Bulletins and News Discussion from May 29th to June 4th, 2023 - Not Erdogone Yet

Erdogan has won the election with 52% of the vote, with a voter turnout of 85%, winning five more years as president.

Naked Capitalism's diagnosis of Kilicdaroglu's failure is that he had to somehow simultaneously keep pro-KPDP voters on board and also attract voters of nationalist candidates from the first round, and was unable to square that circle.

Erdogan's party has lost seats in the parliament as nationalist parties have outflanked him on refugee issues - and even Kilicdaroglu couldn't seem to move against that tide, as he called for the urgent expulsion of 10 million refugees. The Nationalist Movement Party is now at 10.4% in the parliament, a party with ties to the Grey Wolves. Far right parties got more than 30% of the parliamentary vote. The left was unable to capture enough voters who have suffered in the economic crisis, with inflation rates have sharply risen far above even Europe's, and these voters instead went down the "blame my problems on refugees" path.

As a silver lining to this shitstain, this does at least mean that any hopes by NATO that Turkey will move towards the West more are probably dashed. This isn't to say that Erdogan will scorn the West - far from it, in fact, he let Finland in to NATO and will probably let Sweden in - but the :both-sides: strategy will continue, for better and worse, and if you aren't with the West, then you are against them.

Here is the map of the Ukraine conflict, courtesy of Wikipedia.

Here is the archive of important pieces of analysis from throughout the war that we've collected.

This week's first update is here in the comments.

This week's second update is here in the comments.

This week's third update is here in the comments.

You're viewing a single thread.

615 comments

They're really trying to milk this chinese jet incident but nobody seems to give a fuck lmao
- who is there left to convince I guess? with a headline "Chinese jet was aggressive in interception of US plane over South China Sea", one side starts a circlejerk of "I cannot believe that the totalitarian communist fascist government of the see see pee has done this awful act of aggression to a force that embodies freedom and the international rules based order - consequences must be imposed on them to ensure that these acts are not rewarded, so we are announcing the 72 trillionth sanctions package against China,"
  and the other side goes "uhh, a CHINESE jet intercepted an AMERICAN plane over the South CHINA Sea? no fucking shit"
  everybody imagines that they're trying to shape the propaganda battlefield with online reconnaissance in force missions, but in reality you're just using your fingers to type onto some plastic/metal squares and rectangles on a box with silicon and electricity in it, completely alone in your room, while hallucinating that you're part of some greater squad or team fighting for/against the rules-based international order.
  
  I feel like it's more than just the convincing people part. It feels a lot like people are weary of it, that the China shit has gone on for so long now that there's a pushback occurring.
  
  they need to strike a middle ground. its like corporate branding. you want coca cola or pepsi or whatever on the background of people's lives, to shape the frontiers of their behavior. but there's a point where it becomes obnoxious. 'yes i get it, china is evil, please talk about iran a bit for the love of god'.
  
  Okay, I get what you mean.
  Just to throw an idea out there, I wonder if it's because the bourgeoisie don't really want a war with China as it would hurt their profits too much. In the Cold War it was a lot easier to justify this kind of ideological (but more importantly material) war against the Soviet Union because not only would a socialist/communist country be uh... not good for capitalists, it wasn't as if half the fucking industry of the planet (or whatever the figure is) and many of their supply chains were incredibly reliant on the USSR, unlike with China today. Even I, who comes down on the "China is socialist" side of the 'is China a capitalist or socialist country' struggle session can freely admit that the ideological chasm between the United States and the opposition is considerably narrower today than in the 20th century, and I imagine many capitalists see it that way too, and aren't willing to sacrifice their profits on the altar of the made-up rules based international thingamajig.
  One of the big scandals of the Ukraine conflict was all the businesses who said they were going to leave and then didn't, or even the businesses who never said they were going to leave, or the ones who left and then came back, and Russia is a much smaller market than China. In a war between the US and China, assuming it stays conventional, do we see the same thing happening? It would be fascinating if there was a plea by the US government for businesses to exit China and then they just... refused. Though honestly I feel like they kinda understand that and wouldn't put out the plea.
  
