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Although this thread does not function under the same strict guidelines as the USPMT, it is still a general practice on TL to provide a source with an explanation on why it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion. Failure to do so will result in a mod action. |
On March 14 2017 06:51 Velr wrote:
Bankers are just a economic field that made too much money too fast.
Result? Even low and midtier employees earn more than in any other field, way more, while doing the same stuff. So they lose any connection to actual money while being the experts on "money" at the same time.
I just went thru 50 job applications. People that work(ed) at a bank want about ~10-15% more money on average (i actually went thruthem a second time because i tought my mind was just making this up... no, it didn't). Same qualifications or worse, didn't matter, same or worse reference letters.... just a diffrent view on their own worth.
Btw: I don't get the antisemitism craze, i grew up and never saw jews being treated diffrently than other minorities, some stereotypes to poke at them but not more behind it. People are, for understandable reasons, just way more sensitive on this topic.
They are also very selective, especially in Switzerland. 
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I wish i would know what you mean by that,
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They pay so much to get very good people in banking, in particular in Switzerland. I've had some interviews in Zurich, turns out I wasn't good and Swiss enough for those companies... Anyways, that's why they pay so much, it's a fierce competition for the best students and best jobs there.
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On March 14 2017 03:26 farvacola wrote:
Yeah, that's not exactly convincing logic in action, Warding. In order to establish that a particular characterization ought be regarded more as caricature than genuine description, you'll have to provide more than an analogy that, as both TheDwf and LightSpectra point out, causes more problems than it solves.
Those eager to defend neoliberal economic policies oftentimes make the argument that more socialist, redistributive attitudes towards economics rely on stilted characterizations of the topmost classes. However, when offered relatively simple evidence that points towards increased capture of economic gain by those with high baseline levels of wealth, such as the graph Big J referenced earlier that points to a failure on the part of low-end wages in keeping up with overall growth, most retreat to a defensive posture rooted in what looks like an unnecessary defense of the rich. That's not exactly persuasive.
Big J argued, and I'm loosely paraphrasing, that the financial sector does nothing for the economy while being ruthless greedy bastards who take advantage of everyone.
This characterization is a caricature rather than a genuine description because it ignores the value that the financial sector brings to the economy:
- Providing day to day liquidity and working capital for companies;
- loans in retail banking for home/car purchases;
- Tools to ease financial transactions like credit cards and home banking systems;
- financing for corporate capital expenditures;
- financing for governments;
- providing investment opportunities for those with savings (not just the 1%);
- providing liquidity for capital markets which actually plays a vital role in the economy, if commodities and stock markets were a lot less liquid all economic agents dealing with them would face much higher costs;
- their roles in the market help establish pricing in markets which is vital in allocating resources in the economy.
The list could go on and on. They not only create value for the economy but are absolutely vital for one to function. Strong economies have strong financial sectors.
Secondly, the characterization of bankers/investors as ruthless and greedy bastards is really unhelpful - if we were to round up all the bankers in prison and replace them with doctors or lawyers or tennis players, are we to believe that the perceived greediness, ruthlessness and bastardness would disappear?
Now, do bankers f up as they did with the subprime mortgages? Yes. Do some banking circles run on assholishness and cocaine? Yes. Do dumb people make a lot more money in banking than they would in other sectors? Probably.
Problem is, banking is a really complex sector to regulate. It affects the macroeconomics of entire economies and economists themselves are still trying to figure out how all of this works. Going with halfbaked and populist solutions with the mindset of punishing bankers can and are likely to backfire.
I haven't even argued that bankers deserve all that money and that it's great to have more inequality. I'm mainly pointing out that there are a ton of trade offs in all of this and that these are more complex subjects than the typical marxist-folklore-inspired posts suggest. If we're really going to debate the financial sector and macroeconomics, let's at least elevate the discourse a little bit.
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Meanwhile Big J has modified his stance into something more agreeable. Still, I'd like to know what kind of ideas people here have to change or regulate the financial sectors in a way where society would be better off while eliminating all these problems you're identifying.
Edit: lastly, I wasn't making the point that those who criticise bankers are anti-semites, I was comparing the level of discourse of the two. If early 20th centuries had a problem with how the financial system worked then they really went the opposite way of actually discussing solutions, choosing instead to lower the level of discourse and isolate the problem as being caused by the greed and ruthlessness of a specific group of people.
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I understand that when I use aggressive language it is not good for a reasonable discussion, but the above is simply not my argument.
I said the extreme inequality creates a booming financial sector, because increasing/keeping money is the only demand left when you have too much money to spend. It was not meant to be a complete picture: neither that it is the only capital-selfreproducing mechanic created by inequality, nor that this is the only job the financial sector has. You are arguing against the latter.
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moving money around isn't a bad business per se. Modern economies tend to be more and more dependent on capital instead of labour and allocating that money to the right places is what banking is about, or ought to be about anyway. There should be policies in place to create the right incentives of course. That we have 'too much money to spend' is a good thing.
