First some announcements:
1. On my other - more formal - blog, I ask "Does government-funded science play a role in stimulating innovation?" There I refute rising incantations that science, productivity and inventiveness would all do so much better if we revert them all back to the whim of plutocrat lords. (Yeah, that worked great for the 6000 years of stagnant feudalism!) with guest appearances by Ayn Rand, Karl Marx, Adam Smith and... Jonas Salk.
2. Want the perfect gift for that professor or student of Anthropology or Paleontology?
3. Appearances (see the regularly updated schedule):
- Nov 7 my new play - The Escape - will premiere at the Caltech Atheneum.
- Nov 9 I speak at the Future In Review (FiRe) Conference in Palos Verdes, before flying to Tucson for the Tus-Con sci fi convention.
- April 8 - two Texas events for the April 8 eclipse - more later
And now... having a little trouble with your clogged dogmas? Let's have a look and see if we can get things flowing again! I'll start by quoting an exceptionally sapient article.
== Ideology as a refuge from practical problem solving ==
“Because an ideology “looks upon all factuality as fabricated,” it “no longer knows any reliable criterion for distinguishing truth from falsehood.”
— From Arresting Our ‘Flight From Reality by Roger Berkowitz
I recommend you visit this linked essay which continues:
“In 1949, when Hannah Arendt (1906–1975) went to Germany as part of the New York-based Jewish Cultural Reconstruction Commission, she was struck by the way the Germans showed an “at times vicious refusal to face and come to terms with what really happened.” This “escape from reality,” as Arendt named it, meant that the reality of the Holocaust and the death factories was spoken of as a hypothetical. And when the truth of the Holocaust was admitted, it was diminished: “The Germans did only what others are capable of doing.”
“The Germans, at times, simply denied the facts of what had happened. One woman told Arendt that the “Russians had begun the war with an attack on Danzig.” What Arendt encountered was a “kind of gentleman’s agreement by which everyone has a right to his ignorance under the pretext that everyone has a right to his opinion.” The underlying assumption for such a right is the “tacit assumption that opinions really do not matter.” Opinions are just that, mere opinions. And facts, once they are reduced to opinions, also don’t matter. Taken together, this led to a “flight from reality.”
“The focus of Arendt’s lifelong engagement with the human flight from reality was her encounter with ideologies, specifically Nazism and Bolshevism. In The Origins of Totalitarianism and other texts (especially her essay, On the Nature of Totalitarianism), Arendt defines an ideology as a system that seeks to explain “all the mysteries of life and the world” according to one idea.”
…” As ideologies, both Nazism and Bolshevism insist on explaining the events of the world according to theories “without further concurrence with actual experience.” The result, Arendt argues, is that such ideologies bring about an “arrogant emancipation from reality.” …”The modern lie is ideological in that it rejects all contrary evidence and all inconvenient facts. It involves, as Arendt writes, the “mass manipulation of fact and opinion” toward the totalizing end of “rewriting history” and the present to fit one idea.”
Do have a look at Roger’s article in Quillette, because the first half is so perfectly on target - diagnosing the same flaw in human nature that I often point-to -- our propensity for self-satisfying delusion, (a flaw that is also a taproot to our greatest gifts, like art and love).
Ideologies, especially, can be mass delusions that are ecstatically masturbatory, simplifying all of those who disagree into mistakes, to be corrected with erasure.
I concur, while adding that another (or overlapping) common element is romanticism. Nazism, Stalinism, the American Confederacy (in all eight of its manifestations) were all romantic movements. (Mark Twain blamed the Civil War on the novels of Sir Walter Scott!)
SF is not innocent! We see many common romantic features in the works of Tolkien and George Lucas and George R.R. Martin and Frank Herbert, wherein innately superior beings are portrayed as elegantly admirable (and pretty) while opposing orcs or robots or clone soldiers or masked storm troopers or hovering Harkonnens can be mowed down without qualm, as none of them have faces or mothers.
(More seductively subtle, the gifted, eloquent and deeply anti-enlightenment O.S. Card relentlessly pushes romantic notions of rule-by-demigod, in place of decadent democracy.)
I go into all this in Vivid Tomorrows. And while I have earned most of my income by penning tales that have strong romantic elements, I write such passages at night, when the wind rustles tree branches and I feel the thrumming echoes of the caves. But I also say romanticism has no business - after 6000 years of calamities - getting involved in the daytime pursuits of politics, policy, science, justice and negotiation based on pragmatically verifiable facts.
== Hatred of Modernity ==
Alas, the 2nd half of Roger's essay dives into a completely separate Arendt obsession, her dyspeptic growl at modernity and science which I deem easily refuted. For example, it was not ‘reconciliation’ that defeated Nazis, or Leninist romantics or the many phases of confederatism.
What's been our great strength? It was a spirit of courage to face that ‘loneliness’ in alliance with different and varied others, whose very differences contribute to a healthy and wholesome tribe/nation/humanity.
We are not all so terrified, all the time, that we must clutch demonizing ideologies. There are other emotions, like fortitude, patience, curiosity and humor. And yes, an appreciation of facts and willingness to change our contingent models of the world (despite Plato’s yammers about the hopelessness of that wondrous pursuit.)
Despite my respect for Hannah Arendt, I feel no compulsion to heed in the slightest either Nietzsche or Hegel, whose incantation spells I particularly detest. Where I disagree foremost is over the outright dismissal of human provability.
Like Roger Berkowitz, I do not take seriously the pathetic immortality fetishists or those nutters who think they can promote themselves - via miraculous technology - to godhood. But unlike him, I recognize that we stand on the shoulders of generations who struggled to make us better than them…
… and we are better! Each generation of Americans - for example - has struggled over demands that we expand our horizons of inclusion, beyond the horizons that were new to our parents. And slowly - (far TOO grindingly slowly) - we have done so, each generation. And science, disproving ten thousand pat and comfy folk assumptions, played a major role in that!
Indeed, if we do keep improving, our wiser heirs will almost certainly realize that we've only shown how very much farther there is to go.
== Civilizational Competition? ==
Western nations and allies, e.g. Japan and S Korea ("W+") are actually doing very well, overflowing with creativity, invention, science, productivity and the sort of moral rediscovery that has engendered a very active younger generation, fizzing with criticism and eagerness to save the world... traits that were squelched across those 6000 feudal/futile years. Traits that are utterly repressed in 'civilizational" rivals like China, Russia, radical Islam, etc.
Let's be clear. Only those nations with habits of self-critical error discovery have been at all active at addressing potentially existential problems, like the environment, or justice, or rule of law. It is either W+ habits of error-discovery or extinction. Period. I stand ready to show that in any arena, from debate to wager.
There is one reason for cultural anomie by Western+ citizenries. That cause is the most aggressive propaganda campaign the world has ever seen, cleverly leveraging the reflex toward criticism that's been trained into W+ citizenries, igniting healthy Suspicion of Authority into paranoia toward their own institutions.
In Europe and the U.S. this campaign has been augmented by cynically evil despots herding millions of victims to EU and U.S. borders as refugees, successfully sparking rightward 'populist' political reactions.
There is no 'civilizational' bullshit. One imperative - and just one - unites China, Russia, radical Islam, etc. into common cause. That unifying drive - propelled by male reproductive strategies a billion years old - is to re-establish the feudal pyramids of power that dominated 99% of human societies for 60 centuries or much more.
Squint and you can see it in all enemies of the W+... justifying pyramids of power. Some base it on religion, or tradition, or romanticism, or 'civilization rivalry.' But that is decoration.
The worldwide oligarchic putsch unites all enemies of the W+ Enlightenment Experiment (W+EE) for one reason: because the W+EE will likely succeed within the next 20 years at inculcating critical habits in ALL world youth! And when that happens, a return to feudal pyramids will be impossible, no matter how much money you have or political foes you defenestrate.
This may be their last chance. And they are pulling out the stops.
Liberal societies will not co-exist with any of that. As happened to Athens and Florence, liberalism will be crushed, burned, the atoms incinerated and dropped (this time) into the sun... and the experiment will never be allowed, again.
Or else, what will happen is what the cabals fear most. We may decide to save the world and the future despite them. By growing up.
Dr Brin in the main post:
ReplyDeleteApril 8 - two Texas events for the April 8 eclipse - more later
Any chance you'll be in Austin? My wife has family there, and spring is a great time to visit.
A fancy winery 60 mi NW of Austin. Tho I may visit folks in Austin.
