Cursed Political Content

  • Thread starter TexRex
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SestoScudo
Which world leader ever does holiday specials of singing 🤣
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That's maybe a positive, but it also comes with an authoritarian dictator that doesn't follow his states constitution, offer free and fair elections, have an independent judiciary that can hold the government to account, doesn't offer freedom of expression, freedom of the press or freedom of religion... but does sometimes beat people to death when suspected of a crime and does monitor the keystrokes, webcams and VOIP devices of people trying to access what's left of the internet after the government blocked most of it.

... tough call, it's certainly a close run thing.
 
Turkmenistan, in this century, has already had one "leader" rename the months of the year after himself and his own self-written propaganda book. The same guy, Saparmurat Niyazov, who, in 2005, closed all hospitals and libraries outside the capital, claiming "If people are sick they can come to Ashgabat". And he made Turkmen doctors give up the Hippocratic oath in favour of an oath to him personally. Amongst many, many other bat 🤬 crazy things.

"lol he's funny" is not a good way to get politicians in the public eye. That's how the UK has ended up with Boris Johnson.
 
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How it started:

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How it's going:

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A thread:

 
Liquid
Turkmenistan, in this century, has already had one "leader" rename the months of the year after himself and his own self-written propaganda book. The same guy, Saparmurat Niyazov, who, in 2005, closed all hospitals and libraries outside the capital, claiming "If people are sick they can come to Ashgabat". And he made Turkmen doctors give up the Hippocratic oath in favour of an oath to him personally. Amongst many, many other bat 🤬 crazy things.

"lol he's funny" is not a good way to get politicians in the public eye. That's how the UK has ended up with Boris Johnson.
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Wasn't he also the one who banned dogs because he didn't like them? Or am I thinking of another FSU country?
 


"The thought police would get him just the same. He had committed--would have committed, even if he had never set pen to paper--the essential crime that contained all others in itself. Thoughtcrime, they called it. Thoughtcrime was not a thing that could be concealed forever. You might dodge successfully for a while, even for years, but sooner or later they were bound to get you."
 
TexRex
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It's hard to get a transplant with HIV. I'm seeing an example where John's Hopkins did an HIV+ to HIV+ transplant, but it's not exactly commonplace (the only way that organ donor could donate is to an HIV+ patient).

The overt intentional manipulation on display in this is stunning to say the least. She knows the truth, and went out of her way to suggest the opposite. She knows hospitals will treat covid+ patients who are unvaccinated (in fact, that's a lot of hospital treatment right now), but she went way out of her way to suggest that they won't.
 
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Comments muted. I guess that tweet is more proof that when you're accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression. Or maybe they're trying to get themselves banned.


Username checks out...

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Blitz24


From someone extremely qualified to talk about the Holocaust.
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Is China really using the olympics to distract from the persecution of the Uyghurs? That seems like a rather dubious claim. If anything, China hosting the olympics is putting a spotlight on its behavior. It seems like an easier argument (though still convoluted), to suggest that Japan hosting the olympics distracts from the Chinese treatment of the Uyghurs.

Look, I get it. When a nation hosts the olympics that nation gets to show off a little, and nobody likes China showing off right now. And dunking on China during the Olympics is fun and, one might argue, absolutely completely merited and good to do. But, in 2028 when LA hosts the Olympics, will the US be using it to distract from whatever nonsense is going on in 2028? Or will the US simply be hosting the Olympics like it said it would?

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Mr. Chen Weihua has a rather bizarre, defensive response that completely misses the point that is being made (probably on purpose).
 
Danoff
Is China really using the olympics to distract from the persecution of the Uyghurs? That seems like a rather dubious claim. If anything, China hosting the olympics is putting a spotlight on its behavior. It seems like an easier argument (though still convoluted), to suggest that Japan hosting the olympics distracts from the Chinese treatment of the Uyghurs.

Look, I get it. When a nation hosts the olympics that nation gets to show off a little, and nobody likes China showing off right now. And dunking on China during the Olympics is fun and, one might argue, absolutely completely merited and good to do. But, in 2028 when LA hosts the Olympics, will the US be using it to distract from whatever nonsense is going on in 2028? Or will the US simply be hosting the Olympics like it said it would?

giphy.gif


Mr. Chen Weihua has a rather bizarre, defensive response that completely misses the point that is being made (probably on purpose).
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China deliberately had a Uyghur athlete be one of the two that lit the Olympic torch. The choice was a stunt to try and say, "Look, we treat the Uyghurs so great. We are totally not doing bad things to them." It was pure propaganda.
 
