International events

[3CityApache]

So, finally there is officially a new government in Poland, the one we don't have to be ashamed of.

[Fragile Bird]

How crippled is Tusk going to be, though, by the judiciary? I gather that the previous government did a Trump thing by appointing judges who would hamper attempts at reform. I see that they’ve blocked EU requirements by simply declaring them unconstitutional.

[3CityApache]

He’s potentially more crippled by the president. The changes to the legal system could be relatively easily undone if not for the veto. But they claim they have a plan to do it nonetheless, so we’ll see. 

[House Balstroko]

This is probably a good time to address what @Conflicting Thoughtand @Rippounet mentioned in the previous thread. 
 

It’s a huge mistake to view Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the response to it, by framing it in the context of the Iraq war. Russian imperialism goes back centuries and predates the establishment of the United States as a country. It would be more accurate to say that the Global South (a misguided term in this context imo), simply wishes to maintain strong relations with Russia for the simple fact that it offers somewhat of an alternative to the Western system.

Take Lula of Brazil for example. He’s a firm supporter of BRICS and likely wishes to capitalise on that front. China and India are economically more important than Russia, yet the latter is viewed as essential to the organisation. Taking a strong stance against Russia would likely undermine BRICS as a whole. Those are my 2 cents. 

[Darzin]

Iraq isn't really equivalent and it is very much not a double standard Russia already had "an Iraq" with the first and second Chechen wars. Fought a War with Georgia, stole Crimea and supported the separatists. All of that with fairly minimal consequences it's only with this latest war that the actual hammer has dropped. The equivalent to Iraq for the US would be the US invading Canada and annexing chunks of it which would have led to severe consequences. The Russian equivalent would be something like invading Turkmenistan and overthrowing the dictator there not invading a democracy that borders NATO and the EU. The West is not actually being hypocritical here.  In the past 30 years Russia has intervened and invaded many places with just condemnations. A war of conquest against a democracy is a different beast and it's going to create a different response.

Edited December 14, 2023 by Darzin

[Conflicting Thought]

yeah i guess its not the same, i just worry about the increasing construction of military bases in the world and in particular in latin america.

not all out conquest just the threat of intervention when necessary and it is going to be necessary. i think its hard for me to make a huge deal of the difference between imperialist countries(maybe china is different), and how they achive their goals, the usa exporting of "democracy" has been much more successful than all out  conquest, they achieve the same goal tho in that they take whatever resource they want, or change regimes to whatever the like.

24 minutes ago, Darzin said:

A war of conquest against a democracy is a different beast and it's going to create a different response.

mm i really dont know how much of a difference it has because the usa has toppled multiple democracies throught its history causing untold missery, and yes the usa hasnt "anexed" territory in the strictest sense(for some time) but they still make and unmake as they please in many places

[House Balstroko]

3 hours ago, Conflicting Thought said:

yeah i guess its not the same, i just worry about the increasing construction of military bases in the world and in particular in latin america.not all out conquest just the threat of intervention when necessary and it is going to be necessary.

Are you explicitly referring to the current situation between Venezuela and Guyana here? If that’s the case, then ideally it would be great if Brazil took a hard stance, since any invasion by Venezuela would have to go through the Brazilian state of Roraima. 

[Padraig]

4 hours ago, House Balstroko said:

 If that’s the case, then ideally it would be great if Brazil took a hard stance, since any invasion by Venezuela would have to go through the Brazilian state of Roraima. 

Yes, the Brazilian foreign minister said a few days ago that "under no circumstances can we allow one country to attack another using our territory".  It is up to countries like Brazil and the US to make it clear to Venezuela that they are utterly opposed to war.  This dispute is a perfect one for diplomacy.  It may require some posturing but we can live with that if it avoids war.

Ultimately, while people may frown at any US involvement because of past sins, the people who would suffer from US isolation would be the Guyanese (not the US).  It would be ridiculously ironic if Latin Americans like the Guyanese would pay the price as "punishment" for historic US aggression against other Latin American countries.

Venezuela has talked about Guyana now giving the green light to the US to set up military bases there (in response to Venezuela's demands).  We certainly don't want more military bases in the world but I can't blame the US, if this is true (rather than propaganda).  Venezuela opened the door for that.