ReplyDelete"delusions that are ecstatically masturbatory"
ReplyDeleteA short essay of yours clued me in to our addiction to endogenous neurochemicals triggered by things like gambling and self righteous indignation. It isn't the behaviors, emotions, or delusions were actually addicted to but the endogenous neurochemicals that are triggered by them. As you suggest here the same process has an upside in creativity, love, etc. So the project is to replace the bad triggers with good ones so we get high on doing good. It seems like this could be turned into a useful science.
Poor Richard: "So the project is to replace the bad triggers with good ones so we get high on doing good. It seems like this could be turned into a useful science."
ReplyDeleteI actually gave a talk about this - maybe 15 years ago - and the National Institutes on Drugs and Addiction. My sponsor thought the notion should be heard, but several in the audience sneered fporcefully and (it seemed to me) without comprehension.
A pity since, yes, just excposing citizens to the notion THAT both illegal drugs and indignant fury are hijackings of reward mechanisms that we evolved into being addicted to - our kids, love, skill and other good things. It seems so obvious and there's real evidence. I Speak of it here in my TEDxUCSD talk on “The addictive plague of getting mad as hell." http://tinyurl.com/wrathaddicts.
(And the scientific background: http://www.davidbrin.com/nonfiction/addiction.html )
Dr Brin,
ReplyDeleteI have just discovered Chris Grey's UK Brexit blog, via a comment on Charles Stross's blog, and am currently reading (and re-reading parts of) his latest post.
https://chrisgreybrexitblog.blogspot.com/2023/10/brexit-has-driven-tory-party-mad.html
It seems to me that there are a LOT of parallels between what has happened and is happening to the right-wing political parties in the UK and US.
In particular I note Dr Grey's sentence,
It’s worth reflecting how remarkable it is that, as with the hostility to business and professionals, populist Tories now regard the educated and affluent middle-class in general as being amongst the enemies of the people rather than being part of their core vote.
which could have been a direct quote from you IMHO.
Dr Brin:
ReplyDeleteboth illegal drugs and indignant fury are hijackings of reward mechanisms that we evolved into being addicted to - our kids, love, skill and other good things
Some of the religious demonization of drugs (in some cases including alcohol) seem to innately acknowledge this. I mean that in the good sense. They discourage short-cut paths to reward so that people will eventually take the right paths. It's the same with their discouraging of premarital sex with the expectation that people will then marry and have children.
One might describe the attitude as "People will do the right thing after exhausting all other options."
In that sense, I don't object to religion's goals. My problem with them is the way they treat the flock as children who must be tricked or threatened onto the right path rather than as thoughtful adults from whom buy-in is...if not required than strongly suggested. My other problem is that it leaves no room for nonconformity--those who thoughtfully considered the options and decided that marriage (or whatever) may be a general good, but doesn't work in their case.
That's a long-winded way of getting at my point, which is that in many cases, the users of illegal drugs and shameful sex practices (I mean shameful to themselves ) know quite well that they're cheating, but they despair that the "good" paths to rewards will never be there for them, so they've given up.
* * *
My question about Austin was whether you will be there for events open to the public.
Yes, finally someone is noticing!
ReplyDeletehttps://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/06/opinion/joe-biden-trump-election.html
...
Finally, and most important, when you really start to imagine what it would look like if the Democrats didn’t nominate Biden, one whopping issue becomes clear.
A lot of the dump-Biden conversations are based on a false premise: that the Democratic Party brand and agenda are somehow strong and popular enough that any number of younger candidates could win the White House in 2024, and that if Biden were just to retire, all sorts of obstacles and troubles would go with him.
But Biden is not the sole or even primary problem here. To the extent that these things are separable, it’s the Democratic Party as a whole that’s ailing. The generic congressional ballot is a broad measure of the strength of the congressional party. Democrats are now behind. According to a Morning Consult poll, Americans rate the Democratic Party as a whole as the more ideologically extreme party by a nine-point margin.
...
Larry Hart,
ReplyDeleteThanx for pointing to that David Brooks column. Is sanity from the New York Times a sign of the apocalypse?
The universe is a realm of computation and evolution. The 3-lb sapiens brain contains a vastly simplified model of reality assembled using tools like analogy, mathematics, symbols, tokens, games*, and most of all, an amazing ability to 'fill in the blanks'. This latter ability is how we can interpret reality given only a tiny peep through our senses. We see and hear largely what we expect to see and hear. Eye-witness accounts are no longer considered the solid legal evidence they once were before we understood this.
ReplyDeleteDeveloping this model takes 20 years or more of recursive, self-referencing, self-training of the greatest supercomputer nature has yet devised (that we know of). There are unsettling implications of this, such as the possible fallacy of 'free will', or the romanticism roots that OGH explains so well, actually one of his best hobbyhorses IMHO.
* I'm going to try to find some time for TRIBES. It looks a bit like the early part of a game of CIVILIZATION, one of my favourites. Almost 50 years ago, I played a simplistic version of the genre called HAMMURABI (written in BASIC).
mcsandburg:
ReplyDeleteIs sanity from the New York Times a sign of the apocalypse?
No, sanity from FOX News would be. :)
But seriously, I'm sick to death of hearing how Democrats should drop Biden and that he's the only Democrat who could lose to Trump, when it was obvious back in 2020 that the Dems nominated him because he was the only Democrat who could have won against Trump. And since then, his accomplishments in the face of a one-seat Senate majority and a hostile House have been phenomenal to the point where Jesus's soliloquy in Superstar is not an unfair comparison.
Listen, surely I've exceeded
Expectations. Tried for three years.
Seems like thirty. Could You ask
As much from any other man?
I'm as concerned about falling poll numbers as any liberal should be, but the fault is not so much with Biden as with the perception that the Democratic Party is too socialist/woke/abortionist . Biden is not the problem. He was (and could still be) the solution to the problem.
* * *
It occurs to me that the extremists of the political left have become the party of the Superego while the extremists of the political right are the party of the Id. That's a reversal of the stereotypes from the 1960s when liberals were dirty "Do your own thing" hippies and conservatives the advocates of law and order, conformity, and hierarchy. It's difficult to let go of those preconceptions, but Democrats are now excoriated for wanting to make people behave and Republicans scream for their right to do whatever feels good at the moment, even the things that contradict the other things. Related to Dr Brin's post, rank-and-file Republican voters have given up on the possibility of getting ahead in the system, so they're now all about cheating short-cuts to make them feel like winners.
The difference, as has been mentioned her ad nauseum, is that the Superego voice is a loud but minority fringe of the Democratic Party, whereas the Id voice is firmly in control of the Republican Party.
"My question about Austin was whether you will be there for events open to the public.”
ReplyDeleteI’ll announce here if I can stay an extra day to do that.
“Democrats are now behind. According to a Morning Consult poll, Americans rate the Democratic Party as a whole as the more ideologically extreme party by a nine-point margin.”
Given that the brief Pelosi-Biden Congress was incredibly productive, this mass delusion is largely attributable to the dems insipid inability to do polemics well.
Yes to what LH said about that! Except he goes on to say: “ stereotypes from the 1960s when liberals were dirty "Do your own thing" hippies and conservatives the advocates of law and order, conformity, and hierarchy.”
Um huge marches for rights and against the V War might counter that. As would Star Trek.
Dr Brin:
ReplyDeleteUm huge marches for rights and against the V War might counter that.
It would counter the "dirty hippy" stereotype, but not the fact that 1960s liberals advocated for tolerance of nonconformity. Whereas today, we are tarred with trying to force everyone to be just like us.
Related to LH's remark: From this week’s NOEMA: “John Gray’s latest book, “The New Leviathans: Thoughts After Liberalism” focuses on the diverse ways of ordering societies that have emerged out of the dispelled illusion that a liberal universalist consensus was bound to reign after the end of the Cold War.”… “We are just returning to the pluralism that has characterized most of history.” He cites the dictum of the 17th-century philosopher Thomas Hobbes as his guiding light. “There is no finis ultimis [final aim],” Hobbes declared in “Leviathan,” “nor summum bonum [highest good] as is spoken of in the books of the old moral philosophers.”
ReplyDelete“The world Gray sees out there today is not a pretty one. He casts Russia as morphing into “a steampunk Byzantium with nukes.” Under Xi Jinping, China has become a “high-tech panopticon” that keeps the inmates under constant surveillance lest they fail to live up to the proscribed Confucian virtues of order and are tempted to step outside the “rule by law” imposed by the Communist Party. Gray is especially withering in his critique of the sanctimonious posture of the U.S.-led West that still, to cite Reinhold Niebuhr, sees itself “as the tutor of mankind on its pilgrimage to perfection.”
