Politics & Stuff

[johnnythefirst 1,076]

26 minutes ago, cosmicway said:

So it appears to me Erdogan is too religious but without going into the extremes of ISIS and the fundamentalists, while his opponents favour a more westernised way of life.
But is that enough for such a huge rift in society ?
It does n't look like he planned it but maybe he took the risk to provoke them as much as he could and make them play their hand.
From that much information, I don't think it is sane though.
In Greece in 1967 there was at least the accusation made by the army against Andreas Papandreou that he wanted to make Greece into a baathist state. That was a false accusation, almost comical, but as accusations go it was serious enough.
But starting a civil war because bikini suim suits are not allowed on the beaches seems bizarre to me.

 

 

Turkey is a secular state, and a lot of the young/educated people in the big cities near the west coast are very free in the way they think. I would say more so than in some European countries. Istanbul for example is one of the most exciting cities I've ever been to. Simply wild. Erdogan is religious though, and is taking away certain freedoms. The army was always there to defend the secular ideals of Ataturk (he founded the modern Turkish state) and has taken over power plenty of times in the past when it felt that the secular state was being threatened by religious elements.

What is more worrying about Erdogan though, is that he is centralising all of the power in Turkey into his own hands. He's a Putin kind of guy. He wants to be the big man and the only power in the country until they take it from his cold dead hands. Essentially he got even stronger after what happened this week. He's as good as a dictator right now. He spent billions making this ugly, Aladdinlike Palace for himself, he's putting critical journalists in jail, he's suing foreign comics because they 'insulted him'. When he lost his complete majority after the last elections and had to make a coalition, he deliberately rotted things out until no solution could be found and there had to be new elections (he regained his majority after them). There are even rumors going around that he's giving out fridges and other appliances to poor illiterates on the countryside to make them go out and vote for him. 

The most infuriating thing to me was that, during the coupe and from the safety of his bunker, he ordered his followers to go out and fight against soldiers and tanks "to save democracy", while he has savagely beaten down any form of democratic protest against him during the last five years. Remember the major riots in Istanbul 3 years ago. All of the blood of civilian lives lost during this coupe are on his hands. He's an insecure coward, like so many of these dictators. 

[johnnythefirst 1,076]

Also, the problem is not that he's "too religious". The problem is that he's trying to get religion back into law and politics. Everybody can believe whatever the hell they want, but keep it out of the law and let other people live their lives as well. If someone in my country tried attacking the separation between church and state I would fight it with all my heart. 

[cosmicway 1,249]

19 minutes ago, johnnythefirst said:

Also, the problem is not that he's "too religious". The problem is that he's trying to get religion back into law and politics. Everybody can believe whatever the hell they want, but keep it out of the law and let other people live their lives as well. If someone in my country tried attacking the separation between church and state I would fight it with all my heart. 

 

Well, it depends what they do though.
Set up a new Spanish inquisition ?
We had the same debate here in 2002.
I sided with the church, because on the one hand we Greeks do not hurt people of different religions (like they were doing in Northern Ireland for example) while on the other hand I noticed that all those who attacked religion in the tv panels were communists who wanted to install a one party dictatorship.
But I suppose this is different from Turkey.
I think it's a problem. The Turks believe the world is divided between the righteous and the sinners (where your side are the righteous). The winner locks the loser to a prison cell. Just like Brexit.
They have to abandon this belief. It can't work. Go to international football results and see how many Turkish league matches do not end and compare the number to other countries.
Some Greeks behave the same. Before the last election, 20 September 2015, Tsipras said "on the twentieth you are finished", meaning that those who do not agree with his party will have to find some fast horses and carts and leave the country. He wants ot bring back to life the long time dead class hatred. But Tsipras is a pathetic imbecile.

 

[cosmicway 1,249]

---

 

[CHOULO19 24,332]

@Spike watch this before it gets taken down: 

 

[johnnythefirst 1,076]

8 hours ago, cosmicway said:

 

Well, it depends what they do though.
Set up a new Spanish inquisition ?
We had the same debate here in 2002.
I sided with the church, because on the one hand we Greeks do not hurt people of different religions (like they were doing in Northern Ireland for example) while on the other hand I noticed that all those who attacked religion in the tv panels were communists who wanted to install a one party dictatorship.
But I suppose this is different from Turkey.
I think it's a problem. The Turks believe the world is divided between the righteous and the sinners (where your side are the righteous). The winner locks the loser to a prison cell. Just like Brexit.
They have to abandon this belief. It can't work. Go to international football results and see how many Turkish league matches do not end and compare the number to other countries.
Some Greeks behave the same. Before the last election, 20 September 2015, Tsipras said "on the twentieth you are finished", meaning that those who do not agree with his party will have to find some fast horses and carts and leave the country. He wants ot bring back to life the long time dead class hatred. But Tsipras is a pathetic imbecile.

