NS Parliament 2 Chamber [IC]

[Martune]

Speaker of the House:
[ ] Kuang Jun
[X] Kathiravan Ramasubramanian

[Ikania]

Speaker of the House:
[ ] Kuang Jun
[X] Kathiravan Ramasubramanian

Before the speaker vote began, K. Ramasubramanian rose to speak.

"Madam Speaker, I laugh at the comments of the honourable member. I want to remind the members of this house of a very sobering fact. Tamils in Banduria today are subject to immense persecution. One needs to look no further than the slums and skid rows of Yampanila, my hometown. Our Tamil community faces some of the worst rates of poverty, disease, malnutrition and lack of education. The honourable member accuses me of being bourgeois, and to her I say I laugh! Ha-ha-ha! I take her comments with joy, as it exposes her blindness to the real issues facing our country. Like most communists, she knows nothing of real pain, of real class struggle. She is a tool, a puppet in the pocket of the Chinese Communist Party's cruel machinations. I stand for speaker so that Banduria may be graced with a level-headed mediator of this house, a man who shows no favouritism to the corrupting and degenerate ideology of communism. I wish the dog Kim Jong Un to die as his opponents have: strapped to an artillery gun or eaten by hounds. For her to praise him as a supposed working class hero, while chastising our proud Tamil caucus who stand up for the real victims of the system, is nothing short of a joke."

[Van Hool Islands]

Speaker of the House:
[ ] Kuang Jun
[X] Kathiravan Ramasubramanian

Before the speaker vote began, K. Ramasubramanian rose to speak.

"Madam Speaker, I laugh at the comments of the honourable member. I want to remind the members of this house of a very sobering fact. Tamils in Banduria today are subject to immense persecution. One needs to look no further than the slums and skid rows of Yampanila, my hometown. Our Tamil community faces some of the worst rates of poverty, disease, malnutrition and lack of education. The honourable member accuses me of being bourgeois, and to her I say I laugh! Ha-ha-ha! I take her comments with joy, as it exposes her blindness to the real issues facing our country. Like most communists, she knows nothing of real pain, of real class struggle. She is a tool, a puppet in the pocket of the Chinese Communist Party's cruel machinations. I stand for speaker so that Banduria may be graced with a level-headed mediator of this house, a man who shows no favouritism to the corrupting and degenerate ideology of communism. I wish the dog Kim Jong Un to die as his opponents have: strapped to an artillery gun or eaten by hounds. For her to praise him as a supposed working class hero, while chastising our proud Tamil caucus who stand up for the real victims of the system, is nothing short of a joke."

Hear, hear.

[Jovuistan]

Kuang just throws his hands up for a moment in confusion at his colleague's forced laughter, completely weirded out by the Tamil Peoples Party's odd personalities.

[Jovuistan]

Kuang makes a speech ahead of the vote

"Madam Speaker, we can't afford to play these games right now. We are at a pivotal moment in Banduria's history, where technology and greed is leading to a massive divide between us that could result in significant damage that would take decades to undo. It is beyond pointless to rave on about the "Communist Muslim menace" as some of my colleagues have done when we have numerous ethnic groups - including Penghunis and Tamils - being actively discriminated against and oppressed. We have so many Bandurians living in slums, with our rural communities falling apart, all because this Chamber refuses to act, and rather bickers over which group of people to ban next. To continue to do what some in this Chamber have done today would be an embarrassment to all of Banduria. It would spit on the graves of those who stood up for our independence, it would spit on the faces of those who came out on the streets for a new democracy back when De Wit was assassinated. We are not going to go down that path again. I will work every day for all Bandurians to ensure that we are an equitable and free nation that we can be proud of."

[Ikania]

Kuang just throws his hands up for a moment in confusion at his colleague's forced laughter, completely weirded out by the Tamil Peoples Party's odd personalities.

OOC: Well what do you expect with a guy like this? I'm taking inspiration from some highlights in Indian politics reels...

[United Provinces of Atlantica]

Speaker of the House:
[ ] Kuang Jun
[X] Kathiravan Ramasubramanian

Before the speaker vote began, K. Ramasubramanian rose to speak.

