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

Starmaker · Post by **Starmaker** » Mon Mar 14, 2016 12:31 pm

Putin's former minister of communications (allegedly) left the US a month after his (alleged) death/murder and burial in LA. Also, logged into Telegram in February.

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Mon Mar 14, 2016 1:46 pm

Starmaker wrote:Putin's former minister of communications (allegedly) left the US a month after his (alleged) death/murder and burial in LA.

Which Navalny himself, who dug this up, immediately explained with "automated US customs".

nockermensch · Post by **nockermensch** » Mon Mar 14, 2016 6:10 pm

phlapjackage wrote:@nockermensch, how are things going in Brazil?

https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comm ... sident_to/

DSMatticus wrote:My understanding of Brazil is that basically everything and everyone is deeply corrupt. Every major party, every major corporation but particularly those that get government contracts (... par for the course there, I guess), every major media outlet, etc, etc. So it's very easy to point at the other guys and scream scandal and demand your turn to put your hand in the cookie jar. There's also a fairly horrible recession going on that I don't entirely understand. Demand for Brazilian exports is down (because the world is fucking broke) and investment in emerging markets is down (because they are some of the most fucked by the world being fucking broke, and despite its size Brazil is still basically one of those). I'm sure there are some very specific policy issues I'm simply not particularly well-informed about, but despite my best efforts to read up on it hell if I know.

Right, I've been meaning to write something about this. The main reason I still check The Den is because we're mostly all socialists here and you guys would like to read a case of how reactionary forces can break a country:

First, DSM has it essentially right. Brazil's political system was built in a way that makes very hard to fight corruption. To give a simple and pertinent example, lobbying is ilegal, but all the main civil engineering companies that win bids with the government donate millions every electoral cycle to finance the campaigns of all parties with a chance to win. They do it out of a deep love for democracy, obviously.

It's also true that we're in a very bad place, economically speaking. It's been 516 years since we started this place as an exploration colony, and our economy is still based around "cutting Brazilwood for the metropolis", except that today it's stuff like ores, soy, meat or fruits. We're essentially a commodity exporter, and when China stopped buying our stuff, we crashed. Being a collateral target of Saudi's Oil price war also didn't help.

But then, there are the local circumstances:

1) Beyond Citizen Kane: We have a rabidly reactionary media conglomerate that shapes public opinion. These CIA-funded criminals kept left-wing parties from winning since our Democracy was reinstated, as the linked documentary pretty much proves (it has English subtitles and you should watch it). We entered the 90s with people dying from hunger in our poorer northeast region. PSDB, the party in power, followed the neo-liberal scheme of selling our national industries and cutting our already crumbled social welfare nets, which only worsened the situation, but the media loved to paint this as structural intractable problems, that could be fought with charity.

After that, Globo and the other big media could never forgave the Workers Party for coming to power and doing this. Open TV in Brazil runs a continuous character assassination campaign against Lula and the current president, Dilma. While we were growing (thanks to favorable exports), these news could be dismissed as background noise. But now unemployment is growing, people are angrier and so big media's campaign gets traction.

2) Who watches the watchmen? So in 88 Brazil got what amounted to a fourth branch of government. Hilariously, for an entire branch of government created to combat rampant judicial corruption, the Public Ministry got quickly filled with corrupt officials, to the point that during Fernando Henrique Cardoso's presidency the Prosecutor General was referred to as "Shelver General". His main job being shelving and forgetting the cases. This changed when the Worker's Party got the presidency, but then the media (see 1, above) started applying public opinion pressure on cases involving the current government, and ignoring cases regarding the opposition. Keeping all the major civil engineering firms paralyzed while their executives are investigated also has the perverse effect of preventing the government to applying Keynesian tactics while our economy contracts: There's a lot of infrastructure to build here, that could be absorbing our now cheap steel and generating jobs, but this isn't being done.

So 1 and 2 together built a narrative that the Worker's Party is somehow a den of corruption, when in fact they're Brazilian politicians, that need to do politics with the rotten tools we have. Much fanfarre is done about the close ties between Lula and several civil engineering companies, ignoring that every single president we already had did at least the same, and in general, much worse. Fernando Henrique Cardoso, much beloved by the media, is the owner of a $11,000,000 condo on Avenue Foch, Paris. And that guy's job before presidency was "college professor".