I agree with warding and also don't buy that the inequality is the result of greed or whatever, but simply owed due to the low amount of workers required, add to this that the industry is profitable and as a result you end up with a bad distribution. But this isn't limited to banking either, the tech sector has the same problem. Also the financial industry like most high paying services are good to have around, they don't mess up the environment and offer pretty good working conditions.
Service jobs are also inherently more egalitarian than the industrial kind people seem to be longing for. You don't need many physical resources to become a banker or a software dev, but people rarely turn into successful industrialists without a large inheritance. I think that the financial industries and others should be leveraged instead of diminished.
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Thank you for your answers, guys. I think I'm not quite good at writing in English because 80% of my language skills come from speaking, I learnt it by speaking to people, grammar was google'd. 
I wasn't trying to bring Kurdish issue to Netherlands case, I was trying to say any approach concerning safety issues doesn't sound solid because in Germany, there're even PKK rallies. As we agree upon the fact that if there was something to be suspicious over these Turkey related rallies, you would expect a ban for PKK related ones from Germany, where millions of Turks and Kurds live? The problem we have here The Netherlands wasn't convincing when they said it's due to security reasons, the whole world, including most of the global media took it as a follow-up to German ban, as BBC headline say "Turkey rallies row: Germany and Netherlands harden stance". At this point you could prove to Turkey, there is intel of ISIS attacks, possible Kurdish-Turkish conflict, or you could just say we'll grant you a big warehouse and place snipers everywhere. I heard NL offered permission for 50 people-held conference only?
Well, actually I understand your concerns over a foreign country rally. It's not joy the see hundreds of nationalist turkish people chanting, screaming nationalist slogans etc. I had the same dislike when Kurds rallied, but at the same time I think it is in the hands of our own governments to change the ideas of these people and make them less nationalistic.
On March 13 2017 16:36 opisska wrote:
However, the rational thing to do is to go ask you government: why do we need these dry ugly mountain in the first place? Why haven't you let them form their own state decades ago? The people who are dying are dying primarily because of the power-hunger of politicians who can't imagine giving "their" territory away for free. The "terrorists" are a symptom, not a root problem.
Equalling PKK and ISIS is a grave misunderstanding. Sure, you can dispute how many Kurds the current PKK actually represents and what power games are happening in there, but it is originally a grassroots organization for independence. ISIS is a bunch of whackjobs who have taken over a large chunk of territory where they weren't exactly welcome. They do not fight for the people they control, not at least for a majority of them. Yes, both commit acts of terrorism, but that's where the parallel ends.
Bringing out "Turkish fight against ISIS" is a big hypocrisy. If Turkey wanted to get rid of ISIS, it can have not prevented the Kurds to help with that - instead it abuses to Syrian conflict to advance their anti-Kurdish agenda. When there are Turkish soldiers dying in the fight against ISIS, you should again go ask the government why are they wasting the lives of Turkish soldiers for their stubborness to cooperate with Kurds.
I don't see why I should support "70 millions over 6 millions" - the fact that you have the numbers doesn't make you the "right side". However I also quite doubt that the opinion in so clear-cut in Turkey and am afraid that your idea that the whole Turkey hates Kurds is a result of your social bubble and/or propaganda. Even your usage of "Gullenist journalists" is a warning sign about your possible affection by official propaganda.
I find your insight that this moves may alienate the whole Turkey, instead of just Erdogan supporters, valuable. I am not even sure that it was a good decision to deny them to speak, because it seems rather short-sighted and childish. However you should understand that from our - well at least mine - point of view, at the moment, Erdogan is a much larger threat than the PKK ever was to us and this fact thus provokes responses accordingly.
I keep asking myself rather than to my government, why do we need these Syria-alike lands at the first place. It's not as green as western Turkey, soil is inefficient, weather is always cold, people are a lot more different, they're highly religious and tribalistic. And apart from those every Turkish citizen in western Turkey needs to pay extra 10% in their bills to compensate their electricity smuggling, this is one of the less heard reasons why majority of Turks are angry. Additionally, İstanbul became a huge drug trafficking center to Europe, most of the areas around Taksim turning into kurdish-gang controlled areas and many Istanbul Universities are full of with PKK propaganda where you can't hear your prof's voice thanks to their slogans most of the time.
But in my head, Erdogan pops up, along with his millions of Anatolian nationalistic Turks, answering our questions. Earning and losing land for the Turks is related to national pride. Since the first world war in primary school textbooks is in a style that has been experienced recently, many Turks are graduating from Turkish schools, believing that Turkey has survived those occupying Europeans and the back stabbing Arab-Kurds recently. We also experienced many terrorist attacks that would allow us to look at the issue black and white. Although not ideologically similar to the Islamic state, the PKK was as cruel as the Islamic state in its suicide bombings, hard to swallow for many of us. There is another aspect of separatist thinking we should pay attention to, population and trade. Turkey is consistently buying gas and oil from northern Iraq, Russia and Iran, and there are also exports to many countries. It may be that he does not want to create an extra country in between to pay extra-tax. And although we look at the issue black and white, there are millions of Kurds who can look gray. The Kurdish population in Turkey is around 20 million, the AKP has 13 million Kurds, and some relatives of AKP voter Kurds are militants on the mountain, there was a news that a family lost 2 of their children, one as a Turkish soldier, second is PKK militant. There are millions of Kurds who do not want to leave Turkey in the east, who do not want to come to Istanbul with a visa, or go to turkish kurdistan with visa. And I assure you, many of them don't like the idea of communism as PKK likes.
