General Politics thread

Lt. Broccoli Isn’t that just a reflection of most of the parties being national parties and the parties having national platforms, though? Harper and Trudeau lead the largest parties, so of course the election’s about them.

From what I’ve been told the recent Dutch election was a total mess (I missed a lot of the national stuff, despite being pretty good at following European and local-level contests last year). Here the parties are so atomized that there’s a fair amount of strategic voting in anticipation of trying to force the right mix of parties to form a coalition they’d like (and the process of forming the coalition, to me, tends to add distance between the voters and the final government).

There’s also the fact that there’s no real sense the country can move forward—part of that’s because things are relatively great for most people (particularly in comparison to France or the UK), part of that’s because the coalitions tend to water positions down to a centrist mush, and part of that’s because the EU limits flexibility. The only party that has any real passion behind it is the animal rights party in part because animal rights are one of the few areas where it feels like there’s real space for progressive movement.

So the BQ basically functions the same way Tea Party Republicans function in the U.S. Congress, you're basically voting for somebody to be a roadblock for their term?  I get that that probably isn't their stated goal (whereas the Tea Party is pretty upfront about being obstructionist), but it sounds like that is the end result.

Oh yeah, I get to vote in our provincial by-election today, so I'm off to go do my democratic duty by voting for the party I find least reprehensible!

Not that it actually matters since the same party has been in power here for the last 44 years, and the leadership of the party that could have given them a run during the next general election all defected and joined the Tories earlier this year. Hurray!

That's pretty remarkable, yeah.  Who thought the NDP would be competitive in Alberta, let alone win in a landslide?

One nice thing about this Alberta election was that it turned me on to the site threehundredeight.com, which is a blatant Canadian knock-off of 538, but very informative nonetheless. I mean, the guy is no Nate Silver, but he is able to break down the polling information pretty well.

It also explains why there was so much uncertainty and disbelief before the election that the NDP would actually win, since in the 2012 election, all of the Polls showed the upstart Wildrose party beating the Conservatives, and they all wildly missed, so none of the major news outlets were really taking these crazy polling results seriously. I guess in the days of 538, though, people are really watching the pollsters much more closely, so they had to step up their practices.

Why the fuck are they even targeting the Liberal Party in this day and age?

You mean the party that swept Alberta and is currently #1 in the polls?

This is becoming a thing. Down here, the media insisted that Romney had a chance of beating Obama, despite the polls saying otherwise; then expressed their shock that the polls were right all along. It was weird. Although, with polling worldwide suddenly becoming wildly unreliable, it's anybody's guess.

For sure.  For example, Noam Chomsky's view of the conflict is one I broadly agree with, though I was bemused when he met with Hassan Nasrallah.  I don't think for a moment they share the same attitudes, and I think Chomsky must perfectly well know that, but for some reason he thought it made sense.  The attitudes of antiwar protestors in the West during the Vietnam War come to mind in that regard too.  As though it made sense to defend the Communist Party of Vietnam or Maoism or so on, just because one opposed US policy.  Robert Fisk said that his mantra as a war reporter is "They're all bastards".  So yeah, I agree that happens and is wrong, and the reasons you mention sound plausible.

On the other hand, I wonder if there's danger of a double standard in crediting relevant Israeli policy as broadly non-extremist (which I think you're sort of implicitly doing), while describing Hamas' position as wholly extremist.  It depends on your opinion of the conflict, of course, but I think Israeli policy is generally extremist, and morally and legally indefensible vis-a-vis Palestine.  It's hard not to describe the policies of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain, et. al., as extremist.  It's just that, unlike Hamas, those have the benefit of being sovereign states, closely allied to the US (Israel is closely allied to the others itself), and so there isn't the same demand from influential, mainstream sources for Western (or Israeli) politicians not to be in bed with them.  Tony Blair is personally on the bankroll of the Kazakh dictator.  It seems like there's often far greater moral clarity which respect to Hamas and Iran (which are undoubtedly awful) than to regimes we think are on our side.  And it's not as though there aren't people like the former head of Mossad calling for talks with Hamas as well, not presumably because he's an uncompromising leftist. 

We may not have a very different view; I just meant to indicate I wasn't assuming we did for the purpose of my comments before.  It's a big subject!  In the post-Oslo era, my impression is that Israel has never (perhaps with a couple of rare exceptions) negotiated with any intent of ending the occupation.  Settlement construction continues unabated and that seems as clear an indication as there could be that their main policy concern is expansion, and not the security of the Israeli population.  They attempted to destroy the PLO in Lebanon and afterward to co-opt it, and helped build up Hamas in the process, and it's unsurprising that given the total desperation of the Palestinians that they'd turn to the most extreme anti-Israel party.  It's not that Israel doesn't face threats, but they're exacerbated rather than minimized by expansion, and Israeli policy-makers know that.  So the OT are an apartheid state, and by Netanyahu's own words they're content with that continuing indefinitely.  And no doubt the Palestinians have pressed unreasonable demands of their own, but they would gain something from any deal, whereas the the Israelis appear to feel they can only lose.  And since the US hasn't pressed them hereto, and probably won't anytime in the near future, there's no movement. 

What do you think?

Lord Lucan  To clarify, I wasn't using the the word extremist to refer to Hamas, thereby absolving Israeli policy - I meant it specifically for the individuals who use the conflict as an excuse to fuel their own anti-semitism (going back to that article I linked to), and who use it to prey on and indoctrinate vulnerable people with actual grievances.
As has been said, certain Israeli journalists seem to be among the first to criticise the Netanyahu government - Haaretz is a good example - they do their part in pushing for a two state solution, and rightly so. Obviously, both sides need to be able to compromise, there are those who don't think a deal can be reached until the Palestinians push out Hamas, but who knows? Interestingly enough, Bernie Sanders thinks he can secure peace by using the United State's clout in the region to force all opposing sides to "sit down and support a reasonable settlement". I do hope he wins.

I did get defensive before, it was just initially 'the situation in the middle east' struck me as little vague and I overreacted - honestly I wouldn't be nearly informed enough to offer a solution! Thank you so much for the gracious response, it was an interesting and informative read. In fact, if it isn't too much trouble you could probably recommend some wider reading material for me.

That's the most depressing thing: it just adds to the vicious circle and it drowns out the voices of the Israeli and Palestine people who aren't extremists. Just sad business all around. 

I went to a high school that had more conservative Jewish students, and if you dared criticize Israel (as it sometimes happened in different civics classes), it would turn into a 'are you an anti-Semite?!' shitshow. You should have seen what it was like when one student (who was Jewish) said that seeing the issue in self-righteous absolutes wasn't helping the matter; someone in the class said she wasn't being 'a good Jew.' I mean, what the fuck?
Conversely, the college I went to for undergrad had a more pro-Palestine attitude, but if you mentioned Hamas has done some supremely fucked up things, it would frequently devolve into a 'you're just being an apologist for Israel' clusterfuck. 

It was an exhausting topic, one I avoided like poison sumac.

Can we just take a moment to acknowledge that Tony Abbott, Prime Minister of and Most Hated Man in Australia, has been ousted?

Dateline Canada

What was expected to be a modest victory for the Liberals turned out to be a landslide far beyond anything anticipated, winning every riding in the maritime provinces, as well unseating dozens of Conservative candidates who didn't even expect a serious challenge.

Harper is out. Justin Trudeau is Prime Minister. All we have to do now is wait for the Queen to pretend it was her idea all along.

I must say, it's nice to have an underestimated Liberal blowout after underestimated conservative blowouts in the US, UK, and Israel.