tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-75469707368803785582024-02-07T19:55:34.810-05:00Mind of MenyhertAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01960083899361215499noreply@blogger.comBlogger143125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7546970736880378558.post-34416186070307293052019-03-07T21:11:00.000-05:002019-03-07T21:11:31.758-05:00Jeremy Corbyn and Ilhan Omar: Prejudice, Miscommunication, or Ignorance?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Left-leaning parties in the United States and United Kingdom have recently seen controversy over remarks made by representatives that some deem Antisemitic.<br />
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In the United States, Congresswoman Ilhan Omar of Minnesota's 5th Congressional District has made numerous remarks which have raised alarm among Jewish Americans which have caused the Democratic party to wrangle with two questions.<br />
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Were Congresswoman Omar's remarks antisemitic? And how should they be addressed?<br />
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In the United Kingdom, a similar controversy refuses to go away, but rather than stemming from a newly elected representative, the controversy comes from the top, centered upon the Leader of the Opposition and the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn. The Labour Party has seen 8 of its Members of Parliament resign from the party in recent weeks, many citing the party's "institutional anti-semitism" as one of their reasons for leaving.<br />
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What caused this controversy in the first place? Let's start in the United States.<br />
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<a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/64/Ilhan_Omar%2C_official_portrait%2C_116th_Congress.jpg/800px-Ilhan_Omar%2C_official_portrait%2C_116th_Congress.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="Ilhan Omar, official portrait, 116th Congress.jpg" border="0" class="mw-mmv-final-image jpg" crossorigin="anonymous" height="200" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/64/Ilhan_Omar%2C_official_portrait%2C_116th_Congress.jpg/800px-Ilhan_Omar%2C_official_portrait%2C_116th_Congress.jpg" width="159" /></a>Congresswoman Ilhan Omar is a naturalized citizen, a Somali-American, Muslim refugee who represents Minnesota's 5th Congressional district, which covers parts of Minneapolis and its suburbs. It was the seat once held by former Congressman and current Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, who was first elected to the seat in 2006.<br />
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Congresswoman Omar has made three comments that have invited controversy.<br />
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The first was a tweet she made on November 16, 2012, which read as follows:<br />
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<img alt="Image result for Ilhan Omar "Israel has hypnotized the world" tweet" class="irc_mi" data-iml="1551974144743" height="201" src="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dejc1JFV4AAxb3H.jpg" style="margin-top: 59px;" width="320" /></div>
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This tweet came into the spotlight as Omar was elected to the House of Representatives in November 2018. It was widely criticized as alluding to the old antisemitic stereotype and conspiracy theory that Jews have a disproportionate, secretive and even malicious influence over world affairs. While the tweet does not explicitly mention Jews, it does mention Israel, a country which defines itself as a "Jewish and democratic state".<br />
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Omar initially defended her 2012 tweet, claiming that "I don’t know how my comments would be offensive to Jewish Americans. My comments precisely are addressing what was happening during the Gaza War and I’m clearly speaking about the way the Israeli regime was conducting itself in that war."<br />
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However, she later backpedaled after her comments were criticized by New York Times columnist Bari Weiss, apologizing for "not disavowing the anti-Semitic trope I unknowingly used".<br />
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The second comment Congresswoman Omar made references a Puff Daddy song. Omar was criticizing the influence of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, claiming in a roundabout way that money was the chief motivator behind American support of Israel. She referenced the song "It's all about the Benjamins" ("Benjamins" refers to US $100 bills, which depict Benjamin Franklin)<br />
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Again she was criticized, this time for skirting the stereotype that a predominantly Jewish group was buying off Americans in exchange for supporting Israel. She apologized relatively quickly, saying " "I am grateful for Jewish allies and colleagues who are educating me on the painful history of anti-Semitic tropes...I reaffirm the problematic role of lobbyists in our politics, whether it be AIPAC, the NRA or the fossil fuel industry"<br />
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Recently, Congresswoman Omar made a third comment that caused alarm. While speaking at a bookstore, Omar claimed that "I want to talk about the political influence in this country that says it is OK for people to push for allegiance to a foreign country."Again, a reference to Israel, and again, a remark which some claim skirts antisemitism by suggesting Jewish Americans are loyal to Israel, not the United States. Omar has not yet apologized for this statement.<br />
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The Democratic Party passed a resolution after Omar's "Benjamins" tweet condemning antisemitism and may do so again. However, some in the party have rallied to Omar's side, pointing out that criticism of Israel is not necessarily antisemitic and that Islamophobia has motivated some of the criticism against her.<br />
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Over in the UK, the Labour Party is run by a man named Jeremy Corbyn, a member of Parliament from Islington North, a constituency in London.<br />
<a href="https://img.huffingtonpost.com/asset/5ab8b7242000001311eb2fbd.jpeg?ops=scalefit_630_noupscale" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="Image result for jeremy corbyn" border="0" class="irc_mi" data-iml="1552008717015" height="212" src="https://img.huffingtonpost.com/asset/5ab8b7242000001311eb2fbd.jpeg?ops=scalefit_630_noupscale" style="margin-top: 0px;" width="320" /></a><br />
Corbyn's political career has spanned for much longer than Congresswoman Omar's. He was first elected to the House of Commons under Labour's banner in 1983, and has been in Parliament since. He became leader of the Labour Party after the 2015 resignation of its former leader, Ed Milliband, in 2015.<br />
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His allegations of antisemitism are also longer and more illustrious than Omar's.<br />
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In 2010, Corbyn co-chaired a meeting in the House of Commons where a Holocaust survivor and Anti-Zionist political activist named Hajo Meyer spoke. Meyer compared Israel's actions to the Nazis and claimed that "Judaism in Israel has been substituted by the Holocaust religion, whose high priest is Elie Wiesel." Corbyn defended his attendance at the meeting by saying "Views were expressed at the meeting which I do not accept or condone. In the past, in pursuit of justice for the Palestinian people and peace in Israel/Palestine, I have on occasion appeared on platforms with people whose views I completely reject. I apologise for the concerns and anxiety that this has caused”.<br />
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In 2011, Corbyn was one of several MPs, mostly from the Labour Party, to sign a proposed motion to rename "Holocaust Memorial Day" to<a href="https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/europe/corbyn-wanted-to-replace-holocaust-with-genocide-for-memorial-day-1.6339225"> "Genocide Memorial Day"</a>. Karen Pollock, chief executive of the Holocaust Educational Trust said that "Any attempt to remove that specificity is a form of denial and distortion." The Labour Party responded, saying "this was a cross-party initiative, jointly sponsored by a senior Conservative MP, to emphasize the already broader character of Holocaust Memorial Day. It is not our policy to seek a name change for this important commemoration".<br />
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In 2012, a mural was painted in East London by an American artist named "Mear One" entitled <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-23/u-k-labour-leader-says-he-was-wrong-to-back-anti-semitic-mural">"Freedom for Humanity"</a>. The mural strikes a conspiratorial tone and skirts the antisemitic trope of Jewish bankers having control over the world. The mural was removed, and Corbyn made a comment on facebook complimenting the artist. This provoked more complaints, and Corbyn apologized, claiming that once he took a closer look at the mural, he saw the antisemitism depicted.<br />
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Corbyn also attended a <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-45196409">wreath-laying event in 2014</a> where the Palestinian victims of a widely-condemned Israeli airstrike in 1985 were remembered. <a href="https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-jeremy-corbyn-and-the-wreath-row">Close to where he attended the ceremony</a> (he did not actually place a wreath, he was simply in attendance) were the graves of two people accused of involvement with the Black September group, which massacred members of the Israeli Olympic Team during the Olympic Games in Munich.<br />
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He also attended a Passover Seder with a Jewish group recently, which would theoretically combat the accusations of antisemitism, if it wasn't organized by a far-left group which agrees that the allegations of antisemitism against Corbyn were a political plot against him. Regarding Israel, the "Jewdas" group claims the country is a <a href="https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/labour-antisemitism-row-what-is-jewdas-and-why-is-jeremy-corbyn-under-fire-for-jewish-group-meeting-a3804856.html">"a steaming pile of sewage which needs to be properly disposed of".</a><br />
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The sad part is that Congresswoman Omar is no stranger to religion based prejudice. Recently, "<a href="https://www.twincities.com/2019/03/04/fbi-graffiti-death-threat-ilhan-omar/">Assassinate Ilhan Omar</a>" was found scrawled in a gas station bathroom in her Congressional district. An outrageous mural was hung in West Virginia's State Capitol building erroneously <a href="http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/03/islamophobic-poster-of-rep-omar-roils-west-virginia-capitol.html">linking Omar to the attacks on September 11th</a>, a clear reference to her being a Muslim. She has in the past recalled Islamophobic abuse that has been hurled at her as a girl growing up as she regularly wears a hijab.<br />
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Supporters of Corbyn and Omar repeat popular refrains, which, while not necessarily false, sometimes lack context.<br />
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One of the loudest refrains is that of "Criticism of Israel is not antisemitic!"<br />
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They're right. Criticizing Israel is not necessarily antisemitic. There are plenty of criticisms one can make of Israel's political decisions under Prime Minister Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu without being antisemitic.<br />
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Omar's criticisms, however, in addition to being controversial, also seem somewhat poorly thought out. If she's making them out of genuine concern about the Israel-Palestine conflict, that's fine, but this is an incredibly sensitive topic and while plenty of reasonable criticism exists, there are lines that Omar should be careful not to tread upon.<br />
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An example of criticism of Israel which is <i>NOT </i>antisemitic could look something like this:<br />
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<i>“Israel should freeze settlement construction immediately and get back to the peace negotiating table. The conflict with Palestine has gone on for far too long and both countries are going to need to make some concessions and admit some fault if they are to acheive a long-lasting peace."</i><br />
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Let's examine the "Benjamins" quip. "It's all about the Benjamins, baby" is a reference to US$100 bills, and it's not unusual for politicians to complain about the influence of money in democracy, especially self-proclaimed democratic socialists. Perhaps Omar was trying to be clever by referencing Puff Daddy lyrics. Jokes about money, wealth, and financial stinginess are a touchy subject and one of the oldest stereotypes in the book about Jews.<br />
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For instance, had she made that sort of joke about the two front-runners in the upcoming Israeli election, who are both named Benjamin (Benjamin Netanyahu and Benjamin "Benny" Gantz), this may have been seen as a clever, funny remark.<br />
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And the other side of the political spectrum is not at all immune from this same perceived prejudice. Antisemitism is not just present but <i>rampant </i>among the rise of the nationalist right. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban can't seem to go two sentences without babbling about George Soros. The Alternative For Germany party constantly sticks its foot in its mouth while referring back to World War II and the Holocaust. The geriatric former leader of France's National Rally (formerly the National Front) party is still around and he's a Holocaust denier. President Trump once claimed that a white supremacist rally where they chanted "Jews will not replace us" had some "very fine people" and once said that "The only kind of people I want counting my money are short guys that wear yarmulkes every day. Those are the kind of people I want counting my money. No one else.”<br />
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I don't know if Ilhan Omar is antisemitic. I've never met her, I have never been able to sit down and talk to her.<br />
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Her remarks, however, are at best insensitive and ignorant to the context of antisemitism. If she doesn't want to be accused of antisemitism, she needs to choose her words more carefully. If she continues to make remarks in the fashion she is doing so now, she is not going to help her own cause.<br />
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As for Corbyn, the overwhelming feeling I get from reading about him, his past actions and his relationship with British Jews is above all, indifference. His apologies are present, but flimsy. He doesn't seem to properly vet the demonstrations he plans to attend in context of the wreath-laying. And right as you'd think he may have made an important step to reach out to the community he has such strained relations with by partaking in one of their most important and sacred holidays...he goes to an event which demonstrates open contempt - not criticism, but contempt and maybe even hatred - for Israel. Above all, whether he's antisemitic or not, I don't think he <i>cares</i> whether he's accused of it or not. And now he's losing members of his own party.<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01960083899361215499noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7546970736880378558.post-65042317613637930552019-01-17T11:05:00.002-05:002019-01-17T11:05:31.233-05:00A Brief Guide to the upcoming 2019 Israeli Election<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Israelis will be heading to the polls on April 9th to elect the 21st Knesset.<br />
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Since the election was called, Israel's already large number of parties has grown. In order to get seats in the Knesset, a political party must gain at least 3.25% of the vote. This electoral procedure ensures that a wide range of political parties are able to win seats and make their voices heard.<br />
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<a href="https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/images/likudlogo.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; display: inline !important; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="Image result for Likud party" border="0" class="irc_mi" height="66" src="https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/images/likudlogo.gif" style="margin-top: 127px;" width="200" /></a>Israeli political parties can be sorted by religion, ideology, and ethnicity. Here's who to watch for this election.<br />
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<b><i><span style="font-size: large;">LIKUD</span></i></b></div>
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Likud is a center-right to right-wing political party, led by current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. It is a secular Jewish political party home to moderate and right-wing factions, but has managed to win elections in 2013 and 2015. It currently leads the polls for the 2019 election, hovering just under 30 seats in polling predictions. Prime Minister Netanyahu has wavered in his support for a Palestinian state, at times believing that there should not be one, other times claiming he supports one.<br />
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Benjamin Netanyahu is currently on track to return to the Prime Minister's residence in April if polls are accurate, but he's not guaranteed. The Prime Minister is under multiple corruption investigations, and both the police and the State Prosecutor have recommended that Netanyahu should be indicted. It is up to Israeli Attorney General Avichai Mandelbilt as to whether "Bibi" should be indicted. Netanyahu has claimed that he will not resign if indicted, but Israel has dealt with this sort of thing in recent memory. The Prime Minister before Netanyahu, Ehud Olmert, was indicted for corruption charges and he stepped down before the 2009 election, eventually serving time in prison.<br />
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Likud is the largest of the secular right-leaning parties in Israel. But if Netanyahu is indicted, its poll numbers may suffer and it could lose its solid grip on first place. If an indictment does get filed by the Attorney General, it is likely to come in February or March.<br />
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So who stands to gain most from this possibility?<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><i>YESH ATID </i></b></span><img alt="Image result for yesh atid" class="irc_mi" height="62" src="https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/images/Politics/yeshatidlogo.jpg" style="margin-top: 121px;" width="200" /><br />
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Yesh Atid (English: "There is a Future") is a centrist, liberal political party led by former journalist Yair Lapid. Rather than focus on security issues, Yesh Atid is a party that prefers to shift the political dialogue to the economy and social issues such as conscription, corruption, civil marriage and the like. Although Lapid's party entered into a coalition government with Netanyahu and Likud after the 2013 election, it was increasingly critical of Likud leading up to the 2015 elections. Yesh Atid's security ideals are less hawkish than Likud, but definitely to the right of parties like the social democratic Meretz.<br />
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Many opinion polls put Yesh Atid second in the running for Knesset seats, even slightly above Likud at times, but their numbers have dwindled as the election draws closer. Lapid sometimes comes across as wishy-washy and indecisive. How well Lapid can unite the center and appeal to voters on the fence is up in the air, but if Netanyahu is indicted, he and his party stand to gain.<br />
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However, they're not the only party aiming to capture the center of Israeli voters.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><i>RESILIENCE</i></b></span><br />
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The Israel Resilience Party is a wild card. It is one of the newer political parties and its positions are not yet very clearly defined. The only concrete political position Gantz has taken lately is a desire to reform Israel's controversial "nation-state" law with respect to Israel's Druze population.<br />
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It is led by Benny Gantz, a popular former General in the Israeli Defense Forces.<br />
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Gantz's party is set to receive around 12-14 seats if polls are to be believed, close to where Yesh Atid stands in the polls.<br />
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Lapid and Gantz has reportedly considered an alliance, but nothing has come to fruition quite yet as both want to run for the Knesset at the top of their party lists. If the parties did join, they'd come within striking distance of Likud in the polls. Theoretically, with Gantz's military experience and Lapid's stature in the Knesset, perhaps Lapid could run for Prime Minister and Gantz could be given the Minister of Defense job, though no such agreement has been made.<br />
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<a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8b/Logo_haAwoda.svg/250px-Logo_haAwoda.svg.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Logo haAwoda.svg" border="0" class="mw-mmv-placeholder-image svg blurred" data-file-height="254" data-file-width="1616" decoding="async" height="30" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8b/Logo_haAwoda.svg/250px-Logo_haAwoda.svg.png" srcset="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8b/Logo_haAwoda.svg/375px-Logo_haAwoda.svg.png 1.5x, //upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8b/Logo_haAwoda.svg/500px-Logo_haAwoda.svg.png 2x" style="filter: url("#gaussian-blur");" width="200" /></a><b style="font-size: x-large;"><i>ZIONIST UNION...OR NOT</i></b><br />
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<a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/83/Hatnuah_logo.svg/1920px-Hatnuah_logo.svg.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Hatnuah logo.svg" border="0" class="mw-mmv-final-image svg" crossorigin="anonymous" height="73" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/83/Hatnuah_logo.svg/1920px-Hatnuah_logo.svg.png" width="200" /></a><b style="font-size: x-large;"><i><br /></i></b>
In the weeks leading up to the 2015 election, the social-democratic Israeli Labor Party and the liberal Hatnuah ("The Movement") party joined under one banner, calling themselves the Zionist Union in hopes that the alliance would gain just enough votes to unseat Prime Minister Netanyahu.<br />
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They fell short, winning 24 seats compared to Likud's 30. The parties stayed united until the very beginning of 2019, when they abruptly broke into their separate factions.<br />
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The Labor Party isn't the force it used to be. It won a respectable 19 seats in the last election, but since its split with Hatnuah, is only expected to win about 7-10 seats. Hatnuah may not even get into the Knesset if polls are to be believed. Both Labor's current leader, Avi Gabbay, and its co-leader when it was part of Zionist Union, Tziporah "Tzipi" Livni, used to be members of Likud. Some left-leaning Israelis are disappointed that the party has drifted away from its social-democratic roots, and the party hasn't been able to gain back its previous mandates on the basis of security policy since the failure of the Oslo Accords.<br />
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<b style="font-size: x-large;"><i>SUPPORTING ACTORS: THE (MOSTLY) SECULAR RIGHT</i></b><br />
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Four small political parties make up Israel's secular center-right to right-wing outside of Likud, two of which are brand new.<br />
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<a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/08/KulanuNew.svg/180px-KulanuNew.svg.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="KulanuNew.svg" border="0" data-file-height="362" data-file-width="666" height="98" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/08/KulanuNew.svg/180px-KulanuNew.svg.png" srcset="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/08/KulanuNew.svg/270px-KulanuNew.svg.png 1.5x, //upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/08/KulanuNew.svg/360px-KulanuNew.svg.png 2x" width="180" /></a><b><i><br /></i></b><br />
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<b><i>KULANU</i></b><br />
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Kulanu is a center to center-right party founded in 2014 by current Minister of Finance Moshe Kahlon. It won a respectable 10 seats in the Knesset in the 2015 elections, and is hovering around 5-7 seats in recent polls. Whereas Likud focuses on security issues, Kulanu focuses more on economic issues, such as the cost of living.<br />
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<a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e1/Israel-beytenu-logo.png/200px-Israel-beytenu-logo.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Yisrael Beiteinu party logo" border="0" data-file-height="532" data-file-width="1920" decoding="async" height="55" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e1/Israel-beytenu-logo.png/200px-Israel-beytenu-logo.png" srcset="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e1/Israel-beytenu-logo.png/300px-Israel-beytenu-logo.png 1.5x, //upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e1/Israel-beytenu-logo.png/400px-Israel-beytenu-logo.png 2x" width="200" /></a><b><i>YISRAEL BEITEINU</i></b><br />
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Yisrael Beiteinu ("Israel Our Home") is a minor right-wing nationalist secular party that primarily represents the interests of Russian-speaking Israelis. It ran on a combined list with Likud in the 2013 election. </div>
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<b><i>GESHER</i></b><br />
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Gesher split off from Yisrael Beiteinu when MK Orly Levy left the party in 2016. Levy chose to resurrect the name of her father's party ("Gesher" means "Bridge" in Hebrew), which broke off of Likud in the 1990s. Levy's decision to split off from Yisrael Beiteinu was primarily driven by her frustrations with the party's lack of attention to social issues. Her new party is polling around 4-5 seats, just above the threshold.<br />
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<img alt="Logo of HaYamin HeHadash.png" data-file-height="805" data-file-width="1156" decoding="async" height="174" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/48/Logo_of_HaYamin_HeHadash.png/250px-Logo_of_HaYamin_HeHadash.png" srcset="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/48/Logo_of_HaYamin_HeHadash.png/375px-Logo_of_HaYamin_HeHadash.png 1.5x, //upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/48/Logo_of_HaYamin_HeHadash.png/500px-Logo_of_HaYamin_HeHadash.png 2x" width="250" /><b><i>NEW RIGHT</i></b><br />
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New Right is a political party that seeks to bridge the divide between Orthodox Jewish voters and Secular Jewish voters under a far-right mantle. The party is led by Naftali Bennett and Ayelet Shaked, former members of the Jewish Home party. Bennett is a Modern Orthodox Jew, Shaked is secular. Their new party is a vocal proponent of a one-state solution.<br />
<b style="font-size: x-large;"><i><br /></i></b><b style="font-size: x-large;"><b style="font-size: x-large;"><i>SWINGING BACK LEFT: MERETZ</i></b></b><img alt="Meretz Logo.svg" data-file-height="106" data-file-width="290" decoding="async" height="73" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/6/67/Meretz_Logo.svg/200px-Meretz_Logo.svg.png" srcset="//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/6/67/Meretz_Logo.svg/300px-Meretz_Logo.svg.png 1.5x, //upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/6/67/Meretz_Logo.svg/400px-Meretz_Logo.svg.png 2x" width="200" /><br />
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Other than Labor and perhaps HaTnuah, Meretz is the only other Jewish party in the Knesset that could be considered a left-wing party. Meretz (Hebrew for "Vigor") is a social-democratic party focused more on social issues than Labor, which tends to focus on the economy and security issues.<br />
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Like Labor, Meretz was a stronger political player in the past and has faded in the present.<br />
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<b style="font-size: x-large;"><i>THE RELIGIOUS PARTIES</i></b><br />
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Jewish political parties in Israel can be separated into two camps: secular and religious. This label is a bit wonky as "secular" in this case usually means "not Orthodox".<br />
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There are three major Orthodox political parties in Israel. These parties do not typically win many seats in the Knesset, but with Israel's wealth of political parties and low election threshold (3.25%), they tend to become very important and influential when coalitions are built.<br />
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Within this group of parties, you have two Haredi parties and one Modern Orthodox party.<br />
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The Haredi parties are called Shas and United Torah Judaism, a coalition of two smaller parties called Agudat Yisrael (Union of Israel) and Degel HaTorah (Flag of the Torah).<br />
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Shas represents Mizrahi Jews, who trace their heritage to the Middle East, and Sephardic Jews, who trace their heritage to the Iberian Peninsula)<br />
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United Torah Judaism represents Ashkenazi Jews, those who trace their heritage to Western and Central Europe.<br />
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There exists some schism between secular (not Orthodox) Jews and Orthodox Jews in Israel. Under current Israeli law, civil marriage is not possible and non-Orthodox Jews must marry in an Orthodox ceremony, causing many secular Jews to marry abroad, as Israel does recognize secular marriages conducted abroad. Many of the secular parties seek to change this but Haredi parties want to uphold the status quo.<br />
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Haredi Jews also for the most part refuse to serve in the IDF as it would obstruct their religious studies, whereas the majority of secular Jews are conscripted.<br />
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The Modern Orthodox party is known as The Jewish Home, but their influence has waned since Naftali Bennett and Ayelet Shaked defected to their New Right party and the party is now barely treading water above the electoral threshold.<br />
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<br />
<b style="font-size: x-large;"><i>THE ARAB PARTIES</i></b><br />
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About 20% of Israeli citizens are Arabs. Their political representation in 2015's election was fairly significant, as the three major Arab parties combined their resources and ran as one party called the Joint List. The Joint List came in a respectable third place, only behind Likud and Zionist Union.<br />
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This big-tent coalition was made up of four parties of extremely variable ideology: Hadash, the largest faction, is a Communist party. Following them into the Knesset in 2015 are Balad, a left-wing, secular Arab nationalist party, Ra'am, who are Islamist, and Ta'al, another secular party. <br />
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Recently, Ta'al split off from the Joint List, preferring to run on its own. It's still unclear how many seats Ta'al will manage to siphon off the still-mostly-united Joint List.<br />
