Turkey, positioned geopgraphically on the edge of Europe and politically inside of NATO, has been heading in a troubling direction for some time in regards to speech. Crackdowns on dissent and even open speech are increasing and Internet communications are the specific focus of some of the recent actions. Coming up is legislation intended to curb the Internet (WWW) in ways similar to how television and radio have already been limited:
Having already brought Turkey's mainstream media to heel, and made considerable headway in rolling back Turkish democracy, the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has set its sights on a seemingly innocuous target: a satellite television preacher named Adnan Oktar.
[...] "It is just about control," said Kerem Altiparmak, a human rights and media lawyer. "Considering what has been happening in Turkey, I have no doubt this is a hegemonic power, controlling newspapers, TV and the judiciary, that is now out to control the [I]nternet sector."
All the restrictions are made that much easier through increased use of and dependence on centralized services like Facebook by the remaining opposition.
Source : Erdogan's Next Target as He Restricts Turkey's Democracy: The Internet
(Score: 5, Informative) by takyon on Monday March 05 2018, @06:05PM (2 children)
Ongoing target:
Twitter Blocked in Turkey! [soylentnews.org]
As Turkey Bans Twitter, Tor Usage Skyrockets [soylentnews.org]
Youtube Blocked in Turkey after Erdogan Leaks [soylentnews.org]
Turkey Hijacking Google, Level 3, and OpenDNS [soylentnews.org]
Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and WhatsApp Shutdown in Turkey [soylentnews.org]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 05 2018, @11:47PM (1 child)
i banned Twitter and Facebook from my life. Does that make me an authoritarian despot?
(Score: 3, Touché) by maxwell demon on Tuesday March 06 2018, @07:33AM
Only if you forced it upon yourself against your will.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 05 2018, @06:18PM (1 child)
Or "regulation". To protect us from Russian hackers trying to bamboozle us or something.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 05 2018, @09:53PM
Only the censorship that the DNC approves of. Censorship the DNC doesn't approve of is a human rights violation.
Well, not really the DNC. The people controlling the DNC. The capitalist ruling class.
(Score: 2, Funny) by SparkyGSX on Monday March 05 2018, @06:31PM (45 children)
Erdogan was democratically elected. Apparently, the majority of the population likes him, so they get what they deserve. If they don't like what he does, they should elect someone else, and they shouldn't have voted to expand his power last year.
I just wish other leaders would tell him to go fuck himself next time he feels "offended" by something a journalist in a foreign country writes something he doesn't like.
If you do what you did, you'll get what you got
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 05 2018, @06:47PM (26 children)
Hitler was elected too, you know.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Monday March 05 2018, @07:28PM (16 children)
Yep, and this wasn't really a problem for anyone else until he invaded Poland. The problem was when leaders of other nations turned into spineless losers, and it's the same here. Let the Turks get the government they deserve and that they voted for, but don't let this expand outside the country's borders.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday March 05 2018, @07:48PM
I should also add that it's not a bad idea to intervene militarily if some minority population is being harmed. But here again, other nations need to grow a spine.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by canopic jug on Monday March 05 2018, @08:19PM
but don't let this expand outside the country's borders.
That ship has long since sailed.
Afrin [bbc.com] is just one of several incidents where Turkey has already spilled over its borders, also in this century. Yet again it appears to be ethnic cleansing [nytimes.com].
A far as the human traffickers [cnn.com] go, Turkey has allowed them to operate with impunity and sending wave after wave into international waters to either drown or be picked up [spectator.co.uk] by European countries. Yet, the threat to open the land routes into Europe [independent.co.uk] are being made, too.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: 3, Informative) by PartTimeZombie on Monday March 05 2018, @08:22PM (8 children)
Apart from anybody the Nazis didn't like of course. [wikipedia.org] If you take the time to look at the Wiki article, you will note Dachau was opened in 1933, pretty much as soon as the Nazis won power.
If they accused someone of a crime, the Special Courts [wikipedia.org] made sure a conviction was obtained.
Let's not pretend the Nazis were the good guys until they invaded Poland OK?
Your point about Western leaders failing to hold Erdogan to account is a good one though. The problem is he has been until now a reliable ally of the US (in particular) so has been allowed to get away with whatever he wants.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday March 05 2018, @08:31PM (7 children)
I did mention oppression of minority groups in my follow-on post, which I would have put in the post you replied to if this site had a proper "edit" functionality (i.e., I should be able to edit a post within 30 seconds of posting it; I realized my omission within 5 seconds on this one).