"Madam Speaker, I laugh at the comments of the honourable member. I want to remind the members of this house of a very sobering fact. Tamils in Banduria today are subject to immense persecution. One needs to look no further than the slums and skid rows of Yampanila, my hometown. Our Tamil community faces some of the worst rates of poverty, disease, malnutrition and lack of education. The honourable member accuses me of being bourgeois, and to her I say I laugh! Ha-ha-ha! I take her comments with joy, as it exposes her blindness to the real issues facing our country. Like most communists, she knows nothing of real pain, of real class struggle. She is a tool, a puppet in the pocket of the Chinese Communist Party's cruel machinations. I stand for speaker so that Banduria may be graced with a level-headed mediator of this house, a man who shows no favouritism to the corrupting and degenerate ideology of communism. I wish the dog Kim Jong Un to die as his opponents have: strapped to an artillery gun or eaten by hounds. For her to praise him as a supposed working class hero, while chastising our proud Tamil caucus who stand up for the real victims of the system, is nothing short of a joke."

"Madam Speaker, I cannot, as a matter of principle, stand by and watch as the honourable member from Yampanila denigrates my honour, dignity, and reputation in order to exacerbate communal tensions and to divide our nation's working-class on this communal basis.

The honourable member from Yampanila may discuss the severe poverty of his ethnicity and his constituency, and to his constituents, I promise my tireless labour, so that they may no more suffer this sorry state. But while the policies I champion may aid the people of Yampanila, I charge that the honourable member from Yampanila, by contrast, sells his constituents the snake oil of communalism, sells his constituents a medicine which will elevate a few Tamils while keeping most poor - we need only look to Bumiputras in Malaysia to know that this will happen if the honourable member from Yampanila gets his way - destitute and in a sorry state. This poverty is not fundamentally communal and its solutions are not communal; poverty is fundamentally a question of class and its existence is a reality of class power, something the bourgeoisie created so that they can make out bandits, something the bourgeoisie created to prevent the poor, the working-class's lower echelons, from having enough breathing room to organize, and something the bourgeoisie created to frighten the working-class's more prosperous sections with the poor so that they are not focused on the class struggle. To look at poverty's non-communal, class-based nature, one may look no further than my district of Bloemenwijk East.

Unlike Yampanila, my district is mostly Chinese and Indonesian, but its citizens are just as if not poorer than Yampanila's Tamils. In my district, tens of thousands live in illegal, squatted shantytowns without running water, without electricity, without adequate sanitation systems, or in single-room occupancy hotels where entire families, four or five or six, sleep, sometimes atop one another, in one room as boilers fail and monoxide poisoning always loom over the horizon, thanks to an ever-present risk of gas leaks in these SROs, where slumlords raise rents and evict tenants regularly in lieu of any adequate rent regulation while doing nothing to adequately maintain the buildings these slumlords call theirs, content that their ownership over these buildings will always be enforced by a bourgeois-dominated state. Yet in my district, the people do not organize along communal lines for exclusive privileges, aware that such privileges only create a communal bourgeoisie without lifting most Chinese and most Indonesians out of poverty; we need only look to Bumiputras in Malaysia as evidence of this. Madam Speaker, the people of my district organize along class lines, for higher wages and lower rents, for better working conditions and social housing, for self-determination and genuine economic democracy. I myself am Chinese and grew up poor in a one-bedroom, rent-controlled apartment with the rest of my family, far away from Banduria after the dictatorship forced my parents to flee, before neoliberal policies enabled my parents' eviction as we lost the only real thing mooring us, but I do not fight for the Chinese poor and working-class. Rather, I fight for all poor and all working-class people everywhere, aware that working-class liberation is only possible through unity.