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<b><i><span style="font-size: large;">WHO'S GOING TO WIN? </span></i></b><br />
<b><i><br /></i></b>
The short answer is that it's too early to tell. Right now, Likud still has a strong lead in the polls. Most polls conducted in January have Likud winning around 27-30 seats out of a total of 120. If the polls hold and Likud wins, they will have to work out a coalition with multiple other parties to create a government with 61 or more seats.<br />
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Before elections were called for April 2019, it briefly looked like Yesh Atid might be able to unseat Likud as they led multiple polls in 2017 and early 2018, but they were unable to hold that lead.<br />
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Likud's not out of the woods yet, though. Prime Minister Netanyahu is under multiple corruption allegations. Israeli police and more specifically, Economic Crimes Division Director Liat Ben-Ari have recommended to the Israeli Attorney General that he be indicted on three different cases.<br />
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If the Attorney General chooses to indict Netanyahu, his decision will likely come in either February or March. Netanyahu has stubbornly refused to step down if he is indicted, but his party may suffer in the polls if he refuses, possibly forcing his hand.<br />
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This is not the first time an Israeli Prime Minister is under investigation as the elections draw closer. Netanyahu's predecessor, Ehud Olmert of the centrist Kadima party, was under investigation, and ended up serving time in prison. Olmert stepped down from power and was replaced by Tzipi Livni. Kadima still narrowly won the election, but Livni wasn't able to form a coalition, and that responsibility was given to Netanyahu because his Likud party had come in second.<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01960083899361215499noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7546970736880378558.post-48872439669582273982019-01-11T15:16:00.000-05:002019-01-15T12:45:31.682-05:00BDS: Because Severely Flawed Activism is still protected Free Speech<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Various states in the United States have been looking into passing legislation to fight against the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement. The moves have generated considerable debate from both pro-Israel and pro-Palestine movements. This debate has also involved constitutional scholars as to whether restrictions on BDS would constitute a violation of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which states that "Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or of the right of the people to peacefully assemble". </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">To gain balanced context on this argument, a healthy amount of background information is necessary. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, officially, seeks "to end international support for Israel's oppression of Palestinians and pressure Israel to comply with international law." BDS believes that Israel practices a form of apartheid similar to the original system in South Africa, in place from 1948 to 1990. Strict economic sanctions and international boycott dragged apartheid South Africa into a deep recession. Considerable violence broke out between white and black South Africans until the government finally capitulated and transitioned from a venomously racist pariah state to a multi-racial liberal democracy between 1990 and 1994.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">BDS supporters believe that the same method of protest can be applied to Israel. In their eyes, if Israel is put under sufficient economic pressure, the country will abandon the practices seen as prejudiced and belligerent. Critics of BDS </span><span style="font-family: times, 'times new roman', serif;">complain that while institutional prejudice exists in Israel, the country is disproportionately singled out, pointing to the discrimination against the Kurdish minority spread out over Syria, Iraq, Iran and Turkey as well as the oppressive treatment of South Asian immigrants (Indians, Bangladeshis, Nepalis) in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. </span><span style="font-family: times, 'times new roman', serif;">Some even venture to compare BDS to the Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses as Adolf Hitler consolidated his power.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i><br /></i>Is BDS antisemitic? Despite frequent accusations of antisemitism, BDS insists that it does not harbor hatred towards Jews. This question has been debated since the organization was founded in 2005, and the answer may not be a simple "yes" or "no".</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The methods of protest mentioned in BDS's name are pretty standard. Boycotts are common and happen for all sorts of reasons. When investors observe business practices they don't want to associate with, they divest their holdings. When a country behaves belligerently or aggressively, they are often penalized with economic sanctions by other countries. These methods can be driven by prejudice. They are certainly not inherently prejudiced, though.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">However, BDS often oversteps legitimate criticism of the Israeli government and appeals to emotion through poorly thought out action which can be interpreted as prejudiced towards Israelis as a people rather than simply critical of decisions made by the Israeli government. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">For instance, Israeli actresses Gal Gadot and Natalie Portman have both run afoul of BDS. <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/may/31/wonder-woman-lebanon-ban-gal-gadot-israel">Gadot's breakout role</a> in <i>Wonder Woman</i> ruffled feathers because of her previous service in the IDF. Portman's decision to not accept the Genesis Prize because of her distaste for Prime Minister Netanyahu was claimed to be a bone thrown to BDS by some Israeli right-wing politicians, which she vehemently denied. </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">If you're going to criticize Israel, it seems odd to focus on two actresses that are not involved in policy decisions. Gal Gadot isn't enacting security policy in the Knesset (Israeli Parliament), nor is she building settlements in the West Bank. She didn't even see combat during her conscription. Portman went out of her way to clarify that <a href="https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Culture/Natalie-Portman-Im-not-pro-BDS-Im-anti-Netanyahu-551384">her disagreement was with Netanyahu, not Israel in general</a>. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">BDS supporters on Twitter also bombarded Scottish actor Gerard Butler in an immensely cold and condescending manner. When Butler <a href="https://www.algemeiner.com/2018/11/12/actor-gerald-butler-slammed-for-idf-support-after-sharing-photo-of-destroyed-california-home/">tweeted a picture of his obliterated Malibu home after the wildfires in California, he was shellacked with venomous comments implying that he deserved to have his house burn down for supporting the IDF</a> in a fundraiser. </span><br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">This is where BDS loses the trail. Expressing frustration with the Israeli government's handling of the conflict with Palestine is one thing, but hounding an actress for serving legally-required military service is flippant and alienating. Equating another actress' frustration with her country's Prime Minister with wholesale boycott of that country when she explicitly denied supporting such a measure is opportunistic and misleading. Jeering at a man whose house burned down is, to put it lightly, below the belt. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">In their "Frequently Asked Questions" section of their website, one question asks "Isn't a boycott of Israel antisemitic?"</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">An excerpt from their answer to this question explains: "The world is growing increasingly weary of Israel's attempts to conflate criticism of its violations of international law with antisemitism and to conflate Zionism with Judaism. Israel is a state, not a person. Everyone has the right to criticize the unjust actions of a state."</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">It is correct that criticism of Israel is not always antisemitic. Israel is not a perfect country; far from it, actually. The IDF has committed its share of disproportionate responses worthy of independent investigation. Israeli settlements are alienating and provocative to Palestinians in the West Bank. Institutional prejudice and discrimination against Arabs are present in Israel. The current government, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, does not seem to prioritize peace. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Let's examine that second part, though, about "conflating Zionism with Judaism". </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Zionism is a word that gets thrown around by scholars and conspiracy theorists alike, often with little context or explanation as to what it actually means. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">It actually has a relatively simple meaning. By definition, Zionism is a movement undertaken to establish a Jewish homeland in the historical "Land of Israel", a geographic region historically also known as Palestine. After the establishment of Israel as a sovereign state in 1948, Zionism became a set of beliefs concerned with advocating for Israel's security and defense. There are different types of Zionism as well, such as Labor Zionism, Liberal Zionism, Revisionist Zionism, and Religious Zionism. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Technically speaking, you can be anti-Zionist and not antisemitic, but it's an awfully difficult tightrope to walk. Some Haredi Orthodox Jews oppose Zionism as too secular a movement, preferring that a Jewish state only be governed by Halakha (Jewish religious law) or to be established only after the Jewish Messiah re-appears. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Outside these devoutly religious communities, however, that tightrope gets even thinner. Many refrains spouted by self-proclaimed "Anti-Zionists" would sound explicitly antisemitic if you replaced "Zionists" with "Jews". While Anti-Zionism doesn't have one simple interpretation, arguing for Israel to abandon its Jewish identity is extremely alienating to most Jewish Israelis. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">It is also important to remember that criticism of Israeli actions and anti-Zionism are not one and the same. Most of the political parties opposed to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are Zionist. His main competition in the 2015 elections came from the center-left Zionist Union party and the centrist, Liberal Zionist "Yesh Atid" party. One can be vehemently opposed to Israeli security policy but still believe the country should exist as its constitution defines it - a Jewish and democratic state. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
In theory, BDS uses legitimate methods of protest. In practice, however, they refuse to acknowledge, or at least do not do enough to address, the undercurrents of antisemitism in their movement and turn a blind eye to Palestine's shortcomings in the conflict. If BDS was to focus on opposing specific Israeli policies they saw as hurtful to the peace process rather than hounding actors and actresses as well as calling for a blanket boycott against Israel (which, let's not forget, is about 20% Arab), they may have a leg to stand on. That is not the case.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Flawed as BDS may be as an organization, it is still entitled to the provisions of freedom of speech. Restricting the right of the BDS movement to freely protest and publish materials goes against the spirit of free speech in the United States. If the organization is forced underground, it may further radicalize and be able to argue that it is being unfairly singled out.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Freedom of speech must include that which you disagree with. If pro-Israel activists want to lessen the influence of the BDS movement, it should be done with counterpoints and debate rather than legal restriction.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01960083899361215499noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7546970736880378558.post-39944802198813773422018-08-31T14:16:00.004-04:002018-08-31T14:16:58.637-04:00Ironing Out the Kinks? Putin Addresses the Retirement Age Hike<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
On Wednesday, August 29th, Russian President Vladimir Putin took to national television in Russia to explain, endorse, and tweak United Russia's proposed pension reform project.<br />
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United Russia, Putin's big-tent political party, recently proposed that the retirement age in Russia should be raised. Currently, Russian men retire at 60, Russian women retire at 55. Under the original plan, the retirement age for men would increase at a rate of six months per year, topping out at 65 by 2028. For women, the change would be more gradual: it would top out at 63 by 2034.<br />
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This proposal, passed unanimously by the United Russia delegation in the State Duma in its first of three readings, but received considerable criticism from members of the Communist Party and Liberal Democratic Party, a relatively rare development.<br />
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While not a particularly disagreeable policy project on the surface, the proposal invited many complaints. Russia's communist history makes it especially unpopular to reform or change the country's social safety net. The relatively low life expectancy for Russian men (66 years as of 2016) aroused complaints that Russian men would not live to see their pension benefits. The timing of the proposal's introduction during the World Cup invited critics to accuse the Kremlin of skewed priorities by dumping billions of roubles into an unnecessary soccer tournament but becoming stingy with elderly and potentially vulnerable citizens. And the gradual nature of the program made skeptics wonder how much economic benefit this new program would actually return, as the Kremlin claimed this would be a benefit.<br />
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President Putin decided to address the Russian people on this proposal via national television, despite his spokesman previously claiming that the <a href="https://themoscowtimes.com/articles/saving-putin-why-russia-pension-reform-just-got-more-expensive-opinion-62732">President wasn't involved in the policy proposal</a>.<br />
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Putin spoke forcefully, but amicably. In his address, he referred to his audience as "<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/under-rare-pressure-at-home-putin-promises-to-soften-pension-overhaul/2018/08/29/997c2d2a-ab75-11e8-8a0c-70b618c98d3c_story.html?utm_term=.99a14806538a">my dear friends</a>" and concluded his remarks with a humble "<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/under-rare-pressure-at-home-putin-promises-to-soften-pension-overhaul/2018/08/29/997c2d2a-ab75-11e8-8a0c-70b618c98d3c_story.html?utm_term=.99a14806538a">I ask for your understanding</a>". In regards to the issues, Putin claimed that the retirement age would not be raised to 63 for women, only 60, and that more people would be eligible for earlier benefits and early retirement. Despite his tone, Putin still endorsed the program in general, touting it as a necessary step to economic recovery.<br />
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It's too early to gauge whether this speech will stop Putin's high-but-not-invincible approval rating from slipping. The original and wildly unpopular proposal brought the President's approval rating from the low 80s to the mid 60s in only a few months. A report from <i>Meduza</i>, which is generally critical of the Kremlin, claimed that Putin's approval rating had risen back to 70%, but admitted that <i><a href="https://meduza.io/en/news/2018/08/30/putin-s-approval-rating-is-rising-again">"Pollsters from the Levada Center told the newspaper Kommersant that the president’s August 29 national address about pension reform had a minimal effect on their survey results, given that only a small number of respondents were contacted after the speech."</a> </i>In fact, that <i>Meduza </i>report only came out one day after the address, and when we consider that there is usually a margin of error to these polling reports, the change is most likely minimal.<br />
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This speech may not be all that helpful to the President's approval rating, however. In fact, it could even backfire. As mentioned before, Putin's spokesman claimed that the President was not involved in the proposal, and now he has thrown his arms around it, for better or worse. The proposed change from 63 to 60 for Russian women is indeed a concession, but women live longer than men in Russia, by nearly 10 years. Russian men are still set to retire at 65 and therefore the fear they may not live to see their benefits still exists. The optics of getting stingy with pension benefits while using a mammoth amount of taxpayer money to fund a soccer tournament still exist. Furthermore, <a href="https://themoscowtimes.com/articles/saving-putin-why-russia-pension-reform-just-got-more-expensive-opinion-62732">Putin's changing the new retirement age for women to 60 from 63 and claiming wider eligibility for benefits may actually make the plan even more expensive</a>, possibly cancelling out any projected jump-start for the economy. Critics claimed that the gradual nature of the retirement age hike would make any benefits minimal, and now they may be even smaller or nonexistent.<br />
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This pension reform project is not law yet in Russia, though it has the support of the United Russia super-majority in the Duma and Putin's endorsement. While Putin still enjoys considerably popularity, the only way he might be able to recapture his previously sky-high approval rating is by scrapping the program, but this would force him to backtrack from a proposal they seem adamant to push into law and find other ways to try to jumpstart the shaky, sluggish economy. In other words, this is probably unlikely. If they push it through, the Russian people will be frustrated by a very unpopular new policy and may not even realize its heralded benefits. Unless a rapid change in public opinion occurs, the Kremlin has put itself into a rut with few good options out.<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01960083899361215499noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7546970736880378558.post-7517321604047350232018-08-20T11:51:00.002-04:002018-08-20T12:00:52.164-04:00Putin's Pensioner Problem: United Russia and the Retirement Age<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
Russian President Vladimir Putin's normally rock-solid approval rating has experienced a sudden drop in recent months.<br />
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While it is still high enough to be envied by many political leaders in Western Europe and North America, it is noticeably lower than it used to be. In April 2018, Putin's approval rating stood in a familiar position - 82%. He had just won his fifth Presidential election with 77% of the vote, leaving the second-place candidate, Communist Party member Pavel Grudinin in the dust with 11.77%, and the spectacle of the World Cup was fast approaching. The world was coming to Russia to enjoy one of the world's biggest sporting events outside the Olympics, which had come four years previously.<br />
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The World Cup was, by most measurements, a massive success for the Kremlin. There were no incidents of fan violence. Fans from abroad who visited Russia raved about their time spent in the country. The soccer was exciting and featured unexpected results and riveting play. Most of all, the home team considerably over-performed expectations by convincingly winning their group and upsetting a massively favored Spanish squad in the Round of 16. Even in the game where Russia was eliminated against Croatia, the Russian team showed tenacity and fight, holding the Croatians at bay to send the game to extra time and scoring a last-minute goal to tie the game at 2 and send the game to penalty kicks. As a fan, it was sad to see the run end but it's hard to deny the pride felt by the team's run.<br />
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In July 2018, Levada Center published a new poll, showing Putin's approval rating down to <a href="https://www.levada.ru/en/">67%</a>, a drop of 15% in 3 months. The Russian Public Opinion Research Center put it even lower, <a href="https://wciom.ru/news/ratings/odobrenie_deyatelnosti_gosudarstvennyx_institutov/">at 63%</a>.<br />
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The main reason for this drop is simple. Putin and his United Russia party want to raise the retirement age. In Russia, men retire at 60 and women at 55. <a href="https://themoscowtimes.com/news/russian-duma-moves-hike-retirement-age-amid-popular-opposition-62299">Under United Russia's plan, the retirement age for men would rise to 65 by 2028, whereas for women it would rise from 55 to 63 by 2034. </a> The proposal was passed in hopes that it would jump-start the sluggish Russian economy. While no longer in the considerable recession it was in between 2014 and 2017, the Russian economy's recovery has been extremely <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-11/putin-s-break-from-recession-fleeting-as-economy-hits-a-pothole">modest and shaky</a>. The rouble is losing value again, now sitting around 67 per US Dollar after stabilizing around 58 earlier this year because of the spat between the United States and Turkey over the slumping Lira. <br />
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At first glance, this retirement age hike doesn't seem like a particularly radical or earth-shattering proposal. A substantial amount of countries have their retirement age around the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retirement_age">65/63 range</a>, and moving the age up 5 and 8 years respectively over periods of ten and sixteen years is considerably gradual. Therefore, from the outside looking in, it may seem a bit unusual that this of all things is receiving relatively fierce opposition. But the proposal is still very unpopular for a few different reasons.<br />
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<div style="text-align: left;">
The retirement age as it stands now (60 for men, 55 for women) has been in place since the early 1950s and was signed into law by none other than Iosif Stalin. The fact that the retirement age has not changed in over sixty years, even through the collapse of the Soviet Union and the reformation of Russia under Putin means that this new idea represents a break from a perceived social contract between the Russian people and the Russian government. <i>The Moscow Times </i>reported that Gennady Zyuganov, leader of the Communist Party, lamented when the bill was introduced that "While we were marveling at the goals scored during the World Cup, the Medvedev government decided to score a goal against every one of us...your children and grandchildren won't forgive you for this." Vladimir Zhirinovsky, the ultranationalist and often foul-mouthed LDPR leader, also pledged that his party would vote against the proposal. It is rare to see the Communists and LDPR oppose United Russia in the Duma, but they did in this instance. The Communists have proposed putting the issue to national referendum, which is unlikely to occur. </div>
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<div style="text-align: left;">
There's also the issue of life expectancy in Russia. Russian men are expected to live to around 66, women around 77. This reality has struck fear into Russians, particularly men, that they would not even live to see their pension benefits. While it's true that the life expectancy for Russian men has steadily rebounded from its previous lows in the 1990s and early 2000s, it is still relatively low and mostly due to the high tobacco and alcohol consumption among Russian men especially. Vodka and cigarettes are not as popular as they once were in Russia but they are still consumed in high numbers. </div>
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<div style="text-align: left;">
Another reason for the unpopularity of these reforms is the extraordinarily poor timing of their proposal. The bill to raise the retirement age was introduced during the World Cup, and the perception's unpopularity was amplified considerably by that timing. By proposing these reforms during the World Cup, it is easy for opponents to claim that the government has monstrously skewed its priorities by dumping billions of roubles into a soccer tournament run by the cartoonishly corrupt FIFA but getting stingy with elderly Russians who want to retire. It is also being interpreted as dishonest to propose legislation which is decidedly unpopular during a time when many are distracted by a soccer tournament their country is hosting. </div>
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<div style="text-align: left;">
This is not the first time the Kremlin has tried to reform the social safety net to considerable criticism. In 2005, Putin's government decided to overhaul various benefits for its pensioner population by replacing benefits such as free public transportation and subsidies for telephones, housing and medicine with scheduled cash payments. The new program was poorly rolled out with many never receiving their new cash payments. Those who did receive their payments complained that the cost was insufficient and didn't cover their previous benefits. The program was seen as stingy when the Russian economy was soaring high and had a massive budget surplus. In a rare occurrence, the Kremlin decided to back-track and reinstate the old system. </div>
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<div style="text-align: left;">
United Russia's new proposal has passed its first of three readings through the State Duma, but it is not law yet. The Medvedev government has the opportunity to backtrack and work out the kinks of the bill to make it less unpopular before it becomes law or scrap it altogether if they fear its current implementation will weaken their grip on power. If they insist on pushing it through, however, they may completely lose the surge in popularity they received after the annexation of Crimea. Not only that, the proposed change is gradual and even if the Kremlin is right that it will benefit the economy, effects are probably not going to be particularly noticeable. </div>
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The Communists' hopes for a referendum are unlikely, but if it did happen, it could further cement a policy loss for United Russia if the people convincingly reject the change at the ballot box. If the government tries to manipulate the result to their liking, it could doubly backfire. </div>
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It would be silly to expect a Euromaidan-esque Revolution to come of this policy change (if it happens at all), but Putin has been in power for 18 years and none of his close confidants like Prime Minister Medvedev or Defense Minister Sergei Shoygu or Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov command the same level of trust or confidence as Putin himself among the Russian people. United Russia has largely stayed popular in Russia because of its loose policy commitments and big-tent attitude, instead opting to pursue generally popular ideas as they come up rather than sticking to a ideological commitment. It's worked well for them, which makes this proposal a considerable break from that path. And in a twist of irony, the proposal is not at all radical from the outside looking in.<br />
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United Russia is in a bit of a pickle here, and their best option may be to backtrack like in 2005. If they push through the current bill and the economic benefits don't come, the unpopularity will linger. If they double down in an attempt to speed up the claim of economic benefits (for instance, moving retirement ages directly to 65 and 63 on January 1, 2019) they risk an even more unpopular proposal and a fired up opposition. If the referendum happens, a defeat at the ballot box is very much in play, and United Russia hasn't suffered many of those. </div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01960083899361215499noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7546970736880378558.post-83611037508776274442018-06-26T11:29:00.000-04:002018-06-27T10:11:47.237-04:00Another Erdoğan Victory: Why? <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been elected. Again. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">First sweeping to power in 2002 as Prime Minister, Turkey has been under Erdoğan’s rule for 16 years. He and his Justice and Development Party, known by its Turkish initials AKP, have won every general election with at least a plurality since 2002. They have also presided over two nationwide referenda in 2010 and 2017 respectively, in which their desired policy change has come into effect both times.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Under Erdoğan and the AKP, Turkish democracy is alive, but fragile and sickly. Staggering numbers of journalists sit in Turkish prisons. The press, especially television news, is mostly dominated by pro-AKP talking heads. Two of Turkey’s leading newspapers which regularly criticize the government, <i>Hürriyet</i> (<i>Liberty</i>) and <i>Cumhuriyet</i> (<i>The Republic</i>) have been put under extreme pressure by the government. Though not implemented by Erdoğan, the 10% threshold for political parties to get representation in the Turkish Grand National Assembly has proved restrictive, especially for the Kurdish left-wing People’s Democratic Party (HDP), which lacks any sort of support outside the majority Kurdish regions in the southeast part of the country.<br />