8 hours ago, Conflicting Thought said:

mm i really dont know how much of a difference it has because the usa has toppled multiple democracies throught its history causing untold missery, and yes the usa hasnt "anexed" territory in the strictest sense(for some time) but they still make and unmake as they please in many places

There is a huge difference.  It is hard to underplay the atrocities caused by wars of conquest.  For thousands of years, it was a terrible blight on the world.  It was the "normal" way the world operated.  Big countries would invade smaller countries, seize their wealth, enslave their people, rape and pillage etc.

So yes, wars still happen but denormalising wars of conquest is seismic.  Unfortunately, we don't live in a world where wars don't happen but never let the pursuit of perfection undermine the progress that has been made.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

1 hour ago, Padraig said:

So yes, wars still happen but denormalising wars of conquest is seismic.  Unfortunately, we don't live in a world where wars don't happen but never let the pursuit of perfection undermine the progress that has been made.

Thank you.  That more eloquently and succinctly made the point I was attempting to make last thread.

@Conflicting Thought

If you want to damn the US damn it for creating the opportunity for Russia and Venezuala to use US willingness to use force overseas to justify a return to wars of conquest.  That we absolutely own even if we can make a distinction (and we were wrong to engage in “forever wars” that destabilized Afghanistan and Iraq).  

Our use of war… even if not for conquest… created the environment where Russia and others abuse it.  

Edited December 14, 2023 by Ser Scot A Ellison

[Zorral]

Masha Gessen’s Hannah Arendt Prize has been canceled because of their essay on Gaza.

https://lithub.com/masha-gessens-hannah-arendt-prize-has-been-cancelled-because-of-their-essay-on-gaza/

By Dan Sheehan
December 13, 2023, 2:59pm
 

Quote

 

The German Green Party-affiliated Heinrich Böll Foundation, “in agreement with the Bremen Senate,” is withdrawing from awarding the Hannah Arendt Prize for Political Thought to the Russian-American journalist Masha Gessen, citing Gessen’s recent New Yorker essay “In the Shadow of the Holocaust” as the reason for the decision.

In the essay, published on December 9, Gessen criticizes Germany’s Israel policy (including the Bundestag’s controversial BDS resolution, which condemns the Israel boycott movement as anti-Semitic) and its politics of remembrance, and compares the plight of today’s besieged Gazans to that of the ghettoized Jews in Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe:

For the last seventeen years, Gaza has been a hyperdensely populated, impoverished, walled-in compound where only a small fraction of the population had the right to leave for even a short amount of time—in other words, a ghetto. Not like the Jewish ghetto in Venice or an inner-city ghetto in America but like a Jewish ghetto in an Eastern European country occupied by Nazi Germany. In the two months since Hamas attacked Israel, all Gazans have suffered from the barely interrupted onslaught of Israeli forces. Thousands have died. On average, a child is killed in Gaza every ten minutes. Israeli bombs have struck hospitals, maternity wards, and ambulances. Eight out of ten Gazans are now homeless, moving from one place to another, never able to get to safety.

According to an article published in Germany’s Die Zeit newspaper earlier today, the Bremen branch of the German-Israeli Society (DIG) heavily criticized Gessen’s statements on the situation in the Gaza Strip and called for the planned award ceremony to be suspended. An open letter from the Bremen DIG stated that honoring Gessen (a Jewish writer whose grandfather was murdered by the Nazis) “would contradict the necessary decisive action against the growing anti-Semitism.” ....

 

 

[kissdbyfire]

And it’s going to get so much worse… 

https://www.commondreams.org/news/milei
 

Quote

But as Progressive International co-general coordinator David Adler and others noted, the measures also include calls for armed forces to break labor strikes, create a national registry of people who organize protests, and sanctions against parents who bring their children to demonstrations.

The new package amounts to "a total crackdown on Argentine civil society," Adler said.

 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

12 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

And it’s going to get so much worse… 

https://www.commondreams.org/news/milei
 

 

Might as well have brought back the Military Junta that ruled Argentina during the 1980s.

[Zorral]

I keep thinking of the Italian Rai Television series, Suburra: Blood on Rome, and particularly the sequel season (2023), Suburræterna which dig into Church officials' place in the overall criminal corruption of Italy.