There's a lot to talk about Operation Euphrates Shield which will be derail of this topic, but co-operating with Kurds would not be one. The whole operation itself was to secure Turkish border from ISIS and PKK, Turkey was trying to cut maneuver routes of PKK so it could not easily attack Turkish towns. YPG would not like it. Also, while Kobane was under attack, YPG announced that any Turkish intervention would be regarded as hostile and occupying. How much the politicians agreed is not important if the soldiers on the field had fought each other for months, it's a dream to make them co-operate.
On a personal level, I advice you to investigate arrested journalists in Turkey. When we say Gulenist, it's a whole new tag for Europe so you think it's something produced by Erdogan, but it was common in Turkish public for years that those religious scums are growing dangerous and yeah, AKP made it possible. Back then we were referring them "Cemaatçi" = "communitarian". As many of the Turkish youth experienced, I was aswell invited to their meetings in highschool during my stay in public dormitories, roughly 10 or more years ago. So I guarantee you the government after Erdogan, whether it will be CHP or a brand-new center-right, will keep those journos jailed.
On March 13 2017 17:22 zatic wrote:
The European conflict with Turkey is all about Erdogan moving Turkey toward a authoritarian, non-secular state. In that context there are many arguing that the AKP should be hindered from drawing support for their referendum from Turks living in Europe. So far, that is simply exchange of opinion, nothing more.
The Netherlands are unique in that they actually did take action - and their decision to actively block Turkish politicians from speaking in NL has been widely criticised across Europe. Headlines today in Germany read "The Netherlands are gambling away their liberal heritage".
As for Germany, as it stands right now the AKP is free to hold rallys. There might be many people here not happy with this, but AKP members enjoy the same freedom of speech as everyone else over here.
So what was the previous German ban about?
The main opposition to the government, CHP declared they will also be cancelling their rallies to Europe, thanks to NL. Who else will convince those Turks right now if not CHP? This whole thing actually helped "YES" vote in referendum, even CHP leader said he'll support any sanctions against NL.
On March 13 2017 20:06 RvB wrote:
I agree that the Turkish minister should've been able to give a speech. The thing is that he was allowed and the Dutch and Turkish governments were still negotiating about letting him do just that when the Turkish government threatened sanctions. Only then was access denied and did our government make it clear that the Turkish family minister wasn't welcome. Knowing that she still went. It's kind of rich to start bitching about The Netherlands when the Turkish government was clearly provoking and looking for such a response to whip up nationalist frenzy.
Your whole point about the Kurds is ridiculous, we don't give a damn about the Kurds.. We've had both (legal) protests of Kurds and Erdogan supporters here.
On the police violence: It's how our police treats everyone who riots. The protesters started throwing stones and stuff. Only after that did the police intervene. It's no different than how the police treats football hooligans. Peaceful protesting is allowed, rioting is not.
Family minister case 100% planned and I'm sorry for that. The only escape-solution was to give her what she wants, putting one of your female ministers at her company, join hear rally, speak as she speak, I mean, it would be troll and yet won't give them the propaganda related "victory". Beat them in their own game? They are your citizens as-well, nothing wrong with a rally with two ministers to me.
Oh, so you think this approach of the Police is okay? Because it's the same thing Turkish Police did during Gezi protests, I wonder why there were headlines about Turkish police brutality in European newspapers. At least Turks in NL don't throw molotovs. (Btw, I'm completely OK with Dutch police, you would be dead already in US if you riot as people riot in EU and TR)
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On March 14 2017 14:22 lastpuritan wrote:Thank you for your answers, guys. I think I'm not quite good at writing in English because 80% of my language skills come from speaking, I learnt it by speaking to people, grammar was google'd. I wasn't trying to bring Kurdish issue to Netherlands case, I was trying to say any approach concerning safety issues doesn't sound solid because in Germany, there're even PKK rallies. As we agree upon the fact that if there was something to be suspicious over these Turkey related rallies, you would expect a ban for PKK related ones from Germany, where millions of Turks and Kurds live? The problem we have here The Netherlands wasn't convincing when they said it's due to security reasons, the whole world, including most of the global media took it as a follow-up to German ban, as BBC headline say "Turkey rallies row: Germany and Netherlands harden stance". At this point you could prove to Turkey, there is intel of ISIS attacks, possible Kurdish-Turkish conflict, or you could just say we'll grant you a big warehouse and place snipers everywhere. I heard NL offered permission for 50 people-held conference only? Well, actually I understand your concerns over a foreign country rally. It's not joy the see hundreds of nationalist turkish people chanting, screaming nationalist slogans etc. I had the same dislike when Kurds rallied, but at the same time I think it is in the hands of our own governments to change the ideas of these people and make them less nationalistic.
