despairing of global politics
I think the UK political system is a joke: two similar parties changing hands every few years with the help of a patently undemocratic voting system, and a lower chamber that beggars belief in the year 2015. But I can’t complain too much. This political system delivers a relatively stable economy, a low crime rate and a reasonable standard of living.
Having lived in Argentina, I know things can be a lot more frustrating. In a country where serious corruption and mismanagement is expected at every level, and where economic ruin is potentially round every corner, it’s easy to see why outgoing president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner is going to be missed by many. There were genuine efforts to help the many poorer members of society, with improvements in welfare and education. But, apart from scarcely avoiding economic ruin for the country, what else did she do?
- The family’s personal wealth has increased dramatically since her husband took power in 2003. Official figures after his death indicated 700%. That’s official figures, five years ago.
- She refused to have any kind of open questioning, either from the press or from other politicians in her eight years in power, but would broadcast scripted speeches from the government-funded channel.
- They gave football to the people, in the form of openly broadcast matches on the free, government-funded channel. But the advertisement slots were filled with government propaganda.
- The prosecutor who was investigating her for corruption this year was randomly killed by a gun in his apartment. It looked like suicide, then it looked like murder. Nothing to do with her.
- In what must be a power-drunk, petty strop, she actually refused to attend the hand over of power to her democratically elected successor, after a surprise election victory for an opposition candidate.
But Argentina isn’t the only South American country to be questioning the corrupt left-wing establishment, in favour of the undoubtedly equally corrupt right-wing establishment-in-waiting.
In Venezuela, President Nicolas Maduro is furious that he has lost his majority in the National Assembly. In an ensuing battle against him to release political prisoners (yes, political prisoners) he has announced to the public on his news channel: “I wanted to build 500,000 housing projects next year, but now I’m doubting it. Not because I can’t build them, but I asked for your support and you didn’t give it to me.” This is the man who believes the dead former President Chavez visited him in the form of a bird to bless his bid for the presidency, so I’m not really surprised he would ‘punish the people’ for not voting the way he wants.
In Brazil, President Dilma Rousseff is involved in a corruption scandal and is facing possible impeachment. Tens of thousands took to the streets in Sao Paolo yesterday in protest against her.
So, is anywhere in the world showing a beacon of light for global politics? Probably not. But a couple of examples that don’t leave me in total despair are:
- Aung San Suu Kyi‘s party recently won democratic elections in Myanmar/Burma, after years of brutal dictatorship which has been dislodged by long-term international political and economic pressure, and peaceful protest by Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest.
- Uruguay said farewell to President Jose Mujica this year, an inspiring man of principle, who gave 90% of his salary to charity, and oversaw the kind of economic and social stability that neighbouring countries so painfully lack.
If anyone else can give me some positive examples from current global politics, I’d be most grateful. (It’s difficult to be positive when we only have five hours of gloom a day. Don’t live in Scotland if you value daylight.)
There is not so much hope for Burma. She will have to share power with the military junta.
The Nigerian president, Buhari, is promising to deal high level corruption in his government a death blow.
The recently elected president of Tanzania is trying to deal with ineptitude and wastage in the public sector.
Botswana seems to be one of those places run quite well.
Those are the few I can think of at the moment.
Let’s watch for the Canadian PM
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“There is not so much hope for Burma. She will have to share power with the military junta.” But it’s a step forward, maybe it will be the start of many. It’ll be interesting to see how it pans out in the long term.
Do the Nigerian and Tanzanian presidents seem like decent people? It just so often seems like people say these things, but nothing changes – like the only people who can get into true positions of power have to be corrupt enough to climb up there through the usual channels. Is Botswana not ridiculously rich through mining or something? Ah yes, just googled it – diamonds. A quarter of the population has HIV, wow. And as a Commonwealth country they don’t have a president – I wonder how much the cult of personality and immense personal power of the office of a president corrupts any country. It’s that whole complex – the hubris syndrome. I remember reading a book about Tony Blair and George W Bush with that title. It happens to prime ministers as well, but usually (I say usually, obviously Tony Blair lost it) not to the same extent.