Cardinal found guilty of embezzlement in Vatican ‘trial of the century

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/12/16/vatican-trial-cardinal-becciu-corruption/

Quote

 

VATICAN CITY — Inside the high walls of the Holy See, Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu — former head of the office of “miracles” that minted saints — was considered papabile, a possible next pope.

Then his career collided with church prosecutors, who charged the 75-year-old Italian and nine other officials with corruption, setting up the Vatican’s trial of the century.

On Saturday, Becciu — the first cardinal tried by the Vatican’s little-known criminal court — was found guilty of several counts of embezzlement after a trial of marred by allegations of witness tampering and papal interference. Becciu was sentenced to five years and six months in a verdict read out in a converted quarter of the museum that houses the Sistine Chapel.

Becciu’s lawyers said the decision would be appealed, but it put the cardinal closer to one of Vatican City’s handful of jail cells — a result that amounts to both a sign of accountability and embarrassment for an institution that has long struggled to root out corruption. He was also barred from holding any Vatican office. ....

 

 

 

[Bironic]

Chile voted against the new constitution, thus the constitution of 1980 under Pinochet remains in place. Unlike the last draft from a few years ago that was very progressive(and also defeated by a vote in the end), this one was dominated by right wing politicians…

[Padraig]

Two referendums on the same subject being rejected in a year is not good.  Politicians are supposed to come up with solutions to problems.  Even if you approve of an individual result, this is not going to inspire faith in institutions, which you need.

[kissdbyfire]

8 hours ago, Bironic said:

Chile voted against the new constitution, thus the constitution of 1980 under Pinochet remains in place. Unlike the last draft from a few years ago that was very progressive(and also defeated by a vote in the end), this one was dominated by right wing politicians…

I thought that the 1st referendum that didn't pass was progressive whereas this 2nd one was very conservative? I think it had bans/limitations on abortion among other conservative agenda items. But maybe I got it all wrong?

 @Conflicting Thought

Edited December 18, 2023 by kissdbyfire

[Conflicting Thought]

Yeah this draft was very very far right wing, so its a good thing it didnt get the votes, but we still have an illegitimate constitution created with blood and suffering, and the unrest that trigered this whole thing hasnt been answered, so as padraig said, its a clear failure of our political class to come up with a solution, the thing is, that the unrest had a lot to do with the political class, so this is not good. And this last results come in just days after the worst scandal of tax corruption in chile's history came to light, in wich 55 people where arrested for tax fraud 

https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/chilean-authorities-arrest-55-largest-recorded-tax-fraud-case-2023-12-15/  this is a very bare bones article but you get the gist.

[kissdbyfire]

18 minutes ago, Conflicting Thought said:

Yeah this draft was very very far right wing, so its a good thing it didnt get the votes, but we still have an illegitimate constitution created with blood and suffering, and the unrest that trigered this whole thing hasnt been answered, so as padraig said, its a clear failure of our political class to come up with a solution, the thing is, that the unrest had a lot to do with the political class, so this is not good. And this last results come in just days after the worst scandal of tax corruption in chile's history came to light, in wich 55 people where arrested for tax fraud 

https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/chilean-authorities-arrest-55-largest-recorded-tax-fraud-case-2023-12-15/  this is a very bare bones article but you get the gist.

Who are the people involved in this fraud case? I mean, are there politicians involved, and if so, are they white-wingers? And yes, that’s how I’m spelling right-wingers now, like I’m Elmer Fudd, because they seem to always be connected to white supremacist movements nowadays.

[Bironic]

2 hours ago, kissdbyfire said:

I thought that the 1st referendum that didn't pass was progressive whereas this 2nd one was very conservative? I think it had bans/limitations on abortion among other conservative agenda items. But maybe I got it all wrong?

 @Conflicting Thought

That’s what I wrote. First constitutional referendum was progressive and defeated, current referendum was right wing and was defeated as well. Which means that at the Pinochet constitution from 1980 stays in place atm.

[kissdbyfire]

5 minutes ago, Bironic said:

That’s what I wrote. First constitutional referendum was progressive and defeated, current referendum was right wing and was defeated as well. Which means that at the Pinochet constitution from 1980 stays in place atm.

Wow. I have no idea how I not only missed what you said but repeated all you said as if it was somehow different.