TIL: Today I Learned

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Dachs said:
Didn't they actually steal this one from Turkey, the only country in the world where all the conspiracy theories are true?
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This is what I've heard, though when I mentioned it to my Turkish friend he was totally nonplussed by the suggestion. He'd never heard of such a thing (though maybe that's the point ;))
 
Owen Glyndwr said:
This is what I've heard, though when I mentioned it to my Turkish friend he was totally nonplussed by the suggestion. He'd never heard of such a thing (though maybe that's the point ;))
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I remember the expression from a few articles I read on Turkish politics...not sure when, but probably over a decade ago. As far as I remember or understood it, it referred to shady events that the government absolutely can not be involved in, but that would have been impossible without government involvement. A recent example are oil and oil products from IS controlled territory that somehow found their way into Turkey despite the fact that Turkey surely wouldn't allow trade with the IS. It was just a generic term for government conspiracies.
Now it seems the American wrong-wing has redefined it as a generic term for government employees who put the laws and interests of the country before allegiance to the current administration, and that's a Bad Thing.
 
My understanding of the "Deep State" as it exists in Turkey is the military imperative to intercede directly in governmental procedure should the government begin operating in a form contrary to the spirit of the constitution. (E.g. the attempted coup in 2016). However it's less a Real Thing which exists and more a political buzzword which the government deploys to justify consolidation of power (e.g. the "attempted coup" in 2016).
 
Owen Glyndwr said:
My understanding of the "Deep State" as it exists in Turkey is the military imperative to intercede directly in governmental procedure should the government begin operating in a form contrary to the spirit of the constitution. (E.g. the attempted coup in 2016). However it's less a Real Thing which exists and more a political buzzword which the government deploys to justify consolidation of power (e.g. the "attempted coup" in 2016).
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Wasn't it more or less true up until the past 20 years or so? The military did change the direction of the government a couple of times.
 
Sometimes they changed the governments outright.
 
TIL; There is a village in wales with over 20 spellings of it's name.
BBC said:
On the face of it, the peaceful village of Trellech is just like many others in rural Wales. So why does it have upwards of 20 historical spellings - with four still in use today?
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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-44683054
 
Zkribbler said:
Ack! Double negative!
Do you mean: "Turkey is something the eu would deal with?"
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Gotta go for the Dan Dierdorf Memorial Triple Negative.

"I don't believe Turkey isn't something that the EU wouldn't deal with."
 
The ghosts of Blockbuster...
1612-randy-blockbuster.jpg
 
Cutlass said:
Wasn't it more or less true up until the past 20 years or so? The military did change the direction of the government a couple of times.
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Yes, the military in Turkey has played an active role in suppressing religious extremists and would-be dictators. Of course they inevitably install their own dictators and act in horribly non-democratic fashion. Somehow, the arrangement has more or less worked for Turkey up until Erdogan rolled out his own slow-motion coup (a lot of social and political parallels with current Republican strategy, btw) and consolidated power in the last decade.

Not to say the country has become a wreck overnight or anything but Erdogan is clearly a despot, if not the worst on the planet by a wide margin.
 
hobbsyoyo said:
Yes, the military in Turkey has played an active role in suppressing religious extremists and would-be dictators. Of course they inevitably install their own dictators and act in horribly non-democratic fashion. Somehow, the arrangement has more or less worked for Turkey up until Erdogan rolled out his own slow-motion coup (a lot of social and political parallels with current Republican strategy, btw) and consolidated power in the last decade.

Not to say the country has become a wreck overnight or anything but Erdogan is clearly a despot, if not the worst on the planet by a wide margin.
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Yes, he is roughly as bad as Trump; if you don't take into account his killing of kurds and daily threats to invade other countries, including Greece.
In other words: that is quite the (unwittingly, i am sure) whitewashing of Turkey.
It doesn't have such parallels to what you would identify as a democracy. It is basically locked in a perpetual power struggle between insane kemalist and equally insane religious elements, both of which have no issue with acting in pretty much the same dictatorial manner. Erdo is just less subtle about his plans + the existence of the internet also helped make this stance -which is the one Turkey has since its creation in 1923- more known. Tens of coups, pogroms against protected minorities (eg the greeks of Constantinople) and invasions of other lands (Cuprus, Syria and one wonders who is next) are the way things go in that country which is in no way culturally tied or similar to the west.
 
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Kyriakos said:
Yes, he is roughly as bad as Trump; if you don't take into account his killing of kurds and daily threats to invade other countries, including Greece.
In other words: that is quite the (unwittingly, i am sure) whitewashing of Turkey.
It doesn't have such parallels to what you would identify as a democracy. It is basically locked in a perpetual power struggle between insane kemalist and equally insane religious elements, both of which have no issue with acting in pretty much the same dictatorial manner. Erdo is just less subtle about his plans + the existence of the internet also helped make this stance -which is the one Turkey has since its creation in 1923- more known.
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Replace Kurds with African Americans and Greece with North Korea and we're talking about the same guy.
 
hobbsyoyo said:
Replace Kurds with African Americans and Greece with North Korea and we're talking about the same guy.
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Just no. Besides, let's not forget that Trump is in the US, ie a country which has controls against this kind of thing. Erdo is where this kind of thing is what is getting majority appeal for decades.
 
You mean controls like proportional representation and a supreme court? Yeah those haven't been illegally corrupted through voter suppression and stolen nominations (aka court packing). /s

This is a depressing game
 
hobbsyoyo said:
You mean controls like proportional representation and a supreme court? Yeah those haven't been illegally stolen through voter suppression and stolen nominations (aka court packing). /s
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I mean actual voter reaction, en masse. And an actual alternative. A democratic culture, if you will.
Anyway, i think this isn't going anywhere :) Lack of checks and balances would be bad already, but added to actual indifference of the population voting for said checks and balances is a way to get to nastyness and stay there. The Us likely will return to something more stable in a while; Turkey will remain like this, that much (sadly) is obvious to anyone who actually has a view of how it had been prior to Erdo too.
 
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