There is nothing that makes me more indignant than seeing the honourable member from Yampanila betray his constituents and his comrades in this way. But I am also indignant at the honourable member claiming that I am a puppet and stooge of the so-called Chinese Communist Party and the so-called People's Republic of China, when this is patently false. There is a reason, after all, that I am a member of the Communist Party rather than the real allies of the CCP and the PRC - the Revolutionary People's Party - and that is because I cannot, I will not, countenance the tremendous privatization that has occurred and the economic inequality that has grown since the 1970s under the Communist Party's rule, as rightist and reactionary elements took power and re-established capitalism in China. Just as the honourable member from Yampanila lies on this matter, so too does he perpetuate and swallow wholesale the rightist and imperialist lies that the bourgeoisie concocted regarding the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and its leader. I do not agree with everything that Kim Jong-un does - after all, I am a staunch communist and the DPRK espouses the ideology of Juche - but I have no choice but to praise Kim Jong-un and his predecessors' total defeat and expulsion of all imperialist and comprador bourgeois elements, instead establishing a socialist, proletarian-dominated state. In reaction to this tremendeous defeat, it is only logical for the imperialist bourgeoisie to disseminate great falsehoods claiming, without evidence, that Kim Jong-un cruelly and brutally executes his opponents, when in reality he is nothing more than a humble servant of the Korean people.

Thank you, Madam Speaker."

[Ikania]

"Madam Speaker, I would suggest to the honourable member that if she so desires to continue to speak of the problems of Malaysians, that she should move to Malaysia and fix them.

I will not indulge the vile falsehoods that this lady has spread of me. Her words are an insult to the hundreds of thousands of Yampana who desperately need help, and indeed to the millions of Tamils in our country. She gleefully acts as a mouthpiece for the evil force of communism, through her otiose use of communist rhetoric that serves no purpose but to confuse. She accuses me of division, yet calls we freedom fighters for Tamils fascists and bourgeois. She seems to have an obsession with the word "bourgeoisie." She questions my patriotism by implying my loyalties lie to the rich. I will have her know I drive a 2010 Tata Nano, I am far from rich. It is, indeed, an insult to all the many Tamils of all backgrounds and walks of life who support the Tamiḻ Makkaḷ Kaṭci, all the good people who saw above the lies of the Communist Party. It is insulting to my mother, Chandana, who, like me, grew up in the slums of Yampanila, and knows what it means to live through poverty. It is an insult to my friend Hari Nanthan, who died in his twenties from inadequate medical care.

The honourable member engages in pointless semantics that are nothing short of slander. She has revealed the true colours of her moral character by not only rejecting the Chinese Communist Party, but swearing her allegiance to its even more terrible friend. The mad dog in control of North Korea, and nothing short of a mad dog he is, is a rabid dictator who starves his own people for pleasure. Madam Speaker, the member betrays all Bandurians by accusing me of lying, in a most unparliamentary fashion, while banging the murderous drum of communism. Has she not forgotten that socialists made common cause with our brothers in Tamil Eelam? Does she not recognize the agency of the Tamil Bandurians who have united behind the Tamiḻ Makkaḷ Kaṭci, not as a communist cult of personality, but a collective movement of equals? She does our community a disservice by calling us gullible, calling us fools for daring to express our identity. Because, like all communists, there is no low she will not sink to in order to brainwash our people into the disastrous toxin of communism. She directs her blame for society's ills at those more fortunate, distracting us from addressing real problems in favour of easy targets.

Madam Speaker, I call for uplifting, not division. I call for spiritual enlightenment, social justice, and economic intervention to solve the pressing problems Tamils face in our country. It is not her that grew up among the persecuted of Yampanila, with her sob story about the evils of earning income. I stand, distinguished from this woman and her destructive ideology, and pledge to my constituents that I will never sell out their interests, or that of the country, in the way this Marxist mouthpiece has done."

K.R. sits, and sips from a box of mango lassi.

[Jovuistan]

"Madam Speaker, I would suggest to the honourable member that if she so desires to continue to speak of the problems of Malaysians, that she should move to Malaysia and fix them.

I will not indulge the vile falsehoods that this lady has spread of me. Her words are an insult to the hundreds of thousands of Yampana who desperately need help, and indeed to the millions of Tamils in our country. She gleefully acts as a mouthpiece for the evil force of communism, through her otiose use of communist rhetoric that serves no purpose but to confuse. She accuses me of division, yet calls we freedom fighters for Tamils fascists and bourgeois. She seems to have an obsession with the word "bourgeoisie." She questions my patriotism by implying my loyalties lie to the rich. I will have her know I drive a 2010 Tata Nano, I am far from rich. It is, indeed, an insult to all the many Tamils of all backgrounds and walks of life who support the Tamiḻ Makkaḷ Kaṭci, all the good people who saw above the lies of the Communist Party. It is insulting to my mother, Chandana, who, like me, grew up in the slums of Yampanila, and knows what it means to live through poverty. It is an insult to my friend Hari Nanthan, who died in his twenties from inadequate medical care.

