the dynamite politics thread

[GONE Ridin' Hood]

Wow, what a fucking mess happened!

I was a bit nervous because my cousin was coming from Europe when all the mess with the airplanes happened, but luckily he arrived safa and sound.

NO offense to Hyena, I understand how ye feel I feel that way too, but you always have to doubt everything you read. Hence I wonder if there was any real threat..., I really don't know waht to think.

 

[Vizjaqtaar]

There is no evidence atm it seems, I could only read that there was a possibility of an attack possibly with liquid explosive and that they hold possible attackers captive. Perhaps they really prevented ''mass murder on an unimaginable scale'', or it could be once again only propaganda to making people feel afraid. Well, from the official statements and news it looks like USA and UK are one of the most dangerous countries in the world.

 

[hyena]

@lbrh: i'm not offended in the slightest, but i find it quite weird to even imagine that this is a set up. first of all, it is not clear who should benefit from it (the met? tony blair? the secret club of evil people who want to deprive us of the essential freedom to listen to mp3 players on a plane?). normally, people who conspire to spread false news on terror plots make up these mad schemes in order to frighten people into supporting dictatorships, but it just happens that (surprise!) the scene of these particular crimes is always a country that has no such tradition and where people do not rally to strongmen in time of need. i understand that the islamist propaganda now can only rely on 'there is no evidence', but what do they, you and me know about it? if you mean 'there was no attack', yes, but i'd rather have no attacks if possible, as a general rule. if you mean 'the police had nothing on them', i repeat: what do we know? in general, we tend to believe that the police, at least in liberal democracies, arrests people based on substantial evidence. right now, some people do not believe that out of purely political reasons. but really, let's try to be rational - imagine if i came up saying that the italian police had the wrong man when they took in mafia don bernardo provenzano, because really, they just were following tips and leads telling them he was a mafioso while he probably is a fundamentally honest man. come on.

 

[Vizjaqtaar]

The current government in USA and UK don't act on substantial evidence, as was obviously shown many times in the past few years, that's why I question every word and action taken by them. It also looks like we have a different interpretantion of the reality, for me the British and Americans do rally to the strong who spread fear, Bush and his suordinate Blair were both reelected in 2004/05 - most of them say they're unhappy with their policy but still they vote for them.

Eh, global terrorism and radical muslims (shiny words ) aren't of any importance in Slovenia so I'll just enjoy life in my country where there's more freedom than in the land of the free.

 

[GONE Ridin' Hood]

@ Hyena: True, I cannot actually think of a reason why "people" 'd fake such a thing, no one wins actually. It just encourages people to fly less, and I guess everyone looses that way.

Did you notice that British Airways's values on the stock market decreased like 6% ? Amazing... .

But then again, I agree with Vizjaqtaar , the US and British governments are really not to be trust.

 

[hyena]

It also looks like we have a different interpretantion of the reality, for me the British and Americans do rally to the strong who spread fear, Bush and his suordinate Blair were both reelected in 2004/05 - most of them say they're unhappy with their policy but still they vote for them.

I was meaning something a little more exact. You might disapprove of Bush and Blair, but you cannot really label them dictators: the USA and UK are democracies through and through, although of course there might be some imperfection now and anytime. what i mean is, for example, that the judiciary branch is still separate from the executive branch, the habeas corpus is still in place, all citizens still have the right to vote etc., and it's been like that for a good while. in both countries, times of trouble have never translated into the ascent of a dictator, who would suspend rights, do away with democracy etc, the way people like hitler or mussolini or franco or salazar or the greek colonels did. many western countries have one form or the other of proper dictatorship in their recent past; not the anglo-saxon ones, remarkably.

 

[Taliesin]

I was meaning something a little more exact. You might disapprove of Bush and Blair, but you cannot really label them dictators: the USA and UK are democracies through and through, although of course there might be some imperfection now and anytime. what i mean is, for example, that the judiciary branch is still separate from the executive branch, the habeas corpus is still in place, all citizens still have the right to vote etc., and it's been like that for a good while. in both countries, times of trouble have never translated into the ascent of a dictator, who would suspend rights, do away with democracy etc, the way people like hitler or mussolini or franco or salazar or the greek colonels did. many western countries have one form or the other of proper dictatorship in their recent past; not the anglo-saxon ones, remarkably.

Well, Im not saying Bush is a dictator in the classic sense, but calling the US a "democracy, through and through" goes a tad far, no?
First of all, their system of election with the elected represntatives for each state is as outdated as it gets. IMHO, in a voting system, where no one rigs anything and the candidate with most votes still doesnt win, there is something gravely amiss.
No rights suspended, democracy done away with? Does the Patriot Act ring a bell? Guantanamo? Are those signs of a working democracy I ask you?

