politics

[djonkoman]

let's discuss politics!

I'll start of with some info on the parties and present political situation in the netherlands, there could be some errors because altough I like politics, I don't follow it that closely, I have the general idea tough, and I'll look up some things on wikipedia to add or confirm
my own political view is left, so you shpuld consider this is all written from my point of view

parties:
CDA stands for: christen democratisch appl (english: christian democratic ..., don't have a translation for appl)
this is one of the top 3 parties, used to be center but recently made a shift to centerright
it's a christian part as the name suggests(but their christianity isn't that present in the debate), and one of there main points is the 'verzorgingsstaat' (carenation) wich means the state(government) bears responsibility for its citizens well-being, with things like education, healthcare etc provided by the government
they also value the family, and often talk about 'normen en waarden' (social rules/etiquette)
wikipedia says their basic values are: spreaded responsibility, justice, solidarity(seen as a christian value, care for people around you that need it) and stewardship
usually they appear as a unity since disagreements within the party stay within the party, they're kind of closed towards the outside, but recently cracks have been appearing(since the whole business woth geert wilders, explanation later, and they're sifting to centerright instead of center while part of it's members want to stay center)
currently in the coalition

PvdA stands for: partij van de arbeid(english: party of the labor)
this is the biggest leftwing party, it's orientation is centerleft
usually the battle for most seats goes between the PvdA and the CDA, but last elections the VVD won
this is traditionally the party of the workers
currently in the opposition

VVD stands for: volkspartij voor vrijheid en democratie(english: peoplesparty for freedom and democracy)
this is the biggest rightwingparty besides the CDA, this is the liberal 'rich guy' party, they want open markets(the mail, hospitals, energy etc used to be all government owned but were privatised a while ago, the VVD is a big proponent of this kind of competition and think it will make things work better and more efficient since the companies need to atract customers, but here in the netherlands there are still plenty of people that think this privatising was a bad decision)
presently it's the biggest party, the minister-president, mark rutte, is from the VVD, and they're in the coalition(minister-president is basically the president, only is that job less important here, there are no seperate elections for it but usually the leader of the biggest party in the coalition automaticalle becomes minister-president)

PVV stands for: partij voor de vrijheid(english: party for the freedom)
orientation is farright(altough a lot of points are similar to the leftwingparties)
I could write a lot here but will minimize ot for now
this is a new party, founded by geert wilders
geert wilders used to be a parliamentmember for the VVD, but left the party, since persons are officially appointed by person and not by party, a person may keep his/her seat when he/she leaves the party he/se was chosen for, untill the next election
this is what geert wilders did, and woth a big mouth and plenty of publicity he managed to let his party grow very fast
still officially he is the sole member, wich means he can stay leader without elections within the party
he is a populist and portraits himself as the outsider, not abiding political etiquete but using strong language(and the kind of languiage his voters like, not the usual political language)
he frequently bashes the islam, warns for the islamisation of the country etc
some people compare him to hitler altough that's a harsh comparison and the comparison is frowned upon by others(he is pro-israel btw)
he als often accuses the press to favor the leftwing, calls the left parties names etc
politically he is probably pretty smart tough
he/they(the pvv and geert wilders is kind of one) is currently not in the coalition but they support it, more on this later(for that I first have to explain our electionsyste etc)
that terrorist in norway mentioned wilders as one of his inspirations btw

d66 stands for: democraten 66(english: democrats 66)
this is a liberal party, but strangely not that much rightwing, on a lot of subjects they have the same opinions as the left parties(for example in favor of legalisation of weed)
this is a small party
they're progressive
currently in the opposition

groenlinks(english: greenleft)
this is the 'intelectuals' left party(the other left parties cater more to the workers), their main points are the environment, nature etc
orientation is left, cirrently in opposition

SP stands for: socialistische partij(socialist party)
used to be a small party but a while ago they suddenly became the third party of the country(in size), the profitted fron the same wave of populism the pvv is currently enjoying, and the lpf before them
long time jan marijnissen was the leader, just as with wilders and the pvv now, marijnissen was the sp
other then the pvv now the sp already existed before marijnissen and since it's atound for longer it has a more stable base
current leader is emiel roemer
their orientation is farleft, they support the workers
they used to be known as the againstparty/protestparty, their symbol is a tomato(red is the leftwingcolor here, the PvdA has a red rose as symbol)
currently in the opposition