As for them being "good guys", I never said that, just that the people of Germany were getting what they voted for. Remember, every nation gets the government it deserves. A bad government in a nation is a direct effect of bad choices by the people of that nation in almost every instance (exceptions for things like invasions and occupations of course).
(Score: 3, Interesting) by PartTimeZombie on Monday March 05 2018, @10:15PM (2 children)
Fair enough.
I am not sure I'm convinced by the whole "people get the government they deserve" argument though, propaganda being as pervasive as it is.
I recently argued with someone online about the awful propaganda TV commercials the largest company in my country is playing at the moment, but he just thought it was a perfectly normal "PR campaign", as if there is a difference.
As far as the Nazis go, they received 30% or so of the vote in the 1933 elections, then used violence, intimidation and bribery to gain total power, so maybe 30% of Germans got what they deserved, the rest got what they were given.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday March 06 2018, @01:34AM (1 child)
When some minority group uses violence to gain total power, it's the responsibility of the other people to use violence if necessary to prevent this or take it back.
The problem with people who disagree with the "people get the government they deserve" quote is that they never really have another answer to it. If the people of a nation aren't to blame for its government, or responsible for it, then who is? (Again, barring extreme situations like occupation by a foreign power with superior strength; e.g., if the US decides to invade and occupy St. Kitts and Nevis (population 46,000) and set up a new government there, there's not much those people can do about it, and they certainly can't be blamed for it.)
(Score: 2) by dry on Wednesday March 07 2018, @04:44AM
People can be mistaken, vote in a total bullshitter and then figure it out. Unluckily it usually takes about 4 years before you can vote them out, if your lucky and get the chance. The worst won't give the people a chance to vote them out or remove them in other ways, at least easily.
Many countries also have some basic laws written out as a Constitution that takes more then 50%+1 of the people who voted to change. Other countries can see their basic rights disappear really quick.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Tuesday March 06 2018, @05:56AM (3 children)
Or, you could read what you have written, think about it, and pause before pressing the enter key. Just sayin'.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Tuesday March 06 2018, @07:37AM (1 child)
What's the point in pausing before you start a new line?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Tuesday March 06 2018, @01:50PM
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday March 06 2018, @05:31PM
Do you refuse to edit anything you ever write, even though you're on a computer? Perhaps you should apply that logic to everything you do on a computer: once written, you can never change it. If you write some code and it has a bug, you're not allowed to use an editor to modify the code, you just have to live with it.
The whole reason computers (and "word processors" - specialized computers) took over from typewriters back in the 80s was because it was easy to edit documents. Are you saying this is a mistake?
Maybe you should disable the "back" button on your phone too while you're at it, and disable the backspace key on your keyboard.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Monday March 05 2018, @11:52PM (3 children)
Well, except for the foreigners, the gays, the Jews, the communists and anyone else he either didn't like or wanted to scapegoat who lived in Germany.
Prison, executions, beatings, confiscation of property, legalized discrimination, forced relocations, etc., don't count as "problems" for you?
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday March 06 2018, @01:18AM (2 children)
Did you not read my follow-on reply to that? I don't know how many times I have to bitch about this around here, but if this site would let me edit my posts, we wouldn't have this problem.
Anyway, prison, executions, beatings, etc. are generally internal problems. Do you think they're something a country should be invaded over? If so, then you must necessarily believe the US, China, and Russia should all be invaded, and I don't know who's going to take on that task. You can't force a country to treat its people well without resorting to extreme tactics usually, which normally are only done when things are really completely out of hand, and I can't think of many times when this was actually done. The world didn't do anything about the Nazi death camps until the Nazis forced them to by invading a bunch of countries including Russia; the world didn't do anything at all about the genocide in Rwanda; NATO dropped some bombs during the Balkans War but didn't commit any ground troops; the world didn't do anything about Saddam gassing Kurds and/or Shias; really, when has anyone done anything really significant about another country brutalizing its own people, other than holding some trials after all the damage is done? And how about Turkey today? They've disappeared tons of people and turned into a dictatorship, yet Europe is happy to be allied with them and NATO keeps them as a full member. What exactly do you think should be done there? And what about Myanmar? There's genocide going on there too; should we be invading?