TL;DR: We're in a real economic crisis, being made much worse by the unchecked power of a reactionary media that has large sectors of a government branch that should fight corruption in their pockets. I've been seriously considering emigrating if these assholes succeed in breaking our Democracy. Currently I'm wondering if the language shock for me would be greater in Canada or Portugal.

nockermensch · Post by **nockermensch** » Wed Mar 16, 2016 11:07 pm

UPDATE:

Labour Government today reacted to the persistent media campaign against them with an action at best described as "shrewd" and at worst as "sleazy", if you're being a realist. If you have an agenda, you can go ahead and describe it as "criminal" or "a coup!!!1".

Lula, our ex-president, had become a major target of the investigations and against him are placed several nebulous accusations. Last Friday, Lula was forcefully taken from his home at 6AM to an airport (!?!?) by the federal police to be interrogated. This was already a flagrant violation of his rights, since you can't be forcefully taken by the police unless you're, you know, somehow resisting a lawful summons, etc.

So yesterday, Dilma, our current President invited Lula to become her Chief of Staff (Ministro da Casa Civil), a cabinet post. Now, cabinet members in Brazil, together with MPs, Senators and the President, can't be judged by lower instance courts. Only the Supreme Court can do that. So Lula just got immunity from the kind of indignity he just suffered.

The opposition is shouting on media that this is "A Coup". Our media, of course, it's giving them the megaphone. I seriously don't know if I'll awake tomorrow to find that there are tanks on the streets. Good times!

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Wed Mar 16, 2016 11:20 pm

Let me take a wild guess: the opposition had absolutely no problem with high government officials being immune to low-level courts when they were the people who got to appoint high government officials.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Wed Mar 16, 2016 11:34 pm

T'be fair, the US and many other governments have some similar "immunities" for sitting politicians.

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Thu Mar 17, 2016 4:36 am

Yeah. Russian government is finally adding laws that allow deputies who are not doing their job to be fired. Because previously they were immune to everything, and could just never come to the Duma meetings ever.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Thu Mar 17, 2016 4:43 am

I imagine having ministers not attend meetings would make it even easier for Putin to just do whatever the fuck he wanted.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Thu Mar 17, 2016 4:50 am

Upside of those immunities is that it makes it difficult to arrest people's political opponents in parliament on false charges. But yes, people have abused the hell out of them for as long as they have existed. I just kinda doubt that the political opposition finds it a problem for any reason other than that they're not presently in a position to abuse it.

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Thu Mar 17, 2016 6:05 am

name_here wrote:Upside of those immunities is that it makes it difficult to arrest people's political opponents in parliament on false charges. But yes, people have abused the hell out of them for as long as they have existed. I just kinda doubt that the political opposition finds it a problem for any reason other than that they're not presently in a position to abuse it.

The prime example is one Ponomarev, MP from "Just Russia". The guy is notorious for being hired by Skolkovo to read ten lecture on an undefined topic, $30k per lecture. Also for some oppositional activity, like voting against accepting Crimea into the federation. Two years ago the thing about lectures was revealed, and Ponomarev suddenly packed his bags and left to the USA, claiming that he's being unfairly hunted down by the government for his oppositional views. And he's still an active MP, even though he has lived in the US for two years now, there's a warrant for his arrest and he's been stripped of the MP's immunity. But there was actually no way to revoke his position as the MP.

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Thu Mar 17, 2016 9:58 am

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/m ... azil-chaos

Speaking of Brazil.

nockermensch · Post by **nockermensch** » Thu Mar 17, 2016 7:13 pm

UPDATE:

Brazil's population is splitting right now, with several cases of violence reported (curiously, always of a "anti-government people beating government supporters" nature).

Yesterday's Jornal Nacional was pretty much an exhortation for the government to fall.

Today, a Federal Judge voided Lula's cabinet post document, saying that it was illegal, for reasons.

Tomorrow there are large pro-government protests scheduled to happen on several capitals. I'd give 1:1 chances for violence breaking out at these events.