PvdD stands for: partij voor de dieren(english: party for the animals)
small party, started as a one-issueparty for animal rights but they established themselves as a stable small party and are evolving views on other subjects now too, orientation is left-far left
opposition

CU stands for: christenunie (english: christian union)
this is a christian party, and much more pronounced christian as the CDA(also a lot smaller)
most of their points are similar to the leftwingparties, but not on all subjects(I think they're against abortion altough I'm not fully sure, and I know there was something in the nedia a while ago that they had internal discussion about homosexuality, they don't mind homo's in the party that much but the trouble arises when they're openly gay)
oposition

SGP honestly I have no idea what it stand for, s I'll have to look it up
stands for: staatkundig gereformeerde partij(not easy to translate, political reformed party or so, reformed being a group within protestant christianity)
this is the extremist christian party, very small but stable, against abortion, homosecuality and everything fun
their support comes mostly from the dutch biblebelt(often called zwarte kousen, since they wear high black socks there and all black clothes)
also they're against womenrights(there's actually a funny story about how we got women voting rights but that will be for later)
oposition but support coalition(but not the same as the PVV, more on that later)

think I have all of them now(well except the small parties without seats), has become a long post and now I'll take a break, later I'll post about our political system(elections, the chambers, the coalition etc)
and some current trends(geert wilders, the lpf with pim forteyun) and maybe some issues(like thwe current policemission in kunduz, afghanistan and the discussion around it), and maybe some political history

edit:
current seats in the 2nd chamber
http://www.parlement.com/9291000/modulesf/g61imou3
VVD 31
PvdA 30
PVV 24
CDA 21
SP 15
D66 10
groenlinks 10
CU 5
PvdD 2
SGP 2

 

[djonkoman]

just grabbed the newspaper and saw an article about a current political issue that's probably weird for most americans, it's not a very big or controversial issue tough
this isue is 'weigerambtenaren'(refuse-official)
in american movies I often see that in america a priest marries a couple, here it's done by special officials(there's sometimes a ceremony in a church, but the vows are taken by an official who also gives the official documents to sign, holds a little speech etc)
as you may know, gay-marriage is legal here
lately an issue arose around some of these officials who refused to marry gaycouples because of their beliefs, this led to a lot of local governments not prolonging the contract of these refuse-officials, so that they effectively were fired for it(while for some of them this consequence wasn't known up front)
and some of these officials are angry because of that

and a week or so ago there was also an issue around a priest somewhere in the south who refused to organise the burial of one of his parishioners because he died from euthanasia
and he also prohibited the use of his church for the burrial(ceremony)
he said some churchdocument(he was from a catholic church) said euthanasia wasn't allowed in the catholic church and so he didn't want it in his church, eventually he was fired by the churchboard, since they said that even tough the catholic church doesn't condone ethanasia, a church should never refuse one of it's parishioners and the care for the parishioners etc comes first

 

[djonkoman]

something on our political system

we have 2 chambers, the 1st and 2nd chamber
the 2nd is elected directly, and from here the coalition is formed
the 1st chamber is the senate, elected indirectly

there are 3 elections:
national elections, for the 2nd chamber
there is a certain number of seats in the chamber(can't find the number right now), these seats are divided amongst the parties on basis of the votes, the remaining seats/votes(votes that aren't enough for a whole seat) are called 'restzetels'
according to wikipedia, the method used for dividing thoe for 2nd chamber is that the number of votes for a party is divided by the amount of seats +1, the party woth the highest vote/seat ratio gets an extra seat, this is repeated for every remaining seat(with the new ratio with the previous exra seat)
parties can make a kind of alliance tough, a 'lijstverbinding' , on this case the remaining votes of the parties working together are polled together and if it's enough for an extra seat added to one of the parties participating in this allience
so parties with similar ideologies sometimes have such an alliance