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">President Erdoğan is often compared to Russian President Vladimir Putin in the sense that he still attempts to pursue some facade of democracy but has increasingly pursued an authoritarian rule. Like Putin in Russia, Erdoğan has a loyal following in Turkey, though his is not as large as Putin’s. The two men came to power at similar times, during internal crisis and widespread uncertainty, and both have gained followings for their insistence that their respective administrations represent stability and prosperity.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Western media outlets, however, cautiously predicted that while Erdoğan’s AKP would win the June 24 election, it would do so with only a plurality resulting in a hung parliament, and that while Erdoğan would win the most votes for the Presidential election, he would fall short of 50% and would need to win a runoff against a second-place contender. This was the year Erdoğan’s power would start to wane, it was claimed, and he may even lose the runoff. The economy was sputtering and the Lira was steadily losing value, Erdoğan’s claims of stability were weakening, it was said.</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">It looked like the opposition had learned some lessons as well. The Kemalist, social democratic Republican People’s Party (CHP) had nominated a charismatic man of the people for the presidency in Muharrem İnce over the bureaucratic Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, and he was commanding enormous rallies in Izmir, Istanbul, and Ankara. Meral Akşener, the center-right nationalist “she-wolf” of the newly established İYİ (Good) Party was going to cut into Erdoğan’s base and inspire MHP voters angry at Erdoğan to ditch their crimson three-crescent banners for the blue and gold sun flag of the İYİ Party. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">This was not to be. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">While the AKP did not win an outright majority in the Parliament, its partner in the People’s Alliance, the right-wing populist Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), saw a mostly-unexpected surge in the polls. Expected to gain only around 4-6% of parliamentary votes, the MHP entered Parliament with a much stronger 11.1%, ensuring the AKP-MHP alliance would retain its majority in parliament. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">İnce won a respectable 30.6% of votes, but couldn’t bring Erdoğan below 50% and the CHP's parliamentary vote declined from 25% in November 2015 to 22.6% in June 2018. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">Meral Akşener, expected to get between 9-15% in the Presidential Election, slumped to 7.3%, and her İYİ Party only scraped 9.9% of votes. Together, </span></span>Akşener and İnce<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;"> barely managed to match the performance of the generally unpopular joint CHP/MHP candidate in 2014, </span></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu, who lost to </span>Erdoğan 51.7% to 38.4%<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Selahattin Demirtas, jailed presidential candidate for the Kurdish People's Democratic Party (HDP), managed 8.4% of the vote while the HDP crossed the 10% threshold with 11.7% of the vote. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Why did this happen? Why did the predictions of both the Western media and many of Turkey’s own polling agencies turn out wrong? </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">The MHP Strikes Back</span></i></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Perhaps the most surprising performance of the election was that of the aforementioned far-right Nationalist Movement Party. In 2015, the MHP, while not the loudest voice of opposition, was generally against the ambitions of President Erdoğan. It refused to become part of a possible coalition government with the AKP after the June 2015 election, ensuring a second round of elections in November. Its position in Parliament was weakened in the November 2015 elections. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Not long after the November 2015 election, the MHP shifted from opposing Erdoğan to supporting him. In 2017, they backed the constitutional referendum that set in motion Turkey's transition from parliamentary democracy to presidential democracy, a referendum many saw as a thinly veiled power-grab by Erdoğan. This was viewed as a very risky move on party leader Devlet Bahçeli's part. Many MHP voters were vocally opposed to this referendum and the party's geographic stronghold in the south of Turkey voted predominantly against it. Bahçeli's shift to support Erdoğan also inspired Meral Akşener, a former member of the MHP, to try to usurp power from him. Akşener lost and left the party, founding the more centrist, civic nationalist İYİ Party in response. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">How the MHP managed to rebound in Sunday's election is still a bit unclear, but its resurgence and continued support for Erdoğan and the AKP turned out to be a successful gamble and the party now holds the parliamentary majority for the People's Alliance. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Meral Akşener's İYİ Party appeared on the scene in October 2017. Akşener, a charismatic and seasoned figure in Turkish politics, quickly attracted substantial attention. Early polling for the Presidential Election had Akşener winning second place and heading to a razor-thin runoff against Erdoğan as well as nearly 20% of the votes in the Parliamentary election. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">The İYİ Party was a party that looked like it would become a force to be reckoned with in its infancy. It was led by a popular new candidate. It railed against the establishment. Its center-right platform seemed to be perfect to combat the right-wing AKP and far-right MHP voters who opposed Erdoğan. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Its momentum did not last, however, and the main reason for that may be its main ally, the CHP. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">In May 2018, the CHP put forth its presidential candidate, the popular and eloquent ex-physics teacher Muharrem İnce. Akşener's presidential bid had been announced months earlier than İnce's, but İnce quickly surpassed her in the polls. The two candidates were not adversaries in the way they would be with Erdoğan. Akşener welcomed İnce when he announced his running for president and expressed her preference for a wealth of candidates. Both İnce and Akşener pledged to support the other if the presidential election went to runoff. Nevertheless, İnce's campaign may have stopped Akşener's momentum cold. </span></span><br />
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">Despite that seemingly sudden momentum shift, </span></span>İYİ is still in its early stages. Akşener isn't president, but she's still the leader of the party and may be able to grow its support in the coming years. The only question is whether she'll end up pulling support away from CHP voters or from the AKP/MHP coalition. </span></div>
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<span class="s1"><i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Anti-Erdoğan Islamism Falls Flat</span></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">In Turkey, a political party must win 10% of the vote if it hopes to win seats in the Parliament. This rule was implemented in the 1980s and is often criticized by the opposition as excessive and exclusionary. In order to circumvent this obstacle, both pro- and anti- Erdoğan camps mobilized under the banners of alliances. The pro-Erdoğan People's Alliance consists of the AKP, MHP, and much smaller Great Unity Party, known by its Turkish initials BBP, while the opposition National Alliance is made up of CHP, </span></span>İYİ, Saadet, and Democrat parties.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">If you're familiar with Turkish politics, one of these parties should stick out like a sore thumb, and that's the Saadet (Felicity) Party. While the CHP, İYİ and Democrat parties are all secular Kemalist parties (the CHP is center-left, İYİ and DP are center-right), Saadet is a far-right Islamist political party. </span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Why would a far-right Islamist party ally with secular parties, you ask? A shared distaste for President Erdoğan. Saadet is vehemently anti-Erdoğan, but it is far too small of a party to win seats with the 10% threshold, so it joined the National Alliance in hopes of accomplishing both parliamentary representation and the ability to chip away at Erdoğan's Islamist base. Temel Karamollaoğlu, Saadet's presidential candidate, never polled particularly high, but he did at times reach 4-5%. Had Saadet reached that 4-5%, Erdoğan would not have won the election outright and Turkey would have been headed to a runoff election. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">However, Saadet underperformed already-small expectations. Temel Karamollaoğlu only won 0.89% of the vote and the party received a paltry 1.35% of the vote for Parliament, which translates to 0 MPs. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span class="s1"><span style="font-size: small;">Turkey's next election will be at the latest, in 2023. </span></span>Erdoğan is stronger than ever, but his grip on power isn't quite absolute yet. The Turkish economy is starting to sputter and slow down. The lira is losing its value - in 2013, $1 bought you 2 lira, today it buys you 4.7 lira. A major reason for Erdoğan's popularity has been the strength of the Turkish economy under his administration, but the cracks are starting to show, and so far he's been remarkably stubborn in tackling the emerging issues.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Erdoğan will have to play it safe with MHP leader Devlet Bahçeli in order to keep his majority in parliament. One day before the election, the <i>Hurriyet Daily News </i>reported that Bahçeli warned of a possible <a href="http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/alliance-may-collapse-if-akp-repeats-mistakes-mhp-leader-133665?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=post&utm_campaign=alliance-may-collapse-if-akp-repeats-mistakes-mhp-leader-133665&utm_term=post">collapse of the alliance</a>. His criticism was vague, but could result in early elections if it's not heeded. </span><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01960083899361215499noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7546970736880378558.post-55871612834313346712018-04-25T13:05:00.002-04:002018-05-07T12:48:41.233-04:00Once More into the Breach: Turkey goes back to the Polls<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
For the fifth time in four years, the Republic of Turkey is going to the polls for a pivotal election.<br />
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In August 2014, Turkey went to the polls to directly elect their president. In previous years, a parliamentary vote elected the Turkish President, a mostly ceremonial position which was far less powerful than that of the Prime Minister's office. That rule was changed, however, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was popularly elected with 51.7% of the vote, decisively beating out cross-party candidate Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu's 38.4% and Kurdish representative Selahattin Demirtaş' 9.7%.<br />
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Two elections were held in 2015. The first, in June, pushed Erdoğan's right-wing Islamist Justice and Development Party, known by its Turkish initials AKP, down to 40.87% of the vote, enough for a plurality but short of a majority in the Grand National Assembly. The center-left Kemalist Republican People's Party (CHP) placed second with 25.98% of the vote, while the smaller far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and left-wing Kurdish-interest People's Democratic Party (HDP) picked up 16.29% and 13.12% of the vote.<br />
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Coalition negotiations were vigorous but ultimately fruitless, highlighting the polarization between Turkey's four major parties. The AKP refused to govern in a minority government. Negotiations for a unity government between the AKP and CHP broke down. The HDP and MHP both refused to enter into coalition with the AKP. A CHP-MHP minority coalition with "outside support" from the HDP was rejected by the MHP.<br />
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A second election was called for November, and the results were a return to the status quo. Despite the predictions pointing towards little change in the result from June and another hung parliament, the AKP rebounded from its weak showing in June as it managed to push some MHP and HDP voters back into its camp while the CHP very, very slightly improved its vote total.<br />
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In 2017, Turkey voted on a national referendum that aimed to change the parliamentary democracy system to a presidential system similar to that of the United States, France and Brazil. It was widely considered among President Erdoğan's critics to be a consolidation of power and another move towards authoritarianism in the already-fragile Turkish democracy. The referendum very narrowly passed 51.4% to 48.6% and seemed to unite many of the anti-Erdoğan factions: secular social democrats, far-right nationalists, and Kurds. Despite the MHP's support for the changes proposed in the referendum, many MHP voters spurned their party's official campaign and voted against the referendum.<br />
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Turkey's next election was originally scheduled for November 3rd, 2019. On April 18th, however, President Erdoğan, echoing his recently-turned allies in the MHP headed by <span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 22.4px;">Devlet Bahçeli, called for an earlier election. Yet </span></span>Erdoğan took it one step further than <span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 22.4px;">Bahçeli and decided to move the elections up from November 2019 to June of 2018, two months earlier than </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 22.4px;">Bahçeli's proposal for August 2018. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 22.4px;">The direct election of the Turkish President in these upcoming elections has brought a new face and a new party into the forefront. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; line-height: 22.4px;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Meral Akşener, a former member of Parliament from the MHP, founded the Good (İyi) </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 22.4px;">Party in October 2017. The </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 22.4px;">İyi</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 22.4px;"> Party in practice seems to be a more moderate nationalist party, a center-right counterpart to the center-left Republican People's Party, and an alternative for disillusioned MHP members who dislike their party's alliance with the AKP. Indeed, soon after its creation, four MHP MPs and a CHP MP defected from their parties and became members of the Good Party. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 22.4px;">Meral Akşener is a fascinating, seasoned and charismatic figure. She is a practicing Muslim, but does not wear a headscarf and her party praises the secular governmental framework championed by Turkey's venerated founding father, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. According to <i>The Economist, </i>she frequently is heard "</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 22.4px;"><i>peppering her speeches with wisecracks and jokes." </i>In direct presidential polls, she trails </span></span>Erdoğan, but not by much. Her campaign is also somewhat of a crusade against the bloated, corrupt and ineffective establishment in Turkey which has frustrated many who are sick of Erdoğan, in power since 2002. While <span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 22.4px;">Akşener's political career is not young, she has experienced a political revival with her vigorous campaigning against the constitutional referendum in 2017 and her break from the MHP. </span><br />
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Now that the President of Turkey is a position set to take on more power than it had before, the campaign has become one of considerable interest. Erdoğan has not formally declared his candidacy, but likely will do so soon under the People's Alliance, a coalition between the AKP and MHP. In a way, this may be a admittance of weakness as the MHP's alliance with AKP and the rise of Meral <span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 22.4px;">Akşener</span> has split MHP voters. Parliamentary representation for political parties in Turkey relies on surpassing a threshold of 10%, which the MHP would have trouble attaining without allying with Erdoğan. Members of Parliament are also not going to be able to run for both a seat in the Grand National Assembly and the Presidency.<br />
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Meral <span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 22.4px;">Akşener</span> herself looked like she may have had to run as an independent due to a technicality regarding the Iyi Party's being too young to stand in the Parliamentary election, but in a show of solidarity, fifteen MPs from the CHP changed over to the Iyi Party, securing her ability to run as a member of her new party and her party's ability to elect representatives. The center-left CHP has two candidates who have declared interest so far: Didem Engin and Öztürk Yılmaz. The party's leader, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, previously said he would not run for president, but that may change as the campaign jump-starts over the next month. Polls indicate that Erdoğan will likely win the first round, but unlike in 2014, he will probably have to head to a second-round runoff, most likely against <span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 22.4px;">Akşener</span>.<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 22.4px;">Akşener</span> has one difficult problem standing in her way, however: the Kurds. As a former member of the MHP, Turkey's Kurdish population is unlikely to rally to her cause, and some of the more conservative Muslim Kurds may support Erdoğan over her. Aksener was a supporter of the Turkish military operation in Afrin in northern Syria, a Kurdish enclave which offered little resistance. While Aksener is critical of Erdoğan, she is still nationalistic and may continue Turkey's involvement in Syria against the enclave that the Kurds in Syria have carved out for themselves. While the Syrian Democratic Forces are not exactly the same as the terrorist organization known as the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), the two organizations do share an ideology and former PKK fighters likely work in the SDF's armed ranks. The main difference is that the SDF is a militant group that has mostly fought against Islamic State, whereas the PKK has been fighting a sort of guerrilla war against Ankara. Whatever your views on the conflict between Turkey and the PKK are, it is understandable why the Turkish government does not support this group.<br />
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While <span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 22.4px;">Akşener has campaigned in the southeastern part of Turkey, her being able to rally the Kurds to her cause is unlikely, and she may have to look elsewhere to secure victory in the Presidential election. The Iyi Party is a </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 22.4px;"><span style="line-height: 22.4px;">center</span>-right party in practice, the AKP is right-wing, and the MHP is far-right. As stated previously, while </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 22.4px;">Akşener believes in the principle of secular government, she is a practicing Muslim and sometimes described as devout. This may enable her to win over moderate AKP voters in Turkey's urban centers, people who are Muslim and who have conservative values but may not necessarily want religion in the government. In the national referendum last year regarding the transformation from parliamentary to presidential democracy, densely populated areas surrounding Istanbul and Ankara voted down </span>Erdoğan's "Yes" campaign...but just barely. The AKP is still influential and powerful in these cities, though it is not dominant the way it is in the heartlands such as Konya. If the Iyi Party presents itself as an alternative in these areas and pushes the election to a runoff, t<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 22.4px;">his is where Aksener could make the pivotal difference, converting just enough votes from AKP to </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 22.4px;">Iyi</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 22.4px;"> may push her ever so slightly over the top. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 22.4px;">The latest polls have </span>Erdoğan in a convincing lead for the first round of the Presidential Election, but not enough to avoid a runoff. <span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 22.4px;">Akşener looks like the primary challenger who will be going up against him in the second round. She trails him narrowly in the second round, 52.2%-47.8%. As the campaign develops and the elections draw closer, it will become more evident as to whether </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 22.4px;">Akşener can tap into moderate AKP voters having doubts about </span>Erdoğan. She seems to be pulling most of her votes from CHP and MHP voters at the moment, but her charisma, popularity and populist sentiment may be just enough for her to produce a monumental upset. <span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 22.4px;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 22.4px;"> </span><br />
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As of May 7th, 2018, Turkey's election showdown has become more defined.<br />
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Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will appear as a member not of the AKP, but of the Cumhur İttifakı (People's Alliance), a coalition of the AKP and MHP.<br />
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His opponents are numerous. On May 4th, the CHP nominated Muharrem İnce as their presidential candidate. Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, the leader of the CHP, stuck to his claims that he would not run for president, Selahattin Demirtaş was nominated from behind bars to be the HDP's candidate, <span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 22.4px;">Meral Akşener will carry the banner of the </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 22.4px;">İyi Party, and </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 22.4px;">Temel Karamollaoğlu will run with the Saadet (Felicity) Party, an Islamist anti-</span></span>Erdoğan party. A handful of minor party and independent candidates will also run. Doğu Perinçek has expressed his interest in running with the left-wing nationalist Patriotic Party, Vecdet Öz with the center-right Justice Party, ex-MHP member Sinan Oğan, ex-AKP member and economist Tuna Bekleviç.<br />
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Despite the wealth of candidates running in the Presidential Election, only about three of these stand a chance at winning the Presidency: Erdoğan, İnce, and <span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 22.4px;">Akşener. </span><br />
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İnce and <span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 22.4px;">Akşener, though rivals in the Presidential Election, have shown an ability to cooperate due to their shared anti-</span>Erdoğan stance. For the parliamentary election, CHP and <span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 22.4px;">İyi have teamed up with the far-right Saadet </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 22.4px;">(Felicity)</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 22.4px;"> Party and the center-right Democrat Party. Together these four parties (CHP, IYI, DP and SP) make up the Nation Alliance, a direct rival to the AKP-MHP coalition. A poll conducted on the 1st of May puts the People's Alliance at 270 parliamentary seats, the Nation Alliance at 230, and the Kurdish HDP at 100, resulting in a hung parliament. This alliance building would bypass the 10% election threshold, </span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 22.4px;">While </span></span>İnce and <span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 22.4px;">Akşener seem to understand that they will need each others' support to defeat </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 22.4px;">Erdoğan, their parties do differ on one important issue: the Kurds and the HDP. During coalition negotiations, the CHP expressed interest in bringing the HDP into the anti-</span></span>Erdoğan coalition, but <span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 22.4px;">Akşener</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 22.4px;"> and the </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 22.4px;">İyi Party did not support this. </span>İnce has expressed interest in visiting Selahattin Demirtaş in prison as well as claiming that <a href="http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/presidential-candidate-ince-promises-to-take-bold-steps-to-solve-kurdish-issue-131417">“The HDP are also children of this nation". </a><br />
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Erdoğan is almost guaranteed to win the first round of the Presidential Election as he heads the most politically united group in Turkey, but he is unlikely to win with over 50% of the vote, which will force him to a runoff. He will almost certainly face either İnce or Akşener in that runoff. İnce and <span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 22.4px;">Akşener both narrowly trail Erdoğan in runoff polling, and it looks like they will attempt to use different strategies in their hopes of unseating the current President. It seems as though </span>İnce will try to rally the Kurds to his ticket in a second round by appealing to their frustration with Demirtaş still in prison, whereas Akşener will try to chip away at <span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 22.4px;">Erdoğan's base by appealing to her faith and her center-right political platform. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 22.4px;">Both strategies are ambitious in Turkey's polarized political climate. No first-round presidential polls have been conducted since </span>İnce was chosen as the CHP's candidate, so it remains unclear as to whether he or Akşener will command more support in the first round of voting. The most recent poll had Akşener edging out second place with 24% of the vote whereas a generic CHP candidate would receive about 20%, but İnce is a popular and charismatic candidate just like Akşener.<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01960083899361215499noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7546970736880378558.post-39043588664837149202018-04-23T15:36:00.000-04:002018-04-23T22:53:21.726-04:00Natalie Portman and the Plight of Polarization <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Israeli-American actress Natalie Portman, famous for her roles in the <i>Star Wars</i> prequels and <i>Black Swan</i>, is under fire for her refusal to attend a ceremony in Israel to receive the Genesis Prize, an American award which recognizes Jewish people for their substantial contributions to their respective fields.<br />
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The ceremony was quickly cancelled after her announcement.<br />
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Portman claims her reason for not attending is because of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's plans to attend. Portman, who has kept her Israeli roots close, has been critical of Netanyahu and was "...<a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/natalie-portman-refuses-to-collect-prize-in-israel-citing-recent-events/">very, very upset and disappointed</a>” when he won re-election in 2015. She has also said she "find[s] his racist comments horrific,”<br />
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Portman was quick to clarify, however, that her refusal to attend the event was not meant to appear as a general boycott of Israel, merely the Israeli Prime Minister and his political platform.<br />
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Unfortunately, her personal protest was immediately twisted by both sides to fit their own respective narratives. Israel's Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz claimed her decision bordered on anti-Semitism, and according to Ha'aretz, <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/israeli-minister-portman-s-netanyahu-boycott-borders-on-anti-semitism-1.6014423">"On Friday, Culture and Sports Minister Miri Regev said: “I was sorry to hear that Natalie Portman has fallen like ripe fruit into the hands of supporters of BDS."" </a> Knesset member Oren Hazan, also from Likud and currently serving a suspension, suggested the actress should have her Israeli citizenship revoked.<br />
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On the other hand, members of the BDS movement (Boycott, Divest, Sanctions) were overjoyed at Portman's protest. An article in <i>Forward</i> proudly proclaims "<i><a href="https://forward.com/opinion/399400/actually-natalie-portman-you-are-practicing-bds/">Actually, Natalie, you ARE practicing BDS</a></i>". The article claims that "I understand your hesitation to “boycott the entire nation. But this is not what BDS is. Individuals are not the target of boycott efforts — the state is. These things can and should be separated."<br />
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Both claims are unfair to Mrs. Portman.<br />
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Accusing an actress who has strong ties to Israel and who has expressed her admiration for Israeli culture and her Jewish faith on multiple occasions of "bordering on anti-Semitism" is ridiculous and facetious. Not only is it inaccurate to accuse Portman of anti-Semitism, it furthers the stereotype that Israelis become overly defensive at criticism directed at their country and revert to accusing their critics of anti-Semitism even if they harbor no ill sentiment towards Israelis or Jews in general. Anti-Semitism is unfortunately still alive and well and even growing in some areas with the rise of the nationalist, populist right. Natalie Portman is not part of that nasty rising tide.<br />
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These sentiments reflect a sour turn towards right-wing populism in Israel. When former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick decided to protest police brutality and lingering institutional racism by kneeling during the playing of the Star-Spangled Banner before football games, he was personally vilified and insulted by U.S. President Donald Trump and his supporters as being disrespectful and unpatriotic. However, nonviolent protest is part of the right to constitutional freedom of speech and assembly that Americans are explicitly given in the First Amendment. While one does not have to agree with Kaepernick’s protest or motives, it is unfair to jump to the conclusion that he is unpatriotic; many would argue his dissent was a patriotic demonstration as it showed a desire for the US to fix lingering problems in its justice system. Kaepernick and Portman are both engaging in civil disobedience, a form of non-violent protest, a right which is integral in any free society. It is extremely important that those claiming to be democratic remember that their elected representatives are not above criticism, scrutiny or protest.<br />
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On the other hand, it’s condescending, opportunistic and flippant to commandeer Portman’s protest of Netanyahu, a Prime Minister whose party only received 23.4% of the votes in the last General Election, into an implicit or unintended support for the BDS movement. It is especially insolent when she publicly and explicitly claims her personal views do not equate to support for the movement.<br />
The author of the aforementioned article which claims Portman is actually practicing BDS, claims that BDS is not about boycotting the “entire nation”, but the “state”. True, “nation” and “state”, while often used interchangeably, <a href="https://www.usip.org/glossary/state-versus-nation">do not have the same meaning</a>. “Nation” generally refers to the people of a country, “state” to the government of that country. These terms, however, are most certainly intertwined. When a country is predominantly ethnically and/or religiously homogenous, and Israel could be considered as such when it calls itself as a Jewish, democratic state, it is referred to as a “nation-state”. Israel is about 75% Jewish, 21% Arab (mostly Muslim, some Christian) and 4% other (Druze, for instance).<br />
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The problem with this distinction is that it is murky at best. BDS often claims its roots in the South African anti-apartheid movement in South Africa. South Africa’s venomously racist apartheid government, in place from 1948 until it was significantly weakened in 1990 and fully dismantled by 1994, was put under serious international sanctions in the 1980s. The economy was put under considerable strain and many claim that the economic hardship was an instrumental part of the South African government’s repeal of the apartheid laws under President F.W. De Klerk. <br />
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Sanctions, while a peaceful method of protest used by many different governments, have often been criticized as disproportionately affecting ordinary people while those in power feel little if any pressure. This was an oft-repeated line when Fmr. President Obama desired to strike a nuclear deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran and a thaw with Cuba. Supporters of these foreign policy objectives claimed that ordinary Iranians and Cubans, whether supporters of their respective governments or not, were the ones to hurt most from sanctions. If a general boycott of the Israeli government was enforced, there is a possibility that it would have the same effect: economic strain on the working man who has little direct involvement with the government’s policies, little if any pressure on those in power. How exactly does BDS plan to boycott Israel and not have that affect the ordinary Israeli?<br />