If the Supreme Court doesn't move, like, right now, to put a stop at these openly anti-democratic moves, I don't think this government can endure.

At which point I should ask if one of you guys has a spare bed.

(not serious, I'll probably disappear for a while, or move to Portugal).

Eikre · Post by **Eikre** » Thu Mar 17, 2016 8:27 pm

I could use a roommate if you wanna come seek asylum in the United States capital area.

no promise the same thing won't happen here though lol

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Fri Mar 18, 2016 1:44 am

I know some folks on the island of Roatan.

Or, if you can make it across the Gulf of Mexico, sure.

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Fri Mar 18, 2016 1:52 am

Today, a Federal Judge voided Lula's cabinet post document, saying that it was illegal, for reasons.

... Can they do that? It would seem to completely invalidate the point of having immunity to court prosecutions in the first place if the court gets to decide whether or not you're allowed to have them.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Fri Mar 18, 2016 2:40 am

name_here wrote:
Today, a Federal Judge voided Lula's cabinet post document, saying that it was illegal, for reasons.
... Can they do that? It would seem to completely invalidate the point of having immunity to court prosecutions in the first place if the court gets to decide whether or not you're allowed to have them.

The first step in any suit against a US or state official in federal court is to determine if they are immune to suit. Pretty much no one involved in the practice law in the US thinks that it is too easy to sue government officials.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Fri Mar 18, 2016 6:04 am

Now, the goings-on in Brazil are way more interesting and important than here in Ausfailia, but I would nonetheless like to cover the most recent bullshit, partly because it's the latest in the betrayal and shitheadedness from the Labor party, something that people in the UK understand where their Labor grew lazy with being "the progressive option" and veered to the right. And partly because my rights were personally used as a football for scoring points, by said party.

Spoilers for long explanation of problems with our voting system, and people's opinions.

So basically, there are serious problems with our voting system. It's better than FPTP, but when you vote, you can do one of two things:
1. Look at the list of 50+ individual names of candidates, grouped by party, and go through numbering all of them. Even a single error makes the entire thing invalid, as though you drew a cock and balls on the paper.
2. Just above the line put a 1 by one party name, and then your preferences are automatically allocated by the whims of that party.

Now what this means is, because of laziness/errors, you get a lot of people just voting above the line, and this means there's a lot to gain from weird preference deals. For instance, Labor think Liberals, the conservative assholes, are more like them than the Greens (the actual progressive party), and tend to preference Libs ahead of Greens. Or fucking Family First (the religious zealots who hate people, kind of like if WBC got their own party), or One Nation (one of our many "We are Racist" parties).

You also get people setting up bunches of micro-parties (Hi, Leyonhelm!), simply to make preference deals and funnel votes into the Liberals, or into the Democrats (no relation to American Dems, they were once the third major party but now are basically irrelevant and they're assholes who often agree with the government).

You also get tiny bullshit parties making deals (with infamous brokers actually taking big piles of cash in exchange for setting these up) so that, for instance, the Motoring Enthusiasts Party gets a senator in despite him having less than 1% of the vote. Now that senator turned out to be a swell guy who fought against the government and actually knows what it's like to live on benefits, but we can't assume this will be the norm, and nice though he might be, that's not a democratic way to get into the senate.

So, the Greens have always been in favour of voting reform, such as changing it so you can just put, say, 1-10 under the line for individual senators and at the point where you make an error or stop numbering, that's where your vote becomes invalid, but if an allocated preference makes it in before then, great, they get it. And so that you could vote a few numbers above the line, basically going "1 Greens (all senators, in any order they want) 2 Sex Party (all senators in any order) 3 Goblin Party (all senators in any order)" and then after that it goes in the bin.

Libs were previously against it, because they benefited hard. But now? They have to deal with a weird senate that consists of all kinds of people they can't control, and it makes them sad that "We have the PM, that makes us SUPREME RULERS, why we cant institute any policy we damn well please?" so they want to clean it up. Labor also loves their dodgy preference systems, and also hates any idea the Greens come up with, so they are against it.