then there are provincial elections for the provincial elections, these election have usually the lowest attendance, since provincial politics have the least direct influence on daily life and least publicity
the people chosen in these elections elect the first chambermembers
in provincial elections most national parties are present too(altough some smaller parties are absent in some provinces where they have less backing, and the PVV is also practically absent from provincial elections since they're new)
some parties are only present in the provincial and not national elections, for example the FNP ('fryske nasjonale partij', frisian for 'frisian national party'), wich is active in my province, friesland(or frysln in frisian)
friesland has it's own language(officially recgnised as the 2nd official language of the netherlands, you're also allowed to talk frisian in court), and friesland once was it's own country and much bigger(the rhine was the border between the frisians and the roman empire, the romans never succeeded in conquering the frisians, the frisians were willingly under their influence for a while and paid taxes to the romans, but the taxes got to high and the frisians revolted, the romans also called the north sea the 'mare frisia')
all these provincial parties are combined into one party in the 1st chamber

then there are the municipalities('gemeentes'), here are also some unique parties next to the national and provincial ones, 'gemeentebelangen' , municipalityinterests, is a common one(with the name of the municipalty after it)

the government is formed from the 2nd chamber
after the national elections, the fraction/partyleaders(a 'fractie', or fraction, are all elected members of a certain party in a chamber, the leader of the fraction can be different from the leader of the party, altough they're often the same) and some advisors of the monarch a visit to the monarch(presently queen beatrix)
the monarch appoints an 'informateur', who researches the possible coalitions, willingness for parties to work together, wich coalition would be best etc
preferable ofcourse is a majoritycoalition, a coalition that makes up a majority of the seats in the 2nd chamber
then a 'fomateur' is appointed(by the monarch), often the leader of the biggest party in the adviced coalition, wich is also often the biggest party overall, and, if the formation of the coalition succeeds, this likely is als going to be the minister-president(basically the president altough the role of ministerpresident here is more a leader of the ministers)
then negotiations start between the parties possible for the coalition, they make a 'regeerakkoord', a list of agreements on laws/decisions, and wih party gets wich ministers and who those ministers are going to be
how more the parties working together differ in opinion, the more they agree beforehand in the regeerakkoord, the regeerakkoord can be very short and simple or they can already make agreements on most issues in the regeerakkoord and it gets long and complicating
then, if the parties have reached an agreement to form a coalition together and with wich ministers and made a regeerakkoord, the monarch officially appoints the new ministers and minister-president

the crew of ministers and ministerpresident can propose laws, then this law is voted on in the 2nd chamber
if the coalition has a majority it's very likely to go trough, altough officialy parties aren't mentioned in the constition, so officially members are elected on personal title, they can step out of their party and keep their seat for their elected term, and on controversial things more members of the own party may vote against
then , if it passes the 2nd chamber, the 1st chamber has to vote on it
every member of the 2nd chamber is allowed to propose laws btw, but it takes a lot of work so it doesn't happen as often

 

[djonkoman]

our current weird government:

currently, the government consists of VVD and CDA, this is a minoritygovernment
so they have 'gedoogsteun' from the PVV, wilders' bunch of islambashing extremists
steun is support, and gedoog/gedogen is a verb also used for our weedpolicy, it meabs something like ignore/tolerate, in the case of our weedpolicy it means that it is officially illegal but if you're not professional they ignore you/don't prosecute you
it's something like 'I don't agree what you're doing and I don't condone it but I don't give a fuck and just pretend I don't see it'

in this case it means the PVV isn't officially in the government/coalition and hasn't any ministers(btw, also ministers from outside the coalition can be appointed but this rarely happens)
but they made an agreement to vote in favor of laws prposed by the government so that the government has a majority in the 2nd chamber and can still handle quickly ebough and pass controversial laws
the PVV also participated in the making of the regeerakkoord, so they have an influence on the government policy, but since they're officially in the opposition they don't get blamed by the voters when the government screws up, so it's the perfect position for wilders
also they agreed the PVV doesn't support the government on some issues like the military

the SGP also gives gedoogsteun, but they're very smal and didn't participate in the regeerakkoord

there is one other issue tough, since the PVV is new and made a rapid rise in seats in the 2nd chamber, they didn't really participate in the provincial elections(I think they did participated in a few provinces, not really sure), since it takes preparation, making programs, having enough mermbers etc, and for a starting party with a sudden increase in seats a lack of experienced members is often an issue, also that way there are more people who get in conflit with the party and leave, with their seat(like wilders did himself)
so in the 1st chamber the government has a minority again, and so they have to do a lot of compromising and negotiating woth the opposition