But yes, thank you, Bostwana, that looks good, while the diamonds are there are least!
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So far, the presidents of Tanzania and Nigeria are doing what they promised. It waits to be seen how long this will be the case.
Botswana have a president. Their biggest problem is HIV/AIDS though.
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“It’s difficult to be positive when we only have five hours of gloom a day. Don’t live in Scotland if you value daylight.”
Yes! I may be on the other side of the world, but the weather is very similar. I swear, it gets dark at about 2 pm these days, not that it ever actually got light. The weather is about as gloomy as global politics.
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Maybe you get a bit of snow though? I think if you get proper crisp, cold days and bright snow, it helps slightly. Here we just get gloom and rain. My gloom is worse than your gloom! 🙂
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I’m near the water, so it’s pretty much just pea soup fog, an icy wind, and dense cloud cover. It does snow, but not often. I know what you mean about the cold, crisp, snow and sudden daylight. When it’s cold you can often see the sky and the stars and at least you know the sun still exists.
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Wow, you’re frighteningly traceable for someone who blogs under a pseudonym and winds up all sorts of internet oddities. Next time I’m in your neck of the woods I’ll pop around to your church and see if I can spot you. You’re in Twilight territory I see. I’ve got family round that way and I’ve never heard them refer to it as any circuit of hell. 🙂
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Oh dear Violet. We seem to be agreeing again. Must check my blog radar, it’s not functioning correctly.
Aun has been one of my heros for years, ever since I wanted to visit Burma and figured the seven day thing would be pretty tight, so didn’t do it. I think she is amazing.
I read a glowing article in a Span mag about Kirchner years ago when it was he not she in charge, and I thought she sounded ok. But, given my location, after her rather bellicose statements against las Malvinas she lost my respect and I’ve not followed her antics since.
Our system mirrors the UK one. But, reasonable standard of living? In the UK? What does that mean? For who? A low crime rate? Yeah? Doesn’t that depend where you live? It may be ok where you live, but I’m sure there are others who say it is crap.
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Argentina suffers from Evita syndrome. Brilliantly intelligent woman that she was, and master manipulator, she managed to convince the populace that she was working for their interests. When congress approved the purchase of jewellery for her, that was so she could look good for her people. It was for them, really it was.
Have you noticed Mrs. Kirchner always spoke while standing next to an Evita drawing:
She didn’t have to dig deep, she simply applied all the religious techniques used by the Catholic church. Extremely effective in a highly Catholic culture. Peron was god, she was the Virgin Mary, anything bad that happened was the responsibility of people, anything good that happened was because of her and her husband.
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I think we usually agree in general terms, it’s just the detail where it all goes wrong. 🙂
Cristina is really a disturbing individual, so I find it interesting how she is portrayed from here. She’s clearly been affected by the power, there were so many lies and cover ups in her time. The obvious lie about inflation, publishing figures at 10% when it’s nearer 30% – absolutely scandalous and yet it went on for years. The murder of someone bringing charges of corruption against her. And a complete mess with the dollar – banning people from buying it, banning people from exporting and importing. Yet because of the relative stability, in such a messed up country, people are terrified of change.
My comments about the reasonable standard of living and the crime rate are in direct comparison to Argentina. Obviously it’s not the same in all parts of the UK – but, for the most part, life here is amazingly easy and safe compared to there. Where we were living you couldn’t go out after dark, even in the car you could be mugged opening the garage. Many of my students had been mugged at knife or gun point, even in during the day. And there’s no comparison in terms of what poverty means in each country. So yes, it puts things in perspective – here life is safer and easier for everything. No sunlight or hummingbirds though.
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Australia and NZ are working, although Oz did miss the opportunity to impose the mining super tax for those 8 years the BHP’s and MIM’s were reaping in obscene profits.
