[Non-US] News That Makes You laugh/cry/neither...

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Tue Jun 23, 2015 4:24 am

As it turns out in Australia, Tuesday is also Monday.

See our "The Immigration Minister Can now strip you of citizenship on a whim ignoring the rule of law" legislation is coming up, nowish, and holy crap is it crazy.

So yeah. It was so bug fuck facist that the actual LNP federal cabinet freaked the fuck out when Abbot and Dutton (the most incompetent man on earth) brought it before them. Or more accurately, leaked it to the press without telling them shit about it first.

I mean fucking hell, Barnaby Joyce, prominent National Party member, the guy most people actually think leads the party (he doesn't, the other guy is just invisible), the actual poster boy for an actual god damn out and proud in the damn title "Nationalist" party. Thought it was a dangerous assault on the rule of law, and yet dumb ass Dutton was all missing the point and "But me totally bypassing the courts is what is so GREAT about my idea!"

Who's idea was it, why it's based on a recommendation by a guy who did a review who, wait, no even THAT guy is freaking the fuck out over it and basically saying "WTF? Fuck no, I never recommended that, I didn't even imagine anyone would ever be able to pretend I recommended that, but just to be fucking clear, here I am right now telling you all I didn't fucking recommend that".

So Abbot, as part of "Good Government starts... eh, maybe about a year in, if we feel up to it" promised that this sort of shit wasn't going to fly anymore, he would totally take advice he would, from his cabinet and stuff.

And with his own cabinet leaking against him and denouncing his plans as attacks on the rule of law... he went instead to the party room (basically the tea party backbencher nobody lunatics not safe to put in front of TV cameras just in case they say anything, no really yes these guys are more of a risk than Joe "there is no housing crisis and poor people don't even drive cars" Hockey.).

Then he went before his own little security comity thing (basically him and the guys sponsoring this).

And he didn't bring it to cabinet for consultation or modification.

So what has emerged is a bill that lets the Minister revoke citizenship, on a whim because of "conduct", it's unclear if that conduct actually even has to be fighting for a "terrorist" or enemy state/group. It HAS been explicitly stated already that SOME official terrorist groups will be fine. Sometimes. Maybe. Look the Minister just gets to decide, so fuck off.

And it's going to be retrospective. Retrospective to when? Who the fuck knows, stop asking questions.

Can there be an appeal to the courts? It doesn't look like it.

Who is a "dual citizen" is it anyone who qualifies for it? No? Yes? Fuck off, stop asking questions, the minister just decides ok.

What about the whole thing where the charge itself and the evidence can be top secret? As in reporters going to jail and courts, and legal defense (if they are even allowed to consider the matter) don't get to see the evidence? Because that was an early leaked detail, is that still a thing, not sure yet, this thing is just being tabled, but the answer is probably "fuck off the minister just fucking gets to fucking decide, ok for the last fucking time?".

Does this get to apply to CHILDREN who are taken overseas by a parent? Well actually that question was asked, and you guessed it the answer was basically "yes"... "because the minister just gets to fucking decide ok, but in this case, yes is going to be his decision".

So anyway I am a dual national. Because my parents applied for it when I was a kid to ensure I qualified. When I was a child they took me overseas. I traveled through countries sufficiently adjacent to conflict such as Spain, Jordan, Turkey and Yugoslavia like a year before it collapsed. Oh yeah, and I was taken to local communist party meetings when I was a kid, so there would be records of organizational ties to SOME sort of "undesirable" if archaic group, oh and they are trying to get every Green group in the country removed from charity status and MAYBE even declared criminal/terrorist... and I have vague but probably recorded ties to the Greens party so there is that too...

So yeah. This won't end up deporting me from the country. Hell this law will likely just short of never get used and will likely be struck down as blatantly unconstitutional (not especially easy in Australia, so that's an achievement). But, technically, all it would take would be secret imaginary evidence, a ministerial judgement of vague "misconduct" that for all I know could just be "failure to be sufficiently patriotic/conservative", or someone just deciding that Jordan over 20 years ago was just a bit too close to Syria right now, so WTF be on the safe side, blanket citizenship purge anything that comes up on a word match search of the last 3 decades of the entire compiled databases of Australian intelligence agencies.