an example is the policemission to kunduz(afghanistan), a hot item lately(well mostly a while ago)
before this our military was present in uruzgan, this mission ended and there is pressure from the NAVO to go participate in afghanistan again, but a big part of our population would rather keep out of those conflicts(me included, in my opinion the ministry of defense should be for defense, not atack)
and the PVV was also against another mission
so to get the mision trough the government had to get oppositionparties on it's side, eventually it came down on groenlinks, and groenlinks decided to back a mission to kunduz on some conditions:
most important one that it's strictly a policemission, and the dutch policetrainers in kunduz are only allowed to do policewrk, no enganging the taliban
this promise os hard tough since policework and military work is closely intwined there and it's almost impossible to not fight the taliban at all, and groenlinks got a lot of critique from part of it's members and voters for ths, but for the minister-president it was a victory

 

[OhTheAgony]

Tripping on politics tonight aye Djonko?

I gave up on it myself, but cuddo's for trying to explain our constitutional monarchy to the foreigners.

 

[lwien]

Fuck, I have a hard enough time trying to figure out what in the hell is going on in my neck of the woods, because quite honestly, it's beginning to look my old playground back in elementary school. :/

I just want to bitch slap these politicians while telling them to stop fucking acting like a bunch of twelve year olds whose hormones have taken over their ego's and to fucking get down to business of running our damn country rather than comparing whose cock is bigger or whose daddy makes more money.

 

[djonkoman]

well alltough I think most politicians are screwing up I still find it interesting
and funny

and sometimes politicians can be smart, for example I heard that after ww2, when the US were giving out marshallfunds, the president of the US back then went to visit european countries who received marshallfunds, als to determine the heoght of the amount given to that country etc
most countries prepared some luurious grand stay for him, but our ministerpresident back then was a simple dutchman who lived in an ordinary home himself, he received the US president in his own home woth a simple homecooked meal, then the netherlands got a high amount of the marshallfunds because the US president thought we needed it harder

also there once was some law to be passed, dn't know for sure what it was about
the pvda and cda disagreed about it, one wanted it passed the other rejected
usually already before the official vote the parties hold votes under their members and beforehand the result is already known, and just a few members of each party are present at the official vote, enough to make it count and so distributed thatthe ratio of the outcome os the same as it would when everyone would be present, that way noty everyone has to appear there everytime but they can spend their times on other tasks
so the party that wanted it passed, I think the pvda, sheduled the vote during carnaval(a holiday/party period in the south of the netherlands), so that all the cda-members went there to promote themselves(the south is mostly catholic, one of the parties that went together to form the current cda was a catholic party, so part of the cda is catholic)
meanwhile the pvda members hif in a backroom, so it seemed they went home/elsewhere as usual
then just before the vote suddenly all these pvda-members show up, the cda-members are already so far away they can't return in time and the law passes
consequence was that the cda sheduled the vote for a law they wanted passed on labor day, the day that the pvda-members wat to promote themselves since their support comes traditionally from the workers

 

[Durbs]

I really hope The Netherlands soon has a proper Nationalistic movement. At the moment, there is not a single European party that, although there are some who have great ideas, comprehends the situation and behaves accordingly. PVV is pathetic, and Geert Wilders is not really Dutch so I've heard.
The Netherlands needs a Nationalistic movement with the Dutch working class as it's priority.
The NPD in Germany is my favorite European party, but the way they present themselves to the German public is totally wrong, the German population will never even consider our concerns when they make themselves look like ''hardcore nazis'', by openly calling Rudolf Hess a hero.

Does anybody here know anything about South African politics? Personally, I think it would benefit Europeans and other European diasporas if they paid attention to what's happening there.

 

[djonkoman]

how would geert wilders not be dutch?
looked it up on wikipedia, he is born in venlo(a place here in the netherlands)
the only less dutch is his mother who is from indonesia, but that's common here since indonesia used to be a dutch colony(before WW2)

and we already have parties supporting the workers... sp and pvda(leftwing)
personally I hate nationalism especially dtch natonalism, 'm frisand and feel myself frisan before I feel dutch, so if I have to follow nationalism it would be frisan nationalism and not dutch, the only moment when suddenly everyone loves our country and wears orange(the national color) s woth soccer championships and I never liked soccer wich made me hate those periods once every 2 year, there is just nowhere to flee that madness, people decorate their houses likes it's x-mas, every store or shop is full of it, almost every channel broadcasts soccerrelated stuff and even sitting in the park during a game you're not safe because wotgh every goal people will go out nto the streets yelling, and people driving past will shout the score, even while people know I don't want to know ot, don't care about soccer and hate the championships there's always some asshole who tells me how the last game ended or talks about some player or so
so that made me hate orange and ntionalistic feelings as a kid, now I like orange more but still once every 2 years I develop my hate for orange again and it also ruins queen's day a bit(when also everyone dresses in orange)

looked up the npd btw, that party embodoes everything I'm against...

