Well, he went around, advertising his Norwegianness, and singing "Nicaragua, Nicaraguita" (which I had kind of urged him to do, as a survival-tactic), he showed me footage of people in a bar, excitedly singing along with him. He surfed through those countries with such naive, careless ease, I was almost a bit irritated...

 

[MutantScalper]

I have an aunt who lives in Mexico, seen lot's of pics from the city she lives in, Puebla. Actually looks very nice, a big city pretty high up in the mountains with lots of historical buildings. It's also pretty peaceful, not a lot of narco wars in that part. Fruit and vegetables are very cheap there when bought from the market place. I guess it's easy to eat healthy over there.

 

[Riven326]

For those of you who live in Germany, what's table talk like when on the subject of the Chancellor and the refugee crisis? The reason I ask is because table talk usually differs from the general consensus or whatever is being produced as the consensus by the media. I like to get real opinions from real people rather than statistics. I'm also reading a book about German history, so it's on my mind.

 

[Hassknecht]

For those of you who live in Germany, what's table talk like when on the subject of the Chancellor and the refugee crisis? The reason I ask is because table talk usually differs from the general consensus or whatever is being produced as the consensus by the media. I like to get real opinions from real people rather than statistics. I'm also reading a book about German history, so it's on my mind.

It depends. The people I'm usually with (engineers and scientists with good income and chances) are cautious but generally optimistic when it comes to refugees. There's criticism on how it gets handled, but there's generally not much fear that it will lead to a total destruction of german society or whatever. The chancellor isn't much of a topic, because honestly, she doesn't really do much that needs discussion.
But when you go a little lower in the social structure, to people with less income and less job stability, people get a lot more anxious about the future. There the opinion about refugees tends to become more critical down to outright negative.

It's not easy to give a proper view about what the general populace thinks because, well, we're many people with many different opinions. But there is a lot of criticism everywhere, and people tend to feel less and less represented by politics.

 

[valcik]

Reading through various news gave me impression that region plays a big role too. Eastern parts as Bavaria seems to be pissed off alright, because they are burdened the most.

edit:

I actually live on the interior, pretty nice place, actually. We are third world, but we aren't THAT third world.

Don't worry Walpknut. Slovakia is not considered to be third world, yet some of our regions are nothing but hellholes avoided at all cost by locals! Lunik IX for instance, one of our famous gypsy ghettos:
Google Street View

 

[Walpknut]

Haha, didn't know Colombia already had Streetview. Bogota is undergoing some major remodelation for some years now, some places look like they were hit by a bomb or something with all the Green cloth and open pavement, but the only thing happening there is Urbanization.

Look, my Alma Mater (altho I continued studying on other places for 2 extra years after graduation)
https://www.google.com/maps/@4.6068...2_0ONxzyIN5wnzYrEoXg!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?hl=sk

The buildings on the other side of the street are part of campus too.

 

[Gonzalez]

Te newly ellected government is already taking steps to violate current laws and remove people they don't like from key positions. These people have terms of office for several more years to come, but because they won (barely) a presidential ellection they want to revolutionize and destroy everything the prevoius presiden has stablished. They seem to have mistaken the excecutive branch with the role of a despot. If they continue down this path so soon there are going to be serious prblems down here. It is the first time in history the old president finishes her term cheered at the same time a new one takes office being booed not even having officially started. Not a good sign.

For 12 years the political power in Argentina has been in a fight against the corporative power. Now the corporative power finally got a candidate into the executive, and they seek to revert everything done in those 12 years. And the worse is that is the people who ellected them. It looks there is nothing you can do against the brainwashing of the media coorporation.

The fallowing video talks about the US, but no, I'm not posting it to bash on the US, I'm posting it to bash my own country, Argentina, for what it has once more become:



The only politics worth discussing are international politics, and that's because corporate interest are international and global. Now you can see why I get so hyped about Putin making the western powers (the real power, not presidents or government institutions, but their bosses) go ape shit, I just love it when someone, whoever and at any level, frags with their plans.