India Coffee House

[Joe Shearer]

@Joe Shearer @Nilgiri
Take all the time you need for your responses, I'm in no hurry. And Joe, please forgive me for my sometimes vague or senseless phrasing, it's not often that I try to put these thoughts into words. Any feedback is welcome & appreciated!

Damn!

Spotted again.

 

[Nilgiri]

All is not what it seems there either....

TIFWIW:

Behind the scenes and layers....PRC has drawn several red lines for RUS

Friend of mine (and he is pretty high up in the know about this) says certain chips China makes...are held extremely close to their chest...especially given pressures and obstacles increasingly placed there by the West.

Specifics include stockpiles of such that must now be rationed almost (prioritised very well for this decade or so)...given known depreciation of certain production machines that China is caught in a bind about lately given premature door closing (and they know there is a marathon in a maze ahead still).

This is a significant problem PRC does not want to make even worse w.r.t where the horizon actually is versus thought to be (buddy used some idiom more complicated than this...but this will have to do).

There is a finish line (and a target finish time involved)...but now there will need to be much more autarkic + insulated commitment to it than before...and with as low risk taken as possible with deemed strategic clients/partners.

Russia approached them on this stuff a number of times, but were rejected each time by PRC.

PRC also has a complex w.r.t the expanse past the great wall. They do not forget so easily where all the barbarians and raiders came from in general.....people without the anchor of civilised hearth as my friend said.

China sent massed human waves (which it paid for quite dearly) into korea on Russia's (Uncle Joe USSR) request and trust....it included both transaction and emotional aspects.

But after him (in much of the chinese mindframe), just few short years that is all mostly forgotten by the Russians and Ussuri happens....not far from vladivostok that was taken away from the Qing.

People try to package too much of China (what they say in an instance....or allow to be heard)....but getting full picture is more complex.

I will continue more of this at later juncture....in the coffee thread and "taiwan next" thread.....but I keep the russian context here for people to consider a bit from another angle.

More for @Paro @Blackbeardsgoldfish et al to consider, muse for time being. I will get to maybe unpacking more of this later. This thread serves as good bookmark process.

 

[OverTheHorizon]

This is the most difficult part of a democracy for people from a different kind of constitutional system to understand. I am sick of explaining that a particular government, with its promises and its threats, and its public posturings and private affiliations, does not represent a shift in thinking and outlook of the whole of the electorate, but only a part of it.

Well india is a parliamentary democracy. This means whoever controls the majority in parliament can pass legislations without much effort. This number game in the parliament is what matters - not the percentage voting. There are some constitutional safeguards (supreme court has a lot of power) to prevent the majority party from doing stupid things. But the parliament’s mandate has to be respected. The parliament’s law making ability is supreme. Not even the courts can challenge that unless it is against the constitution. Plus the Indian constitution itself is written quite badly with a lot of loopholes due to mindless copy-paste from western democratic values which have no real meaning in India.

 

[Blackbeardsgoldfish]

More for @Paro @Blackbeardsgoldfish et al to consider, muse for time being. I will get to maybe unpacking more of this later. This thread serves as good bookmark process.

Let's be honest here, the PRC will never forsake the more or less beneficial economic relations with the west for just a military alliance with Russia, especially now with their performance in war(a war they could decide where and when to start no less) laid bare.
Would be funny if China did a "Italy 1915" and coordinated with the west against Russia should the situation degenerate even further, well one can dream...

 

[Joe Shearer]

Well india is a parliamentary democracy. This means whoever controls the majority in parliament can pass legislations without much effort. This number game in the parliament is what matters - not the percentage voting. There are some constitutional safeguards (supreme court has a lot of power) to prevent the majority party from doing stupid things. But the parliament’s mandate has to be respected. The parliament’s law making ability is supreme. Not even the courts can challenge that unless it is against the constitution. Plus the Indian constitution itself is written quite badly with a lot of loopholes due to mindless copy-paste from western democratic values which have no real meaning in India.

Not quite.

The basic structure is quite consistently protected by the courts. Parliament does not have unlimited power; it has the ability to make laws, but that is not an unlimited ability.

I was disappointed to read your comments about the loopholes. It did take a lot of effort by a lot of people to form what we have (the original constitution, not including its amendments). What were the major defects you have noticed? This question is prompted by curiosity and is not a challenge.

 

[Joe Shearer]

Let's be honest here, the PRC will never forsake the more or less beneficial economic relations with the west for just a military alliance with Russia, especially now with their performance in war(a war they could decide where and when to start no less) laid bare.
Would be funny if China did a "Italy 1915" and coordinated with the west against Russia should the situation degenerate even further, well one can dream...