So there's the scheduled vote on the matter. Micro-parties are obviously against it. Labor are against it unless they roll over at the last minute like they always fucking do for Liberal. Labor have been running attack ads about the Greens "doing a dirty deal" (their words) with Liberals. When it's something the Greens always supported, and if anything it's Liberals changing tune to do a deal with Greens. Compare against around 50% of "put people in concentration camps" bills, where Labor voted with Liberals.

So the day comes... and Labor and micro-parties go "Er, um, HEY GUYS! WE SUDDENLY CARE A LOT ABOUT GAY MARRIAGE! I know we've been talking about this for years and nothing has happened and the PM wants to do a very expensive and non-binding Plebiscite, but I think today we should shelve whatever totally unimportant stuff is on the agenda, and have a vote on whether or not we should discuss voting on gay marriage." Seriously. It's not "Let's vote right now on legalising gay marriage" it's "We want to waste the whole day having the same discussion as always, can we get a vote on doing this?"

Greens roll their eyes and call their bluff, even sending a nice letter saying "We are so glad you finally see gay marriage as an important and serious thing, and are keen to vote on this. While we are dedicated to senate reform and cannot just adjust schedules on a whim, we would be delighted to have a vote on gay marriage on Thursday, where instead of just discussing it we can get something done."

So they trolled Labor hard. Now you'll note they voted "No we don't want to waste a whole day sitting and discussing something that won't even end with a vote on the actual matter". But Labor had already made their attack ads of "GREENS HATE GAY MARRIAGE, GREENS VOTE AGAINST GAY MARRIAGE".

For the record, on Thursday, Greens did indeed propose a vote on legalising gay marriage and making it a thing, and naturally, Labor and most of the micro-parties voted "No" right up there with Liberals. Actually they might have voted "No, we are not going to have a vote on this", thus meaning they can claim to still support the idea but "it's not the time for a vote" or some bullshit.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Fri Mar 18, 2016 7:15 am

Yeah so Koumai has basically noted that a federal election is on the way here in Australia. It's going to be an abnormally long election campaign because while the official starting gun won't get fired until near the end a chain of events essentially leads to the unnofficial campaign kicking off NOW (to be fair there has been "an election coming god damnit" ever since Tony Abbot won the last election, then tore his lizard mask off at the first budget to reveal... actually the same lizard face underneath AUSTRALIA WAS SHOCKED!).

But anyway. We know the election is around the corner because the Labor party has kicked into high gear all out constant negative campaign attacking their enemies... the Greens.

Now I don't want to advise the Labor party on election strategy (I do), but I'm not sure they are aware that the party they have to beat to win the election is not the Greens. I know this is a shock, if you happen to follow Australian "media" the Greens are to blame for EVERY fucking thing ever ranging from Tony Abbot repealling the worlds most effective Carbon Tax to totally not climate change related Bushfires, which is odd what with them not being in power anywhere at any level of government anywhere on the continent like EVER.

Now the actual labor attack strategies have been... bizarre and stupidly ham handed.

The Greens ARE open to attack. The ass who is effectively leader of the Greens right now is a geeky wanker no one ever heard of in a party with at least two high profile popular alternatives that never got a shot in because the (lame unpopular somewhat failed) prior leader (who replaced the much more popular one before that) cut some seriously dodgey surprise retirement shenanigans to guarantee him the job. His most prominent "thing" has been constantly going on about "compromise" which... is not going to play well considering who he has to compromise with.

Labor could have used that angle really well to batter him and the party about the head with "compromise? WITH MAD MEN?" or whatever. But, they somehow bungled even that.

Angle of attack one? "He said he would TOTALLY GO INTO COALITION WITH THE LIBERALS! When he said 'never say never' in an interview!". Which was fucking spectacularly dishonest out of context quoting from the Labor party. As the full quote actually reads as a near outright offer of coalition from him to the fucking labor party with him pointing out that any similar arrangement with the liberal party would be next to impossible due to obvious differences but "never say never".

Attack angle one further failed when labor branded the Greens as the party of compromise with the liberals... on social media where their attacks replies and what not were easily taken over with fun infographics comparing the 30%+ times labor voted with the liberals compared to the mere 2% of times greens did.

So onto attack angle 2! The Greens are DESTROYING DEMOCRACY FOR PERSONAL POLITICAL BENEFIT ALONG SIDE THE LIBERALS! Now this is fucking stupid as all hell. As Koumei has outlined.