This debate has been led a hundred times, I trust you know how it goes on.
Maybe the fact that neither the US or the UK have ever had a real dictator plays a more significant role than we thought? Maybe the stain on your past is a good guideline to remind you where you dont want to end up again, a good negative example to compare your politicians with. The lack of a past like this could make a people less aware of the dangers I think and less aware of the missteps of their leaders

 

[Rincewind]

if rincewind ever deigns to come back on the forum, i might even succeed in getting a croatian's impression

Here you go, sorry for big delay:

- Turbofolk scene / Severina : Turbofolk scene here exist and is pretty strong, actually. Now, people here still mostly listen to Serbian turbofolk scene, but almost all of our so called pop - commercial scene is also turbofolk, no matter the fact that people here refuse to call it like that. Decreasing in music is really awful, at this point I don't think I can name one „famous“ artist / bend whose songs is worth listening to in this country ( of course, unless you want to make fun of it, then there's PLENTY of material ).
Also, what came here with increasing of turbofolk listeners are bar fights / killings ( maybe this sounds like putting turbofolk listeners in violant and stupid genre, but there is pure fact that in bars where that type of music is listened, violence is much more common thing, not to mention really old and conservative view on the world ) and more and more places where nobody sane wants to come near. I'm not saying these things weren't here before, but in last couple of years there is huge percentage of them opening on every corner.
I don't think it is connected with worshipping Serbia or „good old Yugoslavian days“, at least not here, it is more connected with state of people who just don't care anymore for finding something intelectual in music they listen to, and listening to something just because it's popular.
Also, there is image: half naked women are a good view to any male being whose brain activity stopped when he was in junior school ( and here they are in BIG majority ) and whose only goal is to get out, get drunk, dance a little „the dance of mating“ and if he's lucky enough, get laid with the sounds of turbofolk in his expensive car.
Female listeners: Most of them just listen to it because it's the music that plays in all discos around, it has a dancing beat on which they can show all their „skills“ and catch a lucky male above. Others, well, just have bad taste in music.
- Severina's porn movie: That was a huge theme here...Story is: Poor innocent girl ( aka Severina ) made a home porn movie with her lover and „accidentally“ gave her computer on repair without deleting it. Of course, the guy who was repairing it didn't think twice about making it public. There was even more fuss about it all because her lover was married businessman. Anyway, sad but it helped her get even more famous and become one of top 5 most payed artist in Croatia. Also, it showed how good catholic people in this country are cynical: Just one of the events - One day the whole goverment ( and I'm not overreacting ) canceled their meeting and watched that movie instead ...and all that was showed on national TV. Makes me really proud to live here
About using turbofolk in war as a propaganda: Maybe in Serbia, could check that at my friend from Serbia.
As my knowledge goes about lyrics, they are not connected to Serbian nationalism, but music does have some of Serbian traditional music.
Ceca was / is most popular turbofolk artist, even here. Of course, lot of her publicity came because of her husband. I don't know about canceling Rolling Stones because of her, but I remember that two - three years ago she was invited to be a guest here in one talkshow. It was canceled because somebody called the TV few days before and threatened to drop a bomb on it if she comes. It was a big fuss, there was a lot of talk about democracy and TV rights to host whoever they want, but in the end the fear overcame, what was a surprise because she is listened here in almost every disco, and there were many serbian artists before who held turbofolk concerts here with no problems. But then again, none of them was married to Arkan.

- About war: Serbia was always trying to get other countries from Yugoslavia under their command. Case with Croatia goes way back in history, although during Tito's regime he tried to keep it more or less equal, but everything major was in Serbia, Serbian language was official, all big goverment things were in Beograd, etc...
It is true that all started because Croatia wasn't satisfied with that state, especially after Tito's death and when Milošević came to rule, it was just the matter of time because he showed openly what he thinks who is the country that should rule all others ( there's a term here that is used from way back - „Velika Srbija“ ( Big Serbia ) - by serbian politicians who always considered that all these parts should be part of Serbia.
What I know for sure is that our president during the war was just as awful as Milošević, he actually had many secret agreements with Milošević ( about dividing Bosnia and Herzegovina, also few months ago some secret documents about one of the biggest operation for freeing Croatia - Oluja ( Storm ) - were revealed and it was shown that all Serbs from places that should've been attacked and freed in that operation were notified before the operation itself, so they could safely go to Serbia. So much about secret operation ) and led this country into bancrupt by selling almost all of it and closing all big factories. Today politicians still try to solve all problems he opened here, but only thing in which they suceed is to make it worse.