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BDS, like most political protest organizations, has a method and a message. Its method, in theory, borrows from long-utilized methods of nonviolent protest. Boycotting, divesting, and sanctioning are all legitimate forms of peaceful protest. In theory, these are seemingly sound methods of getting a message out even if the message may come across as disagreeable.<br />
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In practice, however, BDS often engages in posturing which can alienate people who may be willing to criticize specific policies enacted by the Israeli government, but who are not supportive of a wholesale boycott. The smash hit superheroine movie <i>Wonder Woman</i> was met with ire and calls for boycott from BDS as the protagonist is played by Israeli actress Gal Gadot. When faced with criticism, some supporters claimed their desire for a boycott was due to the fact that Mrs. Gadot was a soldier in the Israeli Defence Forces, where she served two years of mandatory conscription and had voiced support for on social media. But considering Gadot's service in the IDF was mandatory, she did not see combat, and she does not enact policy, many saw the boycott as prejudiced rather than specifically critical of a Israeli government policy platform. Is a former conscript wrong to express patriotic feelings for the army and country she served?<br />
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Portman is well within her rights to criticize and express her disagreements with Prime Minister Netanyahu. It is unfortunate that her plain, direct explanation of her decision has been co-opted by those on both sides of this hopelessly complicated, tangled conflict. </div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01960083899361215499noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7546970736880378558.post-75474917785636755862018-03-28T12:40:00.000-04:002018-03-28T14:04:12.881-04:00Lessons to Learn from Kemerovo<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
You probably haven't heard of Kemerovo. It's understandable if you haven't, it isn't exactly Paris or London.<br />
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Keremovo is a city in Russia located 255 km (158 mi) from Novosibirsk, the biggest city in Siberia and Russia's third largest behind Moscow and St. Petersburg. Slightly over 500,000 live in the industrial city of Kemerovo.<br />
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On March 25, 2018, a fire ripped through the "Winter Cherry" mall and theatre complex in the city. According to the BBC, the fire started somewhere on an upper floor in the mall, during school holidays. The complex, which had multiple movie theatres, a bar, cafe, and a bowling alley, was packed and bustling.<br />
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While the cause of the fire isn't known yet for sure, two speculative answers are floating around. <br />
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<a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-43552165">"Senior regional official Vladimir Chernov was quoted as saying the fire probably began in the children's trampoline room on the top floor of the four-storey building.</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-43552165">"The preliminary suspicion is that a child had a cigarette lighter which ignited foam rubber in this trampoline room, and it erupted like gunpowder," he said.\</a><br />
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<a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-43552165">However, Rossiya 24 TV, a national broadcaster, said an electrical fault was the most likely cause - as in most previous deadly fires in Russia."</a><br />
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President Vladimir Putin visited Kemerovo and blamed "criminal negligence and sloppiness" for the disaster.<br />
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The scenes were heartbreaking. A <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/putin-travels-kemerovo-blams-criminal-negligence-deadly-mall-fire/29126036.html">Russian man</a> spoke to a crowd of indignant protesters in the city center on the 27th of March, which had been declared a day of mourning. He detailed the last words he spoke to his daughter before she fell victim to the blaze. His last words to the crowd were interrupted by his own tears. The protesters called for an investigation into the disaster and for local officials to resign.<br />
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Rumors are swirling around. Official numbers claim 64 people died and that 27 are still missing, but some are adamant that the death toll is much higher, perhaps as high as 300. Despite the history of deceit and propaganda which has come from authorities and the state media in Russia, this has not yet been confirmed. In fact, Meduza, a Russian and English paper based in Riga which is generally quite critical of the Kremlin and President Putin, lays out a comprehensive list of reasons why the rumors of the death toll being much higher than reported <a href="https://meduza.io/en/cards/they-say-russia-is-trying-to-cover-up-the-real-death-toll-in-the-kemerovo-fire-is-it-true">may not b</a>e true.<br />
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In fact, according to <i>The Moscow Times, </i>another fairly liberal publication, a Ukrainian blogger who called is now being <a href="https://themoscowtimes.com/news/russia-investigates-ukrainian-blogger-spreading-fake-news-about-300-deaths-kemerovo-fire-60966">investigated</a> for intentionally spreading the rumor of around 300 dead.<br />
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<i>"In an online <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JAMAn1rW2E">video</a> posted by Volnov on the day of the tragedy, the blogger is heard posing as an emergency services official in a prank phone call to a morgue in Kemerovo.</i><br />
<a href="https://themoscowtimes.com/news/russia-investigates-ukrainian-blogger-spreading-fake-news-about-300-deaths-kemerovo-fire-60966"><i><br /></i></a>
<i>He asks the bewildered medical worker on the line if there is space for at least 300 dead bodies.</i><br />
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<i>In comments to the RBC business portal, Volnov <a href="https://www.rbc.ru/rbcfreenews/5aba6b0c9a7947a40de513cb?from=newsfeed">confirmed</a> that he was the author of the recordings and said that 300 was an estimate based on the number of seats in the shopping mall's cinema complex."</i><br />
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Even if the official figures are not found to be entirely accurate, there is still a problem to be discussed among the Russian people in the wake of this horrific disaster.<br />
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The disaster in Kemerovo is a symptom of two much larger and much more grim problems than a simple building fire. First, corruption in Russia is a rampant epidemic. <a href="https://www.transparency.org/country/RUS">Transparency International ranks Russia 135th out of 180</a> in its corruption index, on par with countries such as Mexico, Guatemala, and Bangladesh. While corruption is arguably not as bad as it was in Russia under former President Boris Yeltsin, the issue is still a common scapegoat for Russia's internal issues or inefficiencies.<br />
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Yet little ever seems to be accomplished regarding corruption. The current government, while occasionally offering words of encouragement to anti-corruption efforts, does not seem particularly interested in resolving the issue on a national scale. "Not as bad as it was under President Yeltsin" is a low expectation to set and an even lower one to declare the status quo.<br />
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Corruption has been a problem in the Kremlin long before Vladimir Putin ever considered running for office. It started to rear its ugly head on a nationwide scale under hardliner Premier Leonid Brezhnev in the 1970s. The planned economy, still being heralded as the superior system to the perceived excesses and hedonism of capitalism, had become rife with redundancies, waste and an endless bureaucracy. It had started to stagnate and rot from within. Reformist Premier Mikhail Gorbachov tried to right the ship, but his reforms largely backfired and contributed to mounting instability which eventually became a major reason for the collapse of the Soviet Union. It only grew and spread under Yeltsin as his ineffective and wildly unpopular government fruitlessly attempted to reform the Russian economy from the smoldering ashes of the collapsed planned economy.<br />
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And here we are, in Vladimir Putin's eighteenth year of power. While rushing to blame Putin as if he was the one to personally start the fire is excessive, it may be time to seriously address a different, intangible problem that is related to the stubborn corruption present in Russia: apathy.<br />
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Russians and their Eastern European counterparts are often stereotyped as stoic peoples who grimly go about their lives, rarely smiling unless something unexpectedly wonderful happens or they've had a few drinks. Unfortunately, this stereotype can sometimes translate to the political arena. Russians are generally supportive of democracy in theory, but the brain drain, poverty, crime and lost identity that came to define the 1990s soured many Russians' opinions on the new system of government. Political apathy, while found everywhere, is especially recognizable and tangible in today's Russia.<br />
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While Russia in the 1990s was more democratic than it is now or was under communism, "more" is a relative, and in this case, marginal term. When people are represented by a government which struggles to complete even basic functions, the power and freedom that democracy is supposed to extend to the people of a sovereign state are difficult to realize.<br />
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This was a problem in the United States before its constitution was written as well. Between the end of the American Revolution in 1783 and the ratification of the Constitution in 1789, the United States was governed by the Articles of Confederation, a sort of proto-type constitution that decentralized government to an extreme degree. While life was freer under the Articles than it was under the British Crown, the new government was so ineffective that it proved difficult to realize and celebrate these freedoms.<br />
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Eighteen years after Vladimir Putin swept his way into power, he remains the ever-dominant figure in Russian politics. While the Russian economy surged between 2000 and 2007, it has been sluggish or in serious recession since then. President Putin is starting to be compared to <a href="https://themoscowtimes.com/articles/what-brezhnev-can-teach-us-about-putin-40442">Leonid</a> <a href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2018/02/12/putin-isnt-a-genius-hes-leonid-brezhnev/">Brezhnev</a>, as while life is generally stable and steady, corruption and apathy are rampant in a sluggish, stagnant state.<br />
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That's where the Russian people can come in and make a difference.<br />
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While one can argue that Putin did preside over a substantial rebound for Russia in the 2000s, he needs to be judged on more than his accomplishments (or outside factors which he took credit for) in his first seven years of power.<br />
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The Kemerovo Disaster was a horrific disaster which could have been prevented. It's easy to lay the blame at those directly involved, and they are right to be reprimanded. There is no excuse for the alleged negligence of those in the direct vicinity: the security who failed to pull or fix the fire alarm, those who decided to lock the theater doors, and the bogus inspection of the building's procedures and preparedness for an emergency.<br />
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These livid protesters are calling for accountability, a basic tenet of representative government. For years the Kremlin has failed to deliver that. It's not healthy to fall back into the complacency that life is stable and quiet-society requires an active and invested populace. Another reason for Kemerovo's disaster was the under-funded fire department: Russia's wealth unfortunately is mostly focused in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Proposed investments in the smaller cities are slow to come if ever.<br />
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Russia does not necessarily need photogenic pictures of millions in the streets demanding reform or even revolution as was seen in Ukraine in 2013 and 2014. What it needs, at least as a first step, is for its people to demand accountability on a grand scale. It's time to stop brushing off corruption as a fact of life-reform is difficult but it certainly is not impossible. Kemerovo was not the first fire disaster in contemporary Russia, but if the people are willing to demand accountability, disasters like this can be prevented or at least substantially controlled so there is less to grieve.<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01960083899361215499noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7546970736880378558.post-4474259006836161512017-11-15T10:23:00.002-05:002017-11-15T10:23:27.615-05:00Good Party, Uncertain Future: Meral Akşener's attempt to upend Turkish politics<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">On October 25, 2017, a new political party was formed in Turkey, taking the name <i><span style="line-height: 14.98px;">İyi Parti </span></i>(Good Party)<i>.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">This new party was founded by Meral Akşener, a vocal Turkish politician and critic of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.</span><br />
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<span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Akşener, who has been in politics since the mid-1990s, once belonged to the True Path Party, a secular conservative party. As the True Path Party faded into the background, she then joined the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), a small but influential far-right nationalist party which, despite its more moderated image today, has a history of violence.</span></div>
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<span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Last year, as the MHP cozied up to Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP), Akşener attempted to oust party leader Devlet Bahceli from his post. She was unsuccessful and forced out of the party.</span></div>
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<span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">During Turkey’s recent constitutional referendum, the MHP was split. While much of the high-level party officials were supportive of the proposed transition from parliamentary to presidential democracy, many of the party’s voters were not. Indeed, when Turks went to the polls, large amounts of voters in the MHP’s regional strongholds in the south of the country voted against the transition. Akşener was one of many voices to express her opposition to the referendum. </span></div>
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<a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/85/Turkish_general_election_2015%2C_provinces_and_districts.png/800px-Turkish_general_election_2015%2C_provinces_and_districts.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Turkish general election 2015, provinces and districts.png" border="0" class="mw-mmv-final-image png" crossorigin="anonymous" height="281" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/85/Turkish_general_election_2015%2C_provinces_and_districts.png/800px-Turkish_general_election_2015%2C_provinces_and_districts.png" width="320" /></a><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span><br />
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<a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0d/Turkish_constitutional_referendum_2017.png/800px-Turkish_constitutional_referendum_2017.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="Turkish constitutional referendum 2017.png" border="0" class="mw-mmv-final-image png" crossorigin="anonymous" height="286" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0d/Turkish_constitutional_referendum_2017.png/800px-Turkish_constitutional_referendum_2017.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Despite the split, the referendum still narrowly passed and Turkey is undergoing the transition from parliamentary to presidential which its critics dismiss as a power grab by President Erdoğan.</span></div>
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<span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Akşener decided this autumn to start a new party, with one seemingly clear goal in mind: to run for president, unseat Erdoğan and pick up the damaged pieces of Turkey’s still-intact but fragile secular democracy in hopes of gluing them back together. The next Turkish General Election is in November 2019, giving Aksener two years to craft her party's platform, reach out to the Turkish people, and fight the AKP. </span><br />
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<span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">From an ideological perspective, the </span><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">İyi Party claims to be centrist, perhaps slightly leaning right in an attempt to woo wary AKP supporters. Like the CHP, it is nationalist, secular, and Kemalist, and it also has taken up a bit of populist anti-establishment sentiment as a response to what it perceives as the ineffectiveness and polarization brought on by the establishment Turkish political parties. It also seeks to reverse the transition from presidential to parliamentary democracy. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">A Gezici poll in mid-October had Erdoğan winning another term as president with 48% of the vote. Ms.Akşener sat 10 points behind him at 38%. In third place was Kemal Kilicdaroglu, leader of the Kemalist center-left Republican People’s Party (CHP) with 14% of the vote. In this scenario, Akşener and Erdoğan would go to a runoff election which she would have a good chance of winning considering most CHP voters' fierce opposition to the President. </span><br />
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<span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">In Turkey’s last direct presidential election, the CHP and MHP rallied together behind Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu, but he came in second with only 38% of the vote compared to Erdoğan’s 51%. Because Erdoğan won over 50% of the vote, no runoff election was necessary. Selahattin Demirtaş, a Kurdish politician from the People’s Democratic Party (HDP) came in a very distant third with 10% of the vote.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;">President Erdoğan has many critics in Turkey. However, his critics come from vastly different political angles and rarely do they agree on a consensus. The Republican People's Party, known by its Turkish initials CHP, the second largest party in Turkey, is a </span>secular center-left party. While it enjoys large popularity on Turkey's western coast and in cities like Istanbul, Ankara, and Izmir, its support quickly dissolves once you delve further into the Turkish heartlands. The MHP, already in a state of crisis between the pro- and anti-Erdoğan factions, only tends to draw large support from a small region in Turkey's south. The Kurdish-interest HDP receives almost no support outside the southeast of the country. MHP and HDP refuse to speak to each other and CHP seems stagnant in terms of how much support they can amass. None of these parties seem to be able to cut substantially into Erdoğan's base of support, which even in its low point in the June 2015 elections managed 40% of the vote, still 15% higher than that of the second-place CHP. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The new presidential system Turkey is moving towards may work in the Good Party's favor, but a few things will need to happen for them to actually unseat Erodgan and the AKP.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">In order for Akşener to win, she's going to need to master a big-tent appeal. First, she must be able to convince the CHP and MHP to rally behind her as one as they did behind İhsanoğlu in 2014. It seems unlikely that the second largest party in Turkey will not nominate their own candidate for this position, but Akşener could broaden her appeal and call for her Good Party and the CHP to join forces. If the CHP is dead-set on running their own candidate against her such as </span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; white-space: nowrap;">Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu</span><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">, it will only split the anti-</span><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">Erdoğan</span><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"> voting bloc into smaller pieces. </span><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; white-space: nowrap;">Kılıçdaroğlu</span><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">, the current leader of the CHP, has said he is not interested in running for President in 2019, but that does not necessarily mean the party will not field a candidate. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Calling MHP to her cause may be even more difficult as she
is an ex-member of the party. The pro-Erdoğan faction of the MHP may try to scuttle her plans to win the presidency by
running a token candidate who is only lukewarmly opposed to Erdoğan. While Akşener looks like she is already drawing MHP voters to the <span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">İyi</span> Party, uniting
the party to the point that MHP does not run their own candidate will be difficult. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: times, times new roman, serif;">A Sonar poll conducted between November 1 and 6 has MHP's support dwindling down to 7.8% while the </span><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">İyi</span><span style="font-family: sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: times, times new roman, serif;">Party is on track to gain 21% of the vote for the Parliamentary election. In Turkey, a political party must gain at least 10% of the vote to gain parliamentary representation. If this poll is accurate, MHP would lose all its representation at the national level. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Akşener’s ability to appeal to HDP and AKP voters may be
most difficult of all. As a former member of the far-right nationalist MHP, Akşener once carried a banner that Kurds living in Turkey have severe
reservations about. Considering both co-leaders of the HDP, Selahattin Demirtaş and Figen Yüksekdağ are under arrest, neither of them may run in the
presidential election and it is unclear whether HDP will even be allowed to
contest any part of the 2019 elections. It is unlikely the Kurds will remain
politically silent in 2019, and the June 2015 elections showed they can be a
considerable force in Turkish elections when they won 13% of the vote. Considering MHP and HDP have barely been on speaking terms while in Parliament together, voters who flip from HDP to the <o:p></o:p></span><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">İyi Party will likely represent a very small minority. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The other goal in Akşener's quest to oust Erdoğan from power is to cut into the base that Erdoğan has relied on 15 years. Erdoğan first swept to power in 2002, and has won elections consistently since then in 2007, 2011, twice in 2015, and then 2017's referendum.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">As stated before, even in the June 2015 election when AKP slumped to its worst result since its founding in 2001, it still managed to capture just over 40% of the vote. If </span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">Akşener can't cut into this base without significant support from other anti-</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: times, times new roman, serif;">Erdoğan factions</span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">, it will be difficult for her to accomplish her speculated goal of unseating the President. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Most of the support for </span><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">Akşener</span><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"> seems to be coming from disaffected MHP voters, as some polls have the MHP falling from its last performance of 11.9% down to around 3-5%, which would effectively end its time in the Grand National Assembly as parties need at least 10% of the vote to get represented. In polls where the </span><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">İyi </span><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;">Party gets over 10% of the vote, AKP slumps to around 38-40%, while CHP and HDP's percentages stay mostly the same.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Take a Sonar poll conducted from November 1-6. Its results (AKP 38.5%, CHP 23.5%, MHP 7.8%, HDP 10.3%, </span><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">İyi 16.1%)</span><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"> indicate that CHP and </span><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">İyi</span><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif;"> would have a slight advantage in voting percentage (39.6% to 38.5) to scrape out a tiny majority over the AKP's plurality. If they focus on anti-Erdoğan sentiment, these two parties could likely stall much of Erdoğan's agenda even if he still won the Presidency. The direct presidential poll conducted by Gezici in mid-October suggested that Akşener may be popular enough to, at the very least, force Erdoğan into a runoff election for the Turkish Presidency, which she would make extremely competitive if the CHP voters rally behind her.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Of course, all of this is speculation. Polling is far from an exact science, and the <span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">İyi</span> Party is still in its infancy. How much appeal it truly has or can muster when it's time for Turks to go to the polls in 2019 is still uncertain. Their daring attempt to unseat President Erdoğan has a path to victory, but it's a long road ahead. </span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01960083899361215499noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7546970736880378558.post-53428861515000744512017-10-25T14:43:00.001-04:002017-10-25T22:51:01.370-04:00Sickles, Hammers, Stars and Bars<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Recently, the United States was shaken to its core by a large
white nationalist/supremacist and Neo-Nazi rally in the sleepy little college
town of Charlottesville, Virginia. Violence broke out at the rally and a young
woman named Heather Heyer lost her life in the subsequent car attack.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">This "Unite the Right" Rally, was organized as a protest
against the proposed removal of a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee.
Many protestors carried the infamous battle flag of Lee's Army of Northern
Virginia, often referred to as the Stars and Bars. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">In recent years, the United States has wrestled with the question
of when, if ever, the display of this flag is appropriate. Some argue it is a
vital piece of Southern pride and heritage, a symbol of the resolve of the
people. Others decry it as an inherently white supremacist flag, citing its use
by groups like the Ku Klux Klan. Indeed, that flag is often compared to the
red, white and black swastika flag once used by Nazi Germany. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Personal display of the Stars and Bars is not illegal, and strong
arguments exist that even with the extremely negative connotations of the Stars
and Bars, it should remain available to use on a personal basis. Groups such as
the American Civil Liberties Union have defended the rights of white
nationalists and Neo-Nazis to march with that flag as hate speech is still
considered constitutionally protected free speech and assembly. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">The flag is still flown at many Confederate memorials, and this
has also been a point of controversy. The memorials are considered inherently
traitorous as the Confederacy did try to break away from the United States, as
well as an enabling symbol of the racism which has tarnished much of American
history. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Some do not want these memorials gone as they fear it will make
the history behind them fade away. Some believe these memorials should be razed
entirely because of their white supremacist connotations. Indeed, many of the
monuments were erected during the Civil Rights Movement and dedicated by the Ku
Klux Klan, an unmistakable symbol of white supremacists.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Others believe the memorials can exist, but should only appear in
museums and at the Civil War battlefields where they became stained with blood.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Even then, there exist gray areas. On Georges Island in Boston
Harbor, deep into what was once Union territory, there exists a large headstone
which memorializes thirteen Confederate soldiers who died as prisoners of war
on the island. The headstone was put there by the Daughters of the Confederacy
in 1963, as both the Civil Rights Movement and Civil War centennial were in
progress. The memorial is currently boarded up and some are calling for its
removal, but it does not really glorify the Confederate cause in the same way a
triumphant statue of General Lee or Jackson may. It is little more than a
headstone not unlike what you'd see in a civilian cemetery. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Symbolism is powerful, and the Stars and Bars has counterparts in
other parts of the world. For centuries the swastika was a symbol of luck and
good fortune in parts of Asia, but it is synonymous with one of the purest forms
of evil in Europe and the Americas. Japan’s Rising Sun flag is still considered
a patriotic symbol in Japan. It is still officially used by the Japanese Navy and
its symbolism appears in Japanese day-to-day life on Asahi Gold beer cans and
the daily newspaper Asahi Shimbun (“The Morning Sun”), despite the atrocities
committed by Imperial Japan in China, South Korea, and the United States. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">And then there’s the famous, universally recognized symbol of communism,
the interlocking Hammer and Sickle. Mention Russia and despite it being over 25
years since the fall of the Soviet Union, don’t be surprised when that symbol
is mentioned a few minutes later. It’s near unavoidable, for better or for
worse. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">For seventy years, that unmistakable crimson banner was the symbol
of my country of origin. Had I been born less than two years earlier, I would
have been born in the USSR, not Russia. Indeed, my original passport does not
say Russian Federation. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">It says Союз Советских Социалистических Республик. Union of Soviet
Socialist Republics.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">The Stars and Bars has been convincingly argued to be a symbol of
racism and white supremacy, whether intended or not. Obviously not everyone who
flies that flag is a racist, but many, many racists fly that flag. It was
clearly displayed by many during the infamous tiki torch march in
Charlottesville. It is the same with the old orange-white-blue South African
flag and the green and white flag of Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">The Sickle and Hammer is a symbol of communism. Communism is not
an inherently prejudiced ideology, but under its red banner, over 100 million
people in China, the Soviet Union, Latin America, Southeast Asia, and Eastern
Europe were unjustly imprisoned, sentenced to cruel and unusual punishment,
outright executed, or even victim to genocide in Cambodia and Ukraine. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">The dynamic is a bit different than that of the Stars and Bars.