The way I understood it, the Dutch government wanted to negotiate about the size and location of the rally because of the indications of the Turkish minister inciting nationalism in Germany, which raised security concerns. During these negotiations, the Turkish government threatened with sanctions. As a result of that threat of sanctions the foreign minister was banned from landing, and the other family matters minister was told to stay away. It wasn't the security concerns themselves which incited the ban.
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On March 14 2017 14:22 lastpuritan wrote:Thank you for your answers, guys. I think I'm not quite good at writing in English because 80% of my language skills come from speaking, I learnt it by speaking to people, grammar was google'd. I wasn't trying to bring Kurdish issue to Netherlands case, I was trying to say any approach concerning safety issues doesn't sound solid because in Germany, there're even PKK rallies. As we agree upon the fact that if there was something to be suspicious over these Turkey related rallies, you would expect a ban for PKK related ones from Germany, where millions of Turks and Kurds live? The problem we have here The Netherlands wasn't convincing when they said it's due to security reasons, the whole world, including most of the global media took it as a follow-up to German ban, as BBC headline say "Turkey rallies row: Germany and Netherlands harden stance". At this point you could prove to Turkey, there is intel of ISIS attacks, possible Kurdish-Turkish conflict, or you could just say we'll grant you a big warehouse and place snipers everywhere. I heard NL offered permission for 50 people-held conference only? Well, actually I understand your concerns over a foreign country rally. It's not joy the see hundreds of nationalist turkish people chanting, screaming nationalist slogans etc. I had the same dislike when Kurds rallied, but at the same time I think it is in the hands of our own governments to change the ideas of these people and make them less nationalistic. Show nested quote +On March 13 2017 16:36 opisska wrote:
However, the rational thing to do is to go ask you government: why do we need these dry ugly mountain in the first place? Why haven't you let them form their own state decades ago? The people who are dying are dying primarily because of the power-hunger of politicians who can't imagine giving "their" territory away for free. The "terrorists" are a symptom, not a root problem.
Equalling PKK and ISIS is a grave misunderstanding. Sure, you can dispute how many Kurds the current PKK actually represents and what power games are happening in there, but it is originally a grassroots organization for independence. ISIS is a bunch of whackjobs who have taken over a large chunk of territory where they weren't exactly welcome. They do not fight for the people they control, not at least for a majority of them. Yes, both commit acts of terrorism, but that's where the parallel ends.
Bringing out "Turkish fight against ISIS" is a big hypocrisy. If Turkey wanted to get rid of ISIS, it can have not prevented the Kurds to help with that - instead it abuses to Syrian conflict to advance their anti-Kurdish agenda. When there are Turkish soldiers dying in the fight against ISIS, you should again go ask the government why are they wasting the lives of Turkish soldiers for their stubborness to cooperate with Kurds.
I don't see why I should support "70 millions over 6 millions" - the fact that you have the numbers doesn't make you the "right side". However I also quite doubt that the opinion in so clear-cut in Turkey and am afraid that your idea that the whole Turkey hates Kurds is a result of your social bubble and/or propaganda. Even your usage of "Gullenist journalists" is a warning sign about your possible affection by official propaganda.
I find your insight that this moves may alienate the whole Turkey, instead of just Erdogan supporters, valuable. I am not even sure that it was a good decision to deny them to speak, because it seems rather short-sighted and childish. However you should understand that from our - well at least mine - point of view, at the moment, Erdogan is a much larger threat than the PKK ever was to us and this fact thus provokes responses accordingly. I keep asking myself rather than to my government, why do we need these Syria-alike lands at the first place. It's not as green as western Turkey, soil is inefficient, weather is always cold, people are a lot more different, they're highly religious and tribalistic. And apart from those every Turkish citizen in western Turkey needs to pay extra 10% in their bills to compensate their electricity smuggling, this is one of the less heard reasons why majority of Turks are angry. Additionally, İstanbul became a huge drug trafficking center to Europe, most of the areas around Taksim turning into kurdish-gang controlled areas and many Istanbul Universities are full of with PKK propaganda where you can't hear your prof's voice thanks to their slogans most of the time. But in my head, Erdogan pops up, along with his millions of Anatolian nationalistic Turks, answering our questions. Earning and losing land for the Turks is related to national pride. Since the first world war in primary school textbooks is in a style that has been experienced recently, many Turks are graduating from Turkish schools, believing that Turkey has survived those occupying Europeans and the back stabbing Arab-Kurds recently. We also experienced many terrorist attacks that would allow us to look at the issue black and white. Although not ideologically similar to the Islamic state, the PKK was as cruel as the Islamic state in its suicide bombings, hard to swallow for many of us. There is another aspect of separatist thinking we should pay attention to, population and trade. Turkey is consistently buying gas and oil from northern Iraq, Russia and Iran, and there are also exports to many countries. It may be that he does not want to create an extra country in between to pay extra-tax. And although we look at the issue black and white, there are millions of Kurds who can look