This quote is from his lengthy one-on-one interview (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cfNKKUDcV4) with the Turkish journalist Fatih Altayli on June 2nd. The purpose of this program was to explain Erdogan's ways to people and promote/show his side, it produced just the reverse reaction due to his callous comments.
The one-sidedness of the Turkish TV stations is appalling: Altayli characterizes the protests as "mostly vandalism" and gives the PM a platform to explain his side, without providing that to the other side. While CNN International was transmitting live from Taksim, CNN Turkey had a documentary about penguins! Currently there's a petition (http://www.change.org/petitions/cnn-international-must-pull-...) on change.org to ask CNN to revoke its naming agreement with CNN Turkey, it has reached 40k signatures.
Does this sort of sad-yet-comical media censorship work in a country like Turkey? I'm baffled that anyone in a decision making position at CNN Turk would think this is somehow a good idea.
If you don't have access to Internet, unfortunately, it does.
I called my mom who lives in Eskisehir Saturday morning TST, and asked her about the protests. Her reaction was, "What protests?" If you get your news from TV, and if none of them broadcast the protests, then how would you know?
Sadly, when there is internet connection, the problem doesn't simply go away. In Russia, internet media are heavily censored too - so internet user has to make effort to obtain the information not biased in favour of Putin's government: there are only several "unbiased" regular online media(not counting social media like big social networks like facebook or twitter). It is much simpler to just turn on TV especially if you don't care much about politics.
The described reaction is extremely familiar to me. There were major protests in Russia during winter 2011/2012. The first protest event happened the next day after federal parliament elections(quite important event). So, after another 2 days I call my mother(she lives about 3000 km away from Moscow) and ask her if she heared about protests, and get the same reaction "What protests?".
Five days after the initial event, there was another: ~50 000 - 100 000 people gathered in the center of Moscow. Did the federal governmental media mention it? This time did, but very briefly, and understating the number of participants by order of magnitude.
If some guy is bad it doesn't automatically makes Putin good. If democracy in other countries is not a real democracy, it doesn't make Putin a democratic president instead of bloody dictator.
Right, well, how can we debate the voice of reason? He's right! The world is black and white. I hereby invoke Godwin's law to declare that anyone who orders police brutality against largely peaceful protesters is Hitler reincarnated.
In the case of Erdogan you may not be that far off. Turkey is interesting country - the army there was the guardian of the secularism inherited from Kemal Ataturk.
That is almost dismantled by now with the involuntarily help of the EU. Erdogan came after free elections and after that Turkey is moving in some very dangerous waters. Add instability in Syria into the mix and the semi civil war with the Kurdish minority.
"There is now a menace called the printing press. The best examples of lies can be found there. To me, movable type is the worst menace to society." -- some fucking Pope or other.
To be fair an Ottoman Sultan banned Ottoman script from being printed, effectively banning the printing press across the Ottoman empire and pretty ending the Ottoman golden age, starting it's descent.
The irony of Tayyip Erdogan's Neo-Ottomanist dreams is not lost on me with this statement.
Anyone who feels like menacing Turkish society by helping provide unfiltered Internet access could do a lot worse than set up a Lahana[1] node. Discussion here[2].
His actual quote about news spreading through social media is near the middle of the article.
"There is now a menace which is called Twitter," Erdogan said. "The best examples of lies can be found there. To me, social media is the worst menace to society."
This is very easy to say. Politicians are just reflections of who we all are.
And imho they have the hardest jobs on the planet today.
There isn't a course on Khan Academy, that they can take, which tells them what to do when uncontrolled chain reactions are set off by Social networks. The results will always be messy.
And to then say if they just did the "right thing" all will be well, isn't being very realistic. When the "right thing" for different sections of society is so different.
Politicians don't work hard and they never will, don't get fooled by the Media. Just because one travels a lot doesn't mean he/she doesn't have enough sleep or that he/she works very hard. It's the opposite!!11
They use your tax money to buy stuff for them and their family. They hire their relatives for "ghost-jobs" and double their salary within the law that they signed the other day. Get an update and a reality-check please. No offense, we're all getting brain-washed, but don't be one of the sheep.