The Confederacy attempted to break free of the United States. It failed. The
Reds, however, succeeded in overthrowing the provisional government of
Aleksandr Kerensky and won the Russian Civil War and with it control over all
of what was the Soviet Union. When they won, the sickle and hammer flag ceased
to be simply a symbol of a political ideology, but a country. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">That symbol went on to be included in snapshots of great
historical achievement. When Nazi Germany was defeated, Red Army soldiers flew
the Sickle and Hammer over Berlin. Yuri Gagarin and Valentina Tereshkova, the
first man and woman to break free of Earth and visit the cosmos did so with "CCCP"
proudly displayed on their helmets. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">Therefore, it could be argued that there exists a limited space in
which one could celebrate achievements of the Soviet peoples with that flag and
symbol displayed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">It also comes down to timing. A Russian or a person with Russian
heritage with pride in the achievements of his or her people may choose to display
with restraint such symbolism on certain holidays such as on Victory Day or
Cosmonauts’ Day, but in all other cases opt to display the white-blue-red flag
used today. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">It would also, without a doubt, be considered especially inappropriate
in the presence of certain people and groups. Just as displaying the Stars and Bars to a
black person or the Nazi swastika to a Jewish person would be unthinkably
disrespectful, displaying the Soviet banner would be gravely disrespectful to display
in the presence of citizens of the countries that were once unwilling satellites of the
USSR. In the United States, many have responded to the display of the Stars and
Bars with the slogan, “Stop pretending your racism is patriotism”. That slogan
could be altered in the case of the Soviet banner as well, although perhaps not
in a direct condemnation of racism. While communism was oftentimes mixed with
ethnic and racial prejudices, the ideology, at least on paper, portrays itself
as a force against such prejudice. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;">
<span style="font-size: 13.5pt;">In Russia, most of the statues and symbols of communism were not
destroyed. Some still stand in their original places, but many have been moved
to museums to offer historical context and a space for debate. It is possible
that a similar approach to Confederate symbols may be required. To erect a
statue of a Confederate soldier in heroic likeness in a city square will almost
certainly be considered inappropriate. To erect a statue of a Confederate
General from the vantage point where he directed his troops on a Civil War
battlefield or at a museum near that battlefield, while not completely without
controversy, could be used in a more historical and informative perspective. Even
Robert E. Lee, the most famous of Confederate generals, believed statues of his
or his brothers in arms’ likenesses would keep old wounds open. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01960083899361215499noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7546970736880378558.post-9830485635967804992017-10-18T13:33:00.001-04:002017-10-20T10:37:02.432-04:00Playing with Fire: The Iraqi Kurdish Independence Referendum and its Consequences<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="font-size: 18px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">
<span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">On September 25</span><span class="s2" style="font-size: 7px; line-height: 8.399999618530273px; vertical-align: super;">th</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">, 2017, Iraqi Kurdistan set in motion a regional referendum to decide on whether the region should secede from Iraq and become an independent state. </span><br />
</div>
<div style="font-size: 18px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">
<span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">The referendum was opposed by nearly every country in the Middle East, the lone exception being Israel. Iraq, Syria, Turkey, and Iran were all especially vocal in their opposition, as each country has a large population of ethnic Kurds, all of which have flirted with the allure of establishing an independent and greater Kurdistan. </span><br />
</div>
<div style="font-size: 18px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">
<span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Nevertheless, the Kurds went to the polls, and when the dust had cleared, a result overwhelmingly in favor of independence emerged. The turnout was claimed to be high at 72%, which translates to over three million voters. Of those, 92.7% voted for an independent Republic of Kurdistan. Kurds in all four countries erupted in celebration at the news. </span><br />
</div>
<div style="font-size: 18px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">
<span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Before the ink on the official results could dry, however, tensions rose. Borders closed, ultimatums were given, </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">joint</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> military drills were held. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Two days ago, the Iraqi Army marched northeast from their positions near the mostly Arab city of </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Hawija</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> to the city of Kirkuk and captured the city as well as the airport and the air base near it. While there was some sporadic fighting, the city fell quickly and mostly peacefully. </span><br />
</div>
<div style="font-size: 18px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">
<span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">As the Iraqi Army rolled into the streets of Kirkuk, the Arab and Shia Turkmen populations rejoiced while the Kurds fell into dismay. Kirkuk is a multiethnic city, with large populations of all three ethnicities, and it is considered a cultural capital for Arabs, Kurds, and Turkmen alike. While not originally part of the established Kurdish Regional Government, Kirkuk City and </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">large parts of </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Kirkuk Province were taken over by Kurdish Peshmerga troops as the predominantly Arab Iraqi Army retreated</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> from an Islamic State offensive in 2014. This was a considerable point of pride for Kurds in Iraq, many of whom believe Kirkuk is a Kurdish city and should have been part of Kurdish-controlled territory since the regional authority was established after the American invasion.</span><br />
</div>
<div style="font-size: 18px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">
<span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Islamic State has endured a slow but sure decline since its original breakneck expansion and no longer controls territory where the border between Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan lies. Its territorial control in Iraq is today restricted to a few small cities in Western Iraq’s Anbar province and some open desert, and there is a considerable possibility the Iraqi Army will be launching an offensive to secure the border in full before the end of the year. </span><br />
</div>
<div style="font-size: 18px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">
<span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">As well as defeating ISIS for good, the Iraqi Army seems determined to march farther north into Kurdish-controlled territory and move towards the original borders of the Kurdish </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Region to the dismay of many Kurds living in those areas. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">There is considerable fear that this will lead Iraq into another civil war, only a few years after sectarian fighting allowed Islamic State to reach all the way to Baghdad’s suburbs. </span><br />
</div>
<div style="font-size: 18px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">
<span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">On October 17</span><span class="s2" style="font-size: 7px; line-height: 8.399999618530273px; vertical-align: super;">th</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">, unconfirmed reports claimed that the Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga would withdraw to the original borders of the three provinces set out for Iraqi Kurdistan in 2003. If this holds, the Kurdistan Regional Government will shrink considerably back to its original size. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Evidence suggests that this agreement is being implemented. </span></div>
<div style="font-size: 18px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">
<span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 18px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">
<span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">The possibility of independence, which was always going to be a difficult prospect even on the best day, seems to be fading. If the Peshmerga abides by their possible agreement to move back peacefully and </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Kurdish regions stay with Iraq, there could be major consequences for leaders in both Baghdad and Erbil. </span></div>
<div style="font-size: 18px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">
<span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 18px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">
<span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Iraqi Prime Minister </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Haider</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> Al-</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Abadi</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> will likely see his popularity, already considerable, move even higher. The defeat of ISIS as a state and the mostly peaceful preservation of Iraq’s northern borders would cement him as a pivotal and effective leader. Whether he can translate that momentum into strengthening Iraq’s economy, </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">battling corruption, </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">keeping sectarian tensions low and rebuilding after the war against ISIS is yet to be seen, but it’s pretty likely that unless tensions bubble up again that Al-</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Abadi</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">will at least be given a second chance when and if he runs for re-election. </span></div>
<div style="font-size: 18px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">
<span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 18px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">
<span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">KRG President </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Masoud</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Barzani</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> could possibly face considerable consequences in the opposite direction. If the Kurdish region does not go independent, Kurds will likely blame his government for not following through. </span></div>
<div style="font-size: 18px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">
<span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 18px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">
<span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Iraqi Kurdistan, </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">doted on by many </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">media outlets in the west </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">because</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> it is largely peaceful, free from sectarian violence</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">,</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">and </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">generally </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">more secular than the rest of Iraq, is still saturated with its own problems. The Peshmerga forces in charge of its defense often fight for one of the major political parties rather than the region at large, highlighting the region’s serious political polarization. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Masoud</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Barzani</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">, president since 2005, hasn’t faced re-election since 2009, and the region hasn’t gone to the polls to elect a new Parliament since 2011. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Barzani</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> has long been accused of being dictatorial and authoritarian in his rule, and those claims are not without merit. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">The two major parties in Iraqi Kurdistan, the right-wing Kurdistan Democratic Party and the left-wing Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, fought a civil war between 1994 and 1997, less than 10 years </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">after the Genocide of Al-</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Anfal</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">, and their animosity remains present. </span></div>
<div style="font-size: 18px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">
<span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 18px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">
<span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Like any other people, the Kurds of Iraq deserve the rig</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">ht to decide their own fate, and even with the ethnic tensions in areas like Kirkuk, most Kurds in Iraq do seem to want independence. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Kurds cheered the end of Saddam Hussein’s reign when the US invaded and remain quite pro-American in many cases. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Kurds in both Syria and Iraq have been vital forces for</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> good against the Islamic State-in fact, this article happened to be published on the day predominantly Kurdish forces defeated Islamic State in their de facto capital of Raqqa. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">A secular, democratic and </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">i</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">ndependent Kurdistan could be a force for good in the Middle East if it was able to tactfully work out its relationship wit</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">h Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Syria, and the possibility of a relationship between an independent Kurdish </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">state</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> with Israel could have been reason for hope. </span></div>
<div style="font-size: 18px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">
<span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 18px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">
<span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">The Kurds’ desire for independence is not the problem, but the way the referendum came about left a lot to be desired. While there is an argument to be made that there’s never a really optimum time for a region to declare independence from a state which has ruled over them for a long </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">period of time, Iraqi Kurdistan’s independence referendum happened at poorly decided time. It’s understandable that many Kurds were of the opinion “If not now, when?”, but there were serious regional issues. President </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Barzani</span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"> seemed to use the independence referendum as a distraction above anything else. It allowed him to divert attention from the lack of free elections for nearly 6 years both for the executive and legislative branches of the government. It allowed a distraction from the region’s endemic corruption and inability to pay many workers. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Even if Iraqi Kurdistan did go independent peacefully, the chances of it resolving its own internal problems as well as negotiating separation from Iraq would have been difficult even for an accountable democratic government. </span></div>
<div style="font-size: 18px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">
<span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 18px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">
<span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">In the end, the Kurds in Iraq don’t look like they’ll be ruling over their own independent state in the immediate future. </span><span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">Independence was never going to be an easy struggle for this long-oppressed people, but a serious reshuffling of priorities before going ahead with the referendum may have made it a bit more feasible. It’s true that being surrounded by hostile neighbors backed up by international alliances didn’t help much (only Israel, a country widely mistrusted across the Middle East, was willing to go out on a limb and explicitly support the region’s desire for independence), but the rollout of this attempt was clumsy, ill-times, and collapsed quickly when pressure was applied. </span></div>
<div style="font-size: 18px; line-height: 21.600000381469727px;">
<span style="line-height: 21.600000381469727px; padding-left: 36px;"></span></div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01960083899361215499noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7546970736880378558.post-4049254282004875252017-05-30T23:13:00.000-04:002017-05-30T23:13:08.156-04:00Hassan Rouhani-Iran's Ayatollah Gorbachov, Take 2<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Iranians re-elected President Hassan Rouhani this past month in a landslide, as he defeated his nearest challenger, hardliner Ebrahim Raisi, by nearly 19 percentage points. (57.1% to 38.3%)</span></span></div>
<div class="p1">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX6hwlEtQKdGiunqHmqwru6-khenFUkiaTgluoDknwxMSm1Hyg7Zm8gE5VGLzLtMej8XmiD83raM8xDx6w8-QTfdOszz9PeRT0zatNNco1KERC4Nn4ZwVjeNQ3SvdG3ROXis_dvE5kr7ea/s1600/Iranian_presidential_election%252C_2017_by_province.svg.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="714" data-original-width="800" height="356" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX6hwlEtQKdGiunqHmqwru6-khenFUkiaTgluoDknwxMSm1Hyg7Zm8gE5VGLzLtMej8XmiD83raM8xDx6w8-QTfdOszz9PeRT0zatNNco1KERC4Nn4ZwVjeNQ3SvdG3ROXis_dvE5kr7ea/s400/Iranian_presidential_election%252C_2017_by_province.svg.png" width="400" /></span></a></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Many expected a closer election than in 2013, where Rouhani won with 50.71% of the vote against a bitterly divided handful of hardliner candidates, because of the unified hardline coalition behind Raisi. However, Iran’s cities, especially the sprawling behemoth of Tehran turned out in massive numbers for Rouhani, and even hardliner strongholds like Raszavi Khorasan Province only narrowly tilted in favor of Raisi. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1">Reform-minded Iranians poured into streets across the country to celebrate. Just as his campaign slogan said, Rouhani would return to work, </span><span class="s2"><i><span style="font-size: small;">Again For Iran, </span></i></span><span class="s1">until 2021. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Landslide victories for moderate or reformist candidates in modern Iran are not unheard of. Mohammad Khatami, a politician not unlike Rouhani, won even larger victories in the 1997 and 2001 Presidential elections (69% and 77% respectively), but struggled to gain real traction in pursuing similar goals to Rouhani. While he was followed by Holocaust denying hard-liner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Ahmadinejad, however, won his victories through a runoff in 2005 against a demoralized and divided moderate/reformist camp and a lukewarm candidate in Akbar Rasfanjani, and his re-election in 2009 led to massive protests across the country amid a strong suspicion the election was rigged in his favor.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1">Iran is run by an odd hybrid government where, as strange as it may sound, both authoritarianism and democracy play a part. Iranians vote in local, parliamentary, and presidential elections as well as elections to the Assembly of Experts, which chooses the Supreme Leader. How much these votes count, however, depends largely on the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei. Khamenei is coming up on his 28</span><span class="s3"><sup>th</sup></span><span class="s1"> year in the office, and his relation to the government often determines how much elected officials can pursue their policy goals. Candidates are also strictly vetted by the Guardian Council, which has a habit of disqualifying many reformists.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1">Khamenei is a hardliner, but he has allowed President Rouhani space to carry out his policy platform to some success. He is coming up on his 78</span><span class="s3"><sup>th</sup></span><span class="s1"> birthday and rumors claim he may have prostate cancer, though this is not known for sure. While the Iranian government has kept most speculation about his replacement quiet, Raisi was considered a candidate as was Akbar Rafsanjani. However, Raisi was routed by Rouhani in the presidential election last month, and Rafsanjani died earlier this year. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">There is a possibility Khamenei will die during Rouhani’s second term, ushering in a new era for Iran’s Islamic Republic. The Assembly of Experts, which will elect his successor, has a considerable chunk of reformist representatives, including President Rouhani. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Iran is unlikely to move away from the Islamic Republic system entirely under Rouhani, but if a new Supreme Leader is chosen, the country may be set on a new path. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">When Mohammad Khatami was elected in a landslide in 1997, some western media sources dubbed him Ayatollah Gorbachov, a nod to the Soviet reformer who eventually became the last leader of the communist empire. Gorbachov was a communist, but he realized things had to change to get the USSR moving again from its stalled and bloated situation in the early to mid-1980s. His reforms, while met with praise, spun out of control and eventually led to the end of the Soviet Union. Khatami made some reforms while President of Iran, but unlike Gorbachov, his reforms did not bring about the demise of the Islamic Republic. In fact, Khatami was relatively ineffective and the political climate when he left office swept a particularly abrasive hardliner to the presidency in Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">While technically not in a reformist political party, President Rouhani has slowly but surely become bolder in his criticism regarding government institutions such as the Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Guardian Council. He has slowly but surely worked to re-integrate Iran from its status as a pariah under Ahmadinejad. The economy is growing. Inflation has grinded to a near halt, and the rial, while still not worth much, has at least stopped hurtling towards total worthlessness. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Rouhani continues a trend of Iranian presidents in the Islamic Republic always winning re-election. Every single elected president in Iran since 1979 has managed to win a second term. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Iranians are worried about the bellicose rhetoric coming from their old foe the United States, particularly from President Trump, who has dismissed the nuclear deal as “the worst deal ever”. Despite this, Trump has not delved into detail about why the deal is so bad, nor has Washington taken any concrete steps to dismantle it. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Rouhani, unlike Gorbachov, was able to at the very least stabilize the Iranian economy and put it on a positive path, and the country seems to be very slowly moving away from its most draconian authoritarianism. Rouhani, like Gorbachov, does not seek to destroy the institution he works in (Iran’s Islamic Republic), but he seems to realize the importance of and need for reform in his country. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Another reformer one could compare Rouhani to is South African President F.W. De Klerk, who set his country on the path towards multiracial democracy after nearly 50 years of apartheid, a venomous and oppressive system of segregation where the overwhelming majority of black South Africans were shunted away from the prosperity enjoyed by the white minority. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">De Klerk only served one term as President, from 1989 to 1994, as his National Party was overwhelmingly defeated in the 1994 elections by Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress. His legacy of overseeing a peaceful transition away from apartheid tarnished somewhat since 1994 when he went before the Truth and Reconciliation Committee and seemed to deny some of the atrocities committed under the segregationist government, but there is no denying he played an important role in shaping South Africa into the country it is today. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Because De Klerk oversaw a massive transformation which both came as a surprise and completely changed South Africa in a mere five years and then was voted out of power, perhaps he’s not the best politician to compare to Hassan Rouhani, who has tinkered here and there but largely worked within the boundaries. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;"><span class="s1">Deng Xiaoping is another leader one could compare Iran’s President to. Deng, after emerging as China’s Paramount Leader in 1978, managed to bring the country towards a limited market economy and greatly increased the Chinese economy’s abilities, paving the way for the powerhouse we know today. Under Deng, Mao Zedong was also demoted from the glorious Chairman to “Seven parts good, three parts bad”, as the staggering hardship endured by the Chinese people during the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution were acknowledged to some extent. Yet Deng was still the one to give the order to the People’s Liberation Army to clear Tiananmen Square by force on June 4</span><span class="s3"><sup>th</sup></span><span class="s1">, 1989. Today, China, while still claiming to follow communism, is more authoritarian socialist or an authoritarian mixed economy. Likewise, just as Deng ordered his troops to clear pro-democracy protestors, executions in Iran under President Rouhani have risen considerably. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Rouhani has another four years in office, and assuming the Iranian economy continues to reap the benefits of sanctions relief and diplomatic inroads continue, the country may continue down his path. Democratic institutions have the possibility of strengthening, the theocratic elements of the country may move farther back. Make no mistake, Hassan Rouhani has the chance to be a pivotal leader for his country. </span></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01960083899361215499noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7546970736880378558.post-48471670667901755122017-03-28T22:45:00.002-04:002017-03-28T22:45:48.217-04:00If Turkey Says No<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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In less than a month, citizens of the
Republic of Turkey will head to the polls to decide on a referendum
to fundamentally alter their structure of government.</div>
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Turkish President <span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Recep Tayyip Erdo<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">ğan </span></span>has called a referendum, asking the Turkish people to vote on whether
their democracy, which is set up in a parliamentary structure, to
change to a presidential system.</div>
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A parliamentary system very closely
merges the executive and legislative branches of government in the
position of Prime Minister, while they are much more separate in a
presidential system.
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Erdogan, as President, in theory, does
not wield a lot of power. Most of the power, again, in theory, is
concentrated in the Prime Minister, <b style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Binali Yıldırım</b>. <b style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Yıldırım</b>,
however, is a relatively new prime minister. The previous Prime
Minister, <b style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Ahmet Davutoğlu</b>, was dismissed by President <span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Erdo</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">ğan</span>, and
many speculate that the reason for his removal from office was due to
his opposition to the referendum.
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Turkey’s current political climate
means that this referendum has been full of very passionate
campaigning and massive emotion. </div>
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The ruling Justice and Development
Party, known by its Turkish initials AKP, is the architect of this
referendum. A mildly Islamist, right-wing party, it enjoys strong
support throughout the Turkish heartlands, which despite Turkey’s
official status of secular democracy, are mostly populated by
conservative Muslim Turks.
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These heartlands, however, are not as
heavily populated as other areas of Turkey. The western coastline,
where cities like Istanbul and Izmir sit, are strongholds for the
Republican People’s Party, which is known by its Turkish initials
CHP. A left-wing, Kemalist, nationalist party, the CHP is the
strongest party supporting a “No” vote. It gained about 25% of
the vote in the last general election, whereas AKP gained 49.5%.
Despite its left-wing roots, the CHP has mostly campaigned in recent
years on its secularist and nationalist sentiments and strengthening democracy rather than its
economic viewpoints in contrast to the AKP’s invoking of Islam.
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The pivotal party, however, is neither
of these. It’s the far-right Nationalist Movement Party, or MHP.
The leader of this party, a man named Devlet Bahceli, is campaigning
for a Yes vote, but he leads a bitterly divided party. While Bahceli
has put his chips in with Erdogan and the AKP and supports a "Yes" vote, many MHP voters are
vocally opposed to that decision. The MHP, even though it is quite a
bit smaller than both the AKP and CHP, is big enough that it could be
the deciding factor in this referendum. If the party’s voting base
rejects Bahceli’s decision en masse, the referendum could fail.
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In the June and November 2015 Turkish
elections, the ruling AKP managed to secure more than 40% of the vote. The CHP pulled in around 25% both times, and the Kurdish interest People's Democratic Party (HDP) and MHP tallied in the low-to-mid teens. </div>
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Polling currently indicates that the
referendum could go down to the wire. At the moment, "No" seems to have the lead, but the lead is narrow and there remain a sizable contingent of undecided voters. </div>
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Critics of the referendum have
insinuated that this is merely a power-grab by the ruling party. Indeed, <span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Erdo</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">ğan</span> would gain a large amount of formally enumerated power if "Yes" wins. </div>
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If Turkey says no, however, it will
only be the first act of a major pivot. While not quite on the
level of Brexit, the decision to stay with the parliamentary system
will shake Turkey’s political climate to its core.
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Devlet Bahceli will likely be one of
the first to fall. If he supports “Yes”, but most of the MHP
voting base checks the “No” box on election day and the referendum fails, he will
likely be removed from his post or resign in disgrace. It is estimated that around 50-80% of MHP voters are leaning towards voting no, and only around 20-25% are likely to vote "Yes". Bahceli is even on record as being against the political referendum in the past. If he doesn't get removed, the MHP risks an even bigger loss of popularity. </div>
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President <span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Erdo</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">ğan </span>will be thoroughly
embarrassed. His supporters will have come off a massive loss, and those who oppose his policies will have put a large roadblock in his way. His resignation is far less likely, though.<br />
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The MHP will have a decision to make.
Its recent cooperative role with the AKP is similar to that of a smaller party in a
coalition government, and these parties typically do not gain much
sympathy with voters. If the referendum fails, the MHP may have to
undergo a massive transformation and rebranding after its ignominious
partnership with the AKP, which is very well may be forced to abandon. </div>
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That would represent a massive
opportunity for the similarly nationalist CHP. While the MHP and CHP
differ on many issues, they are both still nationalist. Indeed, the MHP was born from disillusioned CHP party members.<br />
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If the MHP falls
into disarray, the CHP has an opportunity to reach out to the party’s
voters and grow its size, something it seems to be struggling with in
previous elections. If CHP and a rebranded MHP partner against the AKP, they
could represent a real challenge to the Islamist party in the next
election, as their combined vote total was slightly larger than that of the AKP in the June 2015 elections.</div>
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The Kurdish Question would still
present a daunting challenge to a possible nationalist government. While AKP is not particularly loved or trusted among the Turkish Kurd population in the southeast, they are even
more wary of the CHP and certainly the MHP because of the two
parties’ nationalist principles. Furthermore, it’s not really
clear which party would hold more clout. CHP is bigger, but it would
have to compromise with the MHP so as to not lose favor with a
possible coalition. The MHP is completely and unequivocally opposed to dialogue with the Kurdish HDP, the CHP is not. Indeed, when the CHP floated the idea of a possible CHP-MHP-HDP government with Bahceli as Prime Minister, Bahceli vehemently refused.<br />
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A potential coalition could, however, work to strengthen the democratic institutions within the country by pushing through reforms that would benefit both the Turkish and Kurdish populations, but not brand these reforms as concessions to the PKK terrorist group. One such reform that could work for both would be a lowering of the electoral threshold.<br />
<br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />Turkey has dozens of political parties but due to the 10% threshold needed to gain seats in parliament, only four are represented in the Grand National Assembly in Ankara. This makes it difficult for any Kurdish-interest party to get into Parliament because Kurds are a minority everywhere except the southeast of the country. If the threshold could be lowered to say, 5%, greater representation for parties of all types could be had. </div>
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This is, obviously, only one possible reform. But if Turkey says no this coming month, it's in for a serious pivot, and anything could happen. </div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01960083899361215499noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7546970736880378558.post-34954109910449413822017-03-15T23:04:00.001-04:002017-03-15T23:09:03.644-04:00Cheese, Wine and Nationalism: What the Dutch General Election can tell us about France's upcoming Presidential tilt<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The cheeseheads (sorry, Wisconsin) have spoken.<br />