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Brett
China deliberately had a Uyghur athlete be one of the two that lit the Olympic torch. The choice was a stunt to try and say, "Look, we treat the Uyghurs so great. We are totally not doing bad things to them." It was pure propaganda.
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From the few posts I've seen regarding the Olympics right now, the whole thing kind of comes across as a sham. Chinese athletes caught cheating, or other athletes getting questionably disqualified.
 
Brett
China deliberately had a Uyghur athlete be one of the two that lit the Olympic torch. The choice was a stunt to try and say, "Look, we treat the Uyghurs so great. We are totally not doing bad things to them." It was pure propaganda.
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Yea, that sounds about right. On the otherhand... would it have been better to pick someone else? Pick a Uyghur, don't pick a Uyghur, the end result is people will be upset either way.

I don't see that this distracts anyone. True believers in mainland China will think exactly what they did before. Others would have been critical regardless of who the torchbearers were. Honestly if China is including Uyghurs in the Olympics, I think we all prefer that to exclusion right?
 
MatskiMonk
That's maybe a positive, but it also comes with an authoritarian dictator that doesn't follow his states constitution, offer free and fair elections, have an independent judiciary that can hold the government to account, doesn't offer freedom of expression, freedom of the press or freedom of religion... but does sometimes beat people to death when suspected of a crime and does monitor the keystrokes, webcams and VOIP devices of people trying to access what's left of the internet after the government blocked most of it.

... tough call, it's certainly a close run thing.
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Thing is with the Turkmen dictator that his music sucks and his singing. Most likely saying such thing would most likely end up in prison or disappear.
Liquid
Turkmenistan, in this century, has already had one "leader" rename the months of the year after himself and his own self-written propaganda book. The same guy, Saparmurat Niyazov, who, in 2005, closed all hospitals and libraries outside the capital, claiming "If people are sick they can come to Ashgabat". And he made Turkmen doctors give up the Hippocratic oath in favour of an oath to him personally. Amongst many, many other bat 🤬 crazy things.

"lol he's funny" is not a good way to get politicians in the public eye. That's how the UK has ended up with Boris Johnson.
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Unfortunately thats the case. I would love to visit Turkmenistan one day I doubt I will really sad to see such a country in this state.

Turkmen dictator has also banned Turkmens from going to Turkey. In the past Turkmenistan used to allow Turkmens to go to Turkey for studying or even for business but many Turkmens used it to also get away from the country until they found a lot of Turkmens have been leaving and not coming back.
 
Not sure if this requires a spoiler but the galaxy brain on this mayor...
 
Liquid
@Danoff What is your opinion on sportwashing in general?
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First time I've heard the term.

It doesn't seem like sports are really all that special here. Basically, it's a complaint that a nation that is doing bad things looks good in some way. That can be true in scientific achievement, engineering achievement (so like, space missions, or fancy bridges or sculptures), financial achievement. Fireworks, handouts, achievement medals, photo ops, summits, nation building, even some kinds of philanthropy - all of it can be used to cover up some nefarious deeds or divert attention from some historical problem. This is true for companies as well as nations, or even individuals (Michael Jackson).

Would we rather it didn't happen? Do we prefer that nations that do bad things don't do anything good? It's not really in our hands anyway.

Ok, so shoe on the other foot time. Is the US trying to cover up for its police brutality scandals by announcing a black woman for the supreme court? Would we prefer that Biden nominated a white guy so that it doesn't look like he's covering for the George Floyd debacle? I know that the US situation has better intentions and a less severe problem than China. In my US example, it's a better deed, and a less terrible crime than the Chinese example.

During the cold war, the US and Russia competed in the Olympics. This wasn't a situation where we just didn't like something Russia was doing, we had enough nuclear weapons pointed to each other to noticeably alter Earth's orbit (or so I've been told) - end not just each other, but everyone else too. It's one of the great things about the Olympics, and global interactions in general - it brings all of these issues to the surface, and brings nations that would like to isolate from each other face to face to see that we're all human, and make us interact in a civil way. It's a peacemaking effort. I don't view Olympic participation as a distraction, but as an opportunity to de-escalate - to have a shared dialog.

It's perfect that the US took the opportunity to say something about the Uyghurs during the Olympics. But given what has been done to them, and that China is hosting, I think Uyghur (and Hong Kong for that matter) participation in the Olympics is overall better than not. It's not purely helpful, there are downsides to the extent that people can be mislead, but I think I'd prefer that to simply making sure they disappear.
 
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Blitz24
Guys, we may be in trouble from the culinary police:

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When she said "D.C. Gulag", she meant to say "D.C. Goulash".


Edit:

When republicans like the law it's "Police"/"Jail"
When republicans don't like the law it's "Gazpacho"/"Goulash"
 
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