This sudden impulse of Putin's (it may be presented as a coldly-calculated, clinically detached move, but the view of the Russian military that these past days have revealed doesn't inspire confidence) has been a shock to many people, and to many countries. I don't think either China or India knew what to do in the circumstances; there is no easy way out for either.

 

[Blackbeardsgoldfish]

This sudden impulse of Putin's (it may be presented as a coldly-calculated, clinically detached move, but the view of the Russian military that these past days have revealed doesn't inspire confidence) has been a shock to many people, and to many countries. I don't think either China or India knew what to do in the circumstances; there is no easy way out for either.

Wanna wager a guess on how much longer Putin will stay in power?

 

[Nilgiri]

My position was that the act of voting is an admission of one's own inability to choose by, paradoxically, choosing someone that should make the choices.

Well we all delegate things each day on matters past our immediate control horizon.

A well educated population (esp. politically educated and aware) can analyse the people they vote to power....and exert upon this process and selection.

A population not doing so (as perceived or realised in some way) is likewise not sufficiently well educated/aware (and this is most populations of the world, especially when the reach certain total sizes and contexts).

But I don't see the precise flaw or paradox in the actual delegation, since that is fact of life and reality (we are not born with infinite capability and omniscience, we are born totally helpless and we acquire very specific finite capability in our growth and maturing...including ways we acquire more information and intuition).

To me its just part and parcel of the larger paradox of reality, in that we are individuals (and all we perceive is from out individual standpoint, i.e we cannot enter others consciousness)....and there is simply a collective of vast size (of other individuals) beyond us that we are born into and live life among....that we must accomodate for yet we can never understand in enough detail like we can with ourselves.

I spoke from a position where I had the recent history of Austria and Germany in mind. How Hitler came to power and the weakness of Weimar Germany, the overthrow of the First Republic and installment of Austrofascism in Austria, and how many Nazis participated in the governments of the postwar states, specifically Austria, which had it's recent bouts of corruption at the highest level. To me, entrusting a leader with the power of millions of votes is only an acceptable practice when the leader is subject to draconian punishment, should he purposefully abuse his power.
In the end, it doesn't matter what anyone believes, does it? The sun's going to rise in the morning regardless, eventually it'll even explode and wipe the planet from existence, so why bother making that big a fuss about it all...

This is why democracy should never be an absolute. It will eventually be majoritarian tyranny.

You need sufficient enlightened basic structure of the Republic that puts certain core rights of citizenry as sacrosanct.....not up for any vote or democratic process.

The better you are able to form this and keep it maintained and well executed (the checks and balances and branches of govts dealing with this basic law like the Courts)... the much less chance of tyranny usurping the setup and spreading like cancer.

The case of Weimar Germany's transition to Hitler's reich is a deep study all of its own. There are precise moments where the checks and balances caved in grievously....under a prolonged onslaught preceding it.

One SPD (yes the same SPD you see today)..... party bigwig (I think the whip or someone similar) for example was "coerced" after he offered resistance (to passing the enabling act)....and he caved in shamelessly...iirc getting just enough SPD people to stay absent from the voting.

That period is a dark study on many many more such moments that people do not really get into.... there was no popular vote pre-1933 that the Nazis won for example....they did not win the majority of seats either even in 1933 (not enough to pass the enabling act on their own....given it was such a clear affront to all other parties that should have rejected it prima facie if you read what it was).

There were several serious faults in the republic system that they exploited. A better republic has to be built to withstand these stress tests (at early stage) far more....because what it can cascade into once breached and ransacked was then plain to see.

 

[Nilgiri]

Earlier reply along similar theme....

I'd argue Hitler was not really populist in the conventional sense. He (and his party) was firmly rejected for a good decade or so by the German public (and trust me they tried their darndest to be popular with them both conventionally and unconventionally)....their core message was the same back then as it was later.

What changed is they were able to infiltrate, coerce and use violent mobs on political opponents (too often the focus is only on the brownshirt vs reds....but it was far far more than that, those were just the most brutal open-air fights visibly...ironically over the same kind of extremist thinking base of ppl at large if you look at how factions somewhat seamlessly switched).

One of many examples was the final German parliamentarian (of SPD I think - party that still exists today and come to power under Shroeder etc...but I forgot the guys name) that was doggedly against Hitler/NSDAP but he was coerced in some mysterious way to relent and vote for mandate hindenburg was trying to establish in name of stability (this is a long subject to get into)...given the 2nd round of economic calamity from the depression (largely originated in the US and fuelled by debt-recall in foreign countries like Germany)

It was all mostly reactionary driven and it changed to pseudo-populism to some level only afterwards (1932 afterwards I mean), when the actual levers of economic policy, institutions and mass media could be totally subverted and then utilised to be made to drive a more traditional populist front (mostly to help disguise the earlier root agenda/goals). But really it was not populist in its genesis and larger approach at all....neither social populism or economic populism. Elements it took on of that, well there is no easy way to reference the genuine popularity among the people as the means to measure that were all controlled/subverted at that point by an extreme authoritarianism.

