21–30 of 106 posts
To be honest I'm quite proud how the protests went. More akin to Ghandi's protests than to rioters burning cars. It's going to be a long struggle but thankfully the groups most supportive of populism and therefore corruption are older (>50).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, but I think you left out the fact that, at its peak, there were 300k "Victoria" protesters and 3k "Cotroceni" protesters. The "Cotroceni" protests are a joke.
You seem to forget that we live in a representative democracy. When the government was formed (PSD + ALDE) in January it won by a majority and there are no reasonable facts on why the government should resign. I want to remind you that when the "Colective" horror happened the government resigned (PSD) but when a similar incident happened in the USA the president or any government official didn't resign. If you think…
I agree with you that the government doesn't have to necessarily resign but the fact that they were democratically elected doesn't give them the right to do anything they want. The people have the full right to voice their disagreement with the actions of the government, and I happen to agree with the demands and sentiment of the overall protests.
Unfortunately the Romanian people have been lagging (on average) when it comes to civic involvement, education, mutual trust, mutual respect etc., which lead to the election of the current populist government. There are signs that this is changing, slowly, and that makes me hopeful.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is this really awkward in practice, or are you imagining so as an observer trying to make sense of protestors?
I think its awkward in both positions but the protesters have objectives. The "Victoria" protesters want to see the government formed in January to resign and the "Cotrocenii" protesters want for President Claus Iohannis to resign.
1. All such protests, began as a response to some wrong action of the government. However the shills, e.g. "Sylphine", behave as if that action did not exist and say that the protests are instigated by political opponents, foreign corporations and so on, who want to overthrow the innocent government. It is true that the political opponents, e.g. the current Romanian president, always try to use such protests to gain advantages over the target of the protests. However, this has nothing to do with the cause of the protests. No politicians in Romania have enough influence to convince a really large number of people to protest just because they say so.
2. Another frequent lie is that from the message above, which attempts to present the two positions, of those that are pro & contra the government as being two equivalent positions. That is as if one would say that there are 2 equivalent theories, one claiming that 2+2=4 and the other claiming that 2+2=7, and that the truth must be somewhere between these 2 extreme theories.
This is a lie. The counter-protest gathered not even 200 times less people, all who were obviously old and poor. They were unable to explain logically why they protest. It was obvious that someone has scared them with lies, e.g. that the opponents of the government want to decrease their pensions or salaries. Before the government introduced the changes in the penal Code that started the protests, they increased slightly the pensions and the small salaries. They hoped that this will make everybody happy so nobody will protest when they will achieve their main purpose of modifying the penal Code.
While corrupt politicians are everywhere, including in the USA, I am not aware of any other case when they would have been so shameless as to give themselves the permission to steal from the public money, by law, as they tried to do in Romania.
The text of the changes to the penal Code is public, so there is no doubt about their content. It is not possible to argue that any member of the government that voted these changes did not break his/her oath, which said that he/she will observe the Constitution and the Laws and he/she will protect the rights of the citizens (which include the right of property over the public money, which must not be stolen by those hired to administrate it).
So the 2 positions are not equivalent, one is right beyond any reasonable doubt and the other is wrong beyond any reasonable doubt.
This is reflected in the numbers, it is much easier to fool a couple thousand people (counter-protesters) than to fool many hundred thousand people (genuine protesters).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's a well known fact that Cotroceni protesters are mostly poor and retired old people and they went there because they received some incentives. And btw it is spelled Cotroceni not Cotrocenii and Klaus not Claus.
"Cotroceni not Cotrocenii and Klaus not Claus" I'd like to remind you that I'm not a bundle of CPU and memory working perfectly 24/7 and the same thing is true for you. Moving on to important things. "It's a well known fact that Cotroceni protesters are mostly poor and retired old people and they went there because they received some incentives" You seem to forget that the coalition PSD + ALDE won by a majority and t…
There were two order of magnitude more people protesting against PSD compared to those against the president. Also, the PSD party is notorious for using bribes during electoral campaigns, especially in the rural areas.
Also, while we're at it, how does winning the majority give any political party the right to do what the fuck they want? If you trusted me with the keys to your house to look after your dog while you're away, does that give me permission to steal your TV? Remember, you gave me those keys!
It is always a bit awkward to stop a protest once you achieved your primary goal. You are now a lot of people in the streets, with a lot of power, the government backs off. Should you ask for more or stick to the original requests that are now satisfied?