Gray’s insights are – of course valuable as grist for open argument. And yes, the Western obsession with individual rights and self-defined identity is being exploited to exacerbate divisiveness and rancor and loss of common purpose.
But I despair of ever seeing one of these guys go one more level… looking in a mirror to ask:
“What am I saying and WHY am *I* saying it?”
In this case, might all this talk about multi-polarity – by Gray and almost everyone out there – be in-part based upon the very same notion of self-definition that they criticize?
I assert that all the talk of ‘multipolarity’ and ‘civilization states’ relies upon a western notion of respect for diversity that is being exploited against it.
Poor Richard,
ReplyDelete"So the project is to replace the bad triggers with good ones so we get high on doing good. It seems like this could be turned into a useful science."
- In a sense this is happening, though I don't think there's a name for it yet. I have been reading people for many years now, mostly anthropologists who have been reading - or doing - neuroscience, but I'm sure there are others out there doing good work. The biggest problem as I see it is that we have taken what was once one of the Seven Deadly Sins and turned it into our national virtue. Between Social Darwinism and the far more ancient Providentialism, we kind of always have. No culture is ever monolithic. "Greed is good" is the creedo of people who were weaned on the Cold War, and can't seem to figure out that one extreme is unlikely to be any better than the other. Many people are swayed by a straight-up moral argument, but a whole lot of people aren't, so we need as much of this science as we can get, and to spread it around.
Paul SB
Alfred,
ReplyDeleteSorry it's been a really long time since I visited here. I remember that last time you posted that my book recommendations are often good, and I have been meaning to thank you for the vote of confidence. So, as Eeyore used to say, Thanks for noticing!
Paul SB
Larry Hart, David Brin
ReplyDeleteI'm seriously surprised that the polling is showing a clear Trump win in the general. The most common reason given for that by the various pundits, is the day-to-day pain that this inflation is inflicting on people.
I think that the plainly obvious political persecution of Trump is a big factor as well. If any of the 4 prosecutors had even a bit of subtlety, that would make a big difference.
mcsandburg:
ReplyDeleteI'm seriously surprised that the polling is showing a clear Trump win in the general. The most common reason given for that by the various pundits, is the day-to-day pain that this inflation is inflicting on people.
Before the 2022 election, Bill Maher had Kellyanne Conway on as a guest, and she was enthusiastically predicting a red wave because of gas prices. There was even a spot-on political cartoon in the Chicago Tribune with someone complaining, "I voted for authoritarianism instead of democracy, and gas prices are still high."
And yet it didn't happen. Almost the opposite thing happened.
I'm not putting too much stock in polls yet this early out. My concern is that fellow Democrats will panic over them and do something stupid. Which may be the point.
The news media want a horse race--a nail biter. And they'll influence the public in any way that they can to make that a reality.
I think that the plainly obvious political persecution of Trump is a big factor as well.
And yet, the plainly obvious political persecution of Hunter Biden doesn't boomerang back into support for Biden, does it?
Trump's whackadoo supporters perceive treating Trump like the criminal he is as persecution. That may make them angrier than they already were (if such a thing is possible), but it doesn't increase their numbers.
Let's see what the polling is telling us in a year or so. Even then, the polls leading up to 2022 weren't showing the beat-down that Republicans got that election.
The elections aren't rigged - the polls are. Numpties aren't supposed to notice.
ReplyDeleteAmong ALL of the 100+ tactics I have recommended for the dems - e.g. in Polemical Judo - I most wish for
ReplyDeleteJobee to step up now and declare an "open primary season for dems." Focused not on campaigning so much as a good excuse to have onstage debates among teputable folks.
NOT in order to get nominated (though it could happen). He'd say "I intend to be the nominee and I am the LIKELY nominee. But I want you all to see how full and rich our bench is... and how GROWNUP and serious they are as they debate. A chance to give the 2nd tier folks exposure and for them to talk actual, fact-based ideas to you all out there!
And sure, after polite argument and statements if YOU out there pick someone else from our big, diverse and smart team? Well, I love America and I trust YOU out there more than I need the trappings of office. Only a jerk would be obsessed with that kind of stuff."
Re: rigged polls. We appear to be seeing that in Australia at present. There is a referendum next weekend on whether or not to recognise indigenous Australians in the Constitution, and provide them with a direct (advisory only) 'Voice to Parliament'.
ReplyDeleteThe polls have been firmly tipping a 'No' result, yet the actual 'No' campaign has a strong whiff of astroturf to it: I have seen little if any public support for 'No' and a heck of a lot for 'Yes'.
Of course, Melbourne isn't the rest of Australia, any more than people marching in the street is ever greater than about 0.5-1% of the population (which is considered massive). The final outcome will be seen after Saturday.
In honor of Dr. Brin's new play at Caltech, I originally wrote a very droll comment that extended from the Faucian (I_am_Science) to the Faustian (I_am_God), but I lost interest in it following the recent German elections, the Assault on Israel & the US Democrat Party's inevitable denunciations of Israeli brutality.
ReplyDeleteI derive no joy from the ongoing collapse of the West. I've warned all concerned about what's coming. I've argued the Donald Trump was a policy moderate rather the extremist devil of the Left's imagination; I've condemned the divisive & inherently (soft) racist nature of affirmative action; and I've railed against the insane excesses of the DEI agenda to no appreciable effect.
Although my low expectations for humanity have left me seldom disappointed, this weekend has convinced me that I have not been cynical enough by far. Most likely, all my preparations to protect my family will prove insufficient and, unlike the ending of Faust, none of us can expect a last minute 'escape' from the Devil on the basis of a legal technicality.
Hannah Arendt's warnings have likewise been ignored. She defined an ideology as a system that seeks to explain “all the mysteries of life and the world”, condemned all such systems as so many "flights from reality" and noted how they led invariably to totalitarianism.
Unfortunately, the Modern Westerner has embraced yet another ideology, a superior one perhaps, but still one that seeks to explain “all the mysteries of life and the world” and thereby allow human beings to escape their all-too-human failings. This new & improved ideology, we call 'Science'.
It differs from German Ideological Science not a whit and it promises exactly the same results: It will free us from the omnipresent historical cycle; it will allow us perfect ourselves, conquer death, live forever & become gods; and it will insure that our civilization will last a thousand years.
Our host is one such idealist who insists that 'We humans are getting better' and, in this regard, no dissent will be tolerated. Our host asserts that "Each generation of Americans" is BETTER, but this is true if & only if we redefine 'better' in terms of being fatter, lazier, sicker & more inclusive with a steadily decreasing life expectancy.
That such grandiose dreams contradict pretty much every caution & everything that Hannah Arendt ever said or wrote about the ideological basis of totalitarianism, it's quite sad, but it is by this very process of redefinition that we humans will most easily achieve perfection. By declaring it so.
The Ideology of Science is not to be confused with the actual science of Empiricism & the Scientific Method, as the former ideology makes fantastical futurological promises and the latter methodology makes no promises whatsoever.
Best
Can't argue...
ReplyDeletehttps://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2023/10/were-all-just-watching-wheels-fall-off.html
...
As I said, the problem with the bloody detritus left behind after the clown car is done being wrecked is that you need to get it out of the way and get the road open again. And that's gonna fall to Democrats because we're the goddamn cleaning crew. With an assist from congressional Democrats, Clinton cleaned up after Reagan/Bush, Obama cleaned up after Bush, Jr, and Biden cleaned up after Trump. The difference now is that Trump and the Trumpians all crawled out of one wrecked clown car and immediately got into another one and now are making a mess again on the road that Democrats just fucking cleared. (Okay, I might need to let this metaphor go.)
Lemme put this simply: The Republican Party is no longer a legitimate national party. It is beholden to one man without whom most of the people who have supported the party the last few years would go back to crouching in their dirt holes, masturbating to murder porn and sending out anti-Semitic memes. I mean, they still do that now, but they also vote because of Trump. No Trump and no reason to vote. And smart Republicans know this, so that leaves them with a choice: stay on that imploding Trump train until the bitter end and hope you'll survive or jump off and have some goddamn dignity without being re-elected.
...
Do they know who to root for?