gray. The Kurdish population in Turkey is around 20 million, the AKP has 13 million Kurds, and some relatives of AKP voter Kurds are militants on the mountain, there was a news that a family lost 2 of their children, one as a Turkish soldier, second is PKK militant. There are millions of Kurds who do not want to leave Turkey in the east, who do not want to come to Istanbul with a visa, or go to turkish kurdistan with visa. And I assure you, many of them don't like the idea of communism as PKK likes. There's a lot to talk about Operation Euphrates Shield which will be derail of this topic, but co-operating with Kurds would not be one. The whole operation itself was to secure Turkish border from ISIS and PKK, Turkey was trying to cut maneuver routes of PKK so it could not easily attack Turkish towns. YPG would not like it. Also, while Kobane was under attack, YPG announced that any Turkish intervention would be regarded as hostile and occupying. How much the politicians agreed is not important if the soldiers on the field had fought each other for months, it's a dream to make them co-operate. On a personal level, I advice you to investigate arrested journalists in Turkey. When we say Gulenist, it's a whole new tag for Europe so you think it's something produced by Erdogan, but it was common in Turkish public for years that those religious scums are growing dangerous and yeah, AKP made it possible. Back then we were referring them "Cemaatçi" = "communitarian". As many of the Turkish youth experienced, I was aswell invited to their meetings in highschool during my stay in public dormitories, roughly 10 or more years ago. So I guarantee you the government after Erdogan, whether it will be CHP or a brand-new center-right, will keep those journos jailed. Show nested quote +On March 13 2017 17:22 zatic wrote:
The European conflict with Turkey is all about Erdogan moving Turkey toward a authoritarian, non-secular state. In that context there are many arguing that the AKP should be hindered from drawing support for their referendum from Turks living in Europe. So far, that is simply exchange of opinion, nothing more.
The Netherlands are unique in that they actually did take action - and their decision to actively block Turkish politicians from speaking in NL has been widely criticised across Europe. Headlines today in Germany read "The Netherlands are gambling away their liberal heritage".
As for Germany, as it stands right now the AKP is free to hold rallys. There might be many people here not happy with this, but AKP members enjoy the same freedom of speech as everyone else over here. So what was the previous German ban about? The main opposition to the government, CHP declared they will also be cancelling their rallies to Europe, thanks to NL. Who else will convince those Turks right now if not CHP? This whole thing actually helped "YES" vote in referendum, even CHP leader said he'll support any sanctions against NL. Show nested quote +On March 13 2017 20:06 RvB wrote:
I agree that the Turkish minister should've been able to give a speech. The thing is that he was allowed and the Dutch and Turkish governments were still negotiating about letting him do just that when the Turkish government threatened sanctions. Only then was access denied and did our government make it clear that the Turkish family minister wasn't welcome. Knowing that she still went. It's kind of rich to start bitching about The Netherlands when the Turkish government was clearly provoking and looking for such a response to whip up nationalist frenzy.
Your whole point about the Kurds is ridiculous, we don't give a damn about the Kurds.. We've had both (legal) protests of Kurds and Erdogan supporters here.
On the police violence: It's how our police treats everyone who riots. The protesters started throwing stones and stuff. Only after that did the police intervene. It's no different than how the police treats football hooligans. Peaceful protesting is allowed, rioting is not. Family minister case 100% planned and I'm sorry for that. The only escape-solution was to give her what she wants, putting one of your female ministers at her company, join hear rally, speak as she speak, I mean, it would be troll and yet won't give them the propaganda related "victory". Beat them in their own game? They are your citizens as-well, nothing wrong with a rally with two ministers to me. Oh, so you think this approach of the Police is okay? Because it's the same thing Turkish Police did during Gezi protests, I wonder why there were headlines about Turkish police brutality in European newspapers. At least Turks in NL don't throw molotovs. (Btw, I'm completely OK with Dutch police, you would be dead already in US if you riot as people riot in EU and TR)
Everybody knows the security concerns were mostly a convenient reason to stop the rally. In fact, what happened probably ended up costing more in terms of security forces than letting the rally happen would have. However, claiming it is not a valid concern because people are allowed to protest in support of PKK is a false analogy. The people doing the protesting are Dutch citizens, and the protests are planned in a meeting with the city council/police/others involved, in order to ensure the protest is in an adequate venue and security concerns are reasonable. The Turkish government explicitly shut down any negotiation of this type, threatened with sanctions and got on a plane when the Dutch government said the rally was off if you behave like that.
Also, the freedom of speech argument is nonsense: the Dutch constitution guarantees the government won't interfere in Dutch citizens' rights to express themselves. That doesn't mean they have to allow Turkish ministers into the country and allow them to speak freely. The Dutch citizens who protested in favor of the rallies were allowed to protest, until they started breaking stuff, which is when the riot police started breaking up the protest. At least, that's how it has been reported in the sources I read. The Turkish government has interpreted the events differently and wants to take it to court. Seems fine with me. If rights were violated, it'll come out.
