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What is Happening in Istanbul?

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Re: What is Happening in Istanbul?

#271

Post by arrrg »

vidarh wrote: post #184
arrrg wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this description was more akin to describing the USA or Germany as “Christian democratic states” as a majority in both of those are Christians. It doesn’t mean that Christianity is the state religion or something. Turkey has been a successful majority Muslim but very secular and democratic state for a very long time. Maybe that’s changing … (Ah, decisions, decisions. Sometimes I think the EU should have accel…

> Turkey has been a successful majority Muslim but very secular and democratic state for a very long time. Maybe that’s changing … Uhm. Military coups in: 1960, 1971, 1980, as well as substantial intervention in the succession of power in 1997 that many considers a coup. The secular nature of the Turkish state has largely remained as secular as it is because the Turkish military has a tendency to conduct coups whenev…

Eh. Close enough, honestly.

Re: What is Happening in Istanbul?

#272

Post by snitel »

itry wrote: post #233
DeusExMachina wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I looked at the video again. If you look it in slow motion, you can see that there is another man crouching in the back. Although the man in the front might not be visible to the tank driver, the one behind should be and has no shield. Also, just before the impact the tank fires the water cannon in the exact direction of the two. Might be a coincidence or a proof they saw them. But even in the event they did not see…

> If you look it in slow motion, There is slow motion on youtube?

Html5 videos have it.You have to join the html5 trial to see all videos in html5.

Re: What is Happening in Istanbul?

#273

Post by wavefunction »

jasonlingx wrote: post #209
wavefunction wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe you should read his post again if you don't understand why he's talking about Singapore. You're probably one of the people he's talking about, who think that Singapore is a model to emulate all around the world.

> You're probably one of the people he's talking about, who think that Singapore is a model to emulate all around the world. Assuming a lot eh?

I did say probably, which is my "legal out"

But yes, at some point, we have to make assumptions based on the information we have available.

Re: What is Happening in Istanbul?

#274

Post by claudius »

gcb0 wrote: post #268
claudius wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This happened in Germany some time ago. I don’t know to which event exactly you’re referring, but I can assure you that > 8h of warning or something similar. this is most certainly false. Could you elaborate a bit?

Of course I took that out of my #$% :-) But there is a documentary about it... fairly recent one, I just can't find it knowing only that it was a park in Germany.

Plebiscites in Germany are rather rare, and the only recent one I can think of is Stuttgart 21, where a train station was/is to be re-built. There was also only one plebiscite specifically about it, it was announced well in advance and it was won by those wanting to build the new station (which didn’t make the Green party that originally pressed for it particularly happy).

Re: What is Happening in Istanbul?

#275

Post by bgruber »

bcks wrote: post #185
chrismcb wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't urban sprawl, this isn't the tearing down of forests. This is removing a park in the middle of the city. Imaging if they came in and bulldozed Central Park.

You actually raise an interesting parallel: poor communities and planning organizations had railed against the bulldozers of Robert Moses for decades, but in the media he could do no wrong. That was before he tried to build in Central Park. When his policies finally threatened a beloved playground to build private parking, a group well-to-do mothers on the Upper West Side stood up and it triggered the beginning of hi…

while trying to build a parking lot in central park is part of moses' downfall, the picture painted here is not really accurate to my knowledge. for one, a lot of stuff was built in central park during moses' reign as parks commissioner, particularly early on: something like 20 playgrounds, including the demolition of the casino restaurant for rumsey playground; a ton of ball fields; tavern on the green; major changes to the central park zoo. more to the point, characterizing residents of the UWS in the 60s as well-to-do is particularly odd. Like the residents of greenwich village more commonly associated with Moses' downfall, I would think that middle class is the far more accurate description.

Re: What is Happening in Istanbul?

#276

Post by jules »

claudius wrote: post #234
jules wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to call this a democratic government given that they control the press and the corruption. Do you really think the people wanted the park to be turned into a shopping mall, or is perhaps a better explanation that a handful of rich people with political connections wanted that?