ReplyDeletehttps://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2023/Items/Oct09-2.html
A war in the Middle East affects the U.S. in so many ways it is hard to even keep track of them all. First, as soon as he heard about the attacks, Biden called them horrific and said: "My administration's support for Israel's security is rock solid and unwavering" (Note: nothing about the Palestinians). Biden also said he would offer "all appropriate means of support" to the U.S. ally. Undoubtedly this includes whatever military goodies the Israeli army wants. Republicans instinctively oppose everything Biden says or does. What are they going to do now? Support an Iran-backed terrorist group that just killed 700+ innocent civilians in cold blood? Remember that the biggest backers of Israel in the U.S. aren't Jews, many of whom are secular and don't like Netanyahu one bit. No, the biggest backers are evangelical Christians, who believe that having a Jewish state in Israel is a precondition for Jesus to show up, wave his hands, and cause all Christians, both dead and alive, to be teleported together to heaven on the spot, a procedure technically called rapture (from the Latin rapta, meaning "kidnapping"). This is the Republican base. When Biden takes concrete steps, will the Republicans in Congress support Biden (which they hate to do) or oppose him (thus angering their own base)?
Larry Hart
ReplyDeleteHere's a bit of an interesting column that shows the hatred goes both ways:
https://townhall.com/columnists/derekhunter/2023/10/09/democrats-are-the-true-threat-to-democracy-n2629529
"But there’s a reason to call everyone Hitler or a Nazi. It’s the same reason to tell everyone Republicans are trying to kill people with their health care bill, as Maddow and the gang did in 2017: it’s that you hope someone will murder at least some of them, when Bernie Sanders devotee and Maddow super-fan James Hodgkinson tried to kill all the Republicans he could on a baseball field in Virginia. He’d been told by the MSNBC “truth-tellers” that the GOP plan to repeal and replace Obamacare would “kill” 10,000 people per year, as was the popular lie on the left at the time. If you believe you could stand in the way of 10,000 unnecessary deaths per year, wouldn’t it be irresponsible to not act? Just as, if you truly believe your opponent is the second coming of Hitler, or somehow worse than Hitler, you almost have moral obligation to act, don’t you?
It's weird how the party constantly whining about “violent rhetoric” and living in fear that Republicans will “inspire” someone to do something horrible with their words, actually has done exactly that a lot of times, but still engage in it. There is no Maddow conspiracy theory she’s ever admitted was false, Chris Hayes hasn’t confessed to getting the “Putin Puppet” story wrong, Larry O’Donnell does care that he lies every night; they seem to busy trying to inspire another Hodgkinson. "
I have no idea of how to bridge a gap like we currently have.
mcsandburg:
ReplyDeleteI have no idea of how to bridge a gap like we currently have.
You won't acknowledge that personal threats and violence from the left is much rarer than the almost-perfunctory doxing and death threats from the right?
Mitt Romney pointed out that Republican congressmen were literally afraid for their lives and their families if they voted for Trump's impeachment. Ruby Freeman had to go into hiding after doing her job as an election official because of attacks on her home by Trump supporters. When have we seen similar terrorizing from the other side?
Larry Hart
ReplyDeleteConservative Supreme Court justices' houses were surrounded by protesters, against federal law and the dem governor did nothing. The summer 2020 riots were allowed to continue all summer long with almost no arrests. The examples of dem mayors and governors allowing protesters to do what they want without fear of arrest are almost countless.
The left doesn't threaten, they actually do it.
Larry, I know evangelical Christians. I was General Counsel for the Christian Coalition. They support Israel mostly because it is a liberal Western democracy. They want Israel to be as strong as possible so that when the end times come, the Israelis will be able to defend themselves.
ReplyDeleteThis new war is a nightmare. I have seen horrific images and videos of dead civilians. There is a photo of 4 dead senior citizens at a bus stop, all of them shot in the head. It looked like they were executed. I have family members in Israel right now, including a Palestinian Christian visiting his family in northern Israel.
mcsandburg:
ReplyDeleteThe examples of dem mayors and governors allowing protesters to do what they want without fear of arrest are almost countless.
You mean allowing them to assemble and protest without fear of political harassment?
There's a regular poster here from Portland who often attests to the authorities allowing Proud Boys to do whatever they want without fear of arrest. "Truckers" were allowed to inflict noise and traffic stoppage on cities without fear of arrest.
It's not that the laft doesn't sometimes do bad things, but the severity and the iniquitousness of right-wing terrorism far outweighs it. The left in this country doesn't consider the ability to enforce its will by threats and violence to be a birthright the way the right does. We make people feel bad on Twitter, but that's not the same thing. It's just that your side considers any comeuppance for right-wing aggression to be unfair persecution.
@GMT -5 8032,
ReplyDeleteI'm not arguing with you about sympathy for Israel. I would be kicked out of the liberals club for what my id wants to do to the Gaza Strip, though I also recognize that it's a good thing I have no such power.
I do think that almost every good argument for backing Israel against the terrorist/Iran/Russia/China axis also applies to Ukraine.
Oh, and whoever here said that even Iran and Russia are not supporting Hamas in this endeavor, that seems to have been a premature and aspirational assessment.
ReplyDeleteAbove was supposed to read:
ReplyDelete"but the severity and the ubiquitousness of right-wing terrorism far outweighs it."
MCS that is arguing by anecdote, which is all the Right has. What terrifies them is statistics, like the ratio of violent acts taken by Repiublicans vs democrats. Even including ALL Antifa/BLM protests, the ratio is vastly larger among MAGAs. You know this. And it could be a tsunami next year.
ReplyDeleteSeriously, have your att verify you escrowed major $$$ stakes on that ratio. Or which side has a nationwide campaign to threaten election poll workers.
Likewise: If we set aside Utah and Illinois as outliers (or even if we don’t) average rates of almost every turpitude are far higher across Red-run states than Blue-led ones: from gambling, addiction, STDs, domestic violence and murder to teen sex, divorce and net tax parasitism on the rest of the nation. That is a huge, undeniable fact! It should discredit all ‘conservative’ claims of good governance, especially when you add in the fact that national Republican administrations are always spendthrift wastrels, sending deficits skyrocketing, while Democratic ones are always fiscally responsible. Always. And I welcome $$$ wagers on any of that.
Throw in the failure of a single Rightist “supply side economics’ prediction ever, ever to come true, rocketing wealth disparities, and the deliberate war on science and the planet, and the stench gets overwhelming, before we even go on to the lies and treason and an ongoing list of other insanities, a mile high.
===
As for poor locumranch, sigh. Will most of you give me credit for patience and curiosity? I truly try to live up to my philosophy of taking in for consideration criticism. Indeed, the last month or so I have been fascinated by improvements in his syntax and cogently expressed argument.
Alas, skimming thie last few times, I have learned there's a limit to what better food and water and air can do for an already tipped-over mind. Skimming this missive, I found only strawman lies about me. One was a lying exaggeration. The others were L's specialty, completely made up clay pigeons that he's welcome to potshot, since they have nothing whatsoever to do with me.
California - it seems - can only do so much for the terminally delusional.
Are any of you planning to attend the play? I ask for a variety of reasons.
ReplyDelete---
GMT said; “Larry, I know evangelical Christians. I was General Counsel for the Christian Coalition. They support Israel mostly because it is a liberal Western democracy. They want Israel to be as strong as possible so that when the end times come, the Israelis will be able to defend themselves.”
I believe we have a selection effect, GMT. That is NOT the evangelist reason I keep coming across. Perhaps they can sense you’ll only accept a reason that sounds temporal and reasonable. With me, they pull out the stops! Israel exists for one reason, to tear down the mosques and re-build the Temple, hearkening in the Last Days. (I portrayed this in Heart of the Comet.).
They support Israel entirely in order to set in motion events that will ‘save’ 144,000 Jews and send the rest straight to Hell. Scratch the surface. That’s it.
David, with all due respect, that is not what the Pentecostals I worked with believed. They believe that Jews will all be saved. I don’t doubt that some so-called Christians believe that Jews are damned, but not the ones I worked with.
ReplyDeleteI was listening to NPR on the way to work today. They had someone who sounded like a representative of Israel talking about the attacks.
ReplyDeleteHe swore (paraphrasing here) that they would make Hamas pay; that they would teach them that any future attack would not only not gain their goals, but that the price they would have to pay for it would be unacceptable. That they would teach them never to make such an attack again.
And I started wondering, what would he do? I mean, they can't take over the Gaza Strip--they already took it over. They can't kill all the terrorists; in a land of suicide bombers, killing the soldiers is not a deterrent. They can't take away their rights; most of their rights have been taken away for years now. How did he intend to hurt them so badly that they would never, ever think about attacking like that again?