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Zurich15310 Posts
On March 14 2017 14:22 lastpuritan wrote:Show nested quote +On March 13 2017 17:22 zatic wrote:
The European conflict with Turkey is all about Erdogan moving Turkey toward a authoritarian, non-secular state. In that context there are many arguing that the AKP should be hindered from drawing support for their referendum from Turks living in Europe. So far, that is simply exchange of opinion, nothing more.
The Netherlands are unique in that they actually did take action - and their decision to actively block Turkish politicians from speaking in NL has been widely criticised across Europe. Headlines today in Germany read "The Netherlands are gambling away their liberal heritage".
As for Germany, as it stands right now the AKP is free to hold rallys. There might be many people here not happy with this, but AKP members enjoy the same freedom of speech as everyone else over here. So what was the previous German ban about?
Not sure what you have been told, but there was no "German ban". There were individual instances of municipal authorities being extra anal about fire safely to stop unwanted rallies in their communities. Like Acro said it's pretty obvious what was going on there. And, I should point out, exactly the same happens with Kurdish rallies as well.
Still, there was no ban, much less on the federal level. The government stressed that they would not ban any Turkish rallies.
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On March 14 2017 14:22 lastpuritan wrote:+ Show Spoiler +Thank you for your answers, guys. I think I'm not quite good at writing in English because 80% of my language skills come from speaking, I learnt it by speaking to people, grammar was google'd. I wasn't trying to bring Kurdish issue to Netherlands case, I was trying to say any approach concerning safety issues doesn't sound solid because in Germany, there're even PKK rallies. As we agree upon the fact that if there was something to be suspicious over these Turkey related rallies, you would expect a ban for PKK related ones from Germany, where millions of Turks and Kurds live? The problem we have here The Netherlands wasn't convincing when they said it's due to security reasons, the whole world, including most of the global media took it as a follow-up to German ban, as BBC headline say "Turkey rallies row: Germany and Netherlands harden stance". At this point you could prove to Turkey, there is intel of ISIS attacks, possible Kurdish-Turkish conflict, or you could just say we'll grant you a big warehouse and place snipers everywhere. I heard NL offered permission for 50 people-held conference only? Well, actually I understand your concerns over a foreign country rally. It's not joy the see hundreds of nationalist turkish people chanting, screaming nationalist slogans etc. I had the same dislike when Kurds rallied, but at the same time I think it is in the hands of our own governments to change the ideas of these people and make them less nationalistic. On March 13 2017 16:36 opisska wrote:
However, the rational thing to do is to go ask you government: why do we need these dry ugly mountain in the first place? Why haven't you let them form their own state decades ago? The people who are dying are dying primarily because of the power-hunger of politicians who can't imagine giving "their" territory away for free. The "terrorists" are a symptom, not a root problem.
Equalling PKK and ISIS is a grave misunderstanding. Sure, you can dispute how many Kurds the current PKK actually represents and what power games are happening in there, but it is originally a grassroots organization for independence. ISIS is a bunch of whackjobs who have taken over a large chunk of territory where they weren't exactly welcome. They do not fight for the people they control, not at least for a majority of them. Yes, both commit acts of terrorism, but that's where the parallel ends.
Bringing out "Turkish fight against ISIS" is a big hypocrisy. If Turkey wanted to get rid of ISIS, it can have not prevented the Kurds to help with that - instead it abuses to Syrian conflict to advance their anti-Kurdish agenda. When there are Turkish soldiers dying in the fight against ISIS, you should again go ask the government why are they wasting the lives of Turkish soldiers for their stubborness to cooperate with Kurds.
I don't see why I should support "70 millions over 6 millions" - the fact that you have the numbers doesn't make you the "right side". However I also quite doubt that the opinion in so clear-cut in Turkey and am afraid that your idea that the whole Turkey hates Kurds is a result of your social bubble and/or propaganda. Even your usage of "Gullenist journalists" is a warning sign about your possible affection by official propaganda.
