By now you have heard that there has been a coup attempt in Turkey. The situation is still chaotic, but it appears that in Istanbul at least, the coup is failing, with soldiers surrendering their weapons to police. President Erdogan was reported earlier to have left the country, but now we hear he is in Istanbul.
What to expect next, if the coup fails (which I think it will*): Erdogan will declare emergency powers. It would be almost without historical precedent for him not to do so. Moreover, he would be a fool not to do so, and he is not a fool. (“Never let a crisis go to waste.”)
I would not be surprised to learn that this was a false-flag operation, though of course that’s pure speculation. Erdogan, who is no secularist, once said that “democracy is like a train; you get off once you have reached your destination.” Perhaps he decided to take the express.
We live in interesting times.
*Note: why did I think, almost from the beginning, that the coup would fail? Because as far as I could tell, the rebels did not control the media quickly and completely. That suggested that they were not well-organized enough to succeed — or that the coup was never intended to succeed.
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At the end of one Malcom’s blog entry, that was noting some of the insanity that we live in, he say, “things are moving quickly.” And I think this was about a yearish ago. It stuck in my head. And since then, it me seems that not only are things accelerating, but the rate at which we are accelerating is accelerating.
I have my popcorn ready for the next couple of weeks.
Is seems to me my editing skills suck. Malcolm uses a lot of physics metaphors. I would say things are starting to spin.
Troy,
You might be interested in knowing (or not) that the technical term for the acceleration of acceleration is “jounce“.
Thus, speed is the rate at which things are changing; the rate at which speed is changing is the acceleration; the rate at which acceleration is changing is called the “jerk” (I kid you not); and, the rate at which jerk is changing, or the acceleration of acceleration is the jounce.
That is as far as derivatives with respect to time (i.e., rates) are defined in physics, as far as I know. Aren’t you glad you asked? :)
In the Middle East, nothing is ever as it seems.
Thanks TBH, I am interested in knowing that.