The Non-American Politics Thread

Its fair game to criticise the west, we have certainly done much shady shit.

But its also about a learning experience. You can dislike the west all you want. Yet, as in your country, the boogeyman was elected by argentinians.

Don't let hate, cloud rational though so to speak.

You speak as if Argentinians are too stupid to think for themselves and allow the corporations to brainwash them and thats it whenever results you do not favor prevail.

Is not Kirchnerism a form of propaganda itself? Without implying good or bad, is it not another form of educating the masses on the promotion of socialist principles.

Have you been brainwashed Gonz? Of course not. Both sides have educated, intelligent people as supporters.
 
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That's something I always say. Even tho the US government isn't the most wholesome organization by a long shot and I am not a big fan of them either, many Latinos love blaming everything on them, even as we elect the same corrupt assholes and there are so many problems that originate from the very root of our own culture.
 
They are two different models of nation, one ruled with the people in mind, and the other ruled with business in mind. Most voted the second because they think they are doing better because they are great businessmen or something, they got greedy and want more, specially luxury stuff, consumerism and all that, and they think kirchnerism is slowing their progress, not realizing that if they have money today is precisely because of kirchnerism social policies that gave the people a much greater purchasing power. Now they will be free to buy all they want from abroad, but local industry will suffer, people will loose their jobs, salaries will diminish, and they wont have the money to buy all those foreign products they wanted access to. So yeah, if not stupid they are at the very least short-sighted.

It reminds me of this:



I wonder if after the disaster Macri will be the people will elect a "Putin" of sorts, then it would totally make up for it :) (the beginning of the video being Argentina in the 90's and the Macri era when they bring down Gorbacheb)

Another thing to have into consideration is that Cristina Fernandez is not someone who awakens apathy, you either love her or you hate her, and Mauricio Macri owes his entire political career to her. People do not actually vote for Macri, they actually vote against kirchnerism. Cristina Fernandez suffered many attacks by the opposition, but she had the unconditional support of their (redundancy) supporters to stand fast against them (not to mention a big pair of cojones, specially being a woman). Macri doesn't inspire much love, so to speak, so when the other half of the population that didn't vote for him, the new opposition, starts attacking him, I doubt a lot of people will go out of their way to support him. He will have the support of the media and the oligarchy of course, very powerful allies indeed, but little else, and I seriously doubt he'll have her steely resolve. If he fracks up, he'll end up hanging from the Obelisco by the balls. And he better hopes his oligarchs friends don't end up betraying him, they are known for being like that when things don't go the way they want.
 
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TBH, none of us are economists. Much like me, you are making an aweful lot of assumptions about anyone who is remotely pro-business, which is natural in discourse.

Granted your not a fan of Macri, but that doesn't mean others do not have the right to be fans. Like the act of simply supporting him automatically makes them idiots whos opinions can just be ruled out.

You being Argentinian, clearly, have a better picture of politics on the ground. But to me, to assume the opposition only voted for Macri because they have some irrational hate for Kirchnerism is no different than saying Latvia joined NATO, only to spite Putin. Like any possible thought of changing things away from socialism means the apocalypse is nigh.

Again, Crni warns us about absolutes yet we can subscribe to it if it fits our arguments.
 
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Oh I am sure Macri politics will benefit someone, just not most who voted for him. Of course a lot of people voted for him because they thought they would be better off with him, people who got too comfortable and forgot what the oligarchs did to this country, but they'll remember very soon, the effects are being noticed already. But they will not have my sympathy when it's already too late and they are yelling they were lied to, or perhaps their blindness will have them believe that all the terrible things the new government will do is to fix the mess the previous government did.

Are you familiar with the shock doctrine? Suffice to say I will not be fooled that every bad thing that is going to happen from now on is the fault of the previous government and that the new government should be given carte blanche to do whatever they want to "solve" it, if bad things start happening now because of the implementation of the reforms they announced, reforms that will supposedly solve our "current crisis" (a crisis that does no exist but the media fooled many into believing it does) I'm going to be well aware of who is to blame.

When they start doing all the things they announced they'll do, a lot of people is going to be in for an unpleasant surprise. I literally had one Macri voter tell me she was voting for him because of products being ever more expensive because of inflation, and the guy said he was going to devalue our currency by a 60% and lift all export restrictions for commodities. I wonder who she is going to blame when all basic products go up a 60% or more within only a few months. I respect more an oligarch who says he's going to make loads of money while the little folk gets screwed, at least he is acting on his own benefit, you got to respect that.
 
La Pen is doing well it seems. Is it just me or the far right is gaining ground around the world?
 