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Tuesday March 06 2018, @01:51AM
No. I didn't see it until after I posted this comment. I also didn't see the other poster's (who made essentially the same comment I did) comment until after I finished mine.
I wasn't trying to beat a dead horse, it was just poor timing. If that happens again (at least with me), I won't be offended if you just ignore me.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Tuesday March 06 2018, @01:59AM
I didn't say that I thought Germany (or anyone else) should be invaded for that sort of thing, although certainly there should be harsh words, perhaps embargoes/sanctions and other diplomatic pressure from those with a conscience.
But you explicitly said that there were "no problems" before the invasion of Poland. Leaving Czechoslovakia aside, I'd say that those were definitely problems. Are you of the opinion that whatever a government does to its citizens is just fine? Or were you just imprecise?
If not, can I assume your response to hearing about that sort of thing would be something like "Boy howdy! That's great! How many did you kill this week? Good for you!"?
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday March 06 2018, @08:49AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 05 2018, @07:41PM (1 child)
No he wasn't, read a book.
(Score: 3, Informative) by pTamok on Monday March 05 2018, @09:19PM
Well, it depends. Hitler was the leader of the largest party in the Reichstag after the elections of 31st July 1932. The NSDAP were allocated 230 out of 608 seats. It's worthwhile reading the Wikipedia paragraph relating the rise to power of he Nazis - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_Party#Rise_to_power:_1925%E2%80%931933 [wikipedia.org] for a quick overview, and also the timeline: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_timeline_of_Nazism#Weimar_Republic. [wikipedia.org] Key points include the Reichstag Fire decree [wikipedia.org], of dubious constitutionality, and similarly, the passing of the Enabling Act [wikipedia.org].
It is not hard to draw parallels with the rise of authoritarian right-wing political groups that have good media skills (or at least, successfully control the media) currently. Whether one would be correct to do so is another question. It is also remarkably convenient to use extraordinary events to arrogate emergency powers. Some might argue that the Gulenist coup attempt [wikipedia.org] was one such event, and certainly, one result of it was the declaration of a state of emergency [wikipedia.org] where 'Under the state of emergency, under Article 121, "the Council of Ministers, meeting under the chairpersonship of the President of the Republic, may issue decrees having the force of law on matters necessitated by the state of emergency..." with decrees subject to subsequent parliamentary approval.'.
Hitler's NSDAP was electorally very successful. That success was twisted in constitutionally dubious ways to enable Hitler to gain absolute power, but that could not have been done without the large base of support the NSDAP had.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 05 2018, @08:34PM (5 children)
No, Hindenburg was elected. Hitler abolished the office of the Presidency, combined it with Chancellor, and made himself Fuhrer. He never won an election, but that hasn't stopped armchair historians from claiming he did every time they want to invalidate one.
(Score: 3, Informative) by pTamok on Monday March 05 2018, @10:19PM (4 children)
In April 1932, Hindenburg beat Hitler in elections for the Presidency (Hindenburg 53%, Hitler 36.8%, and a Communist candidate 10.2% of the vote)
In July 1933, Hitler's party, the NSDAP, won 230 out of 608 seats in the Reichstag. The second largest party was the Social Democratic Party, with 133 seats, followed by the Communists with 89, the Centre Party with 75, and the German National People's Party with 37 seats. It was impossible to form a stable governing coalition with a majority of seats. A new election was called in November, where the NSDAP still were the largest party (but with fewer seats - NSDAP 196, Social Democrats 121, Communists 100, Centre Party 70, German National People Party 51). As no coalition could be formed with a majority of the seats, eventually Hindenburg invited Hitler to form a cabinet in a minority government, which was done in January 1933. It was likely the leader of the Centre Party, Franz von Papen's [wikipedia.org] influence on Hindenburg that convinced Hindenburg that Hitler could be an acceptable Chancellor.
Once Hitler was Chancellor, he made use of the Reichstag Fire to start concentrating power to himself, and the rest, as they say is history. The Wikipedia article on von Papen is well worth a read - effectively von Papen convinced Hindenburg to appoint Hitler as Chancellor of a minority government as he (von Papen) believed he had an agreement with Hitler and could control him.