- Religion: It is very popular here, more than 90 % people in Croatia are catholics, but in last few years the church influence is decreasing slowly, although church still interfeirs????? in everything, including politics ( they even made a big thing when Marilyn Manson's concert was announced and tried to force goverment to cancel it, but they didn't suceed ).
Before the war, catholicism was more or less forbidden, a lot of people were send to jails because of their religion. Also, nobody could say anything against Tito or his politics, whoever complained openly was „re-educated“ in jail, although his dictatorship is still regarded as one of the least bad ones.
Orthodox - catholic rivalry was in fact politics, one more thing that was different and therefor „dangerous“ and hated, more than anything connected to religion. It was just another point to justify the war.
I think you mentioned also serbian habbit of cutting two fingers on catholic croats - that is true, there were a lot of those cases and much more awful ones, like slaughtering whole villages of civilians, forcing kids to kill their families, torchering, etc...awful as any other war.

Anyway, that's all I can think of now, I hope something here was of help.

 

[hyena]

@rincewind: thank you very much, it was very informative, and it was nice to get a perspective from croatia.

 

[La Rocque]

Not my words but they speak for me ...

The man who sees absolutes, where all other men see nuances and shades of meaning, is either a prophet, or a quack. Donald H. Rumsfeld is not a prophet. Mr. Rumsfeld’s remarkable speech to the American Legion yesterday demands the deep analysis—and the sober contemplation—of every American.
For it did not merely serve to impugn the morality or intelligence -- indeed, the loyalty -- of the majority of Americans who oppose the transient occupants of the highest offices in the land. Worse, still, it credits those same transient occupants -- our employees -- with a total omniscience; a total omniscience which neither common sense, nor this administration’s track record at home or abroad, suggests they deserve.
Dissent and disagreement with government is the life’s blood of human freedom; and not merely because it is the first roadblock against the kind of tyranny the men Mr. Rumsfeld likes to think of as “his” troops still fight, this very evening, in Iraq.
It is also essential. Because just every once in awhile it is right and the power to which it speaks, is wrong.
In a small irony, however, Mr. Rumsfeld’s speechwriter was adroit in invoking the memory of the appeasement of the Nazis. For in their time, there was another government faced with true peril—with a growing evil—powerful and remorseless.
That government, like Mr. Rumsfeld’s, had a monopoly on all the facts. It, too, had the “secret information.” It alone had the true picture of the threat. It too dismissed and insulted its critics in terms like Mr. Rumsfeld’s -- questioning their intellect and their morality.
That government was England’s, in the 1930’s.
It knew Hitler posed no true threat to Europe, let alone England.
It knew Germany was not re-arming, in violation of all treaties and accords.
It knew that the hard evidence it received, which contradicted its own policies, its own conclusions — its own omniscience -- needed to be dismissed.
The English government of Neville Chamberlain already knew the truth.
Most relevant of all — it “knew” that its staunchest critics needed to be marginalized and isolated. In fact, it portrayed the foremost of them as a blood-thirsty war-monger who was, if not truly senile, at best morally or intellectually confused.
That critic’s name was Winston Churchill.
Sadly, we have no Winston Churchills evident among us this evening. We have only Donald Rumsfelds, demonizing disagreement, the way Neville Chamberlain demonized Winston Churchill.
History — and 163 million pounds of Luftwaffe bombs over England — have taught us that all Mr. Chamberlain had was his certainty — and his own confusion. A confusion that suggested that the office can not only make the man, but that the office can also make the facts.
Thus, did Mr. Rumsfeld make an apt historical analogy.
Excepting the fact, that he has the battery plugged in backwards.
His government, absolute -- and exclusive -- in its knowledge, is not the modern version of the one which stood up to the Nazis.
It is the modern version of the government of Neville Chamberlain.
But back to today’s Omniscient ones.
That, about which Mr. Rumsfeld is confused is simply this: This is a Democracy. Still. Sometimes just barely.
And, as such, all voices count -- not just his.
Had he or his president perhaps proven any of their prior claims of omniscience — about Osama Bin Laden’s plans five years ago, about Saddam Hussein’s weapons four years ago, about Hurricane Katrina’s impact one year ago — we all might be able to swallow hard, and accept their “omniscience” as a bearable, even useful recipe, of fact, plus ego.
But, to date, this government has proved little besides its own arrogance, and its own hubris.
Mr. Rumsfeld is also personally confused, morally or intellectually, about his own standing in this matter. From Iraq to Katrina, to the entire “Fog of Fear” which continues to envelop this nation, he, Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney, and their cronies have — inadvertently or intentionally — profited and benefited, both personally, and politically.
And yet he can stand up, in public, and question the morality and the intellect of those of us who dare ask just for the receipt for the Emporer’s New Clothes?
In what country was Mr. Rumsfeld raised? As a child, of whose heroism did he read? On what side of the battle for freedom did he dream one day to fight? With what country has he confused the United States of America?
The confusion we -- as its citizens— must now address, is stark and forbidding.
But variations of it have faced our forefathers, when men like Nixon and McCarthy and Curtis LeMay have darkened our skies and obscured our flag. Note -- with hope in your heart — that those earlier Americans always found their way to the light, and we can, too.
The confusion is about whether this Secretary of Defense, and this administration, are in fact now accomplishing what they claim the terrorists seek: The destruction of our freedoms, the very ones for which the same veterans Mr. Rumsfeld addressed yesterday in Salt Lake City, so valiantly fought.
And about Mr. Rumsfeld’s other main assertion, that this country faces a “new type of fascism.”
As he was correct to remind us how a government that knew everything could get everything wrong, so too was he right when he said that -- though probably not in the way he thought he meant it.
This country faces a new type of fascism - indeed.
I have utterly no claim to the words of the exemplary journalist Edward R. Murrow.
But never in the trial of a thousand years of writing could I come close to matching how he phrased a warning to an earlier generation of us, at a time when other politicians thought they (and they alone) knew everything, and branded those who disagreed: “confused” or “immoral.”
Thus, forgive me, for reading Murrow, in full:
“We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty,” he said, in 1954. “We must remember always that accusation is not proof, and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law".
“We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men, not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate, and to defend causes that were for the moment unpopular.”