The honourable member engages in pointless semantics that are nothing short of slander. She has revealed the true colours of her moral character by not only rejecting the Chinese Communist Party, but swearing her allegiance to its even more terrible friend. The mad dog in control of North Korea, and nothing short of a mad dog he is, is a rabid dictator who starves his own people for pleasure. Madam Speaker, the member betrays all Bandurians by accusing me of lying, in a most unparliamentary fashion, while banging the murderous drum of communism. Has she not forgotten that socialists made common cause with our brothers in Tamil Eelam? Does she not recognize the agency of the Tamil Bandurians who have united behind the Tamiḻ Makkaḷ Kaṭci, not as a communist cult of personality, but a collective movement of equals? She does our community a disservice by calling us gullible, calling us fools for daring to express our identity. Because, like all communists, there is no low she will not sink to in order to brainwash our people into the disastrous toxin of communism. She directs her blame for society's ills at those more fortunate, distracting us from addressing real problems in favour of easy targets.

Madam Speaker, I call for uplifting, not division. I call for spiritual enlightenment, social justice, and economic intervention to solve the pressing problems Tamils face in our country. It is not her that grew up among the persecuted of Yampanila, with her sob story about the evils of earning income. I stand, distinguished from this woman and her destructive ideology, and pledge to my constituents that I will never sell out their interests, or that of the country, in the way this Marxist mouthpiece has done."

K.R. sits, and sips from a box of mango lassi.

Kuang watches K.R. drink his Lassi. He leans over a bit so as to not have his mic pick anything up. He mouths to K.R. "Can I have some?"

[Puertollano]

"Madame Speaker. I will not stand here and and take the volleys coming from the reactionary right and revisionist social democrats. Misinformation, peddled by Western and US-backed media sources have done their work in discrediting the People's Republic of China, and why wouldn't they? The People's Republic of China and the Communist Party of China have overseen enormous growth in average incomes, healthcare and lifestyle. I am a Socialist, based on the scientific socialist methods detailed by Deng Xioping in the 19th National Congress. Socialism with Chinese Characteristics create important lessons for us in Banduria, we should be modelling our economy off their success in worked-led, scientific forms of achieving a socialist mode of production. President Xi Jinping elaborated on this with Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, that thoroughly details the practices used to achieve high employment and a workers' state. I'm a Bandurian nationalist, but I also see the usefulness in understand and developing with our neighbors. Be it the Philippines, or the People's Republic of China."

[Ikania]

K.R. nods, and reaches for his phone.

“wait for break, will give u 2 boxs”

[Vedastia]

Speaker of the House:
[ ] Kuang Jun
[X] Kathiravan Ramasubramanian

[Sao Nova Europa]

Yang Kang, with his soft voice and calm demeanor, spoke:

"Madam Speaker. Dear members of this chamber. I refuse to vote for either of the two candidates for the office of Speaker of the House. I am forced to abstain as both choices represent the ills of our political system. On the one hand, we have a candidate who has repeatedly disparaged atheist and homosexual Bandurians while promoting a rigid social conservatism that excludes and discriminates many patriotic Bandurians. On the other hand, we have a socialist candidate who proposes solutions that have led to the humanitarian disaster in Venezuela and engages in populist rhetoric, attacking the middle class and the innovative tech entrepreneurs who are responsible for the economic growth in our country."

"What we need is to reject both the racism of the extreme right and the socialism of the extreme left. The Democratic Party wants a social market economy, in which the working and middle classes get to keep more of their money and high earners & big corporations will pay far more in taxation; we believe that those who have more, should pay their fair share to move society forward. An economy which combines robust social welfare programs to aid the most vulnerable with cuts in red tape and a business-friendly environment. We want liberty for all; we seek to ensure that all Bandurians regardless of their race, ethnicity, religion, gender or sexual orientation will have the same rights. We refuse to restrict the liberties of certain groups, whether ethnic, religious or sexual, in order to not upset some people. We seek both social justice and individual liberty."

