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It feels like there's fairly dramatic swings to the left across most of the developed world - the centre-left parties are having real struggles because they're seen as having the same answers as the right-wing parties.

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Sounds like it was a really dramatic swing in seats at that Canadian election. I wonder what is going to change over there.

 

Electoral reform was a big promise.  Right now, it's a typical first-past-the-post system.  Both the Liberals and New Democrats promised electoral reform; the Liberals promised to conduct a study and go with a recommendation, and the New Democrats promised proportional representation.  That should really change how a lot of ridings are decided, and should hopefully mitigate strategic voting.

 

Under Stephen Harper, a lot of policy was driven by ideology, not facts.  Expect a return to a more rational approach, things like the re-implementation of the long-form census (the elimination of the long-form census was one of the most baffling and embarrassing things that Harper did), which every public service uses to plan its service delivery models.  

 

We may also see a less aggressive foreign policy and less overt racism from elected government (though to be fair, the Liberals did bring in Bill "Carding works" Blair as a star candidate, so they're not exactly pure).  Also, I would be surprised if our environmental stances didn't improve significantly.  Harper was a disaster for the environment.

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"Hitler didn't want to exterminate the Jews at the time, he wanted to expel the Jews and Haj Amin Husseini went up to him and said if you expel them, they'll all come here (Palestine)...'So what shall I do with them?' he (Hitler) asked, 'burn them' (Husseini responded)," Netanyahu told the audience."

Words cannot contain how angry this shit makes me. This is the same as holocaust denial. This fucking idiot who is supposed to be a world leader is spreading lies to foment racism and harden the Israeli right against the Palestinians. People are not the problem, leaders like this are the problem. Is it any wonder why Israel is losing international support? They have a rich state with a powerful military and insist on insulting, brutalizing, terrorizing and killing an abandoned group of people who just want to have a country of their own. 

 

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/10/netanyahu-ridiculed-mufti-holocaust-comments-151021134424739.html

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"Hitler didn't want to exterminate the Jews at the time, he wanted to expel the Jews and Haj Amin Husseini went up to him and said if you expel them, they'll all come here (Palestine)...'So what shall I do with them?' he (Hitler) asked, 'burn them' (Husseini responded)," Netanyahu told the audience."

Words cannot contain how angry this shit makes me. This is the same as holocaust denial. This fucking idiot who is supposed to be a world leader is spreading lies to foment racism and harden the Israeli right against the Palestinians. People are not the problem, leaders like this are the problem. Is it any wonder why Israel is losing international support? They have a rich state with a powerful military and insist on insulting, brutalizing, terrorizing and killing an abandoned group of people who just want to have a country of their own.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/10/netanyahu-ridiculed-mufti-holocaust-comments-151021134424739.html

Could not agree with you more. On Netanyahu's watch they've consistently made the worst decisions possible, basically because they knew they could get away with it. I really wish lawmakers in the US would be harsher critics of Israel's latest policies, but they won't because they have become the sacred cow of American politics.

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It feels like there's fairly dramatic swings to the left across most of the developed world - the centre-left parties are having real struggles because they're seen as having the same answers as the right-wing parties.

 

This doesn't really apply in the Canadian situation though. The Liberals are, historically and currently, about as centrist as you get. The NDP's platform was a fair bit more radical than the Liberal's on many points, notably a $15 minimum wage and a promise to abolish the Senate. The main issue was that they were also promising to balance the budget, which made their promises seem far-fetched. And they refused to cow-tow to racists, which hurt their support in Quebec, which was the base that was giving them such a strong position in the first place.

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Oh, I thought the NDP were to the right of the Liberals. Thanks for setting me straight!

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Yeah, the NDP have traditionally been the party of social democracy. Since they made big electoral gains in 2011, they've been drifting toward the centre, dropping "socialism" from their mandate and their rhetoric, because really the only way to govern in Canada is from the centre. But it didn't work out for them this time. They lost pretty much everything they had gained four years ago.

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Not sure if this should go to exceptional articles thread or here... but here it is.