The president of Argentina seems to have mistaken the "head of the executive branch" with the "ellected dictator" tittle. He is now going above the law and closing down government entities and forcefully removing appointed officials before their term is due. Which entities? Media none the less, the new government wants a tight control over it and will not tolerate any opposition.
 
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Beware of he who would deny you information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master. . .

Anyway how fucked up is it that most people seem to tolerate Saudi Arabia, because oil I guess, even though they display beheaded corpses, kill atheists and let rapists go free?
 
The UK is dull neoliberal dystopia in the making. Art is dead. Our leading party and much of the opposition think y'all can go git fucked. We're okay with the brown people so long as they have oil.

This concludes the British segment on non-US politics.
 
Going back to information control and censorship, there is only one single solitary opposition TV show now, govt pressured to cancel it too, but the network said it could stay if it demonstrated it could gather enough rating. The show had historic rating and became world wide #1 tending topic on twitter #NavarroEnC5N.

In other news a band of drug dealers in jail for murder escaped today, they were known for slandering one of the (now opposition) candidates on a TV show and costing him the election, saying the candidate was implicated with them, which was later proved to be false but too late to save the governor election. The escape was obviously aided.

@Moosick Perhaps the UK should come up with a new opposition party, like Podemos in Spain, who is rapidly gaining strength due to addressing issues the other parties don't.
 
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Well we have a new labour party, now headed by Jeremy Corbyn. He's a democratic socialist. He's okay, but more ideological than practical. While he has offered evidence of there being a real humanitarian and moreover simply a good politician amongst the hordes of neoliberal fuckheads in Labour, his chummies are more Soviet than Marx, if you will, and he's simply not a good leader for a party offering something against the economic grain.

We have the Green Party, who are ethically alright and much more liberal, but also incredibly unthinking in regards to both the science of environmental issues (ironically) and the effect on the workers if they were to close down what they want to.

We have the SNP, a group of civic nationalists with some ok ideas and some very shitty ones and we have the liberal democrats, who are ideological and pretty amusing, but also lying bastards. There's also the Socialist Workers Party, who among other things have opposed women's vote on account of the number of bourgeoisie women pre-women having said vote, but are otherwise just generally middle-of-the-road leftists stuck in the 80s.

Finally, we have the Communist Party of Britain, who have a history of being apologists for the worst kind of scum who have allegedly followed that ideology.

tl;dr the left need to SORT THEIR SHIT OUT
 
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I've read about Corbyn, IMO he's not that bad. Then again as a non-UK citizen my view probably isn't worth much. I know he's seen as very leftist in UK, however when comparing his views to those of average politicians in, say, the Nordic countries, he's actually more closer to the political center.

Also, given the track record of the New Labour 'golden boy' Tony Blair, I can't really see how Corbyn could do any worse.
 
It's a shame really. Blair's warmongering was his downfall (seems to be a repeating theme in British history). As a general leader without that... not too awful. It doesn't matter, though. He would still measure his war crimes in tons rather than people.

I'll put it like this: Corbyn is, by all accounts, a decent man. A dedicated activist willing to establish communication with even the most extreme of opponents and solve issues in a democratic, accountable fashion, he is a genuine politician who unwaveringly sticks to his hatred of neoliberalism and desire to give everybody a high degree of positive liberty at the expense of negative liberty. However, he being relatively libertarian (for a socialist) and a very traditional Labour politician (pre their total betrayal of the electorate), is a minority. Those who actually want to work with him vary from standard left-libertarians to outright Lenin and Stalin apologists, and his dissidents start at the centre-right and end at full tory. Moreover, his beliefs are basically anti-corporatism, so he's got basically the entire British economy at his throat. He's a good politician in the wrong era.

/longboringpost
 
Yes, I understand, I've read similar views from other sources. Seems to me that Corbyn has at least an image problem, also his politics might not be what they should be.

From what I've heard from the tories, they seem to be becoming more extreme in their views and want to go after things like the NHS in order to privatize it or parts of it. Labour might be smart to convey a message that they want to preserve the NHS and other such organisations from unwanted privatization. Also, I know that Corbyn is against the UK nuclear deterrent, not sure what to make of that. Is it still necessary? Again, not my place to decide.

Incidentally, I visited a NHS doctor when I was an exchange student in the UK, I had what I think was bronchitis. It seemed like a very well functioning system.
 