I'd do the whole "they came for the Refugees and I didn't speak out, they came for Aboriginals and I didn't speak out, they came for the Welfare Recipients and I... etc..." But I've been kicking and screaming about this descent into fucking fascism since it was a SLOW and SUBTLE thing, now that it's suddenly become a god damn headlong race to see just how quick we can get to the bit where we start building the giant people incinerators I'm pretty sure I'm firmly on the record as denouncing it every damn step of the way.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Tue Jun 23, 2015 4:37 am

Oh, and for good measure? Today also brings vicious attacks by the government on our public broadcaster the ABC.

They apparently "betrayed the Australian people" and "made a grievous error of judgement!"

Why?

Because on their bland, exceedingly lame political talking heads forum show DARED to permit a certain specific guy to ask the government representative ONE (not especially important) question about the anti-citizenship legislation coming up in the same week.

The guy who must not be permitted in such proximity to a minister? Why a guy previously cleared by our courts of apparently totally fucking bogus terrorism charges.

I mean god forbid THAT guy described as "dangerous" and "a terrorist sympathiser"! no less by the PM just now ask about how you know, by the rule of law he is god damn innocent but how about under this whole "the minister just gets to decide" business... which... wouldn't effect him anyway because HE isn't a fucking dual citizen, for fucks sake...

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Tue Jun 23, 2015 4:38 am

I think you meant to post that in "non-US political", not "non-political". It's not the first time someone has made that mistake, but current laws dictate I have to mock you for it.

Anyway, at this point getting evicted from Australia would be a fucking boon. I really am working on changing my nationality, dropping the Australian side, and from then on giving zero fucks what the Australian public vote onto themselves.

Still, this one has been very bad. It is being pointed at on an international level - though admittedly, the same can be said about various other practices such as treatment of asylum seekers, and that hasn't dissuaded the government in any way. Ministers have pointed out objections with rather expected responses:

"I'd rather suspected terrorists be charged under a court of law, and indeed arrested and incarcerated here rather than just being stripped of citizenship then sent elsewhere so they can fall off our radar"
"YOU WANT TERRORISTS IN THE COUNTRY YOU ARE A TERRORIST"

"How about that rule of law thing?"
"WE MIGHT NOT HAVE SUFFICIENT EVIDENCE FOR A COURT TO GIVE THE VERDICT WE WANT! WHAT IF THEY'RE INNOCENT? WE WON'T BE ABLE TO DO WHAT WE WANT IF THAT HAPPENS!"

"If we stripped them of the Australian citizenship and then sent them to their other home, do you think that country will accept them?"
"NOT MY PROBLEM, STOP BEING A TERRORIST SYMPATHISER"

Oh also, Canadia has a similar power and used it to strip citizenship from a member of the Sea Shepard. You know, an activist group that isn't listed as a terrorist organisation. In other words it's totally a "do away with people we don't like" thing.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Tue Jun 23, 2015 5:47 am

Koumei wrote:I think you meant to post that in "non-US political", not "non-political". It's not the first time someone has made that mistake, but current laws dictate I have to mock you for it.

We need less threads with pretty much the same title.

Maybe a moderator can avenge me by moving the post and renaming some of these threads already.

"I'd rather suspected terrorists be charged under a court of law, and indeed arrested and incarcerated here rather than just being stripped of citizenship then sent elsewhere so they can fall off our radar"
"YOU WANT TERRORISTS IN THE COUNTRY YOU ARE A TERRORIST"

"How about that rule of law thing?"
"WE MIGHT NOT HAVE SUFFICIENT EVIDENCE FOR A COURT TO GIVE THE VERDICT WE WANT! WHAT IF THEY'RE INNOCENT? WE WON'T BE ABLE TO DO WHAT WE WANT IF THAT HAPPENS!"

"If we stripped them of the Australian citizenship and then sent them to their other home, do you think that country will accept them?"
"NOT MY PROBLEM, STOP BEING A TERRORIST SYMPATHISER"

It really needs pointing out for foreign observers.