Yes I have, different sizes of teams on many occasions and with very different mentalities, religions, motivations and "qualities".
But that's an "Apples" vs "Oranges" type of comparison. Don't compare a team with a party. A team is working to solve a problem. A party is there to reflect their ideology and motivations and to fight against other parties. Different parties rarely find consensus, because they don't work to solve a problem. They work just for themselves and THAT's the problem! But hey if you agree that bureaucratically manifesting your ideas is work, it's ok.
To answer your question: I had no failures until now and I am grateful for that. There would be no excuse if I had one though. I and my team would know what my failures were. Communicating that early is very important. But admitting failures officially is counter-effective, you're better off communicating countermeasures that will protect you from further failures. Avoid becoming the symbol of that one failure you had. Keep up, we're Start-Ups after all, no everybody will succeed in this race and it's ok. We should help other succeed when we can't. This is the big difference between you and a politician.
Ever seen a Republican going to the Democrats or vice vera who shared his knowledge having good intentions?
It is not the democracy which is wrong, people have the need for consensus. What's really wrong is that the people with the wrong mentalities or motivations lead us. People we didn't vote for join the winning parties. Corruption evolved into a sign of success inside of those parties.
Politicians give excuses for their failures, but in reality the overall situation isn't the cause for their failure. There are no excuses!
Example: Try walking outside through the crowd looking very angry, very disappointed, very sad or very happy. Every emotion, idea and thought you have in your mind will unwillingly express in all you do. You shape everyone around you without noticing it. Your thought, has a lot of effects to your environment. When you look very angry for example, people could be irritated, afraid, or aggressive.
Reading all the books about Information Management and Project Management won't help you. First hand experience, will show you that it's very important to reflect what you want. Your team will find consensus based on that.
Yes. The hardest part of it is dealing with boredom that goes with endless meetings and petty politics. In what way do you imagine managing people to be hard work? Because of all the bullshit paperwork you have to fill out?
Exactly. I suppose that Turkish gov is too harsh but you cannot know what is the real best interests of Turkish people right now and what would be their well pondered decision about the issue.
In 68 in France we had major unrest, and fight with police, but the majority was actually against it and wanted De Gaulle back.
Bullshit. Maybe somewhere, in some country - maybe in yours - it's true. In many, many, MANY! (realize this) other countries politicians are a different breed of people, for generations raised in vastly different conditions; they see other things than others, they eat differently, they think in a way that is not comprehensible for many "normal" people in their countries. And that's only a tip of an iceberg, as there are external influences as well, which complicates matters further.
...on the other hand, would it be better if politicians were just a reflection of "who we all are"? I doubt it...
Anyone whose profession is primarily about influencing others think differently than the rest of the populace (and have a different take on people in general). Sort of like how sex workers think differently about sex,
or how chefs think about food.
I didn't read his point your way. I read it as: elected politicians are a reflection of who a society is through the filter of their electoral and media system.
Well, yes and no. It must true that they are the reflections of the society but this is no reason for them to become populists and sway away from their actual job: Protecting the rights of the people, regardless of their vote, religion or anything that can be used to discriminate them. Yes there are always some people who become evil with their jobs but the percentage of wrongdoers among the politicians tends to be much higher than the society average in every community. I have a few theories on why this is the case but I have no evidence so I think I'll keep them to myself.
> this is no reason for them to become populists and sway away from their actual job
Protecting rights is not as easy as just giving a speech or writing a blog post. It is about engaging with the other side (not just calling them idiots). It is about building social capital. Over decades. So that when the time comes, to take a stand on something, you can cash it in even it is highly unpopular. That is the power great leaders have had throughout history and you cannot accumulate it(nonviolently) without being populist.