Right, there was a protest in Chennai not a month ago to lift ban on Jallikattu(a local sport) and the local Govt passes a law in a week to allow this. but the protesters refused to leave the place(beach) after all the demands were met and eventually it got ugly, a police station was set on fire and the Govt had to use force.
Holy shit,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_bOtexFNXo
> a Bos indicus bull is released into a crowd of people and multiple human participants attempt to grab the large hump of the bull with both arms and hang on to it while the bull attempts to escape. Participants hold the hump for as long as possible, attempting to bring the bull to a stop. In some cases, participants must ride long enough to remove flags on the bull's horns.
I love learning about new sports like that. More:
* Zurkhaneh, weird workout in Iran https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTHvXX-Qicw
* Kabaddi, amazing game where you have to make the other fall :D https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSnP9z99I9M
It's interesting that you currently have one of the largest "political" peaceful demonstrations in the world right now in Korea and in Romania and not many people are talking about it. (I'm happy to see this bit of news on HN.)
Those who watched the U.S. elections closely in 2015 and 2016 already know the media had zero interest in covering real issues, and they would much rather do a one-day marathon about Trump calling someone a pussy. And now the same media blames the Russians or whoever that Trump is in power, even though they are the ones making him a TV star with their non-stop coverage of him.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wouldn't put it like that. He encouraged anti-corruption protests, it's just that PSD decided to support corruption. Nobody is protesting the election results. The people continue to protest the current government because they showed themselves to be untrustworthy. They backed down right now under pressure but who says they won't give another executive order in the middle of the night when no one is looking ?
"He encouraged anti-corruption protests." This executive order was talked about with ECHR and Italy had a similar project this has nothing to do with corruption. source: http://www.echr.coe.int/Documents/Speech_20170127_Raimondi_J... http://www.reuters.com/article/us-italy-drugs-law-idUSBREA1B... "they won't give another executive order in the middle of the night when no one is looking ?" It has become self evident t…
Young, high tech, well-dressed, global 'hipsters' who live online versus older people, mostly rural, former communists, peasants or factory workers, who have no hope of adapting to the new incomprehensible tech world around them.
People from the first group work mostly at multinationals or are entrepreneurs/artists/etc while the second group live on state pensions or have administrative roles offered by the ruling political party - the modernised communists.
First group are people who've tasted freedom and are trying to live 'independent' lives, while the second group cannot imagine living without a strict social hierarchy, in which one must do what he's told - vestige of the communist system, in which everybody had his 'master'.
The second group has had numerical majority in the December elections - because of better mobilisation, so they elected the party who promised them higher pensions and other populist dreams..
We've seen this phenomenon play out in many countries already.
So far these protests have been peaceful - these young people know how to behave peacefully in crowds - after having enjoyed themselves at massive festivals and concerts that have invaded the post-communist Romania in the last decade or so.
Let's hope that they stay that way - there are some evil slogans being shouted on both sides, but so far the youth has had the upper hand, combined with the moral handicap of the second group - turns out not all of them want to save the criminals and corrupt oligarchs from prisons.
What's next ? The crowd won, the government withdrew the controversial ordinance, but how will they be able to continue business as usual now that they've accepted their own incompetence just one month after taking office ?
Will they do another stupid thing and have the crowds 'fix' it for them ? If this happens, then why not actually implement it in software and avoid massive mobilisation risking all kinds of crowd-related dangers ?
Unfortunately this is where Facebook falls short - it's good at creating massive crowds - but stops being useful once crowds are in place.
I think it's up to Romanians now to invent a new system of government, where the crowd can have a voice without filling the streets every week.
Representative democracy is unable to cope with the new technological realities so I think it's time to move on to the next level of governance.
Time to move the government into the smartphones - replace Facebook with 'Society OS' (or extend Facebook to include it).
My biggest hope is that the transition to this new society will be peaceful and devoid of violence.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wouldn't put it like that. He encouraged anti-corruption protests, it's just that PSD decided to support corruption. Nobody is protesting the election results. The people continue to protest the current government because they showed themselves to be untrustworthy. They backed down right now under pressure but who says they won't give another executive order in the middle of the night when no one is looking ?
"He encouraged anti-corruption protests." This executive order was talked about with ECHR and Italy had a similar project this has nothing to do with corruption. source: http://www.echr.coe.int/Documents/Speech_20170127_Raimondi_J... http://www.reuters.com/article/us-italy-drugs-law-idUSBREA1B... "they won't give another executive order in the middle of the night when no one is looking ?" It has become self evident t…