Those aren't exaggerations or hyperbole. In fact, Koumei is coming dangerously close to simply quoting the PM and his more fascist inner circle almost word for word, only all caps.

tussock · Post by **tussock** » Wed Jun 24, 2015 3:15 pm

@Longes, Stupid cat pictures. Making me laugh.

Or maybe it was http://www.theguardian.com/environment/ ... ark-ruling

Where some Dutch people sued their government for dicking around on climate change and won. Holland being a rather low-lying country, the judge agreed in was kinda important.

Like, by failing to protect the citizenry in line with international agreements the government has agreed to. Which is to say, when they pass a law (which is what you do when parliament assents to a treaty and agrees to fulfil it's bla bla bla) saying they'll do something about preventing catastrophic climate change, they have to actually do quite a lot about that right now, because it's urgent.

I'm thinking someone should try that here, and also everywhere else. The current NZ government is trying it's bestest to be the last one on that particular boat, of trying to save the planet.

“The state should not hide behind the argument that the solution to the global climate problem does not depend solely on Dutch efforts,” the judges’ ruling said. “Any reduction of emissions contributes to the prevention of dangerous climate change and as a developed country the Netherlands should take the lead in this.”

Yay. An authority figure from somewhere agrees with me, and is therefore very clever.

#Cizenship: that shit is a virus you're getting through the 5-eyes "special relationship", because you know how when you're in government you're always wanting to secretly murder people every couple days? That's harder when they're citizens, a bit embarrassing when it ends up in a non-secret court and you have to pretend it's all double-secret and tell the judge to fuck off.

So you get rid of their citizenship in the past, retrospectively, before you bombed them into tiny pieces, and then the courts don't even have jurisdiction. Kill heaps more people.

Omegonthesane · Post by **Omegonthesane** » Wed Jul 01, 2015 6:10 am

It is now literally illegal in Australia to admit how bad the immigrant detention centres are.

maglag · Post by **maglag** » Wed Jul 01, 2015 10:48 am

Greece doesn't make their latest shark-loan payment. Extra points because they actually made a referendum and the greek people voted that enough shark loans were enough.

Sooo, what happens now?

Does the EU commission sends thugs to break Greece's politicians kneecaps?

Does Merkel mobilizes up the german army and performs a blitzekierg to take over Greece?

Do they make a new loan to pay the failed loan to pay the failed failed loan?

Does Greece gets kicked out of the EU and their neighbours build a wall around while starting to shoot any greeks trying to come out?

Does anybody gives an actual fuck and this whole mess is swept under the rug and everybody pretends it never happened?

vagrant · Post by **vagrant** » Wed Jul 01, 2015 10:55 am

Greece is a fascinating case, because a lot of the standard neoliberal control tactics (invent an excuse for war) don't apply, and the Syriza government is quite open about giving the 'Fuck you' to the banksters. My guess is that the neoliberals'll fuck the Greece banking system (which they already have by freezing the liquidity lifeline and causing a liquidity trap) until the Syriza government collapses due to popular unrest, then support another neolib puppet to take its place.

That may or may not work (it has in the past), but it really depends on how much stomach the Greeks have for austerity. Right now it's more or less a dirty word, and it'll be hard to convince the Greeks that they should live more shittily so the state can pay back German banks.

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Wed Jul 01, 2015 10:57 am

Greece will be owned by China in due time

MisterDee · Post by **MisterDee** » Wed Jul 01, 2015 11:08 am

It's a big game of chicken - at this point everyone's waiting on the referendum (and the lenders are hoping for the Hail Mary of the Greek population voting "yes" to austerity, which I doubt will happen.)

Once the inevitable "no" vote comes in, they'll probably come back with an offer for austerity-lite in exchange for more money.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Wed Jul 01, 2015 11:22 am

The referendum is flawed, but certainly the proper democratic action, much to the open outrage of the undemocratic neoliberal bankster aristocracy.

And... much to their surprise. The Greeks totally blindsided them with this, despite openly telegraphing it for ages.

Over the weekend the pro-austerity assholes in charge of the Trioka and it's allies, freaked the fuck out they were on the verge of panic. They are just that fucking stupid, that ludicrously confident that all would bow to their petty and insane whims, that they could not read "nothing left to lose" and "we have been openly telling you we are going to do this if you keep pushing us" as a possibility that the whole "appeal to democracy" thing might actually happen.