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Citizens of the Kingdom of the Netherlands went to the polls on March 15, 2017, to elect all 150 members of their House of Representatives, and by extension, a Prime Minister.<br />
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With 75% of the votes tallied, the center-right People's Party for Freedom and Democracy, known by its Dutch initials VVD, has come in first, with around 21% of the vote.<br />
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Mark Rutte, the current Prime Minister, will remain Prime Minister.<br />
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Behind the VVD, the right-wing populist Party for Freedom (PVV) is in a distant second, with the Christian Democratic Appeal party, slightly more centrist than VVD, is in third, with the socially progressive, economic centrist Democrats 66 in a very close fourth. The Labour Party, once the main left-wing party, slumped badly into seventh, a serious drop from their second-place finish in 2012.<br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Prime Minister Rutte addressed his cheering supporters upon victory, claiming that <span style="background-color: white;">“Our message to the </span>Netherlands<span style="background-color: white;"> – that we will hold our course, and keep this country safe, stable and prosperous, got through...</span><span style="background-color: white;">this was an evening when after Brexit and Trump, the Netherlands said ‘Stop’ to the wrong sort of populism.”</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">Many media outlets and polls suggested that the nationalist PVV had a real chance of taking first place in this election because of the refugee crisis and other problems. However, the VVD seemed to gain in the polls at the last minute due to their handling of the recent diplomatic row with Turkey and Recep Tayyip Erdogan. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">Because of the abundance of parties in the Netherlands (eleven different parties won seats in the 2012 election), however, even if the PVV and their controversial leader Geert Wilders managed to capture the most seats, they would have had massive trouble in forming a government. As it stands now, the VVD, even with their convincing win, will probably have to partner with at least two, perhaps even three or four other parties to form a governing coalition. Both the VVD and CDA claimed they would not govern in coalition with the PVV if they won, which would have made coalition negotiations nearly impossible. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">As it stands, the PVV is in second and while they have improved on their total from 2012, they have not matched their total from 2010. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">Prime Minister Rutte may be exaggerating a bit when he says that the Netherlands has rejected populism. But this election does buck the trend of Brexit and Trump, and so we can draw some interesting conclusions from the results. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">First, anti-establishment fervor like was visible in the United States may not be as powerful when there is such an abundance of parties. As previously mentioned, even if the Party for Freedom had won the most votes, their ability to form a government would have been severely hampered by other parties' unwillingness to govern with them. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">Second, anti-EU sentiment in continental Europe just isn't as strong as it is in countries like the UK. Geert Wilders campaigned partially on the idea of "Nexit", the Netherlands leaving the European Union, and his French counterpart Marine Le Pen has toyed with a similar idea in France. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">This was never likely. Brexit was a monumental leap into uncharted territory for the United Kingdom, and it did not win by that large of a margin-51.9% to 48.1%. If the Netherlands or France did the same it would do serious, perhaps even mortal, damage to the EU. But the Dutch people at large do not want to leave the political union, and the prominent reluctance to take part in the union that Britain was famous for does not exist in the Netherlands. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">This election also shows an important difference between the nationalist right in the US and in Europe. Ethnic nationalism as a political tool, while certainly not unheard of in the US, has not been utilized in the same way in the United States that it has in Europe, since the United States is generally multicultural and has been for almost its entire history. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">Donald Trump's brash rhetoric and appeals to nationalism worked for the Republican Party in 2016, but these sorts of sentiments were on the fringe (though rising) in 2012 under Mitt Romney. Trump, however, managed to channel this anger and discontent in a way previously unseen because of his perception as an outsider who would "drain the swamp". </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">These types of political movements are not new in Europe. Geert Wilders has been in the Dutch House of Representatives since 1998. Likewise, Wilders' French counterpart, Marine Le Pen, joined the National Front in 1986. Wilders and Le Pen are not political outsiders like Trump was, and therefore they may have not be able to play to quite the same sentiments as Trump could. </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">And in France? France is going to the polls in April and again in May to elect a new president. The major candidates are Marine Le Pen of the right-wing nationalist National Front, Francois Fillon from Les Republicains, Benoit Hamon of the Socialist Party, Emmanuel Macron of a new center-left party called "En Marche!", and far-left Jean-Luc Melenchon, who is running under the banner of a party called Unsubmissive France. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">There is a real chance that Le Pen will win the first round of the presidential election. Because of France's diverse political theatre, however, there will be a runoff in May between the two top candidates. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">The runoff will likely be between Le Pen, Fillon, or Macron. Polls indicate that both Fillon and Macron would beat Le Pen in a hypothetical matchup, but that doesn't quite tell the whole story. Fillon has been mired in scandal since he won his party's primary and has slumped to third in the polls. Unlike in the Netherlands where the mainstream right-wing VVD is fairly popular, Les Republicains are struggling to address the scandals of their presidential candidate. While Emmanuel Macron is snapping at Le Pen's heels in recent polls, his ability to gain the support of the French left may be up for debate, as he leans farther towards the center than both Hamon and Melenchon. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">If Fillon faces Le Pen in the second round, the polls may end up tight. It's true that in 2002, French left-wing parties rallied behind the center-right Jacques Chirac in order to defeat Jean-Marie Le Pen soundly in the runoff that year, but the FN has managed to appeal to a wider base since 2002. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Macron does very well in a hypothetical head-to-head against Le Pen, but whether he can inspire the same sort of rally against her is yet to be seen. The National Front may try to paint Macron, a former investment banker, as a corporate fat cat in an attempt to win parts of the French left over, as the nationalist right does tend to lean left on economic issues. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">In the Netherlands, an abundance of political parties has stalled Geert Wilders and his agenda. Can France's safey valve, the presidential runoff do the same against Marine Le Pen? It just might be able to. </span><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01960083899361215499noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7546970736880378558.post-75787731665331998682017-01-21T11:36:00.000-05:002017-01-21T15:28:48.059-05:00Can Syria save Deir-Ez-Zor? <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Far out into Syria's rural east lies a small city on the Euphrates River called Deir-Ez-Zor.<br />
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According to the 2004 census, about 210,000 people called this city home.<br />
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Today, like much of Syria, it is engulfed in a vicious and bloody Civil War. On all sides, Islamic State militants surround this ancient city. ISIS controls some portions of the city. In other areas, Syrian Arab Army (SAA) soldiers of the Republican Guard, an elite division loyal to President Bashar Al-Assad and commanded by Major General Issam Zahreddine.<br />
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Islamic State militants have tried time and again for the last two years to engulf the city under their shroud, and while there have been advances, Syrian forces have clung to their strongholds and prevented a complete takeover.<br />
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A victory in Deir-ez-Zor would present a small but important turning of the tide for Islamic State in Syria.<br />
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Soldiers fighting under the banner of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) are currently advancing slowly but surely towards the de facto capital of Islamic State, Ar-Raqqa. If Raqqa falls but Islamic State manages to capture Deir-ez-Zor, the group will have a city to fall back to, especially with the Iraqi city of Mosul under siege and essentially half-liberated. With victory on the horizon in Iraq, ISIS may decide to retreat into Syria to put up heavier resistance there.<br />
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ISIS is in retreat on many different fronts, so a victory in Deir-ez-Zor would likely work to increase morale and enable the group to continue fighting for quite some time. Every advance to capture the city, however, has resulted in massive casualties and the Syrian soldiers have been nothing short of heroic.<br />
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Time, however, is not on the Syrian Arab Army's side. Despite this heroic resistance, it is not certain whether the city will or even can hold out long enough to be relieved by a friendlier force.<br />
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There are two different forces that may try to relieve this ancient city from Islamic State.<br />
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If the Syrian Arab Army manages to reach the city in time, it will represent a massive victory against the militants and greatly reduce the territory in the country controlled by ISIS.<br />
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Unfortunately, it is very unlikely for the time being that the SAA would come marching through. Forces loyal to Assad are exhausted from fighting for almost six years. Logistically, it would be extremely difficult to march all the way to the city because Deir-ez-Zor is far into the desert, isolated from the urban centres of the western parts of the country.<br />
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In addition, Syria's army recently suffered a considerable setback when militants recaptured the city of Palmyra. The road to Deir-ez-Zor runs through Palmyra, and the loss of the famous ancient city will make an offensive effort more costly and difficult, as well as more vulnerable from ISIS attacks in the open desert. The Syrian Arab Army is concentrated in the urban centres of the west-whether the exhausted fighting force can march all the way east is yet to be seen.<br />
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That leaves another opportunity open, however. Could the Syrian Democratic Forces march on the city and relieve the soldiers?<br />
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The Syrian Democratic Forces are closer to Deir-ez-Zor than the Syrian Arab Army, and are gaining recruits daily in the more rural parts of the country. But an operation to liberate Deir-ez-Zor would be a difficult undertaking all the same.<br />
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While the SDF has largely managed to hold on to their territory after launching offensives, Deir-ez-Zor is larger than any city they have taken before, not to mention the considerable presence of ISIS militants in the oil fields to the southeast of the city itself.<br />
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There's also the question of manpower-the SDF, since it is a young fighting force, is not as large as the SAA and would require a much proportionally larger mobilization of troops to fight in Deir-ez-Zor.<br />
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Despite the difficulties, the reward for the SDF if they were to successfully capture the city would be immense. If they liberate the city, the SAA soldiers who have been resisting for years finally get relief from fighting. The SAA and SDF, while not formal allies, are on cordial enough terms that they likely would be welcomed into the city. The victory would be the SDF's biggest and would boost already high morale among civilians in SDF controlled areas. The political aim of a federal, decentralized Syria with new rights for the Kurds would look within reach, and the SDF would also be within striking distance of both the oil fields (another source of income) and the Iraqi border, which will likely be secured within the next few months as the ISF moves farther west into Anbar province.<br />
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Perhaps most importantly though is the strategic importance of the city. A liberated Deir-ez-Zor would mean more control over the Euphrates for the SDF and another angle for their planned march on Islamic State's capital of Raqqa. The SDF already has the capability to march on Raqqa from the north and the west, taking Deir-ez-Zor would enable them to march up the Euphrates from the southeast as well.<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01960083899361215499noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7546970736880378558.post-18323988171256448002017-01-10T20:51:00.003-05:002017-01-10T20:58:21.632-05:00Syria and Iraq: A Comprehensive Review, and a look towards the future<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span class="s1">For the last five (going on six) years, Syria has been in the news, as forces loyal to Bashar Al-Assad fight to keep control of their country from various other entities in a grueling Civil War. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">This war, unlike the conflict in Iraq, has grown into a complex multi-front proxy war. In Iraq, Kurdish Peshmerga forces hold the line on their considerably expanded border as the Iraqi Security Forces, along with Shia militias financed by the Islamic Republic of Iran, fight to evict the Islamic State terrorists from their country. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">In Iraq, the conflict is relatively straightforward. </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisJ0QCgMRnCe73wqFieQaWeEnvVFJ9uEAbjMRPFzndVljSesKmMjrM5bGq2zoGZRCPk-GGjaxY-2HLYrStw7mHeZhPuC9TogP4Yx7nhBgagdRQCsYPG3fbq5MdKROSor24__el_2cHSWBO/s1600/Screen+Shot+2017-01-10+at+8.36.03+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisJ0QCgMRnCe73wqFieQaWeEnvVFJ9uEAbjMRPFzndVljSesKmMjrM5bGq2zoGZRCPk-GGjaxY-2HLYrStw7mHeZhPuC9TogP4Yx7nhBgagdRQCsYPG3fbq5MdKROSor24__el_2cHSWBO/s640/Screen+Shot+2017-01-10+at+8.36.03+PM.png" width="628" /></a></div>
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<span class="s1">The Iraqi Security Forces, or ISF, are the main defense force for Iraq. They are represented by the areas in maroon. Once ridiculed for their fleeing considerably smaller Islamic State battalions, the ISF has found its footing and turned the tide decisively. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">Fighting with them are the Kurdish Peshmerga (in dark gold), a regional defense force which is tasked with the defense of Iraqi Kurdistan’s three provinces. </span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">Peshmerga (<i>"Those who confront Death" </i>in Kurdish) forces along with some minor allies such as Yazidi militias in the far northwest of the country, have not only held the line and kept Islamic State from taking their lands, but advanced and taken more villages in northern Iraq, including the city of Kirkuk.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span class="s1">Also featured are the aforementioned Shia militias that are funded mainly by Iran. These groups are known collectively as the Popular Mobilization Units, or PMU. While effective in central Iraq, the PMU has been notably asked to refrain from reinforcing the siege of Mosul so as to avoid sectarian tensions in the overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim city. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">The main ongoing battle today is for the Iraqi city of Mosul. Mosul is one of the largest cities in Iraq; only Baghdad and Basra are larger. Once the Islamic State’s main stronghold in Iraq, Mosul is currently under siege by ISF forces from the east. </span></div>
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<i>Apologies for the map not being in English, this is the best one I could find (and I can't read Arabic either). Green areas have been captured by Iraqi forces, red areas are where there is fighting, and white represents areas where ISIS controls</i></div>
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<span class="s1">The military campaign started late last year. Despite some early hiccups in execution, Iraqi troops looks to be progressing steadily. Islamic State forces have lost nearly a third of the city to the ISF, particularly the Golden Division, a special forces unit trained by the United States in previous years. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">A victory in Mosul is not guaranteed for Iraqi forces, but momentum is on their side. It is possible the entire eastern section of the city (Mosul is split into eastern and western sections by the Tigris River) could be liberated by the ISF by the middle of February,. Assuming the momentum holds, the smaller western section could be liberated sometime in April or May. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">Victory in Mosul would represent an enormously decisive turn of the tide for Iraqi forces. Islamic State militants once advanced as far as the outskirts of Iraq’s sprawling capital of Baghdad. If they lose Mosul, their control of the country will be reduced to a few considerably smaller cities near Mosul, the sprawling but sparsely populated Nineveh plains, a shrinking portion of predominantly rural Anbar province, and the area around the city of Hawija, which was surrounded by both the ISF and Kurdish forces months ago. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">There is a distinct possibility the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria could become merely the Islamic State of Syria by the summer of 2017. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">In Syria, things remain complicated. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">The above map of Syria shows the current state of affairs in the Civil War. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">Red represents the Syrian Arab Army, forces loyal to Bashar Al-Assad. The Syrian Arab Army, or SAA, has been through nearly six years of siege from other entities, but they still manage to hold control of the vast majority of Syria’s urban west. While they and their allies in the Kremlin suffered an embarrassing defeat when ISIS militants stormed and recaptured the ancient city of Palmyra, it is extremely difficult to imagine the SAA surrendering control of the urban centres in Syria, especially Syria’s largest city and recently recaptured hub of Aleppo. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">Assad’s forces, however, are exhausted, and the chance of them ruling over the entirety of Syria’s borders again look uncertain. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">In the northwest, represented by green and white, the Free Syrian Army and its Islamist allies Ahrar Al-Sham and Jabhat Al-Nusra (recently renamed “Jabhat Fateh Al-Sham</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;">” ) hunker down around the city of Idlib. This pocket of rebel Islamists seems to be the next priority of President Assad’s, but it will be a fierce, long and bloody fight to capture the area in its entirety, and the objective may not be done until late into 2017.</span><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;"> </span></div>
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<span class="s1">Two other entities are vying for control and influence in the northwest. The green area between the two gold areas is another branch of the Free Syrian Army, but it is heavily supervised by thousands of members of the Turkish Armed Forces. Turkey invaded Syria months ago to prevent the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) from connecting into one continuous entity, and they seem to achieved that goal for now, but Operation Euphrates Shield, as it is called, has been mostly ineffective. Many of the Arab fighters in this area were poorly trained and lacked the motivation to fight that the SAA and SDF seem to possess in greater numbers. The Turkish Armed Forces, while well trained and well-equipped, have not made much movement towards the stated objective of the ISIS controlled city of Al-Bab, even being repelled a few times. A full assault on the city, moreover, could result in heavy casualties for the Turkish forces as well as the Arab forces they are allied with. Turkey has the strength to capture the city, but when that will happen is not certain, and even less certain is the stated objective of President Erdogan’s to then capture the city of Manbij, which is controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces. </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr11mA5_l5novDYCe_mQSU0BUDvYjRk0TeyzqP7PhbwzDMWY-AwMbcuzB_c5W5-Mnn6tX3gZQ0TS0OGud-MmV1J9oNl55pWM1dEIfdq09YtgK7PajBfSUyBSwjp8eiSD8Et7GNwbhKn_9j/s1600/Screen+Shot+2017-01-10+at+8.48.48+PM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="380" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr11mA5_l5novDYCe_mQSU0BUDvYjRk0TeyzqP7PhbwzDMWY-AwMbcuzB_c5W5-Mnn6tX3gZQ0TS0OGud-MmV1J9oNl55pWM1dEIfdq09YtgK7PajBfSUyBSwjp8eiSD8Et7GNwbhKn_9j/s640/Screen+Shot+2017-01-10+at+8.48.48+PM.png" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span class="s1">Now to the last major entity in Syria, the Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF. They are represented by the color gold in the map, and they are advancing towards the city of Ar-Raqqa, Islamic State’s de facto capital in a multi-stage operation entitled <i>Wrath of the Euphrates. </i></span></div>
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<span class="s1">The Syrian Democratic Forces are a multiethnic coalition of Kurds, Arabs, and other smaller groups such as Armenians and Syriac Christians. Once a mainly Kurdish entity called the People’s Protection Units (or by the Kurdish initials of YPG), military success along the border with Turkey encouraged the group to expand and welcome Arabs and other ethnic groups into its rank and file. While the YPG (and its all-female counterpart the YPJ, or Women’s Protection Units) remains a distinct entity, the group is now more well-known by its more inclusive name. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">The result has been effective. Once surrounded by ISIS in the ravaged city of Kobane, the SDF coalition has carved out control of most of Syria’s northern border, extending deep into the south of Hasakah province. It has evicted ISIS from much of Syria’s rural north and east, and it is still advancing. The group hopes to surround and eventually capture the city of Ar-Raqqa, and then advance further south to the besieged SAA town of Deir-Ez-Zor, where a small but tenacious group of Republican Guard soldiers (a special forces unit, one of Syria’s most effective) loyal to Assad have put up heroic resistance against onsalught upon onslaught from Islamic State. While the SDF and SAA have distinctly conflicting goals for the future of Syria, and though they have come to blows a couple times, ceasefires have been effective and the groups have been able to coexist for the time being. If the SDF manages to free Deir-Ez-Zor from its siege, it will gain a large amount of goodwill with the SAA and will also be within striking distance of the oil fields to the east, where much of ISIS’s money is made. A march to the Iraqi border, while foreboding, would be possible as well, and would give the SDF control over most of the Euphrates River. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">Unfortunately, while it is often doted upon in the western media because of its stated aims for a democratic, federal Syria, and its use of feminism as a cornerstone of the group’s ideology, the SDF is not without its faults. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDY0eJgoAoCO-Wzzo_zGHr4H9fqEAbWqoO_7X3gCCaDvL_9s4E2ju-EUUvZ93hmG6mI8DuSm-sDt4l8CWGtZjA1Jx6rK5z-V1iugd8ia1E_jsnx-hKrn9bHBx-rtFlEz_U-M59mVRgvNoR/s1600/_90776968_hi034608010.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDY0eJgoAoCO-Wzzo_zGHr4H9fqEAbWqoO_7X3gCCaDvL_9s4E2ju-EUUvZ93hmG6mI8DuSm-sDt4l8CWGtZjA1Jx6rK5z-V1iugd8ia1E_jsnx-hKrn9bHBx-rtFlEz_U-M59mVRgvNoR/s400/_90776968_hi034608010.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span class="s1"><i>A member of the Kurdish YPJ (Women's Protection Units) embraces a woman after assisting in the liberation of Manbij in northwestern Syria. </i></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><i>Photo credit to the BBC. </i></span></div>
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<span class="s1">The YPG, its founding entity, still holds ties to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, a left-wing militant terrorist group which has been a nasty thorn in the side of Turkey’s mainly Kurdish southeast since the late 1970s. While the group is secular (and therefore does not inspire the same fear as a group like ISIS or Al-Qaeda) and not uniformly considered a terrorist group, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party or PKK has employed ambushes on Turkish soldiers, suicide bombings, and feeds off public discontent and poverty much like Hamas does in Palestine. A strong SDF is cause for worry in Ankara, and not without good reason. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">Islamic State will be defeated, one way or another. But what happens next is also cause for fear. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">It’s been said many times before, but you can’t kill an ideology. Islamic State will die, but Islamism and Islamic fundamentalist terrorism will not die with it. Whether Syria can keep a lid on this poisonous ideology even after triumphing over ISIS is in serious doubt. The country has been through hell and will take generations to rebuild. Assad is still a bloodthirsty dictator who committed grave sins against his own people. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">While actual fisticuffs between the SAA and SDF have been thankfully rare so far, tensions between them very well could come to the forefront once ISIS is defeated. The SDF’s inclusion of Arabs into its ranks cuts into Assad’s influence, and the more land they capture from ISIS, the less the SAA will control at the end of the war. Whether war will break out between the two groups is uncertain, and there is an argument to be made that the SAA may not wish to fight a group which has included Arabs and helped defeated a common enemy (or may simply just be exhausted), the cruelty of the Assad government is not a fairy tale. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">What happens to Assad is even less certain. He likely will not be put in front of the International Criminal Court despite his transgressions because of support from Russia and Iran (and possibly even the United States, depending on President Trump) but he may be ordered to step aside after a few years and the country has stabilized. He may have no choice but to give the SDF-controlled areas some degree of autonomy as they continue to advance into more areas of Syria. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">And in Iraq, trouble may continue. Sectarian division may bubble up again after the war is won, and the Kurdish regions are still itching for independence. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">The road ahead is difficult and foggy for Syria and for Iraq. But with a lot of luck and shrewd negotiation, it may end up more peaceful and democratic than before. </span></div>
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<span class="s1"><i>Many thanks to Wikipedia and Nineveh Media Centre for the maps, and to <a href="http://reddit.com/r/SyrianCivilWar">Reddit.com/r/SyrianCivilWar </a>for their tireless work in documenting this conflict in painstaking detail. </i></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01960083899361215499noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7546970736880378558.post-5347232101959739752016-11-27T20:38:00.000-05:002016-11-27T20:42:16.849-05:00Al-Bab: A Snapshot of the Complex Syrian Civil War<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span class="s1">Five years after Syrians started to rise up against the brutal dictatorship of President Bashar Al-Assad, the Syrian Civil War rages on across this land of ancient history from Palmyra to Aleppo to Damascus. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">Libertarian Presidential Candidate Gary Johnson raised many eyebrows when he was caught completely off guard when asked about the siege of Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, seemingly unaware of Aleppo’s importance and perhaps even existence. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">Aleppo, however, is not just Syria’s largest city. It is a province in northwest Syria, home to many cities. To the northeast lies a smaller city by the name of Al-Bab. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">Al-Bab is not a particularly large city. Its population in 2004 was estimated around 63,000, and it is likely less than that today as it is currently under the occupation of Islamic State. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">What makes Al-Bab significant, though, is its enormous strategic importance to multiple different factions in the Syrian Civil War. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">As mentioned before, Al-Bab is under the control of the Islamic State. To the immediate north, Free Syrian Army forces backed by the Republic of Turkey sit only a few kilometers away, waiting to advance on the city as a main objective of the “Euphrates Shield” operation. While Ankara has carved out a sizable chunk of land in Syria for their forces, their forces have been very inconsistent in their abilities and have few friends in the region. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">To the south lies the Syrian Arab Army, the forces to which President Al-Assad is Commander-in-Chief. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">The Syrian Arab Army is arguably one of the stronger players in this war, but five years of combat across Syria against various different adversaries has left the fighting force exhausted and even with Russian assistance, the SAA is still bogged down in their siege of Aleppo and has made little advances otherwise. To the far east, the besieged city of Deir-Ez-Zor lies surrounded by Islamic State and in real danger of being sieged and taken over. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">To both the east and west lies another player still, the Syrian Democratic Forces. The SDF, as they are often abbreviated to, is a broad coalition of Kurds, Arabs, some Turkmens, Christians, and Armenians which have rallied in the country’s north. The SDF proclaimed a large victory in the nearby city of Manbij a few months ago, but has been limited and careful in their recent campaigns with the Turkish-allied FSA’s marching towards the same objective. If the Syrian Democratic Forces manage to siege and capture the city of Al-Bab, they will have stuck a hell of a monkey wrench into Turkish ambitions in the region and put their biggest objective-carving out a united region of Syria for the Kurdish minority not under Assad’s control. While Kurdish units in the SDF (known as the People’s Protection Units and by the Kurdish initials YPG) have withdrawn from the region on orders from Turkey and the United States, they remain a factor in the Syrian Democratic Forces approaching from the west and may be able to connect their regions into one entity, possibly setting the stage for a federal region similar to that in northern Iraq. </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVhbXGLtUTZYZ4cL4vKxFrF1FY7vhI8Ar_FBtsChgqomx5EfhgENGMkJ23ECd9EuebfId5juKuj7JRc4Lrei7Bd19ohvPAjhMsKREo6RSqebPwJlR0tD8ayxJo384nemSWWWl4EpNppKlV/s1600/15181687_1845988139018307_4095019173723701237_n.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVhbXGLtUTZYZ4cL4vKxFrF1FY7vhI8Ar_FBtsChgqomx5EfhgENGMkJ23ECd9EuebfId5juKuj7JRc4Lrei7Bd19ohvPAjhMsKREo6RSqebPwJlR0tD8ayxJo384nemSWWWl4EpNppKlV/s320/15181687_1845988139018307_4095019173723701237_n.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span class="s1"></span>Yellow: SDF. </div>
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Red: SAA. </div>
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Green: FSA. </div>
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Gray: IS. </div>
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<span class="s1">The various groups in this civil war are, unsurprisingly, generally unfriendly towards each other. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">The Turkish-backed FSA forces are hostile to the SDF and Assad’s SAA, and vice versa. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">The SDF, while not outright hostile to the SAA, has a relationship of tense neutrality with Assad’s forces and even if limited cooperation takes place between the two parties as has happened in the past, that does not mean they will continue to cooperate. Some have speculated that the SAA and SDF may end up fighting against each other if Islamic State and the FSA are defeated as Assad has repeatedly refused to entertain plans for a new federal Syria similar to the Iraqi setup after 2003. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">While the Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army forces fly the same green, white, and black flag of the FSA in other areas, they are largely Islamist and answer to Turkish forces rather than towards a broader desire to liberate Syria from Assad’s grip. These forces have not come in contact with Assad’s forces and will likely avoid doing so as direct conflict would drag Turkey farther into the conflict than it wants to be. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan also seems more interested in preventing the Kurds and their allies from establishing a united entity in Syria as such an entity would likely allow the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party or PKK to operate and undermine Turkey. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">The Kurdish forces in Syria are often doted on by Western media because they are secular, somewhat democratic and have feminist leanings as women frequently fight alongside men in combat. However, the YPG, as they are known, is closely related to the PKK in Turkey and despite the fact that the PKK does not instill the same fear as Islamic fundamentalist terrorists seem to, it is still called a terrorist group for a reason and Ankara is understandably worried about this. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">Islamic State is retreating on all its different fronts and probably will not retain control of Al-Bab once they are engaged in the city limits. Who takes it from them is still unclear, but the strong adversarial relationships between the various different groups surrounding the city is definite cause for worry. </span></div>