This is also what allows for German public at large to not be suddenly radicalised to such extreme level in just a few short years....and then magically flipped off/reset again in 1945.

Genuine root populists (given a democracy need exist in first place for this term) you would have to do an analysis of 19th Century US and UK....whigs vs 19th century dems in the US (as to what was even populist back then compared to now) and also different kind of whigs found in the UK vs tories vs liberals.

In 20th century non-democratic authoritarians/totalitarians, I would actually say Mao was the largest innovator overall of populism (he saw and harnessed what the peasants numbers and desires were) and Lenin to some degree too....as the institutions + reverse inertia (against populism) were respectively not well-established and low in societal energy....so populism actually had a huge ripe sweetspot condition to flourish in first place (often called a revolution), unlike the case with Hitler/NSDAP as they had to work their way into existing power corridors in a very anti-populist (few ppl involved) method.

Sorry to go off topic a bunch....it was to also help air out some matters as they rest in my head on this topic.

 

[Joe Shearer]

Wanna wager a guess on how much longer Putin will stay in power?

Between three to six months. He has eroded his own support base.

 

[Blackbeardsgoldfish]

Between three to six months. He has eroded his own support base.

And put the country in a weaker position than ever before.

 

[Blackbeardsgoldfish]

Well we all delegate things each day on matters past our immediate control horizon.

A well educated population (esp. politically educated and aware) can analyse the people they vote to power....and exert upon this process and selection.

A population not doing so (as perceived or realised in some way) is likewise not sufficiently well educated/aware (and this is most populations of the world, especially when the reach certain total sizes and contexts).

None of us know all the consequences of our actions, that's undisputable. What I meant by voting for someone to make the bigger choices, the ones that affect more people, was that I did not think it a viable way of delegating power to this authority. Because you as a voter gain a distorted picture, you get to know them virtually just through means where they control the flow of information.
The posters and adverts that they use come election season tells you only select details either about themselves or their policies, oftentimes overshadowed by the repeated usage of mindless/inflammatory/vague slogans. They're insinuating a few things alongside that, how you as the voter are responsible for the future of your country(true to a degree, but not by the magnitude that an elected government is responsible), how much better they or worse other parties and candidates are, why their leadership is required in these times, among other fearmongering that's more along the lines of race/religion/political beliefs.
It doesn't serve to inform you objectively, it's an advert, a byword for deception.

An educated and mindful populace going to the polls would not accept these practices, potentially wouldn't allow for those opinions to find any fertile ground at all. It's not in either the interest of the voters to waste their time and effort on figuring out if a party relying on these methods is viable, or in the interest of a political system to tolerate them. That's where you're correct, a hypothetical voter and voting population that can analyze their political choices and should be able to choose objectively.
But this ties in with what I previously said about the enormous amount of effort and cost it takes to achieve a high educational level permeating all layers of society...

This is why democracy should never be an absolute. It will eventually be majoritarian tyranny.

You need sufficient enlightened basic structure of the Republic that puts certain core rights of citizenry as sacrosanct.....not up for any vote or democratic process.

The better you are able to form this and keep it maintained and well executed (the checks and balances and branches of govts dealing with this basic law like the Courts)... the much less chance of tyranny usurping the setup and spreading like cancer.

The case of Weimar Germany's transition to Hitler's reich is a deep study all of its own. There are precise moments where the checks and balances caved in grievously....under a prolonged onslaught preceding it.

One SPD (yes the same SPD you see today)..... party bigwig (I think the whip or someone similar) for example was "coerced" after he offered resistance (to passing the enabling act)....and he caved in shamelessly...iirc getting just enough SPD people to stay absent from the voting.

That period is a dark study on many many more such moments that people do not really get into.... there was no popular vote pre-1933 that the Nazis won for example....they did not win the majority of seats either even in 1933 (not enough to pass the enabling act on their own....given it was such a clear affront to all other parties that should have rejected it prima facie if you read what it was).

There were several serious faults in the republic system that they exploited. A better republic has to be built to withstand these stress tests (at early stage) far more....because what it can cascade into once breached and ransacked was then plain to see.

Your absolute democracy/majoritarian tyranny point I fully agree with.

I'm writing up a few thoughts of mine on the judicial system and what is considered morally and ethically right, so I'll get to your stances on core rights and basic law encompassing all a bit later!

Regarding Hitler and the Nazis' rise to power, this topic is, as you said, a vastly bigger topic than can be handled with a few sentences written here.