 

http://www.thenation.com/article/what-i-discovered-from-interviewing-isis-prisoners/

 

 They are children of the occupation, many with missing fathers at crucial periods (through jail, death from execution, or fighting in the insurgency), filled with rage against America and their own government. They are not fueled by the idea of an Islamic caliphate without borders; rather, ISIS is the first group since the crushed Al Qaeda to offer these humiliated and enraged young men a way to defend their dignity, family, and tribe. This is not radicalization to the ISIS way of life, but the promise of a way out of their insecure and undignified lives; the promise of living in pride as Iraqi Sunni Arabs, which is not just a religious identity but cultural, tribal, and land-based, too.

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The recent conservative talking point that America should take care of its 50,000 homeless veterans before it takes on 50,000 Syrian refugees is really, really surreal, considering that the Republican majority in Congress has spent almost a decade blocking any reform of the VA system that would have helped those veterans. I know that it's going out of fashion to call people sociopaths, and rightly so, but I really lack another word to describe the self-interested hypocrisy of the politicians and pundits who are willing to accuse others of something that's their own fault in order to score points with ignorant racists, nativists, and xenophobes.

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It's textbook whataboutery; those Syrian refugees will still have been failed by the United States. It is horrific seeing what passes for discourse in America right now - someone is genuinely putting forward the Japanese internment camps as a model.

 

(A model that Australia currently operates....)

 

anyway, you would not guess Australia operated a goddamn concentration camp by the way we've been acting about Syrian refugees. We're already talking about a second wave of intakes and the first lot have only started to arrived (and when the Murdoch paper's treating resettling refugees as a success story then you know there's something going on). I mean there are still racists with microphones, but we have a right-wing government and they've basically reached out to the Australian Muslim community even when the grand mufti makes comments about how the West did destabilise Iraq and Syria and gave Daesh an opportunity. I can't imagine how hard this'd be if we still had Abbott in charge.

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Venezuela is having an election on Sunday and I am pretty worried that it will descend into violence. The regime is very unpopular due to its horrible mismanagement of the economy causing widespread shortages of most products. There have been campaigns of gerrymandering districts and shutting down opposition press to try and keep the government in power, but at this point it seems likely that the horrible state of the nation will create an opposition victory. As much of a leftist as I am, I cannot tolerate the authoritarian behavior of the Chavez and post Chavez governments.

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NZ's new minister for Climate Change is a person with no scientific experience and whose last previous position included the highlights of exposing the personal details of government critics, bashing beneficiaries (and exposing their details), selling off our state housing (in a nation where 64% own a home and a housing bubble is set to burst), bullying local government, and being a Key figure in any spin related media wrangling. 

I think we're set to become global leaders in Climate Change.

 

Also back is our previous minister for Corrections and Police who previously left their post via resignation after an investigative journalist released a landmark book on Dirty Politics in NZ. They were also involved in bullying, harassment, and doxing their opponents and media spin.

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New Zealand once again well behind Australia. Having government ministers be dangerously incompetent is so 2014

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Oh yeah I think our countries are just wonderful Merus. I know Australia has some fantastic ways of solving social problems and promoting economic growth. I also strongly believe that the NZ govt could be just as wonderful if not for a lack of opportunity although we did mess up with letting the deviants marry and everything.

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We can help New Zealand with that so long as someone can convince Cory Bernadi to get in a postbag

 

though for real I'm pretty sure we just had our right-wing reactionary freakout a couple of years early, just early enough that when Daesh came down the pipes we were collectively waking up to ourselves. The US is currently dealing with Trump, who's crossed over from amusingly deranged to actual fascist, and Europe's electing Actual Nazis to parliament. Tony Abbott, whose malice was only eclipsed by his incompetence, doesn't seem so bad in comparison.

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This is a little bit different than things typically posted in this thread, but I've noticed an ongoing and increasing trend of religious groups in the US seeking exemptions from discrimination laws based on their religious beliefs.  I think the problems with this are obvious, but I'm curious as to whether this is a particularly american phenomenon or if this is something happening in other areas of the world as well.  I know in the states this movement seems to be almost entirely driven by christian organizations, probably spurred by the ever present war on Christmas everyone seems to be convinced is being waged.

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I don't know of any other country that separation of church and state in the same manner as the US. AFAIK in Europe it generally doesn't matter if you're a religious organisation. Of course, it's also possible that discrimination laws aren't even upheld or don't exist.