  With the soviet union you had the potential profits of opening it up to make as well. With China you do not, you already have that access. Although with the plans China has this is going to change over time.
  
  The military industrial complex will want war though. Interesting question is if the majority of the boug don't want that kind of war, whether they are more powerful than the MIC bougs.
  
  everybody imagines that they’re trying to shape the propaganda battlefield with online reconnaissance in force missions, but in reality you’re just using your fingers to type onto some plastic/metal squares and rectangles on a box with silicon and electricity in it, completely alone in your room, while hallucinating that you’re part of some greater squad or team fighting for/against the rules-based international order.
  Is SeventyTwoTrillion starting to have regrets about the amount of effort he's put into informing people of reality and the futility of it?
  :meow-knit:
  Just playing of course. I felt too much in the picture you painted and I didn't like it.
  
  Is SeventyTwoTrillion starting to have regrets about the amount of effort he’s put into informing people of reality and the futility of it?
  occasionally I do have a bout of existential angst about "why am I doing this" but I repeatedly come to the conclusion that a) this isn't any more or less futile than anything else I would fill my time with, it only becomes a negative part of my life if I was doing this instead of protesting or helping unionize or something but neither of those things are currently applicable to me in my situation and area; and b) as long as you acknowledge and come to terms that what you're doing isn't important to the actual world or going to change things, and don't try and ignore/subdue that realization (because lying to yourself like that just makes you miserable), then it's not an unhealthy activity for yourself. that exact misery is the trap that hundreds of millions of people have, in my mind, stepped into and is the genesis of a silent cacophony of social media posts that nobody reads and gets no attention, because people think that what they have to say is important but it all just goes into the void and that generates misery. my opinions aren't important but unfortunately it's not as if I can just not have them, y'know. I guess a partial solution is to become really knowledgeable and be able to come at any situation like the conflict in Sudan or what's going on in Kosovo and be like "Oh yeah, I read these three books on the history and politics of this nation and have these insights to offer you people" but that takes both time and effort and it's only been a year of me doing this so I'm cutting myself some slack. getting through a book of the imperial history of Britain right now.
  at the end of the day I do this because I am genuinely interested in the state of the world and how it got this way and how it will evolve from now, and if I wasn't then I would gone insane and given up a month into it because, as you say, the ultimate futility of it. the funny thing is, I used to be the kind of person who would go through phases of caring very deeply about how things are going, maybe for a month or so, and then my attention would wane and I'd go back to not paying any attention at all for a few months. but for the last year as I do this project, my eyes have basically been forced open to watch it all unfold.
  and just for a peek behind the curtain, aside from the whole 'the site has been down for over a month' thing going on, I feel like i've iterated onto the strategy that works best for making these that doesn't take too much time and yet is sufficiently comprehensive to at least have an informed opinion of what's going on in the world, if not a particularly in-depth one. therefore, once the site is operational again I might consider setting up some method of donation, but the thing I fear in this late capitalist paradigm is that doing so would subconsciously change how I approach it. my absolute phobia is becoming a grifter, or even being seen as a grifter. if hell exists and I go there, then the devil will torment me by making me read out raid shadow legends or audible etc ad scripts for all eternity. and, of course, the best way to kill a hobby is to get paid for it.
  
  my absolute phobia is becoming a grifter, or even being seen as a grifter.
  One thing you could do is recruit a couple of helpers, maybe a couple of people assigned to a region or large story that would help track and draft updates that you could review and post. Nothing against setting up some donations of course, you could probably do both.
- the balloon united the country in solidarity. everyone wanted to be the hero that would shoot it down. modernization encroaches on us all and a missile took the place of an entrepeneurial young'in.
  a jet in the 'south china sea'? boooring
- But he BUZZED me!

615 comments