One thing that you reminded me with the SPD though was a book by former german Chancellor Helmut Schmidt that I read a while back, where he and some of his friends had written up accounts of their childhood and youth under the NS regime. The Book, literal translation is "Childhood and Youth under Hitler"

While most of the people weren't too politically conscious while growing up, one did get a feeling about how the common people viewed the situation, both before and under Hitler.

Many men, especially those that had served in the Imperial Army during WW1, were a decade later still bitter about the peace imposed by the allies and resented Germany's defeat. They weren't fond of the points made by the nazis, and likened Hitler and his entourage to jokers and clowns, but they did support a rearmament and renewing german military might. This of course only grew during the hardships of the economic crisis, and we can see the colloquialism "desperate times call for desperate measures" come to life.

The Weimar republic itself had it's political spheres controlled by the Reichswehr, Hindenburg was the President and his sidekick Ludendorff supported Hitler in his early years... this probably lingered in the minds of Germany, especially since those two were THE highest military commanders during the war and enjoyed widespread support during it.

Another thing that just came to mind was a letter written by Einstein to Ehrenfest in 1919, which I see as a small piece of contemporary views not unimportant to our discussion here.

 

[Paro]

@Jackdaws @Nilgiri watch Kashmir files

 

[Jackdaws]

@Jackdaws @Nilgiri watch Kashmir files

On my list.

 

[Zapper]

back in the days

 

[Nilgiri]

Your absolute democracy/majoritarian tyranny point I fully agree with.

I must apologise again for my slow crawl through the earlier posts..... I will proceed chronologically (by post order) as far as possible....I think thats best way to do it.....I'll ration about one reply (for your long ones I have in backlog to get to) every cpl days or so for that heh....and hope it doesnt look too messy in the end.

 

[Nilgiri]

big drive to undermine the existing establishment at all costs

This is kind of what I meant @Vaggos @Anastasius et al

Even skinhead neo-nazis were apparently used by KGB.... so that stuff still lingers...the subconscious idolizing of any power that can provide help undermine existing edifice somewhere:

 

[TR_123456]

Between three to six months. He has eroded his own support base.

Another decade.

 

[Nilgiri]

Another decade.

Yeah I see him sticking around a real long time too..... things work really different in Russia compared to rest of world.

 

[Nilgiri]

Consider what she said....very similar to what I said....

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1503444144206888962

Marina recorded this video before interrupting Channel One's live broadcast. I translated it for you (thread):

“What is currently happening in Ukraine is a crime. Russia is a country-aggressor.” /1

"All responsibility for this aggression lies on the conscience of one person: Vladimir Putin. My father is Ukrainian, my mother is Russian. They were never enemies." /2

"This necklace around my neck signifies that Russia should immediately stop this fratricidal war and our brotherly nations can make peace with each other." /3

"Unfortunately, for the last several years I worked at Channel One, promoting Kremlin propaganda and for that I am very ashamed right now." /4

"I am ashamed that I allowed lies to be told from TV screens, that I allowed Russian people to be zombified. We stayed quiet when all of this was just getting started in 2014." /5

"We didn't come out to protest when the Kremlin poisoned Navalny. We continued to quietly watch this inhumane regime." /6

"Now the whole world turned away from us. Ten generations of our descendants won't be able to wash away the shame of this fratricidal war." /7

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1503457457393352706

There is always cause for concern w.r.t neighbouring countries (esp those close in cultural ways to you over long period of time).

This is found in every corner of the Earth to some degree.

But that Kenyan rep. at the UN really said it best.....there is no cause to resolve with force and violence. No cause at all.

You can think up all (fairly close) hypothetical equivalents for this regarding say India and Bangladesh. Do they both not do things that concern the other...downstream from a joint quite visceral solidarity and triumph?....past the deeper bonds that resided much longer to begin with.

1971 was just 30 years after 1941....a mere drop in time separation....that surely must linger in the latter's soil and memory commensurate to its protracted scale and intensity....that should surely be deferred to when it comes to more blood spilling?

Past all political fights and skirmish that arise..... Life and death are the most consequential absolutes we know after all surely?

Memories reside everywhere in the afflicted land spanning many generations.... hoping it was not sacrificed in vain....sacrifice to prevent just the sort of thing coming to afflict and haunt again...

The deep brother blood pact forged (against adversary however they came to be so introduced, especially to innocents) in such times is now sadly facing this most unnecessary monstrous tempest of hewing (past the earlier fraying and contained blood letting already).

All because of a megalomaniac who has insulated himself to the degree required, yet exerts on more precise forces to larger degree needed there too.

He deserved neither, and now comes the price of him having them anyway.