Right now the conservatives aren't even democratic in nature. First-past-the-post electoral system despite there being 5 or 6 major parties, unelected lords, blocking petitions for a vote of no confidence based on a technicality, MPs purposefully talking for so long that they manage to block votes in parliament, Cameron repeatedly trying to monitor people's communications and internet activity (to the point where he tried to ban encryption?) etc. He also literally said this
7076-1jqhra.png
There's also the way the parties are funded, the fingers in pies that influence what's voted for, ideological austerity, the underfunding and privatisation of the NHS that's being used to convince the public of its uselessness, etc etc. Then there's how they get away with cutting lifeline-esqe benefits to people with severe disability in order to save money, only to simultaneously boost our nuclear defence and pave the way for lower corporation tax (see above fingers in pies comment). Numbers aren't exact (technicalities, sample period, average morbidity, etc) but between 5000 and 10,000 died as a result of that. It's much cheaper to kill off those who are the most ill than it is to sustain them on state care.

My view on Trident is similar to Boyle's:
"There seems to be a real split on Trident in the party between extreme elements who don’t think we should recommission it, and more moderate voices who want to retain the ability to heat hundreds of thousands of people’s skeletons to the surface temperature of the planet Mercury."
Probably a naive belief on my part. Apologies for the verbosity.
 
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And in Kazakhstan, nobody cares about politics. After all, it's dangerous to talk about politics; the KGB is still watching :wink:
 
Whenever I try to think how to summarize Norwegian politics, I always end up imagining The Shire.
We love to think we somehow matter, but all we ever talk about is fish, rock, wood and reindeer, except when we get to REALLY stroke our Hobbiton egos with some Nobel Price ceremonies and peace-deal-illusions in Palestine and whatnot.
I think we told the Sri Lankans to stop shooting Tamils also, which they did, after having finished shooting them all.

With the North Sea oil in particular, we have become very complacent, both industrially and politically. We're so used to having it all, we no longer strive for it. We hardly innovate or produce anything, and we're happy-go-luckily voting more and more conservative, expecting to have all the cakes on the counter, not just one

We have been priding ourself, so smugly, so self satisfiedly, of all our welfare and humanitarianism, and we're seemingly hurrying to phase it all out, as soon as we can. Not conciously, but by naively, by voting for the powers that want to reduce all of that.
And when I say naively, I mean naively, at the previous vote I was so exasperated at many of my own friends, who were switching their votes from the safe-tried-and-tested "labor" to "greens", after a massive campaign by the greens. People, wtf, no! Vote for humans first, trees second, seriously, I love trees, I really do, but people first! Tree-voters are essentially humanitarian people, so vote people first, you nincompoops, then people can take care of the stupid trees!
But no, the left voting base fragmented itself, and bam, we got the long awaited conservative government for the first time in years, and a stupid year later, everyone complains "this wasn't what I envisioned :0", what, not enough new trees!?
Okay, I'm getting into angry-rant territory now, so, there, that was my actual moment about Norwegian politics.
 
zegh8578 said:
Whenever I try to think how to summarize Norwegian politics, I always end up imagining The Shire.
We love to think we somehow matter, but all we ever talk about is fish, rock, wood and reindeer, except when we get to REALLY stroke our Hobbiton egos with some Nobel Price ceremonies and peace-deal-illusions in Palestine and whatnot.
I think we told the Sri Lankans to stop shooting Tamils also, which they did, after having finished shooting them all.

With the North Sea oil in particular, we have become very complacent, both industrially and politically. We're so used to having it all, we no longer strive for it. We hardly innovate or produce anything, and we're happy-go-luckily voting more and more conservative, expecting to have all the cakes on the counter, not just one

We have been priding ourself, so smugly, so self satisfiedly, of all our welfare and humanitarianism, and we're seemingly hurrying to phase it all out, as soon as we can. Not conciously, but by naively, by voting for the powers that want to reduce all of that.
And when I say naively, I mean naively, at the previous vote I was so exasperated at many of my own friends, who were switching their votes from the safe-tried-and-tested "labor" to "greens", after a massive campaign by the greens. People, wtf, no! Vote for humans first, trees second, seriously, I love trees, I really do, but people first! Tree-voters are essentially humanitarian people, so vote people first, you nincompoops, then people can take care of the stupid trees!
But no, the left voting base fragmented itself, and bam, we got the long awaited conservative government for the first time in years, and a stupid year later, everyone complains "this wasn't what I envisioned :0", what, not enough new trees!?
Okay, I'm getting into angry-rant territory now, so, there, that was my actual moment about Norwegian politics.
Click to expand...

Has the collapse in the price of oil affected life at all? Here the currency lost half its value...
 
Dude, not many know, but the marble in the White House is Romanian marble.

#OurHistoryTeacherKnowsItAll
 
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