 

It's no or-or story. You should have total freedom of religion, but religion itself should not mix up with politics. Every time it happens, it gets dangerous. 

[lucio 5,385]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-36832909

yet another attack from these barbarians

[Iggy Doonican 4,186]

Donald Trump's wife ha ha what a fuckwitt can't wait for her next speech where she talks about how hard it was growing up as a black woman in Illinois.

[Fulham Broadway 16,390]

36 minutes ago, Iggy Doonican said:

Donald Trump's wife ha ha what a fuckwitt can't wait for her next speech where she talks about how hard it was growing up as a black woman in Illinois.

So, Melania, what first attracted you to the twice yiur age, toupee wearing, ...er....BILLIONAIRE, Donald Trump ?

[Iggy Doonican 4,186]

3 hours ago, Fulham Broadway said:

So, Melania, what first attracted you to the twice yiur age, toupee wearing, ...er....BILLIONAIRE, Donald Trump ?

Someone mentioned it can't remember where F.B. but two off the scale horrible twats. One a man who's been bankrupt on at least a couple of occasions and is responsible for some of the worse architecture in New York. The other a man responsible for some of the worse home computers and technology which was surpassed almost instantly. Two men we both thought we'd seen the back of frankly a couple of has beens. What brought them back to the public eye?. The Apprentice that show has a lot to answer for.

[Spike 12,049]

A woman and her children have been stabbed in Montpellier allegedly for wearing 'summer clothes'. Fuck sake.

[Fernando 6,375]

40 minutes ago, Spike said:

A woman and her children have been stabbed in Montpellier allegedly for wearing 'summer clothes'. Fuck sake.

Just like people are taking revenge on the cops, I'm sure people will take revenge on the Muslim.

And it's sad because just like Good Cops are dying for this, Good Muslim will die.

[CHOULO19 24,332]

56 civilians killed in just one airstrike by US led coalition in Syria today. I'm sure THAT will help a lot in the fight against terrorism...

[cosmicway 1,249]

12 hours ago, johnnythefirst said:

It's no or-or story. You should have total freedom of religion, but religion itself should not mix up with politics. Every time it happens, it gets dangerous. 

Depends.
Everybody says that about everybody.
Football players should n't mix up with politics. But if Diego Costa makes a statement in favour of labour, the labourites among cfc fans will say "what a great lad" and the cons will cry "shame". The opposite statement will produce the similar effect.
We all speak about the inquisition but it's not real. The inquisition too is a much maligned institution.
The number of people they burned in 10 centuries of existence is a little over one thousand known wizards and sorcerers when the states were burning millions for as little as chasing the queen's deer.
The myth of the evil inquisition was created by the anglo-saxons of course, who in turn had to face the threat of the Spanish Armada at the time until saved by Sir Francis Drake. It was in those irregular circumstances that the myth was created.

 

[CHOULO19 24,332]

@johnnythefirst @cosmicway

By all the indicators so far, and we've had a few days no for the dust to settle now, the attempted coup in Turkey does NOT look like it had anything to do with secularism. Or at the very least it wasn't carried out by pro-secular forces. Instead, all the clues are pointing towards Fathallah Gulen, who, if anything, is more religious and extremist than Erdogan. 

That would obviously mean US and CIA involvement, but it does leave a question about the timing of the attempted coup. After all, it's not like they just NOW realized what an awful authoritarian Erdogan is, and by any means his supposed replacement was unlikely to be any better. Here is my analysis of it:

The attempted coup came after a couple of weeks of Turkish-Russian 'flirting' and courting coinciding with the redrawing of previously perceived 'internationally agreed lines' in Aleppo. THAT is dangerous to the US' interests in Syria because the US sees Turkey as its bargaining chip in Syria as they themselves do not hold any real power on the ground. All the so called US trained/backed groups in Syria (real and imagined) have very little power without the support of the Turkish army and the supply routes from within Turkey.  Indeed, after getting a lot of publicity a couple of months ago, their role has visibly decreased since the start of the Turkish-Russian coming together.

So theoretically, and probably practically as well, a Russian-Turkish-Assad agreement could well be effectively implemented on the ground in Syria since Turkey still maintains a better relation with (or rather a strangle hold on) the radical Islamist groups in Syria than any one else; meaning a solution could actually be implemented on the ground in Syria without taking into account the interests and demands of the US (and KSA). 

That, in my mind, is the most likely explanation, and if true, we should be seeing more Erdogan-Russain closeness, and more radical change on the ground in Syria which there has already been signs for. 