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<span class="s1">Iraq, meanwhile, has managed to start its advance into Mosul, Islamic State’s last and by far the largest stronghold in the city. If Mosul is retaken by the Iraqi Security Forces, the Islamic State will be severely weakened and the country may evict the terrorists from their borders by the Spring of 2017. Syria, unfortunately, looks like it will endure war for considerably longer unless some sort of comprehensive peace deal can be worked out, but that seems quite unlikely. </span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01960083899361215499noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7546970736880378558.post-75972838755727552892016-11-27T20:23:00.002-05:002016-11-27T20:23:49.134-05:00Trudeau, Trump, and Fashionable Authoritarianism in the Free World<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Fidel Castro, infamous revolutionary and symbol of Cuban Communism, died at the age of 90 just two days ago. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">In Miami, Cuban-Americans poured into the streets of Little Havana in celebration. The five blue and white stripes of the Cuban flag fluttered everywhere next to the 13 red and white American ones as people hugged, cheered, and banged pots and pans together in a joyous cacophony. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Ninety miles south in the other Havana, Cubans wept and expressed sorrow for their fallen comrade. Nine days of mourning were declared by the Cuban government. Although an aging Fidel had conceded power to his (only slightly) younger brother Raul in 2006, he remained a powerful symbol of the Cuban Revolution against the military dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista and even as he neared his last day, continued to be a vocal spokesman for the communist cause. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Fulgencio Batista</span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Communist Cuba is, in some ways, ahead of its counterparts around Latin America. The Cuban people are well-educated and generally live long, healthy lives due to the system in place. Cuban doctors are world-renowned for their administration of healthcare. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">However, these advances that occurred under communism came at serious prices. Cubans living on the island have extremely limited access to information. Freedom of speech and of the press is non-existent. For fifty-plus years, Cubans have been trying to move to other countries, particularly the United States. Miami is jokingly nicknamed “North Havana” because of the huge and vibrant Cuban community there. While Cubans don’t starve in the streets of Havana, most are forced to live spartan lifestyles, making tiny wages that if not for the communist system, would plunge them into squalor and poverty. Opportunities for advancement on the island are sparse. Repression has remained brutal and unforgiving. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">World leaders reacted from all sides of the spectrum. U.S. President Barack Obama and President-Elect Donald Trump both expressed a hope for Cuba to move forward, and Trump was blunt (though not wrong) in describing Castro as a bloodthirsty leader. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">A confusing reaction, however, came from north of the United States. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, according to public broadcaster CBC, expressed “deep sorrow” upon hearing about Castro’s death and called Castro a “legendary revolutionary and orator”who his father, the late Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, “was very proud to call a friend”. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Trudeau’s comments came as a shock and a sharp contrast to other Canadian politicians. They were quickly criticized by opposition Members of Parliament in Canada’s Conservative Party, and Tom Mulcair, the head of the New Democratic Party, had a much more subdued reaction to the news. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Ironically, Mulcair’s NDP is typically farther to the left on economic issues than Trudeau’s Liberals, which only made Trudeau’s remarks more confusing. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Canada, like the United States, has long been an example of democratic success, and for Canada’s head of government to praise the exact opposite of that tradition is unnerving. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Prime Minister Trudeau has yet to comment on the mounting criticism of his remarks, and it isn’t really known whether this was a poorly thought out remark or an honest opinion. If he does truly hold serious admiration for Fidel Castro, however, he is continuing a worrying trend evident on both the left and the right in the free world, the admiration of strongman, authoritarian leaders and their legacies. It especially comes across as ironic considering Trudeau’s very outspoken support of social justice movements such as feminism and public appearances at LGBT Pride events in Canada as LGBT individuals in Cuba were brutally persecuted by the Communists. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">President-Elect Donald Trump drew sharp and deserved criticism for similar remarks. He has praised Russian President Vladimir Putin, the late Saddam Hussein, and the late Muammar Gaddafi. According to Trump, Putin’s leadership dwarfs Barack Obama, Saddam Hussein was good at stamping out Islamic fundamentalism, and Muammar Gaddafi should not have been deposed by the NATO coalition that aided Libyan rebels in the Libyan revolution of 2011. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Now, President-elect Trump is not completely off base in his remarks on Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi if they are taken by themselves. After Gaddafi’s death, Libya has been stuck in a brutal and confusing civil war between Islamists, various factions of transitional leaders, desert tribes, and lingering loyalists. However, in the grander scheme of things, there are serious problems with his views on these heads of state. While it’s true that Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism rarely manifested themselves in Saddam’s Ba’athist Iraq, different and equally grave sins were committed. Iraq’s Kurdish minority, who make up nearly a third of the country and most of the northern provinces, were butchered and gassed in the Al-Anfal Genocide and the Halabja chemical disaster. Hussein also started a war against the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1980 which accomplished nothing and killed hundreds of thousands, a war where the United States assisted Iraq. Hussein also oppressed the Shi’a Muslim community in Iraq. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">And for all Putin’s “strong leadership”, the Russian economy has slumped into a serious recession due to sanctions, low oil prices, and military adventures engineered by the Kremlin in Ukraine and Syria. The Donbas remains a not-quite-frozen stalemate where Ukrainians and Russians, brother Slavs, die nearly every day. Bashar Al-Assad’s Syrian Arab Army is exhausted even with Russian support. Much of this “strong leadership” comes from a token opposition in the Duma made up of grey-haired Communists, absurd ultranationalists led by Vladimir Zhirinovsky, and the democratic opposition’s utter failure to resonate with the Russian people at large. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">It’s true that comparing Putin to Fidel and Raul Castro is probably unwise. Putin does not employ even close to the same levels of censorship and repression that the Castros do, but it remains that both Prime Minister Trudeau’s lionization of Castro and Trump’s praise of Putin and others is deserving of heavy criticism. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">Various Latin American left-wing organizations are also speaking wistfully about Fidel. There’s a little more concrete reason for this considering the United States’ hypocritical and undemocratic actions in Latin American countries such as Chile, Brazil, Argentina, and so forth. At the same time, there’s a startling blind eye turned towards the basket case socialist Venezuela has become. Venezuela’s Chavistas were vocal allies of the Castros in Cuba, and when oil was selling for over US$100 per barrel, their policies looked sound if not entirely democratic. As soon as oil became cheap, however, the Venezuelan economy tanked and the country descended into near-anarchy, a phenomenon many Latin American leftists have remained silent on. </span></span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: small;">For our own sakes, the countries of the Americas must look towards their inspirational figures with a more honest and objective eye. It is possible to criticize American foreign policy in Latin America and also be aware of the repression that continues in Cuba, and it is possible to criticize things such as the EU’s handling of the Refugee Crisis without defecting to the Kremlin as a role model. </span></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01960083899361215499noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7546970736880378558.post-47568743716352457452016-11-11T01:44:00.000-05:002016-11-11T01:44:42.681-05:00Perspective in the Aftermath of the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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So ends another election season. Until the media starts the next one in two weeks, at least. </div>
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This election truly had it all, and not in a good way. National security scandals, crotchety old socialists, and a guy with a silly haircut defended the size of his manhood on national television in a debate. </div>
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And that's just scraping the surface. Now, less than a week after Hillary Clinton conceded to President-Elect Donald J. Trump, people are asking questions about the results. Let's take a look at some of them. </div>
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<i>Why did the Democrats lose when everyone expected Clinton to oust Trump, possibly in a blowout? </i></div>
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Hillary Clinton and her running mate, Tim Kaine, were predicted to carry most of the swing states in Tuesday's election. According to polling and the vast majority of predictions, only Ohio looked likely to be won by Trump. </div>
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While Clinton managed to barely scrape a victory in New Hampshire and hung on to Virginia, she lost the swing states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida, and North Carolina. </div>
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The deciding upsets, however, came in states which had been considered relatively safe victories for her. Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan, neither of which had voted for the Republican nominee since the 1980s, both went to Trump. Below, a comparison between the 2012 and 2016 elections:</div>
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While Secretary Clinton managed to maintain the urban vote in these three states, she was unable to win majorities in rural, predominantly white and working class counties that President Obama managed to win from Governor Mitt Romney. These communities which had previously been voting for Democrats, swung over to Trump's brand of populism and his often-repeated desire to bring American manufacturing jobs, a former hallmark in many of these communities, back from other countries. Clinton, meanwhile, stuck to a strategy of ensuring high turnout in diverse, urban communities. She did that reasonably well, but learned the hard way that urban votes alone do not win you every state, especially states that are as large as Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. </div>
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These results also imply Clinton may have underestimated Trump and his appeal because polling agencies time and time again said she would win. The fact of the matter is, the polls were largely inaccurate, possibly because some who voted for Donald Trump would not say they were voting for him. </div>
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In addition, Trump's momentum always came back in the polls. After his first meltdown, where he insulted the family of a Muslim-American soldier who had been killed in action, his poll numbers plummeted. </div>
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But they came back. FiveThirtyEight predicted Trump had about a 10-12 percent chance of winning the presidency after the incident. A month later it was nearly 50 percent. </div>
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Then a video emerged of Trump, in choice words, bragging about how he could take advantage of women sexually because of his wealth. Republicans walked away from former endorsements en masse. Rumors swirled that the GOP might drop him and shove Mike Pence into his place. That never happened, but Trump looked as if he was finished once more. FiveThirtyEight again predicted Trump had about a 10-12 percent chance of winning the presidency afterwards.</div>
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But he chipped away once more at the polls. He did not manage the comeback he made the first time due to the proximity of Election Day, but he was on the rebound. And it translated when Americans went to the polls. </div>
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Democrats gripe that they have won the popular vote in six of the last seven presidential elections, dating back to the 1992 election that propelled Bill Clinton to the Oval Office. Whatever one's stance is on the Electoral College and whether it should remain part of American democracy, them's the rules. In terms of popular vote, however, many of these elections were very close-especially 2000, 2004, and 2016. The constant in these elections is not a curious voting anomaly, but the overall favorability of the Democratic candidate in that election. </div>
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Al Gore was Vice President under the still-popular outgoing President Bill Clinton and he looked to carry that momentum into another Democratic victory in 2000. Unfortunately, Gore lacked the charisma and charm of his former running mate, while then Governor George W. Bush effectively played up his Texas roots with his folksy demeanor. Gore also chose to not campaign with President Clinton as he believed it would keep the President's sex scandal in the public eye. He failed to win his home state of Tennessee and also chose Joe Lieberman over Jeanne Shaheen for his running mate, a move that may have propelled him to a win in the small but electorally important New Hampshire, and therefore, the election overall. </div>
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In 2004, John Kerry was chosen by the Democrats to oust President Bush. Kerry, while qualified, was not considered an exceptionally likable candidate. His looks were often lampooned as some compared him to Lurch from the <i>Addams Family, </i>and his tendency to flip-flop on many issues enabled the Bush campaign to run an iconic ad depicting Kerry windsurfing back and forth with the caption "Whichever way the wind blows". </div>
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Clinton had the qualifications to be president, there's no doubt about that. But her nagging email scandal and various other skeletons made her unpopular and a haze of untrustworthiness hung over her. While Trump was also considered as such, Clinton was unable to present herself as a positive alternative, merely less bad. </div>
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Identity politics may have also played a part in Clinton's loss. As mentioned before, Clinton lost white, working class voters in rural areas of the Rust Belt. These were areas where anti-establishment sentiment and distrust towards the government was especially high. Rather than rally possible voters, however, Clinton may have contributed to the overwhelming feeling of being forgotten in these areas by staying in more diverse cities that were likely going to vote for her anyways. Racist and xenophobic sentiment stoked by her opponent also contributed to this problem. Non-white people overwhelmingly vote for Democrats in America, where the majority of white Americans, particularly poor and working class white Americans, found an appeal in Trump that Clinton could not recapture even with former Democrats. </div>
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A stronger example of identity politics is evident in Turkey. Turkey has four large political parties: the right-wing and Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP*), the secular left-wing Republican People's Party (CHP), the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), and the pro-Kurdish People's Democratic Party (HDP). Since the rise of <span style="-webkit-text-stroke: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: "Times New Roman";">Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey has fallen into identity politics. Many Turkish voters do not vote on policy, but on which party is perceived to represent them. Conservative Muslim Turks often vote for AKP because of their faith, not because of conservative economic policy. The same can be said of secular-minded Turks and the CHP. Although secularism is a cornerstone of the Turkish Republic, the people outside the cities are still predominantly conservative and Muslim, and the CHP is unable to win elections on the grounds that their voting base is just too small. </span></div>
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<i>Could Bernie Sanders have won?</i></div>
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After Trump's victory, former supporters of Senator Bernie Sanders' campaign came out of the woodwork and speculated that he would have been able to win the election. </div>
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It's possible Bernie would have been able to win in a head-to-head against Trump, considering he was perceived as much more trustworthy and genuine than Clinton and he did manage to win the Michigan and Wisconsin primary contests, but Sanders was not the perfect candidate many of his diehards swear he was. </div>
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Bernie Sanders, being an independent Senator from a small and overwhelmingly rural state never received the same media scrutiny that Clinton had been dealing with. But some of his faults came out during the primaries. He may have been able to win the votes of working class and poor, rural white Americans but he lost black and Hispanic Americans by considerable margins to Clinton and may have been attacked for his supremely ironic and poorly thought out remark that "White people don't know what it's like to be poor or live in ghettos". His far-left economic platform would have alienated many in the centre of the political spectrum. He seemed largely uninterested in foreign policy. </div>
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And while the Cold War is over, its influence remains. Sanders, a socialist, would have likely been attacked for his record of supporting or otherwise speaking positively of left-wing policies in Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua, his claims that bread lines were a "good thing" and his extended stay in the U.S.S.R. There's a reason that his fanatical supporters were mockingly nicknamed "Sandernistas", a nod to the Sandinistas. </div>
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<i>Well, who could have won? </i></div>
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That's actually not too hard to answer. Many believe that the outgoing Vice President, Joe Biden, would have won convincingly had he faced Trump. Biden, unlike Clinton, does not have a haze of untrustworthiness around him, deserved or not. He can match Clinton toe to toe on policy. He has Obama's charisma and charm. And he likely could have shored up rural voters. </div>
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<i>How will Trump govern? </i></div>
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The short answer is that we don't know. </div>
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A slightly longer answer is that it depends on whether Vice President-elect Mike Pence got the same deal as Governor Kasich is said to have been proposed. </div>
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John Kasich, Governor of Ohio, patron saint of the NeverTrump movement, and likely winner of the Presidential Campaign Eating Contest, was offered the Vice Presidential position on Trump's campaign. If we're to believe Kasich's staff, the Governor was offered the position with the promise that he would be in charge of foreign and domestic policy, while Trump would be in charge of "making America great again". </div>
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Kasich turned the offer down and consistently refused to endorse Trump. </div>
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Trump, meanwhile, found his man in Mike Pence, former Governor of Indiana. </div>
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Stark ideological differences exist between Trump and Pence. On social issues such as abortion and LGBT rights, Trump doesn't seem to care. Pence, however, is right as right can be. </div>
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Mike Pence seems to be the man in charge of making Trump palatable to reluctant conservative stalwarts in the Republican Party. A political cartoon in the <i>Indianapolis Star</i> tellingly depicted Trump rabbling away at a microphone while Pence stood behind him dressed as a firefighter, hose at the ready. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigTtJn8xQy9RmEfE3XruOCiDnxyqaz2X7vSpNnzytdA3PcD4DrijT59rVd_aX-H-q-kEG7gy2aYPWpg6w_9z9GHf4lZYCF_CSkUY2WTe4xvqyTNRPCt8IVX9RX5klNnG59uNhGXYOaFYLM/s1600/30f2cadc325d0c142f751f22c1dfa117.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="242" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigTtJn8xQy9RmEfE3XruOCiDnxyqaz2X7vSpNnzytdA3PcD4DrijT59rVd_aX-H-q-kEG7gy2aYPWpg6w_9z9GHf4lZYCF_CSkUY2WTe4xvqyTNRPCt8IVX9RX5klNnG59uNhGXYOaFYLM/s320/30f2cadc325d0c142f751f22c1dfa117.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Cartoon by Gary Varvel.</div>
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Unfortunately for the Republicans, that may be a choice they regret. Mike Pence is not a popular fellow at home in the Hoosier State. In 2012, Pence rode outgoing Governor Mitch Daniels' coattails into office. Daniels, who is still very popular in Indiana, focused almost exclusively on expanding business opportunities in Indiana and largely ignored social issues. Pence, on the other hand, signed SB 101, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, into law in Indiana. </div>
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It was a disaster. Democrats decried the anti-LGBT nature of the law. Republicans criticized its almost immediate effect of halting businesses from coming to Indiana. The <i>Indianapolis Star</i>, Indiana's largest newspaper, published a headline in protest that screamed FIX THIS NOW. </div>
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Pence tried to ban same-sex marriage via constitutional amendment before his signing SB101, passed extremely restrictive abortion laws, his defunding of Planned Parenthood contributed to an HIV epidemic in the southern part of the state, and claimed he had the authority to ban Syrian refugees from being settled in Indiana, something no state governor can do. </div>
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For these reasons and others including taking Governor Daniels' balance sheet to an extreme in tax cuts so far right the GOP-controlled state legislature had to stop it, shutting down popular preschool funding and an energy efficiency program with Daniels' approval, Pence was likely to lose re-election in Indiana, which, ironically, is a generally conservative state. </div>
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Economically, Trump and Pence differ. Trump wants "fair trade", Pence advocates "free trade". A compromise may be possible, but how it becomes policy is still yet to be determined. </div>
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On foreign policy Trump wants to be friends with Putin while Pence seemed to repeat the typical Republican line before Trump's rise in the Vice Presidential debate. In Syria, Trump is likely to hand the reigns over to Putin and Assad. Negotiating with Mexico regarding the possible wall could get extremely messy. Policy regarding China and Iran remains much of a mystery, especially considering the international nature of the nuclear deal. </div>
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It's difficult to see much of a silver lining in this mess. </div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01960083899361215499noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7546970736880378558.post-35051319888194717832016-08-30T16:41:00.003-04:002016-08-30T16:46:31.901-04:00Tashkent's Tough Road Ahead: Uzbekistan after Karimov<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
On Monday, August 29th, news broke that Islam Karimov, the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan, suffered a brain hemorrhage and had been hospitalized. Rumors abound that President Karimov has died, but the statements pronouncing him dead are still unconfirmed.<br />
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Even if Karimov is not dead, there are serious doubts as to whether he will be able to continue his duties as President. <br />
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Islam Karimov rose through the ranks as a member of the Communist Party and ascended to power in the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic by 1989. He has been the President of Uzbekistan since the country became independent from the Soviet Union in 1991, and he has ruled with an iron fist. Freedom House, the well-known American think tank, consistently rates the Central Asian country as one of the most repressive countries in the world. <br />
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Uzbekistan is the most populous country in Central Asia and most of its 31 million people are very young, almost half are under 25 years old. It is a mostly Sunni Muslim country and its people speak a Turkic language called Uzbek as well as Russian. <br />
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Despite its population, Uzbekistan is plagued by an economic rut. China and Russia, its main trading partners, are both coping with economic troubles. Remittances from Uzbeks living in Russia don’t carry the same worth as they once did with the rouble’s collapse. Chinese investment in the country has slowed down considerably. <br />
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These problems are not limited to Uzbekistan, either. Central Asia as a whole is struggling to find its place in the world as its five nations are all only a couple decades old. <br />
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Of the five countries in the region, only Kazakhstan seems to have mobilized as a regional power as the discovery of oil pushed the Kazakh economy into overdrive, but with Russia’s considerable recession, even Kazakhstan’s economy has slowed down. Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan’s tiny eastern neighbor, is probably the most democratic country in the region, but it has endured multiple violent revolutions and is wracked by corruption. Despite very friendly relations with their much more stable and wealthy cousin Iran, Tajikistan still reels from the effects of a long and bloody civil war. Turkmenistan doesn’t sing unending hymns of praise to Saparmurat “Turkmenbasy” Niyazov any more, but it is still a rigidly controlled police state. <br />
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Islamism is also a cause for concern. All five of the Central Asian countries are predominantly Muslim. Although they are all secular countries which were not so long ago removed from the atheist ideals of the Soviet Union, Islamist groups have played a role in opposition to the dictatorships that replaced communism. It is currently unclear as to whether Islamism will play a role in moving Central Asia away from its status quo, but considering the problems with Islamic fundamentalism that nearby Afghanistan and Pakistan struggle to contain it could destabilize the region. <br />
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A transition to functioning democracy in Uzbekistan is possible, but difficult to imagine. Authoritarian government is the status quo in both Central Asia and the regions that surround it. The only real exceptions to this rule is Mongolia, which quietly but effectively transitioned to democracy after its communist regime fell. It’s true that Kyrgyzstan is somewhat democratic and Iran has some elements of democracy present in its structure of government, but for various and different reasons, to call either of those countries a shining example of democracy is a major exaggeration at best. <br />
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There’s also the little-known factor of clan politics. Officially kept under wraps by Tashkent, two political clans control much of the country-the Tashkent clan and Samarkand clan. If the different clans turn against each other this could hamper stability in the country. <br />
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Uzbekistan’s status as a young country must also be considered. While Uzbeks are a people with a long history, it hasn’t even been three decades since Uzbekistan became a sovereign nation free from Russian and Soviet control. There may be some opportunity for Turkey to play a role in fostering change in Uzbekistan as both are Turkic peoples, but that may be a long shot as Turkey seems to be largely preoccupied with its recent intervention in Northern Syria and the recently botched military coup. <br />
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So what can be done for Uzbekistan to move towards democracy and prosperity? It’s difficult to say. Not only is it corrupt and repressive, Uzbekistan is isolated. It’s never been the primary subject of sanctions like Russia or Iran, but it does not have extensive trade relationships or a particularly strong economy. It does not have the technological muscle that Russia or China does. <br />
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But it does have potential. Uzbekistan, as mentioned before, is the most populous nation in Central Asia. Its young population, if encouraged and mobilized to pursue education and entrepreneurship to bring back to their country could jump-start the country’s moribund economy. The largely overlooked region also has massive tourism potential as it boasts considerable natural beauty and history as a major portion of the ancient trade route known as the Silk Road. <br />
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For now, Uzbekistan is relatively quiet as Karimov’s fate is still not definite. The picture should come into focus in due time, though, and when it does, the consequences will be substantial. <br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01960083899361215499noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7546970736880378558.post-56342555254572285622016-08-22T21:26:00.001-04:002016-08-22T21:26:22.177-04:00The American Presidential Election: Personal Thoughts, Opinions, and an Endorsement<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
My God, it's almost here, isn't it?<br />
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Only two more months until the United States of America elects its forty-fifth president.<br />
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And what a ride it's been.<br />
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A real estate mogul waving the banners of populism and nationalism holds the GOP nomination, and Democrats are countering with a First Lady, Senator, and Secretary of State angling to become the first woman at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Behind them stand a silver-haired Hoosier in Mike Pence and a harmonica-blowing Virginian by the name of Tim Kaine respectively. <br />
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I can't say I'm too excited to vote in this election.<br />
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Donald Trump is a loudmouth who plays to xenophobic and racist sentiments. His policy platform is exceedingly vague and much too fluid. He cozies up to Russian President Vladimir Putin. His brand of political incorrectness, something I would usually appreciate, isn't clever or thought-provoking, it's irritating. <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">When I hear something called “politically incorrect” I usually think of humor, usually satirical humor. Satire can cut deep into something in a totally brash and over the top manner but really make you think as well as laugh. <i>Borat</i> and <i>The Dictator</i> were wildly politically incorrect and offensive, but they were rooted in intelligent satire. Sacha Baron Cohen, the actor <span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">behind those characters,</span> isn't an anti-Semite, or a racist or a sexist, he’s hilarious. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">But in this case it’s not funny. It’s not satirical. It’s just bluster for the sake of bluster. That’s not to say all politically incorrect humor has to have a deeper meaning, but there’s no other value or purpose, and it’s understandable why people find that inflammatory. </span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;">I told myself before the first Republican presidential debate that <span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I would listen with an open<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> mind to Trump. </span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">"He's brash<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> and abrasive, but he is<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">n't stupid." I told myself. "Maybe he will use a different approach in the debates and bring forth some thought-<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">provoking </span>ide<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">as that </span></span>have merit. If he d<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">oes, I'll give him credit where credit is due." </span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">That didn't happen. Instead we <span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">got shots at Rosie O'Donnell <span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">and <span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Megyn Kelly. </span></span></span></span></span></span></span> </span></span></div>
Hillary Clinton is the second choice. I'll admit I would be taking a closer look at voting for Clinton if I was registered in a state where polls were close, but I don't. <br />
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A vote for Clinton is a vote for the status quo. Clinton's policies are not very different than President Obama's and she would most likely govern in a manner similar to him. I'm not particularly horrified by that, and I do like President Obama as a person.<br />
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But Clinton lacks the charisma, likability, and relatively clean appearance President Obama has since she's been in politics for much longer than he. She has defended major policy blunders such as the United States' limited involvement in Libya's Civil War. Her policy with regards to the Kremlin is exponentially more reasonable than Trump's, it's not something that inspires much confidence. When asked about how she'd engage Putin in one of the debates, she was vague, citing accomplishments between 2009 and 2011, and the climate has changed substantially since then.<br />
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Her multiple scandals are not to be disregarded either. Her husband, Former President Bill Clinton, has multiple sexual assault allegations against him. While innocent until proven guilty must always apply, the accusations are numerous, damning, and difficult to ignore. The email scandal, while perhaps not directly malicious, shows a negligence that is difficult to explain away. Even Bernie Sanders, who famously proclaimed that he was "sick of hearing about your [Clinton's] damn emails", resorted to negative tactics as his campaign slowed in momentum.<br />
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Had Vice President Biden or even Senator Kaine been the nominee things may have been different. But Hillary's unpopularity isn't just because of paranoia. The "Lock Her Up" chants at the RNC and the sexism certainly don't help the Republicans, but these problems don't appear out of nowhere.<br />
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Make no mistake, I'd love to see a woman in the White House. I just wish it wasn't Hillary Clinton. <br />
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Admittedly, I've been a bit all over the place in my voting practices.<br />
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The first election I voted in was in 2012.<br />