BUT the labor party had a strong point of leverage you see the Greens have been in favor of this policy since forever, but they have specifically made a big thing of talking up the below the line changes rather than the above the line changes. Of course the liberal party being stupid giant jerk bully assholes who just can't fucking do compromise minority government negotiations pulled what they ALWAYS do these days and when their voting reform bill went to senate they made last minute changes and removed under the line changes from the bill. Even as Greens had just like right fucking then been going on about how good the under the line changes especially were going to be.

Now in the end above the line changes were still good and still official Greens policy since forever (and sort of labor policy too might I add) But fair enough when the labor party declared the Greens where "giving the liberals the bit they wanted without getting the bit from Greens ideology" it certainly LOOKED like that or close enough.

...Until negotiations put the voting under the line business back in (well, for now, it's chaos but it's looking pretty much like it's back in). At that point the labor attack lost ALL grounding in fact... and a competent labor party should have just thrown up it's hands and walked away to look for another angle. But no, they have their mother fucking stupid plan and talking points and they are going ALL FUCKING OUT on this attack thinking they are totally gonna hurt the greens right before the next election campaign starts proper. Because ????, profit. And because fuck you they don't NEED any actual factual attack basis to run a hippy punching campaign against the Greens.

The stupid thing is Labor has rounded up the last dregs of their public left wing face to front this attack personally and hard. And That is fucking stupid, well, for the last dregs of the labor party left, it's good news for labor right. Because while this is going to hurt the Greens (but much less than intended) it is, I would suggest, going to spectacularly back fire in directly and individually harming the most prominent faces of the labor party left. Seriously like the ONE person people have been pointing at in the labor party for years as the face of a potential leadership for the left wing revival in the party is out there savaging the greens like a rabid fucking dog over... NOTHING.

Meanwhile labor party attacks on the liberals have... decidedly NOT escalated. They wont. The labor party doesn't really dislike the liberals too much, cannot attack them hard on any of their weak policy points since they largely share the same weaknesses and quite frankly are a pile of cowards who prefer to attack parties NOT allied to Rupert Murdoch.

The only way the labor party can now embarrass themselves any further would be if THEY now compromise on the voting reform thing to remove under the line changes and give the liberals the above the line changes without having to give in to what the Greens wanted/talked up.

Considering this is the labor party that cannot manage to make political capital on the fact that their opposing party is literally imprisoning and torturing new born babies for political gain I half expect the shittier version of voting reform to be pushed through by a labor/liberal alliance (yet again) withing 48 hours but only after the labor party shits themselves in public AGAIN.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Fri Mar 18, 2016 8:12 am

PhoneLobster wrote:Yeah so Koumai has basically noted that a federal election is on the way here in Australia. It's going to be an abnormally long election campaign because while the official starting gun won't get fired until near the end a chain of events essentially leads to the unnofficial campaign kicking off NOW (to be fair there has been "an election coming god damnit" ever since Tony Abbot won the last election, then tore his lizard mask off at the first budget to reveal... actually the same lizard face underneath AUSTRALIA WAS SHOCKED!).

But PL! Malcolm said he would totally throw a Double Dissolution Election if his terrorist demands aren't met by the senate, like right now! He SAID he would do that! Has there ever been a time a Liberal PM threatened a DD and didn't go through with it? I mean apart from every second week when Abbott did precisely that?

Longes · Post by **Longes** » Fri Mar 18, 2016 9:33 am

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/busin ... 37141.html

TTIP keeps delivering.

Orca · Post by **Orca** » Fri Mar 18, 2016 11:02 am

There's a continuing delusion in NZ's Labour Party that if they could just squash the Greens then all those voters would be theirs without having to compromise policy in any Green directions, and that therefore they should. It sounds like the Aussie Labor Party has the same problem. There's no obvious way to do so but they continue to hope.

NZs elections aren't til late 2017 and the campaign season hasn't started early. In any case the referendum on changing the flag (heading towards a solid no, we're keeping the old one) is sucking the life out of the political news at the mo.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Fri Mar 18, 2016 1:02 pm

Koumei wrote:But PL! Malcolm said he would totally throw a Double Dissolution Election if his terrorist demands aren't met by the senate, like right now!