But then their ECB buddy agreed as he had previously suggested he might, to pretty much borderline illegally kneecap the Greek banks as punishment, and they rationalized once again that SURELY they are the masters of the universe and their enemies, no matter how little they have to lose will SURELY roll over and surrender to them.

And while they briefly spasmed and nearly offered something, anything... they only took about one day and a half before going straight back to making insane unreasonable demands and threats to the Greek government and people and patting each other on the back TOTALLY SURE that they still totes have this one in the bag.

Who knows, the threats might work, the greeks might vote Yes... buuut probably not, and even if they do nothing is actually going to make the stupid fucking austerity plan ever actually work.

The idiot aristocrats ARE doomed to failure on this one, even, if not especially if they miraculously pull out a "win" on this little conflict.

Now if they lose it, if Grexit happens, then things get really dark, because then for the Euro banksters, and the wider international idiot aristocrats, Greece will become the country and the government (of the week) that must not succeed at ANY cost.

Because as bad as Grexit is on it's own for them, because it is pretty damn bad for the whole Euro currency project, if Greece leaves, escapes austerity and the issues of a currency controlled for the benefits of others, and succeeds that's the god damn end of the world as they know it.

As for the theory that the euro aristocrats WANT Greece forced out, and that's what all the insanity is about. I don't believe it for a second, this is honest to goodness utter fucking stupidity on their part. The powers that be ARE THAT DUMB.

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Wed Jul 01, 2015 12:45 pm

IMFs action are especially insane when you look at how they are handling Ukrainian debts.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Wed Jul 01, 2015 12:48 pm

IMF actions are always insane.

We have decades of data on that.

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Thu Jul 02, 2015 5:24 pm

The ‘humanitarian aid’ aboard a recent flotilla to Gaza fit in two cardboard boxes

maglag · Post by **maglag** » Fri Jul 03, 2015 7:49 pm

You heard of Uber? It's a company that offers an app where anyone can call for or be a taxi driver. Basically if you need a ride, you call Uber and they contact the nearest guy with a car that's part of the service to go pick you up, payment is also handled by the app. Since Uber doesn't need to follow taxi regulations and gets to skip a lot of taxes, they can run their services at lower prices than regular taxi companies.

Uber recently tried to move to Paris, where the local taxi drivers weren't very happy. They burned with hatred towards Uber.

By which I mean they actually started ambushing Uber cars, flipping them over and lighting them up.

You may expect the french police to do something about that. You would be correct. Uber french executives were the ones arrested because of the riots. Uber then basically said "fuck this shit, we're out of here!".

Starmaker · Post by **Starmaker** » Fri Jul 03, 2015 8:49 pm

maglag wrote:You may expect the french police to do something about that. You would be correct. Uber french executives were the ones arrested because of the riots. Uber then basically said "fuck this shit, we're out of here!".

Fucking finally. The way world governments bend over to Uber while skullfucking their law-abiding, tax-paying, insurance-providing licensed citizens and businesses is just shameful.

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Sun Jul 05, 2015 3:48 pm

http://www.policyreview.eu/eu-lends-ukr ... lion-euros

Schleiermacher · Post by **Schleiermacher** » Sun Jul 05, 2015 8:05 pm

Meanwhile, Greece votes 'No' in the bailout referendum, to the surprise of absolutely nobody. What might be surprising is that 'No' got upwards of 60% of the vote.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Sun Jul 05, 2015 8:20 pm

Schleiermacher wrote:Meanwhile, Greece votes 'No' in the bailout referendum, to the surprise of absolutely nobody. What might be surprising is that 'No' got upwards of 60% of the vote.

I love how the vast majority of the media kept trying to spin it as close, and yet it's a total fucking wipeout.

vagrant · Post by **vagrant** » Sun Jul 05, 2015 9:15 pm

Starmaker wrote:
maglag wrote:You may expect the french police to do something about that. You would be correct. Uber french executives were the ones arrested because of the riots. Uber then basically said "fuck this shit, we're out of here!".
Fucking finally. The way world governments bend over to Uber while skullfucking their law-abiding, tax-paying, insurance-providing licensed citizens and businesses is just shameful.

