Forget Donald Trump, Australia needs to worry about the Philippines' Rodrigo Duterte
A political hand-grenade has just been tossed into Asian politics.
Rodrigo Duterte's upset victory in the Philippines presidential elections will have serious consequences for how the region responds to China's aggressive claim to vast tracts of the South China Sea, one of the world's most dangerous flashpoints. ...
But Mr Duterte has puzzled diplomats with contradictory positions on how he would deal with China's assertiveness and a blockade by its coastguard of waters and islands claimed by the Philippines.
He said at one point that he is prepared to break with a majority of ASEAN members to negotiate directly with China, and would even consider setting aside the Philippines' claims to parts of the disputed waters in return for economic co-operation.
But nobody knows how he will deal with efforts to end one of the world's longest-running Muslim insurgencies that has claimed 150,000 lives in the southern Philippines, or how he sees his country's membership of the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade pact.
Mr Duterte's election is a setback to Australia's diplomatic relations with the Philippines, which became closer in recent years as the Aquino administration sought international support in its stand against China.
He rudely told Australia's newly arrived ambassador in Manila to "shut up"
http://www.smh.com.au/world/forget-donald-trump-australia-needs-to-worry-about-the-philippines-rodrigo-duterte-20160510-goqkyl.html
The strongmen are back in the Philippines
http://www.afr.com/opinion/the-strongmen-are-back-in-the-philippines-20160509-goqait
Rodrigo Duterte lashes out at Australia after missionary rape joke
"This is politics. Stay out. Stay out Australian government. Stay out," tough-talking Rodrigo Duterte said ...
Mr Duterte's supporters swamped the Facebook page of the Australian embassy in Manila with angry remarks and abuse..
"I do not want anybody controlling my mouth. I say what I say and I've said it and if it does not sit well with you, that's your problem."
http://www.smh.com.au/world/rodrigo-duterte-lashes-out-at-australia-after-missionary-rape-joke-20160419-go9pg5.html
US, China ready to work with Duterte
Washington’s stance reflects the reality that US national security interests will outweigh human rights concerns given China’s increasingly assertive stance in the region and the maritime disputes in the South China Sea, Asia analysts said.
http://www.mb.com.ph/us-china-ready-to-work-with-duterte/
Australia congratulates Duterte
http://www.philstar.com/headlines/2016/05/21/1585435/australia-congratulates-duterte
SeaGypsy wrote:Wow Loki that's looking really horrible.
Haven't seen you.for ages here, how's things? Still.dirt farming?'
Loki wrote:SeaGypsy wrote:Wow Loki that's looking really horrible.
Yep, pretty messed up. The mob looks like it consisted in large part of foreign nationals based on the Mexican flags they were waving. I hope this sets back the amnesty cause another decade or three, and that Trump makes liberal use of the footage from San Jose to throw the Democrats' charges of "fascism" right back in their faces. The Dems, led by Hillary, are dipping their toes in the pool of proto-fascism. The next few months should be interesting.Haven't seen you.for ages here, how's things? Still.dirt farming?'
Hey SG. I took a long break from PO.com, and internet forums in general. No dirt farming for me anymore, didn't feel like learning Spanish. These days I'm managing a little native plant nursery and planting trees while Rome burns.
Loki wrote:SeaGypsy wrote:Wow Loki that's looking really horrible.
Yep, pretty messed up. The mob looks like it consisted in large part of foreign nationals based on the Mexican flags they were waving. I hope this sets back the amnesty cause another decade or three, and that Trump makes liberal use of the footage from San Jose to throw the Democrats' charges of "fascism" right back in their faces. The Dems, led by Hillary, are dipping their toes in the pool of proto-fascism. The next few months should be interesting.Haven't seen you.for ages here, how's things? Still.dirt farming?'
Hey SG. I took a long break from PO.com, and internet forums in general. No dirt farming for me anymore, didn't feel like learning Spanish. These days I'm managing a little native plant nursery and planting trees while Rome burns.
Is There a Personality Test for Tyrants, Fascists, and Authoritarians?
When you see Nazis in the streets chanting things like “Jews will not replace us” and throwing around slurs at blacks, leftists, and other minority groups, it can be difficult to comprehend why they would believe such horrid things. While simple answers such as ignorance or stupidity are attractive, they are too basic to apply generally. After all, the white supremacist leader Richard Spencer has a master’s degree, ruling out the explanation of stupidly in at least one case. While not every Nazi has an education, the root cause of finding such an ideology attractive must lie elsewhere.
But where?
This was the same problem that faced Theodor W. Adorno in 1947. A German sociologist who had fled Europe for sunny California during the era of Fascism, he and his colleges at Berkeley attempted to understand why a person might be inclined to support the ideas of fascism and authoritarianism. Using their backgrounds in psychology, they proposed that certain individuals might be mentally predisposed to support authoritarian regimes.
Adorno and his associates laying out their arguments and proposing possible traits that would-be fascists share. These traits included conventionalism, authoritarian submission, authoritarian aggression, anti-intellectualism, and an interest in the use and projection of power, among others.
After offering a psychological explanation for why individuals might come to have such traits, then proposes the idea of the “F-Scale”, “F” meaning Fascist, which attempts to indirectly measure a person’s tendencies towards the traits Adorno found to be authoritarian. The higher the score, the more likely you are to support Fascism.
Adorno was open about the theory needing to be tested, and at Nuremberg several Nazi war criminals were given the test. Despite the original theory having nine dimensions of the authoritarian personality, the Nazis who took the test only scored high on three of them. Continued research into the idea has supported the basic hypothesis, but heavily altered the test and proposed reasons for correlations between the traits.
While Adorno treated the tendency to Fascism as a mental disorder, his reliance on Freudian thought and the Western Marxism of the Frankfurt school to which he belonged made his scale seem biased, and later erroneous. The work has been critiqued from all angles, but the core concept has been found to be correct. There are certain personality traits which correlate and are related to potential support for authoritarianism.
The concept remains influential. The F-scale and it’s slew of personality traits have been reduced to three by Canadian Psychologist Bob Altemeyer, who has created a shorter, more accurate, version of the test you can take here. In the updated version of the theory the traits which constitute the Authoritarian Personality are:
Authoritarian submission: a high degree of submissiveness to authorities perceived to be legitimate.
Authoritarian aggression: a general aggressiveness directed at deviants, outgroups, and those designated to be targets by established authorities.
Conventionalism: a high degree of adherence to traditions and social norms that are seen as endorsed by society and the established authorities. This includes a belief that adherence to these norms should be mandated across a society.
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
KaiserJeep wrote: I myself, in spite of my status in the USA's 10%, expect to have a sore back soon from pulling weeds in the backyard where we used to have a pool. I would once have used RoundUp on them, but I'm no longer comfortable doing that.
Newfie wrote:Ibon,
My only disagreement with your above posting is you cast it entirely in light of conservatives. The liberals own their fair share of this analysis. Note: not criticism, analysis. The two extremes are ripple gangers, each is reacting to pressures, they just whine about different injustices.
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