I find your insight that this moves may alienate the whole Turkey, instead of just Erdogan supporters, valuable. I am not even sure that it was a good decision to deny them to speak, because it seems rather short-sighted and childish. However you should understand that from our - well at least mine - point of view, at the moment, Erdogan is a much larger threat than the PKK ever was to us and this fact thus provokes responses accordingly. I keep asking myself rather than to my government, why do we need these Syria-alike lands at the first place. It's not as green as western Turkey, soil is inefficient, weather is always cold, people are a lot more different, they're highly religious and tribalistic. And apart from those every Turkish citizen in western Turkey needs to pay extra 10% in their bills to compensate their electricity smuggling, this is one of the less heard reasons why majority of Turks are angry. Additionally, İstanbul became a huge drug trafficking center to Europe, most of the areas around Taksim turning into kurdish-gang controlled areas and many Istanbul Universities are full of with PKK propaganda where you can't hear your prof's voice thanks to their slogans most of the time. But in my head, Erdogan pops up, along with his millions of Anatolian nationalistic Turks, answering our questions. Earning and losing land for the Turks is related to national pride. Since the first world war in primary school textbooks is in a style that has been experienced recently, many Turks are graduating from Turkish schools, believing that Turkey has survived those occupying Europeans and the back stabbing Arab-Kurds recently. We also experienced many terrorist attacks that would allow us to look at the issue black and white. Although not ideologically similar to the Islamic state, the PKK was as cruel as the Islamic state in its suicide bombings, hard to swallow for many of us. There is another aspect of separatist thinking we should pay attention to, population and trade. Turkey is consistently buying gas and oil from northern Iraq, Russia and Iran, and there are also exports to many countries. It may be that he does not want to create an extra country in between to pay extra-tax. And although we look at the issue black and white, there are millions of Kurds who can look gray. The Kurdish population in Turkey is around 20 million, the AKP has 13 million Kurds, and some relatives of AKP voter Kurds are militants on the mountain, there was a news that a family lost 2 of their children, one as a Turkish soldier, second is PKK militant. There are millions of Kurds who do not want to leave Turkey in the east, who do not want to come to Istanbul with a visa, or go to turkish kurdistan with visa. And I assure you, many of them don't like the idea of communism as PKK likes. There's a lot to talk about Operation Euphrates Shield which will be derail of this topic, but co-operating with Kurds would not be one. The whole operation itself was to secure Turkish border from ISIS and PKK, Turkey was trying to cut maneuver routes of PKK so it could not easily attack Turkish towns. YPG would not like it. Also, while Kobane was under attack, YPG announced that any Turkish intervention would be regarded as hostile and occupying. How much the politicians agreed is not important if the soldiers on the field had fought each other for months, it's a dream to make them co-operate. On a personal level, I advice you to investigate arrested journalists in Turkey. When we say Gulenist, it's a whole new tag for Europe so you think it's something produced by Erdogan, but it was common in Turkish public for years that those religious scums are growing dangerous and yeah, AKP made it possible. Back then we were referring them "Cemaatçi" = "communitarian". As many of the Turkish youth experienced, I was aswell invited to their meetings in highschool during my stay in public dormitories, roughly 10 or more years ago. So I guarantee you the government after Erdogan, whether it will be CHP or a brand-new center-right, will keep those journos jailed. On March 13 2017 17:22 zatic wrote:
The European conflict with Turkey is all about Erdogan moving Turkey toward a authoritarian, non-secular state. In that context there are many arguing that the AKP should be hindered from drawing support for their referendum from Turks living in Europe. So far, that is simply exchange of opinion, nothing more.
The Netherlands are unique in that they actually did take action - and their decision to actively block Turkish politicians from speaking in NL has been widely criticised across Europe. Headlines today in Germany read "The Netherlands are gambling away their liberal heritage".
As for Germany, as it stands right now the AKP is free to hold rallys. There might be many people here not happy with this, but AKP members enjoy the same freedom of speech as everyone else over here. So what was the previous German ban about? The main opposition to the government, CHP declared they will also be cancelling their rallies to Europe, thanks to NL. Who else will convince those Turks right now if not CHP? This whole thing actually helped "YES" vote in referendum, even CHP leader said he'll support any sanctions against NL. On March 13 2017 20:06 RvB wrote:
I agree that the Turkish minister should've been able to give a speech. The thing is that he was allowed and the Dutch and Turkish governments were still negotiating about letting him do just that when the Turkish government threatened sanctions. Only then was access denied and did our government make it clear that the Turkish family minister wasn't welcome. Knowing that she still went. It's kind of rich to start bitching about The Netherlands when the Turkish government was clearly provoking and looking for such a response to whip up nationalist frenzy.
Your whole point about the Kurds is ridiculous, we don't give a damn about the Kurds.. We've had both (legal) protests of Kurds and Erdogan supporters here.
On the police violence: It's how our police treats everyone who riots. The protesters started throwing stones and stuff. Only after that did the police intervene. It's no different than how the police treats football hooligans. Peaceful protesting is allowed, rioting is not. Family minister case 100% planned and I'm sorry for that. The only escape-solution was to give her what she wants, putting one of your female ministers at her company, join hear rally, speak as she speak, I mean, it would be troll and yet won't give them the propaganda related "victory". Beat them in their own game? They are your citizens as-well, nothing wrong with a rally with two ministers to me. Oh, so you think this approach of the Police is okay? Because it's the same thing Turkish Police did during Gezi protests, I wonder why there were headlines about Turkish police brutality in European newspapers. At least Turks in NL don't throw molotovs. (Btw, I'm completely OK with Dutch police, you would be dead already in US if you riot as people riot in EU and TR)
Nothing wrong with a rally as long as it's not under the threat of sanctions. When a government issues threats it changes the whole dynamic of the issue.
I think police violence can be justified if the protests turn into riots. Gezi park is not okay since the police started cracking down. We've had protests from Turkish-Dutch citizens before without police intervention, if they stay peaceful there's no problem.