The only thing I could think of that would still be valuable to them were their families. Their wives and sons and daughters and parents and brothers and sisters. Their babies and elderly.
It's who those bastards attacked in Israel. So how else can they response than by attacking back the same way, but two, three, how-many fold worse? How else can they cow the enemy who feels he has nothing to lose?
Once again, the terrorists have won. The negotiations with Saudi Arabia will be over, once Israel has rained revenge for their dead and injured. Already 400 Palestinians are dead. How can they negotiate with those who have killed so many Arabs?
And the relatives of those killed will be mourning their dead and cursing Israel and pledging revenge. Just as those in Israel are mourning and cursing and pledging for their dead. And so it goes on, and on, and on...
So long as terrorists can veto any peace initiative with an attack, there will be no peace. There will be no end to the killings. Because there will always be a few who do not want peace and are willing to kill to prevent it. So until they can find a way to make peace in spite of the terrorists, no matter what the terrorists do, there will never be peace.
The representative swore that he would teach Hamas that they would not gain their goals. But by that oath, he gave them their goal, wrapped in a funeral cloth and tied with a blood-colored bow. :(
Larry, let there be no doubt. You are humane and hate the pain and suffering you are seeing.
ReplyDeleteI may be a pro-Israel hardliner, but the Palestinians have valid reasons for demanding change. The Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank are in a political no-man’s-land and are subject to terrible conditions. They deserve better. Israel is not entirely in the right here. But their leaders make the worst possible choices in advocating for them.
Newsweek's current cover accuses 75 Million heritage americans of being 'domestic terrorists' and 'enemies of democracy'; Hilary Clinton just called the same 75 Million voters 'cultists' and recommended their 'formal deprogramming'; MSNBC, CNN & other progressive western media outlets have already begun their pivot to anti-Semitic, anti-Israeli & pro-Palestinian rhetoric; multiple US congressional Democrats have already condemned the Israeli response as barbaric, excessive & inhumane; and only Republicans & mostly white christian conservatives have offered Israel their unconditional support.
ReplyDeleteMore & more, it appears that progressive western jews suffer from Stockholm Syndrome, as they cling to their increasingly diverse leftist-progressive abusers and condemn their white christian conservative supporters.
And, who are these white christian conservative supporters of Israel?
They are exactly the same US demographic who abolished slavery in the Civil War (when the Union was 99% white & christian), defeated the Nazis in WW2 (when the US was 90% white & christian), put men on the moon in the late 1960s (when the US was 85% white & christian) and won the Cold War against the Soviets in the late 1980s (when the US was 80% white & christian).
Yet, here we are, surrounded by progressive dimwits who think that the white christian conservative is their greatest enemy and diversity is their greatest strength.
Best
Larry Hurt
ReplyDeleteiniquitousness and ubiquitousness both work 😉!
locumranch
ReplyDeleteThat October 13, 2023 Newsweek cover is, ahh, way, way, WAY over the top nasty!
Since we have reached the limits to growth we have been cascading from one crisis to the next. But the recent events in the Middle east have the look of the beginning of WWIII.
ReplyDeleteDavid's wish for the West to crush all who oppose its hegemony will be put to the test.
But I don't think it will turn out so well for us (or anyone really).
The situation is out of our control
If you haven't been preparing for tough times, start now, even a little bit of preparation is better than none.
I pray that i am wrong
and i pray for peace, forgiveness and mercy
but fear we will be getting war, hatred and vengeance.
Good luck to you and your loved ones.
Oh, in my post above, when I wrote “their leaders” I meant the Palestinian leaders. The Palestinians have valid grievances…but they make their case in the worst possible way.
ReplyDeleteI have a cousin who married a Palestinian Christian. He is politically active and is very opposed to Netanyahu. He is an expert and has lived through much of the experience there. I am praying for his safety and for my cousin’s. I am eager to hear his point of view.
GMT etc:
ReplyDeleteBut their leaders make the worst possible choices in advocating for them.
Oh, just because I feel Israel's pain against terrorists doesn't mean I approve of Netanyahu and his right-wing fundamentalist government. It's like the lesson they took from Nazi Germany is "The trouble with stormtroopers and brownshirts is that they were used against us instead of for us."
A.F. Rey:
ReplyDeleteSo long as terrorists can veto any peace initiative with an attack, there will be no peace.
It sadly brings to mind the bit from our host's Earth about how the moderate and reasonable voices were all bribed or threatened or killed so that fanaticism was the only possible path. Terror and disruption was a feature, not a bug.
I said:
ReplyDeleteThere was even a spot-on political cartoon in the Chicago Tribune with someone complaining, "I voted for authoritarianism instead of democracy, and gas prices are still high."
Sadly, some day the gag will be, "I voted for a holy war in Israel, and I still ended up in Hell!"
A.F.Rey: So until they can find a way to make peace in spite of the terrorists, no matter what the terrorists do, there will never be peace.
ReplyDeleteIt might be instructive to look at Britain and the IRA. Both in Britain's response to IRA terrorism (including attacks on British politicians in Britain) and how peace was eventually achieved.
Sitting down for dinner (Canadian Thanksgiving). No formal prayer, I simply implored us all to shorten the darkness.
ReplyDeleteWhile I promised myself to go back to cold turkey on the blithering ravings, I did skim L and noted two things:
ReplyDelete- this time they weren't all diametrically opposite to fact lies. Most of them were "take a germ of truth and exaggerate it to mean its opposite!" type of lies. Parsing such differences can be important, if only to maintain your stance on actual reality, 3D and in color.
- For the record, Like Mark Twain I believe MAGA confederates are suckers for plantation lords, then and now, preferring their oppressors over ever admitting it's the nerds who have made America great and the wonder of the ages.
Re- The IRA
ReplyDeleteThere were actual real issues in Ireland - and the Troubles persisted until the real issues had been fixed - and for a few years after that
The problems in Israel are orders of magnitude worse than we had in Ireland
scidata:
ReplyDeleteI simply implored us all to shorten the darkness.
You guys should have the holiday closer to the winter solstice then, like ours.
(I kid! I kid because I love.)
@Larry Hart
ReplyDeleteThanks, I needed a chuckle.
Peace
You guys should have the holiday closer to the winter solstice then, like ours.
ReplyDeleteHarvest's in up here. No point in delaying the feast.
A bold claim. We provide everyone with decent jobs, food, clothing, housing, medical care. We give them the means and opportunity to create, socialize, play, raise a family. Presto, no more war and vastly decreased violence. This claim has the advantage that it will never be proven wrong, because it will never be tried.
ReplyDeleteHi DG
ReplyDeleteIs that not roughly what we did with Germany and Japan??
And what Sweden and Norway did for themselves?
About Israel
Everybody appears to be blaming Iran - but Iran's "terrorists" are Hezbollah (Shia) - Hamas belongs to the Saudis (Sunni)
To me its much more likely that the Saudis are at the root of the latest atrocities
Duncan - why not Iraq?
DeleteDG,
ReplyDeleteWe provide everyone...
Bzzt! Won't work. Change a few words and it might.
----We enable everyone to provide for themselves the following...
That might and has the advantage of being what we are trying to do right now.
Did you miss the word "jobs".
DeleteLarry Hart: «It's like the lesson they took from Nazi Germany is "The trouble with stormtroopers and brownshirts is that they were used against us instead of for us."»
ReplyDeleteDo you know about the Iron Rule? It’s the evil counterpart of the Golden Rule: “Do unto others before they have a chance to do unto you”. It’s the rule of people who think that the only way to not be oppressed is to be the oppressor, that only bullies can be truly free and safe. It’s cynicism used to justify wickedness as clear-eyed realism, and it’s pretty much the core tenet of authoritarians of all stripes.
«It might be instructive to look at Britain and the IRA»
Remember that the conflict between Britain and the IRA was not limited to “the troubles”: Britain also had to LOSE a straight-up war against Irish rebels during the 1920s, and renounce over 80% of the Island.
“Black and Tans”, one of the most famous Irish songs can be summarised as “You Englishmen aren’t so proud anymore now that we have guns and are murdering you as easily, as you murder us, HUH?”. If the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is to end like the Anglo-Irish one, it will have to includes laughing Palestinian children shouting “דרך צלחה” to Israeli settlers forcefully removed from their West Bank (and East-Jerusalemite) colonies the way Irish kids shouted "Godspeed" to their English landlords.
duncan cairncross:
ReplyDeleteIran's "terrorists" are Hezbollah (Shia) - Hamas belongs to the Saudis (Sunni)
To me its much more likely that the Saudis are at the root of the latest atrocities
I thought of that too. And I don't forget that Saudis were largely responsible for 9/11.