Afraid to say, though, Brazil is in much more of a mess than you stated. Not only is Dilma being impeached, but the leader of the House of Representatives is also about to be kicked out. The Petrobras scam has now hit $40 billion stolen, and we’re not even close to the end of that. Through all this, Lula, who started the rot, is thinking he should sweep back into the political realm and “save” everyone. If he runs, and is elected, i’m leaving.
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You don’t actually believe it started with Lula, do you? Collor? ACM? The outrageous manner Banco Economico was taken from my uncle? Goodness knows how or why they didn’t try to get their hands on Banco Opportunity or any other private family holdings. Most of the people I grew up with are now directly or tangentially involved in scandals- real or fabricated. Such are the dangers of South.American.Life. A very long time ago I knew I should cling very tightly to my French passport and settle in a world where I could just blend into the background. Vive l’Europe!
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No, not at all. Cardoso, however, had done an awful lot to right the ship. Lula completely squandered that while failing to enact reforms at the time when they could be enacted, during the commodities boom. Dilma is simply incompetent. Of course, the current leadership of the opposition is also useless.
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Dilma should be selling fish. Cardoso was behind a pseudo-clean-up. He supported ACM in Bahia despite the monumental corruption which included Odebrecht and the Dant…as family. I suppose the three dots doesn’t actually disguise the Dantas name, but there you go.
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I don’t know anything about that history. Is that your family?
It’s just such a crying shame about Brazil. As you know, this country is blessed, and if it had been the English, not the Portuguese (or Spanish) who’d settled it, it would be one of, if not the, global power.
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Not direct family. But as you’ve probably noticed, the way it goes in Bahia is whoever isn’t a cousin, is a cousin’s cousin. That’s because historically the marriage pool was very small. The affluent/white population was a small minority- everyone was connected. Everyone lived in the same areas, everyone vacationed in the same places. That was the same in every state.
ACM (Antonio Carlos Magalhaes) was the political monarch of the Northeast for much of his long life. If I’m not mistaken his unofficial slogan was “Rouba mas Faz”. To non Portuguese speakers that means he steals but he gets things done. The getting things done part involved webs upon webs, upon webs, of corruption.
I remember going from the US to Brazil as a child and being in absolute awe of the extraordinary wealth, and then in shock at the most extreme poverty I’d ever seen. The contrast was unbelievable. 25 years ago minimum wage was pocket change (for people in the developed world.) That meant everyone had a maid, everyone had a chauffeur, and a gardener and a cook- by everyone I mean the white people, of course. Society functioned on group-think and convention. Corruption wasn’t just acceptable, it was even respectable if the individual was wealthy enough. Right and wrong were entirely moveable feasts.
Government contracts were allocated over lunches on private islands and New Year’s parties at private clubs. That while the women told and retold urban legends of how they had new staff brought to the city from their fazenda “and the girl was so infested with lice they had to be sprayed with aerosol insecticide”, and everyone would burst into laughter. The whole thing was a mind£^ck. That was the elite who pushed the line that Brazil was the best country in the world. The mindset is so primitive, so tribal, so self-interested, I don’t think there’s any chance of it ever changing. That’s why I decided a long time ago that I’d never set foot there again- and I haven’t, and I won’t.
As for scandals here’s a good guide going all the way back to 1987: http://veja.abril.com.br/infograficos/rede-escandalos/
The only reason there seem to be less when you go further back is that then there was a whole lot that wasn’t considered a scandal, it was just a sort of matter of fact, that’s how life is.
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The country was founded upon the rape principle. Get what you can, as quick as you can. Such a waste, and you’re right, the rot is right there in the marrow.
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“if it had been the English, not the Portuguese (or Spanish) who’d settled it, it would be one of, if not the, global power”
It’s Catholicism that’s to blame (she says with not a shred of evidence). Ireland is a constant economic disaster (only half propped up because it’s in the EU at the moment) and it has all the infrastructure benefits of a former British territory. Somebody investigate it and do a post on it! Maybe it’s something to do with women being used as breeding chattel and men being lost in a perpetual sexual guilt trip.