One can argue that if von Papen had not been a 'useful idiot', Hitler would have found another way to achieve power, but certainly, as history played out, von Papen's influence, for good or ill, helped Hitler greatly.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 05 2018, @11:05PM (3 children)
Make whatever argument you want about the conditions which led to Hitler's rise, I'm not arguing that the events didn't surround an election or even that Hitler's performance in the election didn't lead to his appointment as chancellor, but saying "Hitler was democratically elected" is false. Hitler wasn't anything elected. Hitler lost the 1932 election, he was APPOINTED Chancellor, and he DECLARED HIMSELF Fuhrer.
Say he was popular if you want, that's true; calling him a democratically elected leader is a lie.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 06 2018, @08:11AM
So like Trump, who LOST an election by popular vote and was then APPOINTED by the Electoral College. Then he is praising dictators and soon wants to declare himself as Emperor of America (or at least President for Life). something like that?
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday March 06 2018, @08:59AM (1 child)
Just because you've only ever encountered majority as a decision criterion doesn't mean that plurality doesn't exist. (And as many coallitions prove, the majority provided by the coallition is effectively just leverage of a plurality position.)
Hindenberg did have the power to veto this, that's all. And given the trend in the results of the two elections, he should have done.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 06 2018, @09:15PM
Hitler was not elected Chancellor. Hitler was appointed Chancellor by the President, who WAS elected, in response to Hitler's performance in the election which he lost.
You are grasping at straws to justify a factually incorrect application of Godwin's Law. The Chancellor is not an elected office. Hitler was not elected.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 06 2018, @03:43AM
That is a common myth. Yes, initially he was gaining votes, but he was not ellected into an office. His votes began to fall and the social democrats and communists where gaining in his place, which made the German conservatives buttmad so they made a pact with little Adolf to install him as the chancellor to get rid of the riff raff.
(Score: -1, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 05 2018, @06:50PM (7 children)
Under capitalism, people could voluntarily interact in such a way that a strong man such as Erdogan rises to power over society—that is, such a man gains the right to allocate a great deal of society's wealth (for instance, Jeff Bezos is such a man, but on a smaller scale). Of course, if such a man begins making poor decisions for society's resources, he will lose his ability to make such decisions over society's wealth (that is, he will lose his purchasing power, property, etc.), and he will thus either fix his errant ways or go bankrupt.
The problem with Democracy is that morons are readily catapulted up to the lofty driver's seat of a massive, coercive machine that can be steered into steamrolling everyone in its path; capitalism, in contrast, requires people to continually prove their worth as drivers of said machine, and competition within a market implies that there probably won't ever be one powerful driver, anyway.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 05 2018, @07:00PM (5 children)
This is what amerilards actually believe.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 05 2018, @07:10PM (3 children)
America has a very strong centralized government, which is supposedly a union of other centralized governments, each of which is staffed according the principles of a representative democracy, which (as implied already) is a philosophy of societal organization that has is anti-capitalism in nature.
Americans love coercion, but they also love individual freedom.
This marriage of contradiction has given birth to America.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 05 2018, @08:25PM (2 children)
I believe your post is accurate, your title is not. Many morons really do believe in the capitalist "strong man" approach, that is what gave us Trump (along with a few other reasons) and we're seeing what a "master" of capitalism is really like in the White House.
Rising to the top in a capitalist system absolutely does NOT make someone the strongest and smartest. As a previous article pointed out a majority of wealthy people get there by luck and not merit, though there is usually a mix of both or else we'd probably have a muddy pig for president.. oh.. right. Usually merit is a trait of successful people, usually.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 05 2018, @10:27PM (1 child)
Government is inherently anti-capitalism; this includes the American government.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 06 2018, @02:14AM
And anarcho-capitalists like you are inherently idiots with little grasp of reality and none of history.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 06 2018, @03:31AM
There. FTFY.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by unauthorized on Tuesday March 06 2018, @08:09AM
So, when will GoG overtake Steam with their vastly superior stance on consumer rights?
Oh that's right never, because people don't work the way your insane pipe dream presumes they do. In reality, most people generally favor the path of least resistance even if you clearly demonstrate the long-term disadvantages of doing so.
Incorrect. Anarcho-capitalism only requires that you beat the competition, which can easily be accomplished through malpractices such as controlling public perception and stiffing competition.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bradley13 on Monday March 05 2018, @06:51PM (6 children)
"Erdogan was democratically elected."