The actual timing of the election isn't just a bit up in the air its a bit totally WEIRD BALLS.

The liberal party is so wildly bad without precedent at getting even basic shit like oh I don't know an actual remotely complete fucking budget through the senate that they have been sitting on MULTIPLE DD triggers since remarkably early in Abbot's reign.

They have also been sitting on complex contradictory motivations to call a (at one point wildly early) election. I mean Abbot was chucked predominantly because his back bench was afraid he was going to call a DD and lose them all THEIR seats just so he could keep HIS position leading the party.

But then Malcolm had to deal with an intransigent party STILL doing their best to offend the entire nation, preventing him from doing anything to please the nation (assuming he even wants to). But he had wildly good polling, could not possibly have lost the election, and hadn't had to even attempt the budget that was going to murder him in the polls. He was wildly motivated to call an election as soon as possible without ever presenting a budget or any policy at all and if he had done so he pretty much not only could not have lost he could almost not have failed to win MORE.

Then he sat on his ass doing nothing while his party tore itself appart for how many months now? He cannot even avoid releasing SOME sort of at least half assed budget before even the earliest possible election at this point. It looks very much like his party is totally going to just make him release Abbots budget AGAIN, his party has actively and in public humiliated Malcolm (and themselves) on EVERY hot button issue that brought Abbot down. He is down to polling about even with opposition "can't win against ACTUAL fucking baby torturers" and that is BEFORE "Seppuku by Budget".

There is some suggestion that the liberals knowing the giant margin by which they would have to lose to actually lose power (and the wild political incompetence of their primary opposition) just plain don't give a shit but actually THEY MIGHT LOSE ON CURRENT TRENDS IF THEY KEEP PUSHING THE ELECTION DATE BACK.

But for Malcolm once the election is over the knifes are out his own party HATES him. He is only there because he is the last chance for all too many of them at keeping their personal individual seats. If he wins by a comfortable, but not overwhelming, margin, they will EAT HIM ALIVE. If he wins by a narrow margin they might still eat him alive anyway his only option to remain in power after the election reliably is for at least three major alternatives in the party to suddenly keel over dead OR for him to win so overwhelmingly that he becomes indispensable, and even then they might just eat him alive anyway.

At this point basically the only stretch of time Malcolm can really guarantee he remains prime minister... is between now and the election and the best he can do for after that is to wait and prey the polls turn around dramatically through some miracle event all the while watching while they trend gradually against his party (and, I suspect, it's a matter of screw those guys after how they've screwed him over)

Maybe he has something wild up his sleeve, a total "ahahaha! I've finally turned it around on the twats in my own party, see Australia, I can deliver!" or a "whoops, terrorism attack, HOW UNFORTUNATE!" but really, I don't think he has a plan. He is winging it doing nothing (the only thing his party will let him) and hoping for a miracle.

We get random declarations from random insane liberals that the election will be sometime between yesterday and never and frankly at this point I don't think even the one or two guys with the power to decide even have the faintest idea themselves.

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Fri Mar 18, 2016 7:40 pm

About how well informed is the average Australian when it comes to government because your political process over there sounds a lot more dynamic than non presidential elections here.

Parthenon · Post by **Parthenon** » Fri Mar 18, 2016 7:49 pm

I was talking the other day with someone about how Al-Qaeda was funded by the US to start with, and it got me thinking- what examples are there of governments funding and supplying violent groups that have actually led to long term stability or even short term stability?

I'm not a historian and only have picked up stuff here and there, but you have multiple examples in the middle east of the US training and funding tribes leading to devastation in places like Afghanistan, everything involved in the banana wars and South America, the whole Vietnam war, every proxy conflict I've ever heard of...

Has training and supplying weapons to paramilitary groups ever been helpful and made things better? Have I just seen a western viewpoint and missed multiple conflicts, and examples of it being helpful are not publicised or are secret?

MisterDee · Post by **MisterDee** » Fri Mar 18, 2016 8:11 pm

If you're willing to push the boundaries of your question to the utmost, I guess it worked out okay when the French supported the US independence movement.