Only Americans actually believe that the job of politicians is "protecting the rights of the people", and even then, most non-Libertarian voters in America don't actually believe that's the only job of politicians.
There's a fundamental trade-off: power attracts the corruptible, but a certain amount is necessary to get important jobs done.
European democracies don't believe that the job of politicians is protecting the rights of the people?
I'd say that's exactly what we believe in, it's just that our society has a different view of what the "rights of the people" are. Around here they'd include, as one of our songs says, "peace, bread, housing, health and education".
Hardest job on the planet? You need to take a step back and look how ignorant this statement is. If you fail as a politician what happens? You might get voted out. But even this isn't that big of a deal unless it comes too early in your career, because you should have plenty of cushy jobs lined up from all the companies you've helped in your political career.
Pretty much every other possible job is harder and more risk than being a politician.
> If you fail as a politician what happens? You might get voted out.
That says nothing about the probability of failure, only the consequences of it. Is writing operating systems easier than driving just because you're less likely to die while doing it?
My point was there is no danger and no down side to being politician [1]. And it just seems odd to me to call a job that consists of literally nothing but talking "hard". Obama is president and the most work he did in congress was being present. To call it hard work is controversial. To call it the hardest job on the planet is utterly outlandish.
There is substantial evidence that the rate of human violence has decreased dramatically over the course of human history. Two of the biggest turning points were the rise of the nation-state and the spread of democracy. Yes, individual politicians are often corrupt, violent or plain stupid and the political system has serious issues but politicians as a whole have been a boon to civilized society.
This sounds like bullshit on its face. Democracy has existed before now, so what is it about our (largely ineffective if we're honest) democracies that has managed to make the world a safer place?
Also, are you sure there is any correlation at all (assuming these stats are even right)? Couldn't it be that with the rise of nation-state and spread of democracy there was a spread of much better education? Better communication? It could have been any number of things or simply coincidence related to none of them, yet you pick the ones that those in charge would most want us to believe it was.
Ok, thanks, I added the book into my to-read list, so I'll read it when I have enough time.
My skepticism isn't unfounded: I remember watching some TED talk(I guess: by the author of this book -- I googled "Steven Pinker ted talk" but I didn't do any additional check). And this talk discussed rates of individual violence(IIRC, murder statistics or something like that), and I was wondering all the time why he excludes organized violence by governments/states in 20th century(and other too).
200 million is a serious number, and it can affect your stats significantly. If you "normalize" this number by year, you'll get 2 millions of people killed on average. 4x times more than individual murder rate: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentiona...
Well, I hope the book is better/clearer than his talk.
Why? It is several percents of current world population. As I point out in nearby comment, if you simply divide this number by 100, you'll get rate that is 4x more than individual murder rate.
The invidual murder rate doesn't seem to vary a lot across century: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentiona... (judging by US), and total world population was 4 times lower in the beginning of 20th century, so I guess the "government murders : individual murders" ratio may be even bigger.
And this is not counting sick sad stuff like unfair incancernation: nazi concentration camps, gulag in the USSR, camps in North Korea(where people may spend their whole life after they are born).
For example, USSR government used capital punishment several times less often than imprisonment in gulag. Of course, on average gulag is better than capital punishment, but IMO - it is still government-made violence.
In modern Russia there are a lot of people suffering because court system is fucked up: 99%+ of court verdict are convictions(<1% acquittals). Of course, not all cases get in court(some get closed before), but it is not so difficult to fake evidence.
This is not an officially and centrally declared violence, but still it is violence. Regular criminals rob random people too.
>And this is not counting sick sad stuff like unfair incancernation: nazi concentration camps, gulag in the USSR, camps in North Korea
This is what I was getting at. Things like Nazi concentration camps, starvation in Russia, etc., count because governments did this. It's an important thing to keep in mind for the people who believe democracy is non-optimal. Of course it's non-optimal, but in my mind I'm not looking for optimal, I'm looking to avoid situations where people are murdered unjustly by the government with no recourse.