Perhaps. But remember what Stalin said: "It's not the people who vote that count, it's the people who count the votes." Given the levels of violence and intimidation against anyone who disagrees with him, Erdogan's election may be exactly as legitimate as Putin's.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 2) by Subsentient on Monday March 05 2018, @06:58PM (5 children)
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Arik on Monday March 05 2018, @08:16PM
I suspect your thoughts are fatally flawed in that respect. A longer, more intricate, Constitution would not be more effective at restraining the government - to the contrary, it's likely to be less effective. The more complicated something is the easier it is to play games with it.
A good consitution would be as simple as possible, but no simpler.
I don't think the US Constitution is perfect but it seems to be in the right ballpark there.
Which is why it's taken so long for some of the basic guarantees to be eroded by practice. For the most part, the provisions are simple enough that you don't need a team of lawyers to understand them, which has helped to give them practical force.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by PartTimeZombie on Monday March 05 2018, @08:49PM (3 children)
Plenty of democracies have no written constitution at all, I live in one.
This has the benefit of giving us flexibility in how we are governed. It has also given rise to a system where political parties have no formal place in our system either, ensuring that we haven't wound up with only two parties.
When our voting system was deemed to be no longer fit for purpose, we changed it, holding a national referendum to decide on which new system we wanted.
Written constitutions are not entirely a good thing.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 05 2018, @09:14PM (2 children)
You think that the two party system was written into the US constitution?
No.
The rules in the constitution just lead to that inevitable result.
We could also hold a referendum to change the way voting is done (adding an amendment), but it wont happen because those in power like being in power.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Grishnakh on Tuesday March 06 2018, @01:23AM (1 child)
There's places in the US where there already are other election systems in place, for local elections mainly. The crazy Electoral College system is part of the Constitution and can only be changed with an Amendment ratified by State legislatures (not a referendum), but as I understand it, even this does NOT require first-past-the-post voting for the Electors, only for the actual Electoral College vote itself. (Again, as I understand it) if the States wanted to use Condorcet voting, for instance, to decide which candidate to choose to award their Electoral votes to, there's nothing stopping them, except perhaps passing a state law; the States are free to choose their electors however they want. Obviously, that's not quite the same as having a full nationwide Presidential election with every American having an equal vote, but it would still be rather different from how things are right now. As you said, it won't happen because those in power like being in power, not because it's legislatively that hard to do.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday March 06 2018, @09:09AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 05 2018, @07:34PM
You tend to get a bit of a boost in your election if you jail dissenters and journalists. If not a boost, it at least helps with getting your message out.
(Score: 2) by quacking duck on Monday March 05 2018, @09:33PM (1 child)
That is a huge assumption. It isn't true for democracies with more than two major political parties, like Canada, where it's very common that a party wins the majority of seats with between 30-40% of the vote.
Hell, it isn't even true for the USA, where Trump lost the popular vote by almost 3 million votes compared to Clinton yet still became president.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 06 2018, @08:19AM
I think you should familiarize yourself with Presidential elections in Tourkey before talking out of your ass.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_presidential_election,_2014 [wikipedia.org]
Incumbent Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was elected outright with an absolute majority of the vote in the first round, making a scheduled run-off for 24 August unnecessary.
So it's not remotely like in Canada. There is the first round and then the top 2 candidates are in a run-off unless one wins by majority in first round. So yes, in Turkey they get what they deserve. Just like in Venezuela and elsewhere where they elect populists.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Subsentient on Monday March 05 2018, @06:55PM (2 children)
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 05 2018, @08:20PM
So next move will be Merkel getting engaged to him, seeing as she loves selling out Europe.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 06 2018, @06:27PM
You have such strong sentiment why?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by archfeld on Monday March 05 2018, @07:42PM (11 children)
Isn't it about time that we in the so-called west stop supporting the lowest common denominator and start demanding more from our leaders, stop fomenting rebellion to tear down those we oppose and start devoting our time, energy and money to supporting that and those whose ideals we support. Why do we spend more arming radicals that oppose everything we stand for rather than feeding and educating our own and those places that want and need the same. I guess that sort of thing has never actually existed in the history of the world, but there can always be a first...
