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What is Happening in Istanbul?

defnesumanblogs.com

361–370 of 519 posts

Re: What is Happening in Istanbul?

#361
post #208
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…

> protesting something I call "Singaporification." I love how people always cast Singapore as some kind of horror story cautionary tale. No-one seems to have told the actual people of Singapore, who are perfectly free to leave their nightmarish dystopia at any time, and yet seem perversely inclined to stay. Somehow this obvious, central, crucial fact gets left out of the "we don't want to turn out like Singapore!" na…

Seriously, though. I mean, a ban on chewing gum, though? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chewing_gum_ban_in_Singapore

Right, I dont want to contemplate that.

Re: What is Happening in Istanbul?

#362
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…

>anti-Singaporean sentiments on HN lately

To be honest I doubt Singapore is on the radar of most HN participants in any shape or form whether positive or negative. Thats not to say that its insignificant - its just that there haven't been any 40k people riots there lately...so not at the front of people's minds.

Re: What is Happening in Istanbul?

#363
post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

"people decide to just blow themselves up for _no_ reason" = they have established a coherent subsect of Islam which teaches that Islam requires they forever be waging war against the nonbelievers and which celebrates dying in such a war as the highest honor, giving them a very clear reason that anyone with open eyes is well aware of by now. "Jihad means war only. Fighting, with the sword." - Abdullah Azzam. "The Qur…

There's a billion muslims, and most of them don't believe this.

I could find 5 people's quotations to cast pretty much any group in a bad light.

Re: What is Happening in Istanbul?

#364
post #314

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…

I partially disagree with your comment about corruption. This part:"Turkey on the other hand is rampant with corruption, especially the current government." Corruption on upper levels probably never disappears, but at least on the lower levels, where people really got hurt and dreaded most, things got better with current government. As someone who lived in Turkey for quite long time, I can say I was pleasantly surpri…

Interesting map, but I have to question it a bit. I mean, Switzerland is 6th which speaks highly to their local situation, but their banks enable all manner of international corruptions.

Re: What is Happening in Istanbul?

#366
post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "caused muslims to hate us" Well, that's a few simultaneous fallacies. But, yes, your policies led to the 9/11 attackers deciding to attack you. Is this not blisteringly obvious? > and that therefor we should change them??????????? Oh gosh no, change? Not mid-stream.

> But, yes, your policies led to the 9/11 attackers deciding to attack you. Is this not blisteringly obvious? In exactly the same way that wearing miniskirts leads to rape. Take for example UBL's main grievance: the presence of the international Desert Shield force, or as UBL put it, allowing infidels to live in the land of the two holy cities. That force was there at the request of King Saud of Arabia. So what makes…

Ehm, didn't USA support Israel which was/is very hostile towards Muslims living on its territory (Gaza Strip)? So it's not like their politics weren't giving Al-Queda a reason to be provoked.

To use your metaphor, it's a lot like wearing a miniskirt and flashing the perpetrator. Neither side is really 100% clean in this.

Re: What is Happening in Istanbul?

#367
post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

System hacking detected! Querystrings are our last defense!

It's such a weird thing to implement on top of a registration wall. I imagine it's something friends, VCs, and the tech press were told about, but the rest of us aren't supposed to use.

No, everybody was told about it. It's an official feature. Because Quora power users keep bitching up a storm about the registration wall.

It is still a weird thing, though. The Quora management swears that forcing people to log up makes things better somehow, although they've never been particularly clear on how that works.

Re: What is Happening in Istanbul?

#368
post #285

This was a posted by a friend on Facebook: Since I see that some friends have got excited about the recent events in Turkey I decided to write something about it and provide some context. I think it is good to know a bit of history of Turkey before AKP to understand what is going on there. It has been more than 10 years that AKP is in power so people might not know or may have forgotten the situation before AKP. Turk…

Well, I won't try to give every anti-democratical actions of Erdogan : HN comment post limit may be exceeded. Maybe those two links might help to understand the vision of "democracy" of Erdogan : http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4387396,00.html http://www.quora.com/Turkey-country/How-can-the-Turkish-publ...

You don't need to list them all, but giving one or two examples of Erdogan's anti-democratic behavior would be nice. Right now it seems as you are calling for a popular democratically elected government to resign because you simply don't like its policies and you haven't been able to stop AKP from winning democratic elections for over a decade. You seem to be trying to do exactly what the Kemalist military was doing before it was forced out of politics.

As far as I have checked major Turkish media outlets, they are reporting the situation and there is no media black out as claimed in the post you have linked to. I find such claims quite dishonest. You should know that making such easily refutable claims will cast doubt on your whole position, you should be more careful about your claims.

Re: What is Happening in Istanbul?

#369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No.. What are you disagreeing with? I didn't state a position on the matter, or at least didn't intend to. > The police "attacking" is NOT a free pass to turn cars, throw stones or loot shops. Yes of course; I never stated that it was. That behavior however, is a predictable occurrence when there is enough anger in a mob and herd mentality kicks in.

> It didn't start that way. It started peacefully. OK. But as it did not end peacefully, not really relevant. > The government escalated the situation when they tear-gassed peaceful protestors. How is this relevant except to excuse the behaviour? The protesters didn't respond to the escalation by consolidating their resolve and standing their ground, they started destroying random people's property. > Once the govern…

Or the government sneaked in their people to delegitimize the protesters. This is a well known way police or covert agencies work.

Usually if protesters are well versed in such tactics the ring of strongest forms the ring around rest of the mass to protect them from interlopers that would give police a provocation they needed to attack the protesters or to delegimitize them.

Re: What is Happening in Istanbul?

#370
post #335
post #330

I've been following the events since the beginning (in fact I was there at the solitary meeting in Chicago yesterday: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-local-... ), so let me summarize what's been going on. However, if you have time to read just a single post, read this ( http://technosociology.org/?p=1255 ) spot on analysis instead of my comment. First, it's not an Istanbul thing anymore, many Tu…

I read, listened hundreds of things about events, but honestly, all I see is vague hand wavy things about the real cause. "Lack of adequate response.. No official plans to celebrate May 19.. No alcohol sale after 10pm.." Seriously? I maen really?, To me this this whole mess seems to be reduced to "Hey police pepper sprayed my friend yesterday, and btw I also hate this government and PM. I am going in." reaction.

Let me give you a quick chronology of what happened. It was a peaceful sit in in May 27th to 30th. On the 30th at 5am, police walked in and tear gassed protestors and burned their tents. Strike #1.

People gathered back at 1pm, and did yet another peaceful sit in. Protestors red eachother and the police books, sang songs. Police attacked them yet again with tear gas and pressurized water. Strike #2.

They kept doing do over and over again for the next few days even though the protestors STILL were not causing damage. Strike #3.

They, "unknown" civilian groups were photographed, carrying sticks and beating people while the police is holding them. Police beating people. Police aiming with tear gas guns at people and hitting them with it at close range (can cause severe trauma by the sheer speed of the canister), and then dancing afterwards in joy. Strike #4.

Also, you seem to be a Turkish speaker, so you know the significance of all those things that you're saying "Seriously?" to. Trivializing it won't help.

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