But the Iran/Russia Axis has more of a motive to derail the Israel/Saudi agreements. One would think that the Saudis would not want that.
Unless it's a frame up. Which I could believe.
* * *
Maybe Malcolm Nance has some insight. Caveat emptor, I have not listened to this yet. I also don't know if it's paywalled, since I am a subscriber.
https://malcolmnance.substack.com/p/black-man-spy-podcast-flash-traffic
My cousin Karen is a wonderful person. Her husband Hanna is a Palestinian Christian, an artist, and a political activist for Palestinian rights. I looked at Hanna's Facebook feed yesterday and today; it is filled with posts with links to sites that seem to celebrate the Gazan attacks and which voice Palestinian grievances. Very little content authored by Hanna. No reference to the malicious actions by the Gazans on Saturday.
ReplyDeleteI've seen him be very animated when complaining about Netanyahu but his complaints have always been intelligent and well grounded. I am eager to hear what he has to say in private. Family is more important than politics and I am not going to argue with him. I will listen and learn.
The way to keep from becoming an ideologue is to have people whom you love and trust but with whom you disagree on top priority issues.
Has the world changed?
ReplyDeleteOver the course of this thread I see evolution. At the start the customary denigration of the political opposition in repugnant terms that bear no relation to the conservative people around me. Maybe H. Clinton suggesting Re-education goes a little far for you but for sure the FBI and others should keep an eye on em. Yes, that's what our security apparatus should be focusing on.
Then, in a stunning repudiation of the feckless foreign policy that presumed paying off Iran would rein in their Hamas proxies.....actual savagery proudly shown to the world in horrific full view.
The Biden administration stumbles from one foreign policy disaster to the next. We are no longer respected, certainly no longer feared. But hey, all the pronouns will be properly recited.
I don't have the solution to Peace in the middle east. But what we are doing now is counter productive. I'm of the opinion that things are being run by leftovers from the Obama admin.
A world in which this can still happen and there is no way to respond other than with more blood shed. Sad indeed.
Tacitus
ps. Referring to our leaders by their first names or worse yet by nicknames....uh, no thanks. Joebee is too much like Dear Leader for my tastes. Or like a pet name for a child.
Tacitus, I don't understand your post from start to finish. Your Neighbours and the current Republican Party are probably two different groups of people, why fo you treat them as though they are the same.
DeleteAnd why do you think the current administration paid off "Iran" (I take it you mean the current regime not the people) in the hope that they would constrain their clients Hamas? I know there was an exchange of money for the release of hostages but the money had not yet been used. And the Trump administration did exactly the same thing (not to mention the far worse deal made by the Reagan administration. And Hamas as others have pointed are Sunni and so not controlled by the Shia power Iran. Have you no head for detail at all?
Tacitus:
ReplyDeletedenigration of the political opposition in repugnant terms that bear no relation to the conservative people around me
Then her comment about "those MAGA extremists, take their marching orders from Donald Trump" don't apply to conservative people around you. Just like she didn't call you deplorable; she said that 40% of Trump supporters were deplorable, but that the rest were good Americans who could be talked to. If you wear a "Proud Deplorable!" t-shirt, that's on you, not on her.
Yes, that's what our security apparatus should be focusing on.
Yes, for real. But again, she doesn't mean you. She means the right-wingers who threaten and perpetrate violence so routinely that we talk about "the usual death threats" against poll workers and officers of the court.
We are no longer respected, certainly no longer feared.
Since 2017, that may be true.
But hey, all the pronouns will be properly recited.
Now, see, that has no relation to the liberal people around me. But because it's a caricature of liberals rather than conservatives, it's considered acceptable.
Joebee is too much like Dear Leader for my tastes. Or like a pet name for a child.
I'll agree with you on this one. And it was especially galling to have the former guy referred to in respectable print articles as "The Donald".
I make somewhat of an exception for "Hillary" and "Bernie", though, because they seem to have branded themselves precisely in that manner. Maybe for "W" as well, for the same reason. But that's for casual conversation, not for news articles or official business.
Tacitus,
ReplyDeletethe GOP wants to re-elect a storybook character, rather than a full person, as president. They did the same with Nixon a half century ago—why is anyone obliged to respect them?
reason:
ReplyDeleteAnd Hamas as others have pointed are Sunni and so not controlled by the Shia power Iran.
I'm not sure what the relationship is there. While Hamas has been more historically linked with Saudis (Hezbollah is the Iranian proxy in the neighborhood), respectable commentators like Malcolm Nance seem to think there's a link between Iran and this attack, if only because they're a thorn in Israel's side.
Larry, but the noticeable lukewarm support from Hisbollah suggests to me that Iran may actually be pleased to have Hamas decimated.
DeleteI avoid using cute names for politicians I disagree with. It is a quick way to make my writing inaccessible to people who like that politician. I follow that rule even when the cute name is one that the politician approves of, like “Hillary” or “Bernie.” Heck, I don’t even use the term “Trekkie.”
ReplyDeleteI avoid using cute names for politicians I disagree with. It is a quick way to make my writing inaccessible to people who like that politician. I follow that rule even when the cute name is one that the politician approves of, like “Hillary” or “Bernie.” Heck, I don’t even use the term “Trekkie.”
ReplyDeleteIs this really Biden's fault that Netanyahu ignored advanced warning the same way Bush did before 9/11?
ReplyDeletehttps://www.wionews.com/world/egypt-intelligence-official-claims-israel-ignored-its-warning-on-hamas-attack-644730
Even as questions are being raised over Israel’s apparent intelligence failure, a senior Egyptian intelligence officer has claimed that the country’s security agencies downplayed the repeated “warnings” Cairo had issued over Hamas’s potential strike.
The official, whose identity has not been revealed, told AP news agency that the Israeli officials focused on the West Bank and ignored the threat that “something big” was being planned from Gaza.
...
Egypt, which has historically acted as a mediator between Israel and Hamas, had communicated to Israel about the threat multiple times, the official claimed, adding “but they underestimated”.
“We have warned them an explosion of the situation is coming, and very soon, and it would be big. But they underestimated such warnings,” the unnamed official was quoted as saying.
...
Just so y'all know, I am listenng to the Malcolm Nance link above, and he states quite unambiguously that Iran has been smuggling arms to Hamas for years.
ReplyDeleteI tend to believe he knows what he's talking about.
I wonder if the intent of the current unpleasantness is to goad Bibi into a new level of violence, so Israel's credibility is damaged? Bibi & Hamas seem to need each other, so they always have an excuse to resort to violence and never lack a boogeyman to strike fear into would be opponents, a shame, because absent the continuous reminders of who the enemy is and confirming violence, folks might just get on with their lives, perhaps even exchanging Halal & Kosher recipes.
ReplyDeleteI also wonder how much of this stems from Eisenhower's enabling the return of the Shah, I suspect the Persians won't soon forgive us.
https://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2023/Items/Oct10-2.html
ReplyDelete...
There is an alternate view, however, where the comparison is between the Ukraine and Hamas. The argument here is that Ukraine was occupied and fought back with all its powers, and Gaza was occupied and fought back with all its powers. This perspective is mostly being expressed by lefties, particularly certain lefty members of Congress.
I don't see it. The analogy would be accurate if Israel invaded Gaza and pushed back on the invaders within their own territory. Ukraine has not invaded Russia and taken Russians hostage (although the reverse is true).
Most of the Republican presidential "candidates" are making the argument that Joe Biden is somehow responsible for what happened in Israel because Iran-money-Hamas-hand waving-Let's Go Brandon. In other words, it's not a particularly compelling argument, or one supported by the evidence. Donald Trump, for his part, is taking it further, and decreed yesterday that if he were still in the White House, there would be no war in Ukraine and there would have been no Hamas attack on Israel. It's really quite remarkable how many problems he's able to solve as not the president given how few he was able to solve as president.
What more can I say?
Trump might have made a bad deal with Moscow, averting the invasion of Ukraine. You could write alternate-history about him: I don’t think the 2020 riots would’ve taken place without Trump.
ReplyDeleteThere were riots, such as in Ferguson, a few years before; but not nearly on the scale of what occurred under Trump’s watch.