Gee, who would have guessed that finding a way to avoid regulatory oversight makes services cheaper? Clothing and tech companies have been doing that for ages! Uber really did invent something brilliant - local outsourcing! If you can't send your business to China, just make everyone underpaid wageslaves locally!

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Sun Jul 05, 2015 10:49 pm

DSMatticus wrote:I love how the vast majority of the media kept trying to spin it as close, and yet it's a total fucking wipeout.

So much so that at one point a major Greek news paper published a poll putting Yes marginally ahead.

Only it was not so much published as stolen and leaked.

And it wasn't so much a poll as it was just a selected part of the data from a poll that said what they wanted it to, and was sufficiently misrepresented that the polling company it came from was threatening to sue the hell out of them for damaging their reputation by associating what would not be an accurate "poll" with their company.

That sort of "spin". Which is starting to get a little bit outside the realms of just spin really.

Still, lots of international news picked that story up and ran with it, and it was early enough that it did what they wanted it to and "set the media narrative" as "close, probably yes, the greek government should probably just surrender and give up on democracy before the vote" right through the campaign.

maglag · Post by **maglag** » Sun Jul 05, 2015 10:56 pm

DSMatticus wrote:
Schleiermacher wrote:Meanwhile, Greece votes 'No' in the bailout referendum, to the surprise of absolutely nobody. What might be surprising is that 'No' got upwards of 60% of the vote.
I love how the vast majority of the media kept trying to spin it as close, and yet it's a total fucking wipeout.

Merkel is already summoning a war council to determine how to deal with the situation.

Belgium Politician: I don't give a single shit about what the greek people think or want.

Also my capital's population was supporting the greek no yesterday yay! Although my government's official statement on the matter could be translated as "Greece can go fuck itself".

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Mon Jul 06, 2015 6:23 am

Martin Schulz is actually a German politician. He's part of Germany's "center left," but that still means he supports the unworkable German financial models - he just thinks that unions should have a bigger seat at the table that discusses what the fuck we do when the government stops managing the economy.

The Germans never did figure out that their entire "government hands off" policies towards currency only ever worked because they were benefiting from a bigger government that was very activist. Like how they still haven't seemed to understand that they are able to piss people off with a tiny army only because other countries are footing the bill for big militaries and guaranteeing their borders.

Germany really is like a college libertarian. Driving around daddy's car and spending daddy's money and talking about how self made he is and how the less fortunate just don't have the work ethic he has.

-Username17

Blade · Post by **Blade** » Mon Jul 06, 2015 9:07 am

maglag wrote:Uber recently tried to move to Paris, where the local taxi drivers weren't very happy. They burned with hatred towards Uber.

By which I mean they actually started ambushing Uber cars, flipping them over and lighting them up.

You may expect the french police to do something about that. You would be correct. Uber french executives were the ones arrested because of the riots. Uber then basically said "fuck this shit, we're out of here!".

It's a bit of a mess, because the taxis in France (especially in Paris) are a bit like a mafia. The boss of the biggest taxi company is friend with people in high places and owns most of the taxi licenses (which were supposed to be plenty and free until the taxi decided to create a secondary market for them and did all they could to prevent new licenses to be issued to raise the value of the existing ones).
And they act like a mafia up to the reaction to competition.

So in one corner we have a mafia-like organisation that took control of a sector and squeeze all the money they can out of it (high prices and bad services for customers, bad working conditions for most workers).

And in the opposite corner we've got a company that's not much better. But for different reasons.

But since people don't like taxis because of high prices and bad service, they tend to side with Uber. Especially when taxis start flipping and burning cars and attacking drivers and customers. Most of them don't realize that they're siding with one evil against another.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Mon Jul 06, 2015 9:29 am

FrankTrollman wrote: Germany really is like a college libertarian. Driving around daddy's car and spending daddy's money and talking about how self made he is and how the less fortunate just don't have the work ethic he has.

Just today I saw a fascinating photo from the London Conference of 1953, where Greece's Minister of Finance signed off on forgiving half of Germany's debt. Like Germany isn't doing for anyone else.