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Pulling this out of the past to say:

 

"Man, reading about the UK maybe leaving the EU makes me really wish that the US had more direct votes over important things. I find it amazing that such important decisions as Scotland leaving the UK and the UK leaving the EU are left to the voting public to decide."

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Pulling this out of the past to say:

 

"Man, reading about the UK maybe leaving the EU makes me really wish that the US had more direct votes over important things. I find it amazing that such important decisions as Scotland leaving the UK and the UK leaving the EU are left to the voting public to decide."

The US has a lot of systems to keep the people from making decisions. The electoral college and Senators being appointed until 193 being two great examples.

 

That being said, I am not sure what kind of agreement the US is involved in is the equivalent of the Scottish or EU referendums. 

 

In other news:

This is exactly what is wrong with the current state of international governance and I am disgusted by US support for and arm sales to Saudi Arabia.

 

"UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon says he faced "unacceptable" pressure to remove the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen from a blacklist over child casualties.

Mr Ban said a number of countries had threatened to cut off vital funding for many UN programmes.

He said the decision to remove them from the UN list of violators of children's rights was "one of the most painful" he'd had to make.

Saudi Arabia denies the threats."

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-36494598

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The UN finally acknowledged that Irelands ban on abortion is unlawful and violates human rights. I do believe the UN is only calling for abortion to be legal in terms of foetal abnormality, but surely this will legitimise the amend the 8th movement and further legitimise abortion as a personal choice and a right.

 

some articles (1) (2) on the topic

 

I'd like to point out that this article is extremely skewed and fundamentally provides the view of a right-centrist outsider looking into a primarily leftist country and it's workings. Considering that the fundamental problem of this migration crisis (from the POV of Sweden) is issues that have arisen from the action of right-centrist governments, I feel like it's an exceptionally poorly POV to choose for an article on the topic of the migration crisis.

 

As a participant of the EU Sweden often gets the butt of a lot of deals. In purely monetary terms, Sweden loses a lot of money and autonomy from being joined to the EU. This, in combination with the rising right wing rhetoric and a pressing migration crisis has led to the upswing of a exceedingly xenophobic and fascist movement. The resulting tiptoing around racism is following the rise of this movement. Before Swedes felt confident in expressing opinions that could be low key racist, as Sweden lived in an idea that "racism was over". However, given the current popularity of an outspokenly racist movement, the sensitivity to having an opinion has increased. Again, I reitirate, this is a problem caused by european influence, not a preexisting internal conflict. To put it shortly, the portrayal of the opinion corridor is awful, and frankly, interpreted from the most racist corner of the swedish political market. It's not a term that sits well with the average Swede.

 

I feel like the article is presenting Sweden as pointlessly idealistic. In reality, Sweden is facing pressure from every direction, causing an internal conflict regarding xenophobia and isolationism. And on top of that, Europe has bowed out of the migration crisis, leaving Sweden to deal with it alone. In that situation, there is nothing to do but try to do you best and hope to solve it along the way, which is exactly what Sweden is doing. It's not stupiditity or desperation, but literally being left no other choice.

 

I'd also like to point out that Sweden isn't to any capacity full. Sweden just can't take refugees in the way they're being presented at the southern border, a direct result of other europeans countries actions of locking refugees out. Integration is a problem, yes. However, integration is a solvable problem. Bottled up refugees in turkey and greece isn't. Bottling up refugees results in refugees dying. Sweden closing up the borders is not something that "can't be shunned". It can be shunned. It should be shunned. Sweden, and all other countries locking up their borders, are committing moral failures.

 

While the article openly criticises the Sweden Democrats (althought not as much as they deserve. They are an openly racist neo-nazi party, not "quasi-fascist") it ultimately fails to criticise the surrounding context.

Good article on the migration crisis? Maybe. Fair portrayal of Sweden and Europe? Hardly. You simply can't get by discussing this issue by just adding the right wing movements as a side note, they are a fundamental part of the cause and effect of the current issues.

 

My personal point of view is that this is hardly a european crisis. There are people dying by the thousand, the crisis is theirs. No european government would have to be phased by this if the idiots could just cooperate. Squabbling is not a crisis.

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So UK is exiting EU now it seems.

 

Interesting times ahead.

 

WIll UK remain in EEA or exit that also? Countries like Norway belong in EEA, but not EU.

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