[Agarntrop]

"Madame Speaker. I will not stand here and and take the volleys coming from the reactionary right and revisionist social democrats. Misinformation, peddled by Western and US-backed media sources have done their work in discrediting the People's Republic of China, and why wouldn't they? The People's Republic of China and the Communist Party of China have overseen enormous growth in average incomes, healthcare and lifestyle. I am a Socialist, based on the scientific socialist methods detailed by Deng Xioping in the 19th National Congress. Socialism with Chinese Characteristics create important lessons for us in Banduria, we should be modelling our economy off their success in worked-led, scientific forms of achieving a socialist mode of production. President Xi Jinping elaborated on this with Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, that thoroughly details the practices used to achieve high employment and a workers' state. I'm a Bandurian nationalist, but I also see the usefulness in understand and developing with our neighbors. Be it the Philippines, or the People's Republic of China."

Sri whispered to Kang who was sitting next to him.

"Wat in hemelsnaam was dat ... Deze man is helemaal gek."

(Eng: What the heck was that ... This man is completely crazy.)

[Sao Nova Europa]

Sri whispered to Kang who was sitting next to him.

"Wat in hemelsnaam was dat ... Deze man is helemaal gek."

(Eng: What the heck was that ... This man is completely crazy.)

Kang replied in Dutch:

"Indeed. He is either a mad authoritarian or on the PRC's payroll. Neither is good."

[Agarntrop]

Sri whispered to Kang who was sitting next to him.

"Wat in hemelsnaam was dat ... Deze man is helemaal gek."

(Eng: What the heck was that ... This man is completely crazy.)

Kang replied in Dutch:

"Indeed. He is either a mad authoritarian or on the PRC's payroll. Neither is good."

"Ja...."

[The Hindustani State]

"Madame Speaker, it seems the socialist left wants to erase the cultures and traditions that make Banduria Banduria. They want us to become a puppet state of the PRC, of course, we will never allow that to happen. Banduria’s economy is booming, we want to keep this free market economy going, so one day we become as wealthy as our neighbors Singapore, South Korea, and the only China I recognize, the RoC.

Is it a surprise that countries who opted for a free market, such as the aforementioned can now provide their citizens with an amazing quality of life? Meanwhile, the countries that fell to the lies of communism, such as Vietnam, North Korea, Laos, and formerly Cambodia, are now struggling and stagnating behind? Is it a surprise that the wretched ideology spawned madmen like Mao Zedong, Kim Il Sung, and Pol Pot? Madame Speaker, this is a plea to all the members of this esteemed parliament, that whatever we do, we must stop people like MP Lao-Tau Lu from turning our country into the authoritarian dystopia that has become of the communist countries of the world."

[Merni]

"Order. The result of the vote is:
Kuang Jun: 6
Kathiravan Ramasubramanian: 8
Abstention: 1

"Therefore, I declare the honourable member for Yampanila, Mr. Kathiravan Ramasubramanian, elected as Speaker of the House. Thank you." Zhang Xiaoqing vacated the chair, briefly congratulated K.R., and returned to her seat.

[Inhorto]

Yu rose. "Allow me to extend my congratulations to you, Mr. Speaker. I am certain that you will be a more than apt leader in this House. Where there was once discord, there should is now harmony. Where there was once anger, there is now unity. Let us join hands to furthering the interests of all Bandurians of all strokes and stripes."

[Van Hool Islands]

Yu rose. "Allow me to extend my congratulations to you, Mr. Speaker. I am certain that you will be a more than apt leader in this House. Where there was once discord, there should is now harmony. Where there was once anger, there is now unity. Let us join hands to furthering the interests of all Bandurians of all strokes and stripes."

"Hear, hear."

[Agarntrop]

Yu rose. "Allow me to extend my congratulations to you, Mr. Speaker. I am certain that you will be a more than apt leader in this House. Where there was once discord, there should is now harmony. Where there was once anger, there is now unity. Let us join hands to furthering the interests of all Bandurians of all strokes and stripes."

Sri muttered under his breath "Thatcher zou hem moeten aanklagen wegens plagiaat." (Thatcher should sue him for plagiarism) before shouting "Hoor hoor!" (Hear hear!)