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Ireland is too small to ever be a power. You need an internal market. Brazil has that, and the resources for a colossal export sector, and the natural beauty (geographic and cultural) to fuel a massive tourist industry.
You might, however, have something (some inevitable disease) in the Catholic roots.
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It’s not that it would be a power, it’s that it’s a constant disaster, much like your almost racist comment about former Spanish and Portuguese colonies.
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Again with the racism? Buy yourself a growing lamp, put it in a closet, and sit in there with it for 3hrs a day, OK?
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They’re working, but are they ‘good’? From recent reading on the guns post about suicide things are still spiraling out of control for the aboriginal Australians – and it was obviously horrible enough when I was there 15 years ago. Is the Australian government still throwing refugees on that horrible island? Despair!!
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They pay them now (the boat captains) to turn around.
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I thought Lula looked really good when I was in Argentina! It’s like how Cristina seems to look good at a casual glance from abroad.
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Populist idiot with appalling delusions of grandeur.
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The global warming agreement is heartening. The UN’s goals for the world over the next 30 years and what has been accomplished over the last 30 are wonderful. That’s all I’ve got.
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See, I’m suspicious that something looks ‘wonderful’. I’ve stopped following the global warming stories, it feels too much like a new religion, or acid rain or the draining of the oil reserves. Dire warnings of death to the planet based on originally wonky graphs and creating a self-fulfilling academic industry. At least it’s making people careful about the planet though.
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Oops. Crash and burn in the first para … the System don’t deliver nothin’, Miss Wisp.
Everywhere it’s the people under the yoke of whatever ‘system’ they endure that somehow manage to deliver despite (so important, I shall repeat) despite their system.
It’s (as you point out) everywhere the ‘cult of personality’. No?
Personality and promise.
With personality you can make credible promises, and if called upon to deliver you squeeze the taxpayers that wee bit harder, tighter, grippier.
Incremental change—as a politician you just cannot fault it. As a pollie the only gamble you ever take is will the inevitable backlash take place during your tenure, or not? Revolting thought …
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I’m not quite that cynical. I think it’s difficult to bring people together under a generally agreed rule of law. I don’t feel under a yoke, I feel like I like in a mutually co-operative society, with inevitable frustrations.
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I thought of you as I posted my latest, Ma’am—
https://independentsguide.wordpress.com/2015/12/18/4gw/
—and I hope you do visit that reference and watch the vid. (It’s about eleven minutes long but worth the effort.)
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Have just seen JZ’s comment about racism. As an expert in the field I can see how tempting epithets can be. But—
some epithets are slogans
—and the best definition I’ve ever seen for the word ‘slogan’ is that a slogan is simply ‘pre-digested thinking’. Handy, can save an awesome amount of effort.
For myself: if ever I come across a ‘racist’ there will be a reason for it; and in the context I generate the opprobrium will be the measure of why I do so. (Eek, one helluva ponderous sentence there! Didja like them big words? Boom boom … I hate myself sometimes …)
So if a green man rapes my daughter, do I hate all green men? No. Do I love greenies, because to do otherwise would be racism? No … so I’m then a racist? Ouch?
I have values.
I love people reflecting (or better, displaying) the values I hold dear. Dearest. Whatever … and I tend to dislike people demonstrating no value for my values. But wait, it gets better: especially I dislike(almost to the point of hatred) people physically enacting their opposition to my values.
Every judgement I make is a value judgement. I refuse to be told to love someone I do not know, and will fight against someone trying to force me to ‘love’ someone on face value.
So as I cannot ‘love’ someone I don’t know, I do only what I wish every other bugger would do—which is extend my goodwill.
I allow strangers, enough goodwill (in this context it means space, room etc) to show to me that they are worth loving.
There are some folks I’ve ‘known’ for years that I wouldn’t trust with a rancid rat, others that almost immediately I like, and quite soon love.
To summarise:
all judgements should be Value Judgements
based of course on valid values. The very first thing we should do is run screaming from anyone who tells us not to judge. Not good, not good at all.
You survive, and hopefully prosper, on your judgement.
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