[cosmicway 1,249]

3 minutes ago, CHOULO19 said:

@johnnythefirst @cosmicway

By all the indicators so far, and we've had a few days no for the dust to settle now, the attempted coup in Turkey does NOT look like it had anything to do with secularism. Or at the very least it wasn't carried out by pro-secular forces. Instead, all the clues are pointing towards Fathallah Gulen, who, if anything, is more religious and extremist than Erdogan. 

That would obviously mean US and CIA involvement, but it does leave a question about the timing of the attempted coup. After all, it's not like they just NOW realized what an awful authoritarian Erdogan is, and by any means his supposed replacement was unlikely to be any better. Here is my analysis of it:

The attempted coup came after a couple of weeks of Turkish-Russian 'flirting' and courting coinciding with the redrawing of previously perceived 'internationally agreed lines' in Aleppo. THAT is dangerous to the US' interests in Syria because the US sees Turkey as its bargaining chip in Syria as they themselves do not hold any real power on the ground. All the so called US trained/backed groups in Syria (real and imagined) have very little power without the support of the Turkish army and the supply routes from within Turkey.  Indeed, after getting a lot of publicity a couple of months ago, their role has visibly decreased since the start of the Turkish-Russian coming together.

So theoretically, and probably practically as well, a Russian-Turkish-Assad agreement could well be effectively implemented on the ground in Syria since Turkey still maintains a better relation with (or rather a strangle hold on) the radical Islamist groups in Syria than any one else; meaning a solution could actually be implemented on the ground in Syria without taking into account the interests and demands of the US (and KSA). 

That, in my mind, is the most likely explanation, and if true, we should be seeing more Erdogan-Russain closeness, and more radical change on the ground in Syria which there has already been signs for. 

 

Some contradictions there.
The coup is even more fundamentalist than Erdogan is but the US supported it ?
Re. Russians the Turks were alway managing to get along. Starting with Catherine the Great who initially was their enemy but later appeased by the Sultan.
The Americans always wanted Turkey close to Europe. In 2006 Bush said "let them join now and forget about economic convergence and all that fancy stuff". But GE-FR objected to this.
 

[CHOULO19 24,332]

24 minutes ago, cosmicway said:

Some contradictions there.
The coup is even more fundamentalist than Erdogan is but the US supported it ?
Re. Russians the Turks were alway managing to get along. Starting with Catherine the Great who initially was their enemy but later appeased by the Sultan.
The Americans always wanted Turkey close to Europe. In 2006 Bush said "let them join now and forget about economic convergence and all that fancy stuff". But GE-FR objected to this.

Not contradictory at all if you look at the history of the region. US has inherited British policy of supporting right wing religious groups in the middle east against secular nationalists. There are exceptions, of course, but the rule generally holds true in the past 200 years or so. In this particular case there is no great difference in ideology, and I doubt the US cared.

That is true about Turkey and Russia, but the relation went sour, as I'm sure you know, when the Russians intervened in Syria then reached a post-WWII low with the infamous downing of the Russian jet by the Turkish military. They didn't see eye to eye in Syria...but they are starting to, and that leave the US out of the equation. 

[cosmicway 1,249]

1 hour ago, CHOULO19 said:

Not contradictory at all if you look at the history of the region. US has inherited British policy of supporting right wing religious groups in the middle east against secular nationalists. There are exceptions, of course, but the rule generally holds true in the past 200 years or so. In this particular case there is no great difference in ideology, and I doubt the US cared.

That is true about Turkey and Russia, but the relation went sour, as I'm sure you know, when the Russians intervened in Syria then reached a post-WWII low with the infamous downing of the Russian jet by the Turkish military. They didn't see eye to eye in Syria...but they are starting to, and that leave the US out of the equation. 

Historically GB-USA favoured whoever was friendly to them. The Sultan was not -most of the time. But Kemal gradually befriended them.
There have been many switches and turns, ups and downs.
USA backed the religious Taliban in the USSR-Afghanistan war but look what happened next.
You are aware I expect that Bin Laded was interviewed by the American press in 1990. They wrote "what a fascinating, dedicated and enterprising young person, but hey, we were a little scared with all those armed men dressed in black who were surrounding him".
So it's impossible really to go to bed with nine-eleveners ! God forbid !

It sounds to me like you are supporting this thing:
USA can't really do the business of cleaning up the middle East, Russia can do better but USA would rather let the messy situation go on than make it easy for the Russians. So in this respect they may have wanted a whatever anti-russian government in Turkey rather than the not so anti-russian any more Tayip.
It's dangerously Machiavellian and kind of farfetched (n.b. with Donald the Donald as president maybe).