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I voted to re-elect President Obama, and then supported downticket Republicans in both the Senate and House. In hindsight this was mostly due to my mostly liberal views on social issues and I've actively considered that I may have voted for Romney in hindsight as my priorities have shifted somewhat since 2012. <br />
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In 2013 I campaigned for a Republican who ran against a longtime Democratic congressman for the empty Senate seat in my state. I still believe I made the right decision there. <br />
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In the 2014 Midterm elections I voted for the Independent candidate for Governor as I'd campaigned for him. I also voted for my Democratic congressman as he was running unopposed, and the Republican challenger to now-Senator Ed Markey.<br />
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During that Governor's race, I was a staunch independent, priding myself on being a centrist and a moderate. But I learned something after that 2014 election, and that is that part of the reason that the United States has only two major parties is because both those parties are large coalitions of different factions, and both Democrats and Republicans have centre-leaning factions. Being from Massachusetts, the Commonwealth's Republican Party is generally not keen to pander to social conservatives as it may in other states, and Massachusetts seems to have a long streak of successful Republican governors-Weld, Cellucci, Romney, and now Baker. In hindsight I'd probably have voted for Baker.<br />
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The only way to see a real change in the party landscape in a country that uses the electoral system we do is for either one of the parties to permanently split, or for a serious overhaul of the electoral system.<br />
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That's probably unlikely. So I decided to look into the two parties despite being put off by the social conservatism of many Republicans and the flirting with social democracy in the Democratic party. My views on the various issues in this country are not much different now than they were before, but third parties appeal much less to me these days. <br />
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In the primary, my support went pretty quickly to Governor John Kasich. I had my disagreements with the man, primarily on the issue of Planned Parenthood, but his more accommodating stance on leaving equal marriage rights as they were, his strong economic record of balancing budgets both in Ohio and in Congress, his long service on the Congressional Armed Services Committee, and his willingness to stick to a positive message based in real policy convinced me he was the best in the GOP field. I was not interested in voting for either Democratic candidate. <br />
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As for the other Republicans? Christie was abrasive and overly pessimistic. Bush wasn't all that bad on policy but he lacked charisma and spark. Senator Rubio certainly had the appearance of a great presidential candidate (relatively young, Spanish-speaking son of Cuban immigrants, handsome, didn't come from wealth, etc.) but his abysmal voting record, inexperience, and robotic debate performances proved massively disappointing. I respected Senator Paul, but he never managed to gain any momentum. <br />
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And Cruz was much too preachy for my taste. <span class="verse-6"><span class="red-letter no-red">It was taught to me, a practicing Roman Catholic, that religion is a personal matter between the faithful and God. I did not see that coming from Cruz or his supporters as he invoked God constantly. </span></span><br />
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At the end of the day, I would recommend a vote for Governor Gary Johnson and Governor William Weld.<br />
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Now, I am not a libertarian. I supported Governor John Kasich in the primaries, and Kasich was pretty much a standard Republican.<br />
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Libertarianism is quite similar to socialism and communism in that as great as it may sound on paper, it can be reckless and extremely problematic. Now, libertarians never performed atrocities in the name of their ideology like the socialists and communists, but ideological purity is not necessarily something that should be striven for in a free society. I believe in small, efficient government, but you can't just slash away recklessly at government and say you've fixed the problem. In a way, cutting the size of government should be like surgery...cuts or incisions need to be carefully evaluated and defined before they are done so as to minimize adverse effects. And I don't agree with all of the ideas in the Libertarian party platform.<br />
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But the Libertarian ticket is a strong one this year. I was drawn to Governor Kasich for his strong economic record at both the federal and state level, something Johnson and Weld both share. Gary Johnson, the former governor of New Mexico (a reliably blue state), was able to win re-election comfortably on his record. William Weld, a Republican in royal blue Massachusetts, won re-election in 1994 with 70% of the popular vote, an unheard-of margin. Both are still quite popular in their home states. The social conservatism that drives younger people away from the GOP is not as present in the Libertarian camp. Governor Weld in particular has impressed me with his eloquence and charisma as well as his pragmatic outlook. <br />
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Clinton has extensive experience too, but her unpopularity is not without merit and I don't see her uniting the country, especially when she seems to take pride in the fact that she's made enemies of the Republicans. That might fire up your base, but it sounds wildly immature otherwise. Trump is an enormously risky option which many sitting Republicans are still very reluctant to follow up with. <br />
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The chances of Johnson taking up residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue are extremely low. Anyone who says otherwise is unrealistically optimistic. But seeing Johnson get into the debates and talk policy would be a breath of fresh air while Clinton and Trump insult each other.<br />
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You could say it's a wasted vote. You could say it's a protest vote, and that would be accurate, as I feel the Republican Party, the party I've leaned towards for most of my life, has abandoned the principles that won me over in nominating Trump. I don't see a conservative leader in Trump, I see someone with an enormously vague, constantly changing platform who openly praises leaders in other countries who go against the values I was taught to cherish as an American. Clinton is preferable to Trump in my eyes, but she isn't someone I can really support on her own, and if I did vote for her, it would be mostly to vote against Trump.<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01960083899361215499noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7546970736880378558.post-76516716226476573812016-08-22T20:59:00.000-04:002016-08-22T20:59:52.726-04:00Cut the Olympic Doom Crap Out, Media<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
The Olympic Games have once again come to a close. Rio passes the torch to Tokyo while Pyeongchang (no, not Pyongyang) prepares to welcome the Winter Olympics in 2018. We'll also probably hear soon which city will be awarded the 2024 Olympics.<br />
<br />
There has been a trend with the Olympics lately which is bothersome and seems to only be getting worse. The media seems to be only too happy to relentlessly point out the negative aspects of what's going on in the host country or city.<br />
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It was not particularly visible in Vancouver, but Beijing, London, Sochi, and Rio all had serious doubts as to whether their hosting of the Games would run smoothly. The Athens Olympics are now looked back upon with frustration as Greece reels from economic catastrophe. <br />
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Now, the issues that surround the Olympics are not fabricated, they are very, very real. Rarely does the Olympics make a host city money, and the International Olympic Committee is an organization rife with corruption. London gambled by putting the Olympic Stadium in a relatively underdeveloped region of the city. Russia's anti-gay laws and questionable location choice (Sochi is a beach resort town, not a winter wonderland) were rightfully mocked and criticized. Rio and Brazil do struggle with corruption, poverty and crime, not to mention Brazil's economy falling off a cliff in the last few years. By contrast, the Brazilian economy was surging when Rio was awarded the Games. <br />
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But the show went on and Rio was able to put together a good show. The Opening Ceremony wasn't the amazing spectacle of Beijing, Sochi or London, but it went off without a hitch and the subdued nature of it is understandable considering how much less money Rio allocated for it. There were a few isolated incidents with crime, but nowhere near the disaster that was expected. Zika was a near non-issue as it is winter in Rio and the mosquitos which can carry Zika were not present as they would be in the summer. And these Olympics were full of wonderful sports stories just as previous Games were, with Neymar, Brazil's golden boy, smashing a penalty goal past the German keeper to give Brazil revenge for the 7-1 dismantling in the World Cup semifinal, Michael Phelps doing what he does best once again, Britain's surge into the top of the medal table, Usain Bolt effortlessly wowing the crowds with more golds on the track. Kosovo won their first medal ever. A refugee team marched into the Maracana to a standing ovation. <br />
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Furthermore, Rio is not some backwater village. It's a sprawling city that receives tons of tourists every year despite its problems. It had (has) the infrastructure to handle a large event such as the Olympics. <br />
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Perhaps some of it can be attributed to prejudice. Brazil, like many of its neighbors, has stereotypes that portray it as a lawless, crime-ridden land where everyone's looking to make a quick buck off any unsuspecting gringo tourist. This was less evident in Sochi and much, much less evident in London. <br />
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This media hysteria will likely continue, but look for it to move from the Olympics to the World Cup. South Korea and Japan, the next two hosts, will likely get less negative press when they host the Games as they're known as advanced and well-developed countries, but it could come back in 2022 when Beijing hosts the Winter Games, as most of the events will have to be many miles outside Beijing proper, not to mention how 2022 seemed to be the Olympics nobody wanted-by the time the IOC had to choose a city, only Beijing and Almaty, Kazakhstan remained in the running as every other bid had been withdrawn. The World Cup, however, has even bigger problems with Qatar and (to considerably less controversy) Russia hosting next. <br />
<br />It's fine to call out the problems that come along with the Olympics. There are real problems that come with hosting the Olympic Games, and they should be brought to light. Hysteria, however, is just obnoxious, and as we saw with Rio, largely unfounded when crunch time hits. Cut it out and let the host countries put on their shows. </div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01960083899361215499noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7546970736880378558.post-78874791755382053822016-08-17T19:48:00.000-04:002016-08-18T00:01:03.223-04:00How Populism Goes Out of Style<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Populism is a political ideology that seeks to rally the people against a common enemy which, both on the left and right, is mistreating them.<br />
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Who is enabling the mistreatment of the people varies widely depending on who you ask. Wealthy citizens, established politicians, financial institutions, elites, immigrants, minorities, you name it, all can be smeared in a populist campaign.<br />
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For those who aren't buying what populism is selling, the phenomenon can be very alienating and frightening. The rise of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders in the United States and various ethnic nationalist parties in Europe who are gaining in polls across the continents are decried as a worrisome problem, a threat to liberty and democracy, and the first step towards violence and war, such as when Adolf Hitler rose to power in Germany.<br />
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Mark Twain said that "History doesn't repeat itself, but it sometimes rhymes." When fascism and communism rose to power in Europe, populism was a large part of each movement. Hitler, Mussolini, and Lenin all rose to power for similar reasons.<br />
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Post-war Germany was a dreary place. The economy was decimated by debt and reparations. The German Mark became so worthless that children would play with bundles of bills and their parents would burn the bills to keep warm. The flourishing national pride of Imperial Germany was replaced with frustration and depression. Similar problems plagued Italy between 1918 and 1922. Benito Mussolini, like Adolf Hitler, promised territorial expansion and a closer relation to the Catholic Church in his rise to power. And in Russia, Vladimir Lenin capitalized on a frustrated and disheveled population who did not want to fight in the First World War under the weak provisional government of Aleksandr Kerensky.<br />
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Few people in the United States saw real estate mogul Donald Trump rising so quickly to become the nominee of the Republican Party in this year's presidential election. But his brash and wildly politically incorrect rhetoric coupled with powerful nostalgia to "Make America Great Again!" made a frustrated Republican electorate flock to him. <br />
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Democrats were overjoyed to see their vivid idea of the obnoxious, intolerant Republican rise to dizzying highs in the polls, eyeing a sweeping victory in the general election. Nothing seemed able to stop Trump once the primary began, not the extensive experience heralded by candidates like Jeb Bush and John Kasich, not the religious right championed by Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz.<br />
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A similar, but smaller populist movement emerged in the Democratic Party as well when longtime Senator Bernie Sanders announced his candidacy for President. Sanders, a self-declared socialist on the American left's outpost, focused his campaign on income inequality, the corrupt practices in the American banking system and extravagant liberties taken by the richest Americans.<br />
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There are various reasons why Sanders was unable to capitalize on populist sentiment and Trump was able to, but the longtime Senator from Vermont certainly had an effect on the Democratic Party despite losing. <br />
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Neither Trump nor Sanders was expected to do as well as they did in the primary process, but these types of candidates don't just come out of nowhere. <br />
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It's impossible to pinpoint exactly where and when populist sentiment started to play a substantial part in the American electoral process, but when examining the rise of Donald Trump in Republican Party, one could turn the clocks back to 2008 when then-Senator Barack Obama and Senator John McCain were fighting it out in the presidential election to suggest a starting point.<br />
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2008 was a largely frustrating year for Republicans. President George W. Bush was leaving office in the midst of two wars, a sharp economic recession, and approval ratings in the 20s. Even many Republicans had turned against his leadership. Senator McCain, the Republican nominee, was facing an uphill battle to win the presidential election because he was similar in approach and policy to President Bush and was seen as more of the same.<br />
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Senator McCain, in an attempt to rally the more conservative and religious-right factions of the party, chose Alaska firebrand Sarah Palin as his Vice Presidential nominee, a move that was widely criticized after the election as Palin's inexperience and policy weaknesses showed rather quickly once the press started to scrutinize and vet her. Yet many in the party still insisted she could bring home the bacon for their factions. <br />
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A darker undercurrent of prejudice was also lurking in the shadows. Senator Obama, the first major Black American running for president, faced a lot of questioning from members of the Republican Party as to whether he was a Christian American as he had claimed, or a Kenyan Muslim.<br />
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This came to the forefront when, at one of Senator McCain's campaign rallies, a middle-aged woman spoke directly to the Senator detailing how much she did not trust Senator Obama. McCain gives her an understanding nod, until the woman claims "He [Obama] is an Arab".<br />
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At that point, Senator McCain quickly took the microphone away from the woman and explained that Obama was not an Arab, but a "decent family man and citizen who I happen to have fundamental disagreements with on policy". <br />
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Rather than go the way of their presidential candidate, however, many Republicans continued to fan the flames on this issue until it boiled over about three years later, finally pushing President Obama to release his long-form birth certificate, which, as he had previously insisted, showed he was born in Honolulu, Hawaii. Anti-establishment sentiment championed by the Tea Party and similar groups, however, continued to increase as more personal attacks against Obama came forward.<br />
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By 2016, the anti-establishment sentiment came to a boiling point. At one point, polls showed Donald Trump, neurosurgeon Ben Carson, and former HP CEO Carly Fiorina at the top of the polls. None of these candidates had any substantial political experience, and yet they led the polls. It's true Carson and Fiorina eventually faded into obscurity, but Trump was able to stay in the driver's seat and coast to the Republican nomination.<br />
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As for the Democrats, Bernie Sanders also struck a nerve with frustrated Americans. His message on income inequality resonated with many Americans in states with economic problems and a lack of job opportunities. Sanders was not nearly as brash or politically incorrect as Trump and he did not go after Mexicans and Muslims like Trump did, but like Mr. Trump, he was quick to put the problems facing the United States of America were due to an outside force, in Sanders' case, banks, millionaires, and billionaires who did not pay enough in tax.<br />
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Sanders, however, was up against a much different figure. His opponent, Hillary Clinton, was able to beat him in the Democratic primary for various reasons. Her vast experience in different branches of the government (First Lady, Senator, Secretary of State) was a sharp contrast to Sanders' lack of concrete accomplishment in a long Senate career. Her concrete and comprehensive foreign policy was a major blow to Sanders as Sanders seemed largely uninterested in foreign policy. Clinton also dominated with both Black Americans and Hispanic Americans, two key demographics the Democrats reach out to. <br />
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The biggest obstacle to Senator Sanders, however, was the general Democrat-voting public's feelings towards their establishment. Most Democrats and "liberals" in America were, and are, largely satisfied with the way things are. President Obama is substantially more popular as his second term winds down than Bush 43 was in 2008. Clinton's Vice Presidential pick, Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia, is wildly popular with Virginia Democrats and even some Republicans.<br />
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As the election draws closer it looks as if the establishment faction of the Democratic Party will crush the populist uprising in the GOP as Donald Trump continues to steer his campaign into trouble with clumsy, inflammatory remarks. Traditional swing states such as Ohio and Florida look to be safely in the hands of the Democrats and even some normally red states such as Arizona, Georgia, and Missouri may turn blue come November. Gaps are even narrowing in Texas, Mississippi, and Utah, states that 2012 Republican nominee Mitt Romney easily won. <br />
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That doesn't mean Sanders supporters and Trump supporters don't have legitimate grievances, however. There are millions of people across the United States who are frustrated and maddened by politicians in Washington who they think have turned a blind eye to their plight. Sanders and Donald Trump both dominated in rural areas of the United States where opportunities, jobs, and upward mobility are scarce and government entities are widely mistrusted as too distant and concentrated on other areas. This is evident in the rust-belt and rural areas of upstate New York which are relatively ignored compared to New York City. Southern Illinois is commonly overlooked in favor of Chicago. Western Massachusetts can often be an afterthought to Boston. <br />
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Neither Sanders nor Trump may be the answer to the problems they promised to fix. And their ideas may even make things even worse. Left-wing populists in South America have largely failed to address the problems that they were elected to fix. But that doesn't mean the problems don't exist among their voters. Simply put, if the ideas that take hold in populist campaigns are addressed more comprehensively by "mainstream"or "establishment" politicians, anti-establishment sentiment may be kept at smaller levels. Would people have voted for Trump to "Make America Great Again" if they already believed America was great from their own backyards? Would they have voted for Sanders if there was a comprehensive effort to address income inequality previously? <br />
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A similar phenomenon in Europe is taking hold. The European Union's severely flawed handling of the refugee crisis has led to the rise of ethnic nationalist and even neo-Nazi parties in response. Austria, for instance, nearly voted in a presidential candidate from their Freedom Party, which has open historical links to the Nazi Party. The final vote tally had the FPO candidate losing by less than 1 percentage point.<br />
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Again, though, these parties don't come out of nowhere. They likely would have stayed on the fringe if there was a comprehensive plan to take in limited numbers of refugees and assimilate them into the European social fabric.<br />
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It's time for mainstream political voices to acknowledge populist sentiment to an extent. Their candidates may play to foul or wildly exaggerated sentiments, but these movements have legitimate grievances, and if those grievances are addressed and righted, populism loses steam. <br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01960083899361215499noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7546970736880378558.post-45050082832804946652016-06-06T09:54:00.002-04:002016-06-06T09:54:48.067-04:00The Ballad of Donnie and Vova<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span class="s1">“I’ll be friends with Vladimir Putin. I just think so.”</span></div>
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<span class="s1">Such were the words of Republican Party nominee and real estate mogul Donald J. Trump when asked how he would engage the United States’ old rival Russia. </span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>This was a stark contrast to most of the other candidates who ran in the primary elections on both sides of the American political spectrum. Senators Bernie Sanders and Rand Paul appealed to caution but condemnation of the Kremlin’s action. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pledged to stay the course plotted by President Obama, and most other Republicans pledged to directly arm the Ukrainian Army in its still-not-quite-frozen conflict with pro-Kremlin separatists. Ohio Governor John Kasich even raised some eyebrows when he claimed that “we should punch the Russians in the nose”, a sharp contrast to his normally folksy “Aww shucks” Midwestern demeanor. </span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Russian state media immediately jumped at the news when Mr. Trump claimed he and Putin would get along, and the Kremlin commended him for the overture. While Moscow did not venture to comment on American domestic political issues, it was more than happy to welcome a change from the icy relations between the two countries over the past few years. </span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>The honeymoon between Trump and Putin soured briefly when Trump’s campaign released an ad implying that Putin, and by extension, Russia, was America’s menacing, tough enemy by showing President Putin performing throws in his judo gi and laughing after a brief clip of Hillary Clinton barking like a dog at a campaign. The Kremlin did not seem amused by the campaign advertisement’s implications. </span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>But the ad did not seem to have lasting negative effects as Trump still is looked upon favorably by Russians including those working at the state media TV channels, and Putin’s strong-man style of rule remains popular with nationalists in both the United States and Europe. </span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Press outlets seem largely amused by this unexpectedly chummy relationship between the mouthy real estate mogul and the Kremlin’s ex-KGB Commander in Chief. Social media users gleefully spread pictures around of a mural depicting Putin and Trump locking lips (not unlike that infamous picture of Leonid Brezhnev and Erich Honecker) near a restaurant in Vilnius, Lithuania. </span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">But is Putin who Trump supporters think he is? And in the event of Trump taking up residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue this coming January, will relations between Russia and the United States become friendly and possibly even cooperative? </span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Donald Trump’s political platform has been, save for a few exceptions, consistently inconsistent. </span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Mr. Trump was a Democrat at the beginning of President Obama’s first term, and he spoke glowingly of the new President as he rode into Washington on a wave of momentum from his election victory in November. </span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>For reasons still unclear, though, Trump’s approval towards President Obama did not last. Between 2011 and 2012, conspiracy theories that President Obama was not born in the United States and lied about his personal religious beliefs bubbled up and boiled over again. Trump, who was mostly silent about these theories in 2008 as Obama was on the campaign trail, became very outspoken and rode the wave of controversy by rallying those who believed the President was a Kenyan Muslim rather than a Christian American. Trump started to flirt with throwing his hat into the ring as the 2012 presidential election kicked off, but ultimately decided against it. </span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>The controversy mostly dissipated when Obama released his long-form birth certificate which said he was born, as he had said many times before, in Honolulu, Hawaii. Trump, however, continued to doubt as he demanded other documents such as his college transcripts from Columbia University. He has consistently criticized President Obama during his second term in office and finally decided to run for president, igniting a monumental movement and throwing the Republican Party into an identity crisis. </span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Part of the reason the United States has only two political parties is due to the fact that both the Republicans and Democrats are very much “big-tent” political parties, meaning that they both incorporate multiple different factions under one banner who may or may not decide to unite behind a candidate when election season rolls around. </span><br />
<br /></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>The Republican Party in the United States is home to many factions. If one wanted to, they could probably break the party down along different lines three, four, or even five different ways based on the various presidential candidates in 2016’s primary. Candidates like John Kasich, Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, and George Pataki campaigned on their ability to achieve success in states with strong Democratic bases and were considered, for better or for worse, “moderates”. Candidates like Ted Cruz, Rick Santorum, and Mike Huckabee played to the Christian Right which is more influential in Southern states. Rand Paul hoped to appeal to the more Libertarian Republicans with his cautious foreign policy and desire to relax penalties for the use of illegal drugs such as marijuana. </span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>And Trump? Trump proved himself to be the wild card in all this. Rather than appealing to the traditional “small government, Christian values, and lower taxes” platform of many Republicans, Trump opted to appeal to vague but powerful nostalgia for a bygone era with his slogan “Make America Great Again!”, took a hardline stance on the issue of illegal immigration by boldly proclaiming that he plans to build a wall across the US-Mexico border and that Mexico will be the ones to foot the bill (this did not go over well south of the border, as three different Mexican presidents scathingly fired back at him). He also promises to be tough on Islamic fundamentalist terrorism by instituting a “temporary” ban on Muslim immigration to the United States as well as fiery claims that he would take on China and other countries competing with the United States with protective “America First” economic policies. In doing this, Trump adopted a right-wing stance much more similar to European nationalist and populist parties rather than traditional American conservatism. </span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>So what does Vladimir Putin have to do with all of this? </span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Vladimir Putin is considered by many in Europe’s nationalist parties to be an ideal leader. He’s considered a strong, bold leader who demonstrates a deep love for the country he leads and its culture. He’s considered to be someone who will not tolerate outside forces diluting that culture or national identity through fear or intimidation. Marine Le Pen of France’s National Front, Viktor Orban of Hungary’s Fidesz, Nigel Farage of the UK Independence Party, Vojislav Seselj of Serbia’s Radical Party, and various other political figures have demonstrated an admiration for Putin’s method of conducting business. If Putin or someone like him was in power, the problems America or Europe </span><br />
<span class="s1">face, they claim would not be as severe or perhaps not even exist, they claim. </span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Below the surface, however, things are not such a clear consensus between Trump and his supporters, the European nationalist bloc, and the Kremlin. Russia’s immigration policies are not as strict as Trump claims he wants the United States’ to be. Many migrants from Central Asia and the Caucasus come to Russia for job opportunities as Russian remains a lingua franca between former members of the USSR. </span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Furthermore, Russia is not an ethnically homogenous country, nor has it ever been such. In the Russian language, there are two words that both translate to “Russian”, but their definitions are slightly different. There is <i>Russkiy, </i>which denotes people who are ethnically Russian, and there is <i>Rossiskiy</i> which denotes “a citizen of Russia”. These terms are not mutually exclusive, one can be both <i>Russkiy</i> and <i>Rossiskiy</i>, but there is an important distinction. The official name of the country most people call “Russia” is <i>“Rossiskoi Federatsiy” </i>or “Russian Federation”. The use of <i>“Rossiskoi”</i> rather than <i>“Russkoi”</i> implies that Russia is a home to all the peoples of Russia, be they ethnic Russians or not. </span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
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<span class="s1"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Many of the ethnic minorities living in Russia and the immigrants who come to Russia are Muslims. Within Russia there are millions of Muslim Tatars, Bashkortostanis, Chechens, Dagestanis, and Ingush peoples. Likewise, Kazakhs, Uzbeks, Tajiks, and Kyrgyz peoples come to Russia for economic opportunities, all of whom are predominantly Muslim. Around 6.5 percent of Russia’s 150 million people are Muslims, a much higher number than that of the United States and higher than many European countries. This denotes a small but very important difference between the ideas Trump and many of Europe’s nationalists propose and that which is actually practiced in Putin’s Russia. </span></div>
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<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Vladimir Putin is many things, but he’s no Islamophobe. Trump proposes extended surveillance at mosques and a temporary ban on Muslims who want to come to the United States? Vladimir Putin oversees and approves the construction of new mosques in Russia’s cities and has wished “Eid Moubarak!” to Russia’s Muslims after Ramadan came to a close. Is it true that many of these peoples are more secular than Muslims elsewhere? Perhaps, but that is much more a product of history (particularly seventy years of state-enforced secularism) than Putin’s policies. </span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Is Putin a strong leader? Is he the strong leader that he is portrayed as? Suppose it depends on what your definition of “strong” is. Considering the current situation in Russia, though, that may be a somewhat difficult argument to make. The economy has slumped into a considerable recession. The rouble doesn’t buy what it used to. The conflict in Ukraine, regardless of whether you support the Kremlin’s actions or not, has become a stalemate with few tangible benefits. Russia is much more isolated and distrusted internationally. The Kremlin has been mostly mute on how it’s going to tackle economic woes. Things may not be a catastrophe now, but there are wounds festering below the surface in Russia and if current trends aren’t reversed, those wounds could become infected and spread to corrode still-healthy aspects. Rhetoric and pride can mobilize a people to do things previously considered impossible, but it doesn’t fill one’s wallet with a stable wage every few weeks by itself. </span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>Coming back stateside we may be seeing a similar horizon. Donald Trump’s plans to “Make America Great Again” lack substance in many ways. He never really specified <i>how </i>he would be friends with Putin...he’s never really specified much at all. Economists are very vocally wary of his protectionist policies. </span></div>
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<span class="s1"><span class="Apple-tab-span"> </span>And yet his popularity still sits high and mighty. Whether he can turn that into a general election victory over Hillary Clinton is still yet to be written, but if he can’t, he may just prove the point that rhetoric can mobilize, but its ability to deliver tangible results is inconsistent at best. </span></div>
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