[Ikania]

K.R. cannot help but grin as he is pulled to the Speaker's chair.

"Honourable friends," he begins. "I thank you all for this illustrious appointment. I am honoured to be chosen at this country's fist Tamil Speaker, and I promise I will do my best to serve our country through my office. Now is the time to put aside petty politics and partisan attacks, and come together to face the common problems of our country. I will be looking into the appointment of deputy speakers forthwith. Again, thank you."

[Crylante]

"Mr Speaker, I would like to wish you well in your duties to this legislature."

[Inhorto]

"While we are in something of an interlude, Mr. Speaker, I would like to reflect on the ongoing situation in North Korea and the precarious state if its leader, Chairman Kim Jong-un," Yu began. "Now, none here can say with any degree of measurable certainty that Mr. Kim has indeed passed. Those that do know are unfortunately shackled by the yoke of oppression. What we can do is examine the evidence we have and draw conclusions thereof."

"Without putting too fine a point on it, the world will not miss Mr. Kim. The international community will not miss Mr. Kim. As his country's leader, he is complicit in the misfortune and starvation of millions of North Koreans, his own people. His direct actions and the actions of the goons that serve him have directly resulted in the murder of thousands. He is the champion of nuclear armament and hostility on the international stage. When Mr. Kim draws his last breath and ascends into that realm beyond our own, liberty-loving people across the world will rejoice, as they ought to."

"I, however, am deeply concerned for the health of the region after Mr. Kim's death. I'm afraid that only God knows what contingency plans the North Koreans have concocted to respond to an event like this. I fear that in his wake that part of the Korean Peninsula will be plunged into the depths of civil war. I fear that in his wake will rise a man who is ever more corrupt, bellicose, and gung-ho. I fear that nuclear weapons in the possession of a failed state roiled in war can only mean escalation in world war and nuclear winter. These are dangerous times."

"Most of all, I would like to extend my sympathies to the North Korean people. Let us not forget that the North Koreans are people too; they are not machines hardwired to serve. They have thoughts, concerns, fears, and aspirations. When the structures of Kim's ancien regime crumble, the North Korean people will be the first casualties. That is ultimately the price of Communist revolution. In these times, let us keep the North Koreans in our thoughts and prayers, hoping that one day the North Korean people will join hands with the rest of the world as free people unchained by Communism and fear."

[Agarntrop]

"While we are in something of an interlude, Mr. Speaker, I would like to reflect on the ongoing situation in North Korea and the precarious state if its leader, Chairman Kim Jong-un," Yu began. "Now, none here can say with any degree of measurable certainty that Mr. Kim has indeed passed. Those that do know are unfortunately shackled by the yoke of oppression. What we can do is examine the evidence we have and draw conclusions thereof."

"Without putting too fine a point on it, the world will not miss Mr. Kim. The international community will not miss Mr. Kim. As his country's leader, he is complicit in the misfortune and starvation of millions of North Koreans, his own people. His direct actions and the actions of the goons that serve him have directly resulted in the murder of thousands. He is the champion of nuclear armament and hostility on the international stage. When Mr. Kim draws his last breath and ascends into that realm beyond our own, liberty-loving people across the world will rejoice, as they ought to."

"I, however, am deeply concerned for the health of the region after Mr. Kim's death. I'm afraid that only God knows what contingency plans the North Koreans have concocted to respond to an event like this. I fear that in his wake that part of the Korean Peninsula will be plunged into the depths of civil war. I fear that in his wake will rise a man who is ever more corrupt, bellicose, and gung-ho. I fear that nuclear weapons in the possession of a failed state roiled in war can only mean escalation in world war and nuclear winter. These are dangerous times."

"Most of all, I would like to extend my sympathies to the North Korean people. Let us not forget that the North Koreans are people too; they are not machines hardwired to serve. They have thoughts, concerns, fears, and aspirations. When the structures of Kim's ancien regime crumble, the North Korean people will be the first casualties. That is ultimately the price of Communist revolution. In these times, let us keep the North Koreans in our thoughts and prayers, hoping that one day the North Korean people will join hands with the rest of the world as free people unchained by Communism and fear."

"Hoor hoor."