 

[Durbs]

Well, I would think it depends on what sort of Indonesian his mother is...
Many of the Dutch settlers in Indonesia mixed with the natives, if his mother is one of these mixes then I would agree with what I have been told in that Geert Wilders is not Dutch.

The Netherlands certainly has many great parties for the working class, but I cannot support anything that would not support Nationalistic ideals.
I think you may be confusing Nationalism with Patriotism in the case of soccer, in South Africa most Afrikaners are sport obsessed and are very passionate Springbok supporters, but unfortunately the old Afrikaner Nationalist movement is not as strong as it used to be.
Though, I don't understand why you hate Dutch Nationalism. You think of yourself as Frisian before Dutch, which is fine. But surely, under current conditions you can't afford to divide the Dutch Nationalistic movement any further? At least for the time being, Frisian Nationalists and Dutch Nationalists should unite.
Nationalists of any sort are already a well-opposed majority.
I wish I could have been in South Africa for the World Cup, as a German Boer, I would be glad to cheer for my ancestral homelands in a sea of Orange/White.

What do you think is wrong with the NPD? I understand completely how it would seem at first, considering what we've all been taught about it's ideals.

 

[djonkoman]

I'm not frisian nationalistic, but if I HAD to choose nationalism it would be frisian
I'm proud to be a frisian and I like frisian history(btw did you know the romans were never able to conquer the frisians? and that the franks, the frisians later mortal enemies, probably partly descended from the frisians?), but that doesn't mean I think of myself better as others, just different and everyone has their own heritage to be proud of
I'm also 1/18th belgian or so, does that make me not dutch? while I've only been in belgium 1-2 times in my life and lived my whole life in the netherlands, and I also never knew this ntill my mom was resrarching our family tree a few winters ago

and your first alinea also is one of the major points I oppose nationalistic ideals like the NPD has
geert wilders is born and raised in the netherlands, and just because he is maybe part indonesian in ancestry(wich is probably smaller as the part that is dutch ancestry), you regard him as not dutch

besides, there's not really a dutch identity to be nationalistic about, the netherlands has always been a country of immigrants, foreign influences, trade etc

in that case being frisian is easier, a minority with it's own language so the language is already an important part(and a dutch-raised person talking frisian is easy to spot), and some atributed traits(like being stubborn and sober, and)

I see culture as a thing you join, sure ancestry plays a rolein what you feel like, but the biggest part of the culture is in the upbringing, in my eyes an african or chinese adoption baby that is brought up here, raised with frisian and the frisian culture is just as frisian as myself
while some people that were born and raised here but in the cities(the first places to receive dutch import once friesland was part of the netherlands, there they mostly speak dutch or cityfrisian, a weird mix of dutch and frisian considered a dialect of frisian) are far less frisian
there's also an old rivalry between frisians and hollanders, and one of the points of frisian nationalism is to make friesland a free country, indepandant of the netherlands(altough that sentiment isn't that strong, frisians aren't surpressed like some other minorities in other countries, altough most of the money goes to the west of the country where all the big cities are)(one of our heroes, well actually our only real hero, grutte pier, was a guy who fought the hollanders after hollandse mercenaries burned down his farm, he created an army and eventually became a pirate in the sea that's now a lake, he also atacked a city in holland I think, and in the beginning of the story he kills 3 tax collectors or soldiers from holland with one blow woth his plow, later he had a sword so big only he could lift it)
so frisian and dutch nationalism aren't that likely to go together I think, since part of the frisian identity is to NOT be dutch

 

[Durbs]

That makes sense. The Frisians are a great people with a great culture and history.
Being 1/8 Belgian doesn't mean you can't be Dutch, being part Belgian and being part Indonesian are 2 entirely different things when it comes to being Dutch or Frisian.
Everybody has some foreign blood in there somewhere down the road, I am a German Boer but I have some Dutch (Frisian!) and Norwegian blood in me, although I don't identify as Norwegian or Dutch/ Frisian I am proud of it.