https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/johnlennon/imagine.html [azlyrics.com]
For the NSA : Explosives, guns, assassination, conspiracy, primers, detonators, initiators, main charge, nuclear charge
(Score: 3, Touché) by takyon on Monday March 05 2018, @07:59PM (10 children)
Isn't it about time we eliminate all religions, national borders, property rights, and hunger? Just be excellent to each other, and party on, dudes. You may say I'm a dreamer, but there can always be a first...
https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/johnlennon/imagine.html [azlyrics.com]
Also I want my universal basic income to come with a separate LSD stipend.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Grishnakh on Monday March 05 2018, @08:36PM (3 children)
I don't think he was advocating eliminating national borders and property rights at all, but instead having a country's government worry first about its own people (eliminating hunger for instance) and not arming rebel groups just because we don't like the people they're rebelling against, and instead only helping and allying with people who we really do share common values. I feel like a Trumpist for saying this, but it does make sense to me. Some say we need to have "strange bedfellows" because of "realpolitik", but we tried that with Afghanistan and Iraq in the 80s and look where it got us. If we're going to help anyone in the mideast, it really seems like the Kurds are the best ones, with values closest to our own (relatively secular, interested in western-style democracy, etc.).
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday March 05 2018, @09:10PM
Yeah I was mostly going by the linked song lyrics.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Tuesday March 06 2018, @12:07AM
Sorry Grishnakh, but I *like* that song, and know the lyrics:
"Imagine there's no countries It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for And no religion, too
Imagine all the people living life in peace"
"Imagine no possessions, I wonder if you can.
No need for greed or hunger, a brotherhood of man.
Imagine all the people, sharing all the world"
What's more, John Lennon himself said [wikipedia.org]:
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 06 2018, @08:28AM
Except Turkey is like to kill Kurds and support Jihadists. Like Pakistan, for example, which also likes to sponsor Taliban and related idiots.
This is not "realpolitik". This is *reality*. US once tended to at least put a veneer of "human rights" in what it did. But now, you have Trump praising dictators instead and wanting to break up EU because it's too powerful and can't be swept under the rug. With dictators, you can sway them by just talking to them. With institutions like EU, you have to have "rules" and "regulations" which actually don't like dictators.
As for Afghanistan and Iraq? Is that it? How about Saudi Arabia? Panama, Chile, Guatemala? Heck, rest of South America. How about Iran? How about Vietnam? Cambodia? Israel? The list is loooong. And US has its fingers everywhere.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday March 05 2018, @11:14PM (4 children)
Who spoke of LSD? As per the thread title, you can only dream of LCD-s.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by insanumingenium on Tuesday March 06 2018, @12:47AM (3 children)
Isn't that what we are doing on here? Dreaming while staring at LCDs?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 06 2018, @01:04AM
Are you sure he's not dreaming about starring as an LCD in some drama?
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday March 06 2018, @01:27AM (1 child)
Not everyone: some people might be staring at AMOLEDs.
And who knows, there could be some old codger staring at a CRT.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday March 06 2018, @07:42AM
Yeah, the amber ones where gorgeous. I could stare at the blinking caret for ages.
Too bad they replaced them with the green phosphorus ones.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Informative) by archfeld on Tuesday March 06 2018, @06:32PM
If I could have a UBI, I'd probably go into business growing awesome pot and puttering about with mushrooms. LSD was always too persistent for my tastes. This corporate IT shit has really grown stale. A boss looking for just the bare minimum in operability and the merest attempt at security really chaps my hide.
For the NSA : Explosives, guns, assassination, conspiracy, primers, detonators, initiators, main charge, nuclear charge
(Score: 1) by kanweg on Tuesday March 06 2018, @04:47PM
I'd consider Adnan Oktar an unlikely target for Erdogan (but then, he has fallen apart with other religious bedfellows before, in particular Gulen).
Adnan Oktar (born 2 February 1956), also known as Harun Yahya, is a Turkish author as well as an Islamic creationist. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adnan_Oktar). He is the lying nutcase that produced a book to demonstrate that evolution isn't real. He backed it up with lies, which included a photo of a fossil and a fly that looked the same. However, the latter was a fly fish bait, with the hook still visible.
http://hoaxes.org/weblog/permalink/the_fishing_lures_of_faith/ [hoaxes.org]
He removed the example from later editions of his book.
....