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@Dutch people: when will the results of your election be known?
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On March 14 2017 23:20 TheDwf wrote:
@Dutch people: when will the results of your election be known?
Elections are tomorrow. If past elections are an indicator of what to go by, results will start dribbling in immediately after polling stations close (21:00 CET), and the general shape of the results is known around midnight. Definitive division of parliamentary seats early the next day, and then negotiations over coalition formation starts.
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On March 14 2017 23:34 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On March 14 2017 23:20 TheDwf wrote:
@Dutch people: when will the results of your election be known? Elections are tomorrow. If past elections are an indicator of what to go by, results will start dribbling in immediately after polling stations close (21:00 CET), and the general shape of the results is known around midnight. Definitive division of parliamentary seats early the next day, and then negotiations over coalition formation starts.
Thanks!
Fillon's hearing, which was scheduled tomorrow, was apparently brought forward today. He's just been charged for embezzlement of publics funds, misuse of corporate assets, etc.
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Except he's obviously going to draw out the decision going through every appeal possible o.o;:.
Hopefully they'll get Le Pen too . . .
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On March 15 2017 01:43 MyTHicaL wrote:
Except he's obviously going to draw out the decision going through every appeal possible o.o;:.
Hopefully they'll get Le Pen too . . .
Anyway this won't change anything, neither those crooks nor most of their voters give a damn about ethics...
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The prospect of Geert Wilders emerging as the winner of Wednesday’s Dutch election was thrown into doubt by two polls on the eve of voting that showed his anti-Islam, anti-European Union Freedom Party slumping to fifth place in one survey and third in another.
The final poll from I&O Research showed Wilders’s party on 16 seats in the 150-member lower house of parliament, down four seats from a survey released just the day before. The last Ipsos survey before the election gave the Freedom Party 20 seats, a drop of three from last week. Both polls showed Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s Liberals gaining three seats -- to 27 and 29 respectively.
The bulk of the polling by both companies was conducted after a diplomatic dispute erupted over the weekend between the Netherlands and Turkey, which Rutte was deemed to have handled well. While polling has a mixed reputation after failing to predict the outcome of the Brexit referendum and Donald Trump’s election as U.S. president, the Dutch findings are the culmination of a trend in the past couple of weeks that has seen Rutte gradually overturning the clear lead that Wilders previously held in the polls.
“There is support among voters of all parties for the performance of Mark Rutte” in the Turkish crisis, I&O said in a commentary to its poll. It found 62 percent of voters backing the way Rutte acted, including 59 percent of Freedom Party backers, with only 10 percent of all voters supporting the way Wilders performed.
Read how Dutch election night will unfold.
The Freedom Party’s 16 seats in the I&O poll compared with a high of 33 seats in December. It fell behind the centrist D66 party, the Greens and the Christian Democrats, all of which are possible partners for Rutte in the multiparty coalition that will have to be formed after the election to govern the Netherlands for four years. All the other main parties have ruled out working with Wilders.
The Ipsos poll saw the Christian Democrats moving into second place ahead of the Freedom Party. But there are differences of as many as five seats between the estimates for some parties in the the two latest surveys, and voters may still be swayed by party leaders’ performances in the final televised debate Tuesday evening.
The diplomatic dispute saw Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accusing the Dutch government of Nazi-like behavior after Rutte refused to let Turkish ministers address a pro-government rally in Rotterdam. Rutte sought to de-escalate the spat, while Wilders said he should have taken tougher action against Turkish diplomats.
When Wilders and Rutte faced off on national television Monday evening, the Freedom Party leader told the prime minister that “we must directly expel the Turkish ambassador and the rest of his staff from the country, otherwise we accept that we are being insulted.”
Rutte’s response was to tell Wilders: “That’s the difference between tweeting from your couch and governing the country. If you govern the country, you have to take sensible decisions, and that isn’t sensible.”
For I&O’s final poll, 2,248 voters were questioned, mostly online, from Monday afternoon to Tuesday morning. Ipos polled 1,163 voters Monday afternoon through Tuesday. The margins of error vary according to the size of the party.
www.bloomberg.com
Wilders losing seats in the polls. That last bolded sentence was a pretty good part in the debate (A debate of Rutte vs Wilders). It had me laughing at least. The rest of the debate wasn't very enlightening though. We already know what they both stand for and they didn't really bring anything new into the debate.
edit: apparently Valls is considering supporting Macron for president instead of his parties nominee. Now that would be crazy. Pretty sure Valls is closer to Macron ideologically but to go against your own party is quite a step to take for a politician.
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Wilders losing popularity on polls isn't quite telling a lot after Brexit and Trump. >.<
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On March 15 2017 03:02 HolydaKing wrote:
Wilders losing popularity on polls isn't quite telling a lot after Brexit and Trump. >.<
The older polls were also after Brexit and Trump.
This is probably people who thought our government was being to weak and turned to a stronger 'leader' instead in Wilders.
After the show of spine over the matter with Turkey those people have come round again.
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EPT