I was hoping I wouldn't have to explain this, surely, hereafter I'll be attacked by the Liberal members of this forum. I don't think where somebody is born has any importance regarding ethnicity, are the Transylvanian Germans not German despite having struggled for centuries to preserve their culture language and German blood? My family has been in South Africa for centuries, but we've kept our German culture, traditions and language in it's entirety, am I not German, but "South African"?
I've never understood the pride you've described, that you're proud to be Frisian but you think anybody born in Friesland and raised with Frisian culture can be Frisian, what does that leave to be proud of? If that were true, it would eliminate all connection the Frisian people would have with their great history, and the unique European beauty that is their blood. Blood and Culture define a nation, not just culture, quite simply, blood defines a nation in the same way as a culture, why should culture be important and blood not? I think the Frisians are a great people and I think they should be preserved, for this it is totally necessary that their European blood and culture is to be preserved.

Now, before anybody calls me an evil nazi or whatever, let me make it clear that real Nationalism has nothing to do with hate of all things foreign, or thinking one people is better than another, Nationalism does not have to be that way. Nationalism means only a love for your people and country and a will to protect it. Most of the world is still Nationalistic, and European peoples used to be the most Nationalistic of everybody, but unfortunately we've lost our way.

Any rivalries between Frisian Nationalists and Dutch Nationalists should be put aside for the time being,
The Frisian folk face the same threat as the Dutch folk.
I don't know how much you know about South African history, but us Boers and the English South African have never been friends, but I see it as crucial that we put aside all rivalries and unite as respectful comrades until we are in a position to seperate.

 

[djonkoman]

but according to you, what is that threat?
the biggest threat for the frisian culture comes probably from the dutch(for example frisian parents that choose to raise their children dutch, wich is the case in my mothers family, her father was raised dutch eventough bot of his parents were frisian, my mother and her brother were raised dutch too since both of their parents didn't speak frisian, but my whole fathers family is frisian and speak frisian, luckily my parents deecided to raise me bilangual, so I'm fluent in both dutch and frisian, or frisian children raised frisian but grown up in the city where no one speaks frisian so they choose to not speak frisian, like a friend of me)
still, the situation of frisian language and culture in the netherlands isn't that bad, the netherlands has the biggest group of frisianspeakers at the moment and it's recognised as official national language(besides dutch), hile the groups of frisians in germany are much smaller and their language is as far as I know not recognised as language

and I think culture isn't necesarrily defined by nation borders, I bet those transylvanian germans also took over elements of the local culture and so form their own unique culture

I think a crucua thing you say is that will to protect it, for me protecting it is protecting the culture, like preserving the language
if you exclude anyone lacking the ancestry(even if the major part of their ancestry is the same as yours but just a small part is ifferent), the culture will also live on much shorter

big part of the frisians probably aren't even frisians, at one time the waddenzee(the shallow sea between the islands and the mainland in the netherlands and germany) used to be land, and in this are lived a lot of frisians
so when this flooded it was a major catastrophy for the frisians, a lot of frisians fled and only a few 100 years later they returned(at the place where they fled to part of the frisians mingled with another tribe and that combined tribe later became the franks)
but in the meanwhile other settlers settled there in the previopusly frisian territory, but at that time the nobles defined the culture, so because the nobility were frisians all those people became known as frisians but it is unsure how much of the present frisians is actually the same as the frisians from the roman era

so I see your culture as the culture you identify yourself with, ofcourse your ancestry matters with who you feel connected with, but if you don't know your ancestry is actually different that wouldn't matter
so anyone who says their frisian, who feels frisian, speaks frisian and identifies him/herself with ther frisian identity is frisian for me

 

[Havelock Vetenari]

Politics is a subject for other forums IMAO.
There is a sort of 'internet-rule' that as soon as Adolf is mentioned it's pretty much over with logic and emotions take over.
Has happend here already i see.

On a personal note as a Dutchman,'nationalism' is something we absolutely don't need,thank you very much.