4 ms·

Through the course of a decade I've seen my country run into the ground. It certainly was a flawed one to begin with, but now we've lost any dignity or respect.

Through the course of a decade I've seen my country run into the ground. It certainly was a flawed one to begin with, but now we've lost any dignity or respect. I'm embarrassed of our leaders, and those who continue to support them. Online, I've seen the Wikipedia ban being discussed among AKP supporters and the others, and a lot of people responded "what, should Wikipedia be above the law?". That is what we've been reduced to - propaganda is not even necessary anymore.

unityByFreedom 9y ago
Man. I feel in these situations that allowing failure is the best course to enable people to learn from their mistakes. But how do you let a whole country fail? Particularly when this attitude of preferring dictatorship seems to be growing in many countries. It's concerted, and I don't want that in my part of the world.
- ben_jones 9y ago
  A good example would be how in the last decade several cities in California were allowed to "fail". IIRC there was an NPR segment on it or something. Anyways it was disastrous, over 50% of all local officials including policemen, fire fighters, teachers, park officials, garbage men, etc., were laid off. And this was in the middle of a functional state. One can only imagine what will happen in Turkey when combined with the refugee problem, sectarian violence in neighboring countries, terrorist organizations in neighboring countries, etc.
  - gcr 9y ago
    Do you have a source for this? I'd love to listen to this but I couldn't find the segment you were talking about.
    - ben_jones 9y ago
      Sorry for the goose chase it was actually the book Boomerang by Michael Lewis which goes over the various debt crises of the past decade in Iceland, Ireland, and Greece. It ends with a section talking about the bankruptcy of Vallejo and it talks about the unsustainable pension situation in San Jose. A light, informative, and entertaining read IMO. The numbers I listed are likely inaccurate and came from my 2+ yr old memory of reading the book.
agumonkey 9y ago
Worse than that it seems it's a global wave. Everybody is going wild. As if the world was big bubble, and cracks are too numerous it's blowing.
- thinknot 9y ago
  Not the case of Turkey, but for the rest of the world, this is the response of the people to the "if you don't like globalism, deal with it" attitude from our leaders.
a2tech 9y ago
Leave. Its not easy (in fact I know its incredibly hard) but come to the US. Its not perfect, but even though we have an..argumentative democracy we (mostly) get along. Come and help us be better. Throw your voice and talent in. I have a Turkemen exchange student staying with us right now and they think of Turkey as being overwhelmingly better than Turkmenistan-come to the US which is the same but with Turkey and the Turkmenistan reversed :-)
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- pavlov 9y ago
  I like a lot of things about the USA, but I'm not sure it's the best destination for a Turkish person. The first reason is practicality. As Trump cracks down on H1B visas, immigrating will become even more difficult than it currently is. The second reason is safety. Of course NYC/SF/LA are fine... But elsewhere in the country there is a rising tide of hate against Middle Easterns. In February, two Indian engineers working at Garmin were murdered in a Kansas bar [1] because a man mistook them for Iranians. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Olathe,_Kansas_shooting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Olathe,_Kansas_shooting
- Mithaldu 9y ago
  Recommend any of the north-western/central europe countries instead. Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Austria, Switzerland, heck even Finland. Any of them is a better place to live in than the USA on almost every given axis of measure, and many of them already have plenty turks there providing help and support with integration.
- gumby 9y ago
  > Leave. Its not easy (in fact I know its incredibly hard) but come to the US. Its not perfect, but even though we have an..argumentative democracy we (mostly) get along. Come and help us be better. Throw your voice and talent in. Your comment is quite ironic to me: I am arranging my affairs so that if I am denied re-entry I can simply pick up somewhere else. (It's rather unlikely I'll be actually expelled). Wait, what? Why should some guy who's had a green card for decades, and doesn't even speed while driving, worry? Who typically avoids making statements interpreted politically (this is an exception)? It's because of the arbitrariness of the law. As someone foreign-born, with a south asian parent, and from time to time a startup tech CEO in Silicon Valley I win the Bannon trifecta. It doesn't matter how many jobs I've created over the years, or wealth for that matter: I would be a fool not to plan ahead. > we (mostly) get along Americans are typically super-nice people, unusually so. But recent actions have been...discouraging. The political rhetoric and action look different to someone in my position. And the often-cited quasi-get-out-of-jail card is to become a US citizen. Well seriously: do you really want to affirmatively join a country if your only way to keep your human rights is to make a loyalty oath? And will it? It's not like the US has always treated its citizens humanely either. If things have really gotten to that point the better thing to do is just leave and create wealth and jobs elsewhere. Don't get me wrong, I love working in Silicon Valley. But I can no longer afford to place all my bets here.
delegate 9y ago
>I'm embarrassed of our leaders, and those who continue to support them. Don't. Many countries are in a similar situation. Populism has already won over major countries (US, UK, Turkey, Russia, ... ) or is on a close #2 in many other countries. In fact, I'd recommend to not even try to fight it head on at the moment - it's much wiser to sit back and try to understand why this is happening and what we can do about it. The world is entering a very dangerous period - it might not be possible to stop this wave, so then maybe it's wise to think about plan B - what do do after the dust of the populist reign falls back. Stay safe, stay wise, refuse violence regardless if the cause is 'good' or 'bad' (violence is always bad).