You should definitely look into anarchy. I am serious. If you don't like government, find that sort of anarchy which fits your beliefs.
For me, there is libertarian anarcho-capitalism. If you are interested, I recommend you to start with the book "For A New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto" : http://mises.org/rothbard/newlibertywhole.asp (it is available for fownload for free)
Does it count organized Government led Drone attacks incl. "collateral damage" or targets in the US and other countries?
What about unpublished or unpopular genocides, mass murders and deaths as direct cause of corrupted politicians? People don't only die in 3rd world countries. How many poeple died because of fracking in the USA? How many died, because of corruption in the medical system, yes here in our 1st world country. Deaths because of corruption in the organ transplantation system.
I am sure that there are millions of souls that these statistics do no good.
He's not wrong. The internet is an enormous threat to existing societal norms, power structures, and even governments, there's no doubt about that. However, he is wrong in believing implicitly that the existing status quo should be defended. The internet has the potential to empower disruption, and in it's short history it has proven to excel primarily at disintermediation. However, for people who support the ideals of liberty, of governments that are consensual and responsive to their people these trends are not alarming, indeed they are salutary. But for rulers who rely on oppression, propaganda, etc. these things are scary.
Hopefully, people who have educated themselves via history, philosophy, political science, etc. and look for the well being of a majority of the population.
Who's to decide? You? You'll have a bashed-in head soon enough; people whose heads no longer contain neural matter don't have opinions. Does your necessarily brief opposition really count?
I somehow don't think he was referring to Facebook addiction and social alienation resulting from "virtual friends", which is about the only time I would agree with someone who says social media is "hurting society".
Its an interesting question, but I would have as much concern for someone who conducted their social life primarily via hand written letters as I would someone who spends 10 hours a day on Facebook.
Shame, I actually do believe some social media (hi, Facebook!) are a danger to society. In this specific case, it's not social media specifically but large scale communication in general that is a problem for him.
Social media is a danger to top down society unless the platforms reside in said top down society then they're more of a danger to the people using them to try to change that society, as China seems to understand.
Hehe, can't stand the satire? Satire is not forbidden here, you'll live with it. Where is this sick notion coming from, that left-winged are supposed to be big fans of dictators? Go learn some wisdom, left-winged friend. Preferably from Kropotkin.
I find nothing trashy or nasty in making fun of fascists/dictators like these. And there is nothing right-winged in making fun of them.
Oh, really? How supposedly "naive". But I'm sure you've heard of it. Many so called "lefts" today would rather support these dictators, just because they are antisemitic enough for their tastes.
Anyway, going back to the topic, you claimed that this making fun of "three terrors" somehow equals to "that's trashy, nasty, cynical comedy for trashy, nasty, cynical yemanim" - your words, not mine. I challenged you, what's so right-winged in this satire? From my pro anarchist perspective this satire is brilliant. Instead of standing for your words, you started switching gears, claiming that Latma is pro right-wing. But I'll fix that for you. Again, what's so right-winged in this satire?
Whenever two factions within a Muslim state clash, one or both will eventually accuse the other of being Israeli stooges. The same charge is also commonly levelled at any external criticism of a Muslim state or faction. It's the Muslim world's equivalent of Godwin's Law.
To be fair, someone did post a link to ynetnews, an Israeli news website which appears to have a rather pro-Israeli-government slant with all that entails. (It was quite entertaining when Turkey got a new government that was no longer friendly to Israel and suddenly all the Israeli politicians and news websites went from pretending the Armenian genocide didn't exist to making a big fuss about it.)
The one-sidedness of the Turkish TV stations is appalling: Altayli characterizes the protests as "mostly vandalism" and gives the PM a platform to explain his side, without providing that to the other side. While CNN International was transmitting live from Taksim, CNN Turkey had a documentary about penguins! Currently there's a petition (http://www.change.org/petitions/cnn-international-must-pull-...) on change.org to ask CNN to revoke its naming agreement with CNN Turkey, it has reached 40k signatures.