 

[hyena]

@the US folks: how do you feel about the possibility of having hillary clinton for president?

 

[Taliesin]

Seems like the pope has caused quite the commotion in the muslim world.
Im quite disappointed because of their reaction actually, the pope was obviously trying to say that converting people with violence or generally using violence in the name of a religion or a god is immoral. The part saying that "Mohammed hasnt brought anything good to this world" was pretty clumsily done, but it was still just a quote, not the pope's own words.
This whole "We have to react as harshly as we can in order to appear as a good muslim / muslim state" is getting a little out of hand there.
Does the vatican even have a flag they can burn actually? If not, whose do they burn instead? The italian flag?

 

[hyena]

@tali: the vatican has a nice yellow-and-white flag.

what the extremist muslims are trying to do re the pope is quite disgusting, actually. i read the transcription of the speech, and my impression (before the whole outcry) was the following: the pope is giving the extremists too much leeway, not too little. that's because he sort of said that they are justified in being appalled at the western world's lack of religiosity, although ALL THE WHILE he stressed that violence is wrong, true religious sentiments are not conductive to mass destruction, and so on. there's people in my office that, following the 1st of the 2 speeches, actually complained that the pope was propping extremist muslims up, which is so demented that i wanted to cry, and now the same extremists say he sucks... well, this probably means he's right. and he never said that mohammed hasn't brought anything good.

 

[Kovenant84]

@the US folks: how do you feel about the possibility of having hillary clinton for president?

Just having her a senator for my state makes me feel like leaving the country. I say if the country elects her, we just put Bill back in and say Fuck It. I don't care what he did, he'd still be a better leader. It's the one thing he understood about politics - it's all about the bullshit face time, and man, can he play that game.

And I guarantee she's gonna run. He was the speaker at our graduation, and he basically said as much. It made me sad...

~kov.

 

[hyena]

Just having her a senator for my state makes me feel like leaving the country. I say if the country elects her, we just put Bill back in and say Fuck It. I don't care what he did, he'd still be a better leader. It's the one thing he understood about politics - it's all about the bullshit face time, and man, can he play that game.

And I guarantee she's gonna run. He was the speaker at our graduation, and he basically said as much. It made me sad...

~kov.

what are your reasons for not liking her?
(mind you, i am in total agreement, but i guess we might have different motives so i'm very curious)

 

[plintus]

@the US folks: how do you feel about the possibility of having hillary clinton for president?

I really couldn't care less (I can't vote yet anyway).

 

[Kovenant84]

I really couldn't care less (I can't vote yet anyway).

Out of curiousity, why is that? (the voting thingie)

I'll spell out my problems with her later (mostly stemming from her total ineffectiveness as a politician and a severe case of 'talking out her ass').

~kov.

 

[plintus]

Out of curiousity, why is that? (the voting thingie)

I'm not a citizen yet. As of coming from New Jersey (in another thread) - that's where I started a few years ago

 

[GONE Ridin' Hood]

I'm not a citizen yet. As of coming from New Jersey (in another thread) - that's where I started a few years ago

I still don't get why you can't vote... .

 

[Taliesin]

He probably hasnt lived in the US long enough to become a US citizen