unityByFreedom 9y ago

Man. I feel in these situations that allowing failure is the best course to enable people to learn from their mistakes. But how do you let a whole country fail? Particularly when this attitude of preferring dictatorship seems to be growing in many countries. It's concerted, and I don't want that in my part of the world.

ben_jones 9y ago
A good example would be how in the last decade several cities in California were allowed to "fail". IIRC there was an NPR segment on it or something. Anyways it was disastrous, over 50% of all local officials including policemen, fire fighters, teachers, park officials, garbage men, etc., were laid off. And this was in the middle of a functional state. One can only imagine what will happen in Turkey when combined with the refugee problem, sectarian violence in neighboring countries, terrorist organizations in neighboring countries, etc.
- gcr 9y ago
  Do you have a source for this? I'd love to listen to this but I couldn't find the segment you were talking about.
  - ben_jones 9y ago
    Sorry for the goose chase it was actually the book Boomerang by Michael Lewis which goes over the various debt crises of the past decade in Iceland, Ireland, and Greece. It ends with a section talking about the bankruptcy of Vallejo and it talks about the unsustainable pension situation in San Jose. A light, informative, and entertaining read IMO. The numbers I listed are likely inaccurate and came from my 2+ yr old memory of reading the book.

agumonkey 9y ago

Worse than that it seems it's a global wave. Everybody is going wild. As if the world was big bubble, and cracks are too numerous it's blowing.

thinknot 9y ago
Not the case of Turkey, but for the rest of the world, this is the response of the people to the "if you don't like globalism, deal with it" attitude from our leaders.

a2tech 9y ago

Leave. Its not easy (in fact I know its incredibly hard) but come to the US. Its not perfect, but even though we have an..argumentative democracy we (mostly) get along. Come and help us be better. Throw your voice and talent in. I have a Turkemen exchange student staying with us right now and they think of Turkey as being overwhelmingly better than Turkmenistan-come to the US which is the same but with Turkey and the Turkmenistan reversed :-)

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
pavlov 9y ago
I like a lot of things about the USA, but I'm not sure it's the best destination for a Turkish person. The first reason is practicality. As Trump cracks down on H1B visas, immigrating will become even more difficult than it currently is. The second reason is safety. Of course NYC/SF/LA are fine... But elsewhere in the country there is a rising tide of hate against Middle Easterns. In February, two Indian engineers working at Garmin were murdered in a Kansas bar [1] because a man mistook them for Iranians. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Olathe,_Kansas_shooting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Olathe,_Kansas_shooting
Mithaldu 9y ago
Recommend any of the north-western/central europe countries instead. Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Austria, Switzerland, heck even Finland. Any of them is a better place to live in than the USA on almost every given axis of measure, and many of them already have plenty turks there providing help and support with integration.
gumby 9y ago
> Leave. Its not easy (in fact I know its incredibly hard) but come to the US. Its not perfect, but even though we have an..argumentative democracy we (mostly) get along. Come and help us be better. Throw your voice and talent in. Your comment is quite ironic to me: I am arranging my affairs so that if I am denied re-entry I can simply pick up somewhere else. (It's rather unlikely I'll be actually expelled). Wait, what? Why should some guy who's had a green card for decades, and doesn't even speed while driving, worry? Who typically avoids making statements interpreted politically (this is an exception)? It's because of the arbitrariness of the law. As someone foreign-born, with a south asian parent, and from time to time a startup tech CEO in Silicon Valley I win the Bannon trifecta. It doesn't matter how many jobs I've created over the years, or wealth for that matter: I would be a fool not to plan ahead. > we (mostly) get along Americans are typically super-nice people, unusually so. But recent actions have been...discouraging. The political rhetoric and action look different to someone in my position. And the often-cited quasi-get-out-of-jail card is to become a US citizen. Well seriously: do you really want to affirmatively join a country if your only way to keep your human rights is to make a loyalty oath? And will it? It's not like the US has always treated its citizens humanely either. If things have really gotten to that point the better thing to do is just leave and create wealth and jobs elsewhere. Don't get me wrong, I love working in Silicon Valley. But I can no longer afford to place all my bets here.

delegate 9y ago

>I'm embarrassed of our leaders, and those who continue to support them. Don't. Many countries are in a similar situation. Populism has already won over major countries (US, UK, Turkey, Russia, ... ) or is on a close #2 in many other countries. In fact, I'd recommend to not even try to fight it head on at the moment - it's much wiser to sit back and try to understand why this is happening and what we can do about it. The world is entering a very dangerous period - it might not be possible to stop this wave, so then maybe it's wise to think about plan B - what do do after the dust of the populist reign falls back. Stay safe, stay wise, refuse violence regardless if the cause is 'good' or 'bad' (violence is always bad).