> Do you really think the people wanted the park to be turned into a shopping mall, or is perhaps a better explanation that a handful of rich people with political connections wanted that? I really don’t know. One of the confusing (to me) things here is that Erdogan, i.e. the prime minister of the whole of Turkey, appears to control both whether the mall is being built and the local police force, or, in other words,…

He doesn't officially control that, but through party connections he controls a lot of things, and that's not how it should be, but it is. The more important issue is that he controls the press, which generally isn't great feature to have as part of a democracy. No doubt he really is popular, and not just with the rural population, but that doesn't mean that he or others in the AKP makes decisions such as whether or not to build a shopping center for the benefit of the people. It's a favor to the contractor who is going to build the shopping mall, or the guy who is going to own it, or something like that. That's just how it works: favors in return for favors, i.e. corruption. He was democratically elected (at least as far as that's possible while you control the press and corruption runs through the party structure), but that doesn't mean that these kind of decisions are made in the name of the general population.

Re: What is Happening in Istanbul?

#277

Post by [deleted] »

justin66 wrote: post #248
api wrote: post #158

"These people are my friends. They are my students, my relatives. They have no «hidden agenda» as the state likes to say. Their agenda is out there. It is very clear. The whole country is being sold to corporations by the government, for the construction of malls, luxury condominiums, freeways, dams and nuclear plants. The government is looking for (and creating when necessary) any excuse to attack Syria against its…

> It's the fusion of authoritarian quasi-fascist rule with capitalism Were the two ever separate?

[deleted]

Re: What is Happening in Istanbul?

#278

Post by dmix »

justin66 wrote: post #248
api wrote: post #158

"These people are my friends. They are my students, my relatives. They have no «hidden agenda» as the state likes to say. Their agenda is out there. It is very clear. The whole country is being sold to corporations by the government, for the construction of malls, luxury condominiums, freeways, dams and nuclear plants. The government is looking for (and creating when necessary) any excuse to attack Syria against its…

> It's the fusion of authoritarian quasi-fascist rule with capitalism Were the two ever separate?

Never, for long periods of time.

Modern societies have never really lived without a large state. So almost every new society (or post-revolution) in history adopted that same practice. But usually with new limitations.

The problem is that once the state is instantiated and given broad power, their power continues to grow and expand out of self-interest and desire for control.

Regardless of capitalism or socialism.

As Rothbard said: "the true utopian is the man who puts all the guns and all the decision-making power into the hands of the central government and then says, 'Limit yourself.'".

Re: What is Happening in Istanbul?

#279

Post by JDShu »

enraged_camel wrote: post #255
api wrote: post #158

"These people are my friends. They are my students, my relatives. They have no «hidden agenda» as the state likes to say. Their agenda is out there. It is very clear. The whole country is being sold to corporations by the government, for the construction of malls, luxury condominiums, freeways, dams and nuclear plants. The government is looking for (and creating when necessary) any excuse to attack Syria against its…

Wow. I am speechless. As someone who was born and raised in Turkey, and visited Singapore for long periods of time, let me say very clearly: you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. Turkey and Singapore are two completely different worlds, with different histories, cultures, and geopolitical situations, and are not related in any shape or form. There may be a few surface-level parallels, but that's wher…

For the purposes of this discussion, I don't think it's correct to be comparing the current Singapore with the current Turkey, since the premise is that Turkey is on the way to becoming like Singapore. So from this perspective if you examine the points you gave:

- Singapore is the least corrupt country in the world because of extremely tough laws that were enacted in the past.

- I'll give you that Singapore is much more diverse, but note that China also wants to adopt a Singapore model and has an incredibly strong cultural identity.

- A quick lookup shows that Erdoğan has been in office for the longest time since the 60s (three terms). To me, fears of Turkey becoming a de facto one-party state seems justified, at least absent any other information.

I'm not sure if listing the differences and similarities of the two countries is even relevant to this particular discussion. The thesis was that Turkey might be trying to adopt a Singapore model of using economic growth and social order to offset the demand for political freedom. It doesn't actually matter how different the countries are if the government objectives are similar.

Re: What is Happening in Istanbul?

#280

Post by [deleted] »

look_lookatme wrote: post #260
enraged_camel wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. I am speechless. As someone who was born and raised in Turkey, and visited Singapore for long periods of time, let me say very clearly: you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. Turkey and Singapore are two completely different worlds, with different histories, cultures, and geopolitical situations, and are not related in any shape or form. There may be a few surface-level parallels, but that's wher…

"Singapore is one of the least corrupt countries in the world." You should ask Shane Todd about that.

[deleted]
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