Alan Brooks:
ReplyDeleteTrump might have made a bad deal with Moscow, averting the invasion of Ukraine.
Many years ago now, I read a Phillip Roth alternate history in which Charles Lindbergh defeated FDR in the 1940 election. There was no Pearl Harbor attack, and the US remained neutral in WWII, until toward the climax of the book, the US was about to enter the war on the Axis side against Britain and therefore against Canada.
I suspect Trump's plan for Russian aggression against Ukraine would have looked similar.
Lindbergh would have resigned the presidency when war arrived; he was talented at piloting planes—not nations.
DeleteI think that I threw up in my mouth a bit when I read the above comments, as the best tells of ethical paralysis and the worst stinks of the victim mentality.
ReplyDeleteIt's like watching Michael Dukakis flub the rape question all over again. This situation will continue indefinitely as long as the ultra-civilized Israeli nation exhibits restraint.
What we see here is a TREND (not an anecdote) which will continue until the Palestinian perpetrators receive COLLECTIVE PUNISHMENT, since these are the actions of the duly elected Palestinian representative government (aka 'Hamas') rather some sort of rogue terrorist organization.
But what about the poor hostages?
The hostages are as good as dead, if not dead already, and this type of terrorism will continue until the Gaza strip with its +2 million population becomes subject to the Dresden treatment. The word of the day is 'decimation'.
Best
_____
Boy, o boy. Dr. Brin sure hates to take orders from those oligarchs, aristocrats & plantation lords, so much so that it's almost as if he would kill the king, take his crown & install his own unelected nerd minority to rule instead. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss, now with glasses, a diploma & poor social skills.
@Alan Brooks,
ReplyDeleteRoth, like my grandmother, seems to evaluate every situation based on "Is this good or bad for the Jews?"
A Lindbergh presidency in the 1940s was bad for the Jews.
Larry Hart: «Is this really Biden's fault that Netanyahu ignored advanced warning the same way Bush did before 9/11?»
ReplyDeleteHe did not simply ignore the warnings, he kept the army away from Gaza and sent them protecting the far-right settlers, in order to keep happy his genocidal Kahanist allies in the ruling coalition
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/israel-sends-more-troops-into-occupied-west-bank-after-latest-wave-of-violence
he pro-actively helped the Hamas, because he saw it as a useful rival against the secular Fatah and PFLP.
https://archive.ph/H8LSL
Which is why he allowed Qatar to give millions to Hamas
“Oh so evil, EVIIIIIIL Iranians!”, say people who conveniently ignore the shiny neon pink elephant in the room called “Israel’s Powers That Be allow Qatari officials to drive from Ben Grunion airport to Gaza with suitcases filled with cash and even provides them with Israeli soldiers as bodyguards”
https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2015/06/18/414693807/why-israel-lets-qatar-give-millions-to-hamas
And the thing is, that shit did not even BEGIN with Netanyahu, pun non intended: subsidising the Hamas in order to weaken the secular Palestinian parties has been part of the Israeli Right’s MO since the days of Menachem Begin’s premiership, back when Hamas had yet to be officially founded and still existed as an “informal” network of mosques, schools and soup kitchens which just so happened to have the same leader and use part of their budget to buy guns.
https://lawrenceofcyberia.blogs.com/news/2004/09/careful_what_yo_1.html
So yeah, if you want to blame someone for the Israeli deaths, blame Arnaud Mimran’s buddy, for it is his mix of racist arrogance and incompetence allowed it to happen.
"...return of the Shah, I suspect the Persians won't soon forgive us...."
ReplyDeleteProbably not, the Middle East and surrounding area is known for intractable hatreds and long memories...iirc some American was in Lebanon and heard his guide complaining about something some other group had done in the 50's.
He asked what had happened in the 1950's
The guide replied that no, this had occurred in the 1850's.
I have to say, if you'd put someone like Pahlavi in charge of my country, I'd be slow to forgive, too.
Pappenheimer
There was a documentary a while back about Alexander the Great. They were interviewing an Afghan (I think) farmer who talked about "Eeskander" like his grandfather knew him.
DeleteLaurent Weppe:
ReplyDeletehe pro-actively helped the Hamas, because he saw it as a useful rival against the secular Fatah and PFLP.
"The only people we hate more than the Romans are the fucking Judean People's Front!"
The hostages are as good as dead, if not dead already, and this type of terrorism will continue until the Gaza strip with its +2 million population becomes subject to the Dresden treatment. The word of the day is 'decimation'.
ReplyDeleteSo how do you propose to "decimate" the Palestinian population on the Gaza Strip? Do you want to line the women, children, babies and elderly up against a wall and machine-gun them down? Or do you want to do it in a more sanitary way and just drop bombs on them, so you don't have to deal with the clean-up? And what do you think the result will be?
The ironic part is this was previously tried on the Jewish people, and it resulted in the state of Israel. Does anyone think it will work better this time? ;)
Oh, gee, I am SO sorry about ‘JoBee.” It was tongue in cheek and easy to type.
ReplyDeleteLH: I agree if Trump had been re-elected there’d likely have been no Ukraine War, because time was on Putin’s side as DT steadily weakened the US and trashed our alliances.
Tacitus has reiterated his standard accusation that we – especially I – make tirade “repugnant” generalizations that bear no relation to him or other conservatives he knows. An accusation that (with my pretensions at fairness and accountability) I always take seriously…
… till I recall that he never, ever, ever takes issue with any assertion here that is directly fact-checkable.
I have repeatedly asked:
- If ocean acidification is absolutely (and hugely) real and wreaking great harm on the seas our children will need and has only one conceivable cause, should that not disqualify a movement that denies any need for action? And that furthermore spends countless (verifiable) hours denigrating science and scientists?
- Is gerrymandering a foul cheat-crime or not? If so, then shall we wager over which party desperately uses it ten times as much?
- Do you deny there has been a ‘flip’ re: attitudes toward the SAME KremlinKGB guys who conservatives used to fear and hate, from loathing to love? It happened just as soon as those “ex” commissars dropped their Leninist slogans in favor of czarist ones? Further do you denay that today’s conservative networks gush bile at the heroes of the FBI/Intel/Military officer corps who won the Cold War and the War on terror? Now who would WANT you to do that?
- Can you name ONE GOP administration that was fiscally prudent re debt and deficits? Or one Democratic one that wasn’t?
- I could go on and on but those are simple, flat, open facts… like Democrats being the ones to ease us out of the insane Drug War.
I suppose you are right, sir. My asserting those things IS a form of ‘denigration.’ And those facts do make one side out to be ‘repugnant. Especially any decent folks - like you and your friends - who remain loyal to such a ‘movement,’ chanting the desperate catechism – “I know my aide has gone insane. But… But… democrats are worse!”
Tell that to the tsunami of American manufacturing restarts since the CHIPS and Infrastructure and American Industry bills.
Clutch those "woke bullies" anecdotes. Our side does have monsters... at its fringes. Yours is run entirely by its monsters.
As for the Gaza War… Iran (Shiite) has their own crazed militias in Hezbollah. Hamas in Sunni and largely controlled by Riussia’s ally, Saudi. But yeah, Iran is also Putin’s ally.
ReplyDeleteOh, that money was Iran’s. The World Court was about to give it to them anyway. Try reading, sir.
Your eagerness to see messes desperately ignores the fact that the US economy has NEVER been better! America is re-industrializing at a rocket pace. And at last we are trying to do something about a planet in peril. Oh, and the IRS is unleashed to go after rich cheaters, which the GOP prevented for 30 years.
“We are no longer respected, certainly no longer feared.”
Baloney. Our alliances, almost-destroyed under Trump, are now stronger than ever. Our weapon systems, tested now on the battlefield, ALL work far better than promised and US military procurement now is shown to have been stunningly effective, un-corrupt, innovative and run by an officer corps of peerless professionalism, that’s under relentless attack now by the Cult.
====
Jim: “David's wish for the West to crush all who oppose its hegemony will be put to the test”
As usual, you lie. You utterly lie. You lie like your sex-fantasies, in order to jerk off. You are lying from trom the ditzy left, as L does from the mad right. And in fact, I find that kinda comforting!
What I HAVE said is that a world oligarchic cabal is desperately pulling out all the stops to wreck a world civilization based on democracy and law. And their desperation may because they are deeming now that it seems increasingly unlikely that they will regain control over the US Presidency. Even if Biden naps a lot, if he keeps appointing folks like Lloyd Austin and Mark Milley we’ll be defended.
