World Politics

Discussion in 'Miscellaneous' started by Jacquie, Jan 28, 2010.

  1. Ducky

    Ducky Master of the Moos Moderator

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    :lol::lol:

    Now, now.
    Russians are rather.. nice neighbour. They visited our slaughterhouses and found medicine from meat that isn't even used here and banned our meat for a while :p
    And believe me, in this country you don't get away with something like that.
    Oh lots of stuff like this going on. It's fun.

    Good ol' Putin.

    Russia is complicated country. But I think I'd be more worried about someone like Belarus (I mean c'mon! In every country, after elections, those who were left to opposition, should be beaten and throw in jail!! :p )
     
  2. talkingtocactus

    talkingtocactus Coroner

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    oh, don't get me wrong, i love russia, it's a fantastic place, although politically somewhat strange (in this respect it's very similar to its old rival, the us).

    i think belarus is quite worrying at the moment but then it's not the only place on earth that throws the opposition in jail (zimbabwe? china? sri lanka? there's a pretty long list)....

    however for me the thing belarus really has to deal with is the state of the public toilets at minsk train station...
     
  3. Desertwind

    Desertwind Head of the Day Shift

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  4. talkingtocactus

    talkingtocactus Coroner

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    ^ ha, you think?
     
  5. Ducky

    Ducky Master of the Moos Moderator

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    :lol::lol::lol:

    Well obviously, since hmm let's see. They've had President who was been pretty much a dictator leading the country for 30 yrs and now people finally got strenght enough to go out and say how they feel about him.

    I wonder how many countries will go thru this now that it's finally out?
     
  6. talkingtocactus

    talkingtocactus Coroner

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    [​IMG]

    ...
     
  7. Ducky

    Ducky Master of the Moos Moderator

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    I understood the sarcasm - that's why all the laugh smileys, doh! :p

    My sayings just didn't come out in a right way, I was rather tired :p

    [and yes, even here you can add bit more content to posts]
     
  8. talkingtocactus

    talkingtocactus Coroner

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    at first i thought you had, from all the laughing smileys, but the next sentence confused me so i thought i'd make sure :D
     
  9. Ducky

    Ducky Master of the Moos Moderator

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    Yeah, I am pretty confusing :p heh, it's often when you have lots of stuff to say in your head and then it doesn't come out in sentence that would make sense.

    As for it, I don't remember have we discussed this before but what do you think about Wikileaks?

    I'm sorry but I have to laugh for it. I mean first "OMG FINLAND IS MENTIONED IN WIKILEAKS" was silly posts and had no meaning or big surprises what so ever.
    Now we've had somethng that really has risen up, our former PM but.. who knows.

    But what's the goal? Now governments etc. start to be even more careful what they type down and in the end, I don't know how the world would be more open.
     
  10. talkingtocactus

    talkingtocactus Coroner

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    oh yeah, i get that a lot :)

    um this is a difficult one for me because i'm usually all in favour of virtually 100% freedom of speech, so in principle i think good for wikileaks.

    also all this moaning from governments about it being a problem for state security is bullshit - using drones and killing civilians in a pointless war that victimises an entire religion and goes after the wrong bloody country because of oil bucks is what's bad for state security. if you don't want people to find out you've been doing those things, don't f*cking do them! the us and uk governments are both guilty of this and neither are remotely bothered by the fact that the war was illegal, that they continue to use illegal practices, that they continue to kill civilians in the pursuit of better oil links and so on, they're just pissed off that they got discovered. they're like the schoolboys who were caught smoking weed in the schoolyard, they're not sorry they did it, they won't stop doing it, they're just sorry they got caught.

    so yeah, in general i'm pretty much in favour of wikileaks.

    that said... i do take the point about the future - as leaks organisations get better and have more impact, governments will get sneakier and sneakier and that's not a good thing. all democratic governments waffle on about transparency and accountability but that really isn't what they want, they know that if they were truly transparent and accountable they would lose their jobs and reputations. governments are all devious, it's how government works, especially in the machiavelli sense (who argued that a governor/government should be separate from the moral code that ordinary people live by and able to act according to a different code) which they ALL follow, but they don't like to tell us they're doing that, they want us to think that they're acting in the best interests of the people. bollocks are they! they're acting in the best interests of the lobbyists, the huge corporations who fund them, the oil and motor barons, the banks, wall street etc. sod the ordinary people, what difference can they make anyway? so anything that makes the governments MORE devious isn't such a good thing.

    however there is one irony about this whole situation that i think is bloody wonderful: the usa, who (and i'm really talking about government here, not ordinary people) go on ALL the time about freedom of speech and how it's so important it's in the constitution and so on and so on, well here ya go america, this is freedom of speech and it's just bitten you on the arse:lol:
     
  11. Ducky

    Ducky Master of the Moos Moderator

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    ^^ Indeed. It's the same thing with religion, IMHO. They are so strong about seperating church and state and still religion has so so so much influence over the laws and all.

    So. Mubarak resigned. I was wondering if he'd kept going until next autumn, someone would have shot him. I mean, the guy has been tried to kill 6 times. This is better solution for everyone and I hope army will have elections asap so country could go on. I mean, tourists gone - it hits badly country's economy.
     
  12. talkingtocactus

    talkingtocactus Coroner

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    ^ yep. i think a secular state is essential if a nation is ever to get anywhere like progress. however the more i think about it the more i think it's almost impossible. religion has 2000+ years worth of influencing politics in the west, and getting on for 1000 in the muslim world - it's just too entrenched to change. even apparently secular laws are somehow linked to religion at some point. all the laws about equal rights for instance: without religion homophobia wouldn't be such an issue, women would've had equal rights centuries ago and racism (and certainly slavery) would never have had an excuse to get started, not to mention that it totally shapes our attitudes towards social things like mental health, alcohol, drugs, work, children, you name it, religion has interfered with and foisted an opinion on it.

    i'm beginning to think the only way we'll ever get equality in this world is to have a marxist style overthrow - not of capitalism this time (although let's face it weber was right and capitalism is pretty much exclusively rooted in protestantism), but of religion. only when we get rid of it entirely will we be able to see the world as it really is and do something useful about it.

    yep, he's gone which is great. however the army are now in control. reports suggest they told people in the demo that they wouldn't stand in their way in protesting, regardless of their orders from mubarak - whether they continue to be so lenient now they have control is debatable. we'll see.
     
  13. Desertwind

    Desertwind Head of the Day Shift

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  14. Desertwind

    Desertwind Head of the Day Shift

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  15. Desertwind

    Desertwind Head of the Day Shift

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