Oh and Jim? We ‘win’ by example. And if the youth of the world choose lawful, transparent democracy, you are free to call that ‘crushing.’ You’ll be a dope. But you are free, and I’ll fight for that.
Don Gisselbeck:
ReplyDeletetalked about "Eeskander" [Alexander the Great] like his grandfather knew him.
When my daughter was quite young, but precocious for her age, we saw something on tv about ancient Egypt, and the voice-over mentioned something happening 2500 years ago. Thinking in terms she knew, my daughter asserted, "I was in Mommy's tummy then."
How many former "Great guys!!" have later turned on Trump? It's already more than the total of ALL previous US presidents, combines.
ReplyDeleteHow many will it take, before discomforted Ostrich Republicans realize that US conservatism will not survive this mess unless they gather the guts to branch off a sane version, while there is still time?
"John Kelly goes on the record to confirm several disturbing stories about Trump..."
https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/02/politics/john-kelly-donald-trump-us-service-members-veterans/index.html
There are two correct ways of pronouncing 'ideology'. The first sounds like 'idea', the second sounds like 'idiot'. So even pronunciation reveals beliefs.
ReplyDeleteI always thought it was about the study of ides.
ReplyDeleteIdeology being the study of ides would imply the existence of noneology
ReplyDeletePappenheimer
The ides v the nones...
ReplyDeleteBeing an older, working class guy colors my opinions, examples: today's GOP doesn't look or act anything like what my Father used to vote for, no more than a '83 Cimarron looked like a Cadillac.
ReplyDeleteAn issue the remaining non-crazy contemporary conservatives have is best described by a short poem:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.poetrynook.com/poem/judged-company-one-keeps
Step away from "The firehose o' fertilizer", it's still largely the world you left.
This war in Israel should remind us that Muhammad designed Islam as a weapon system to turn wandering Arab tribes into an army of conquest. He was successful.
ReplyDeleteComedian Bob Cesca on indignation high:
ReplyDelete"Chaos is the new cocaine."
Despite Hamas being sunni...
ReplyDeletehttps://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/07/opinion/gaza-israel-hamas.html
Despite its anti-Israel public statements, Saudi Arabia has long distrusted Hamas because of its close military ties to Iran. Egypt sees Hamas as the Palestinian arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, which it ruthlessly suppresses at home. The ailing Palestinian Authority views Hamas as its principal rival for power.
Larry Hart: Chaos
ReplyDeleteDing ding ding - 100 points. This moment from CHANGING LANES (2002) captures this truth perfectly. So does FOUNDATION'S TRIUMPH. Dopamine steers history more than we like to admit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEodx0CTTgE
Chaos is the new cocaine.
ReplyDeleteIs that why Arcane's Jinx is such a popular character?
On Pax Americana...
ReplyDeletehttps://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/09/briefing/hamas-israel-war.html
...
I understand that some readers may question whether the long era of American power that’s now fading was worth celebrating. Without question, it included some terrible injustices, be they in Vietnam, Iran, Guatemala or elsewhere. But it also made possible the most peaceful era in recorded history, with a sharp decline in deaths from violence, as Steven Pinker noted in his 2011 book, “The Better Angels of Our Nature.” And the number of people living in a democracy surged.
Smith concluded his Substack newsletter on the new Middle Eastern war this way:
Over the past two decades it had become fashionable to lambast American hegemony, to speak derisively of “American exceptionalism,” to ridicule America’s self-arrogated function of “world police” and to yearn for a multipolar world. Well, congratulations, now we have that world. See if you like it better.
Here’s a challenge! Imagine we are looking at baseball cards, comparing two teams.
ReplyDeleteI. Assuming most of us could tentatively agree that the following “player stat” categories: Corruptness, Incompetence, Stupidity, Criminality, Malevolence, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy, Pride, Hypocrite (feel free to add more) are undesirable character traits that we would not want to use as adjectives to describe the behaviors of a family member, loved one, or leaders...
II. Come up with a rival 50-person politically relevant roster for the other team that could in any way compete in the latter “player stat” categories with this fine list.
Ted Cruz
Mitch McConnell
Ron Johnson
Josh Hawley
Lindsey Graham
Steve Bannon
Michael Flynn
Marjorie Taylor Green
Kevin McCarthy
Jim Jordan
Steve Stockman
Alex Jones
Matt Gaetz
Elise Stefanik
Clarence Thomas
James Sensenbrenner
Paul Gosar
Louie Gohmert
Ron DeSantis
Greg Abbott
Kristi Noem
Tom Tancredo
Rick Scott
Marilyn Muscgrave
Jerry (Charles Jeremy) Lewis
Tucker Carlson
Mike Pompeo
Hal Rogers
Nikki Haley
Dick Pombo
George Soros
Mike Pense
Donald Trump
Donald Trump Jr
Eric Trump
Curt Weldon
Sean Hannity
William Jefferson
Scooter Libby
Jeanine Pirro
Dinesh D’Souza
Tommy Tuberville
Mike Lindell
Roger Stone
Devin Nunes
Lauren Boebert
Dennis Hastert
Oliver North
Rick Renzi
Richard Nixon :)
Once you come up with your list. We can do head to head player rankings using verifiable published sources.
Looking at your list, I'd have to say Deceit and Hypocrisy and treason might also qualify.
ReplyDeleteLarry Hart
ReplyDeleteI agree with the movement towards a peaceful world - but I simply do not see anything "American" in that move
As Pinker's book shows this trend is thousands of years old
We are all moving that way - some faster than others - but America is not "leading the way"
Wot, no George Bush (of either middle name)?
ReplyDeleteDr. B
ReplyDeleteI had hypocrisy, but treason and deceit should be on there along with negligence and neglect.
Tony,
Sure you could add a Bush. Nixon makes me laugh because to the modern Republican party climate he would be fairly saintly and heroic (apologizing, married 50+ years to same woman) and about as relevant as Honus Wagner is to the current MLB playoffs. It didn't take long to come up with 50. And I'm sure I would want to swap out 10-20 if I actually dug into it. I suppose you could add stats like wars started. But we have to keep some low level tabloid utility players on the roster like Loren Bobart to neutralize the Gary Hart, Ted Kennedy, Monika Lewinsky and Al Frankens that the other side is going to call up.
ReplyDelete"I agree with the movement towards a peaceful world - but I simply do not see anything "American" in that move
As Pinker's book shows this trend is thousands of years old"
Seriously Duncan? REALLY? Pinker says no such thing. And you can say that with a straight face, after heroic Kiwis, Aussies and hoards of USAans gave their lives in a close struggle to save any chance of decency and enlightenment? OMG. And OMG again.
In 1919 Woodrow Wilson asked Britain and France to be gentle with Germany. They refused and America had to go along. They owned the world. In 1945 it was our turn to dicatate terms, and we REVERSED EVERY NOXIOUS HABIT OF EMPIRE.
George Marshall led that swith to:
- Commencing de-colonization.
- Pouring $$ and aid all over the globe, especeially vanquished allies.
- REVERSE mercantilist trade policies that encouraged a boom in foreign factories selling $20 TRILLIONS in crap to Americans... factories that built modern economies and sent several billion kids to school. (NO other aid program came close to those effects. ALL oher development programs COMBINED never came close.)
- Americans spending vast amounts on a vast defense establishment to create a stable era that - despite many bad exceptions - was by far the greatest peace the world ever knew, allowing most of the world's nations to spend maybe 1% of GDP on defense, rather than the traditional 30%. And 95% of humans have never witnessed war first hand.
Jesus, please find for me another era when that could be said?
Seriously, I have run into this ingrate hallucinatory nonsense over and over. But what's fundamental is that THE WORLD KNOWS ALL THIS. Despite all the pomposity and sometimes thuggery that always comes with empire, yes Pax Americana, too, PEOPLE LIKE US! They know in their hearts that no other nation ever had great power and abused it so little.
Please... name an exception to that. One... ever.
Criminy.
Slim Moldie:
ReplyDeleteYou forgot Lust. Trump has mastered all 7 Deadly Sins: Pride, Wrath, Envy, Avarice, Gluttony, Lust, and Sloth. His example inspired me to memorize that list!
In Trump's case Sloth is a virtue; it keeps him from realizing his full potential for evil.
Hi Dr Brin
ReplyDeleteYes the USA did do that - but it is just exactly what the British Empire had done before then - the overall trend is clear
The rate of violent death has been going down for at least 3000 years
The old hunter gatherers had huge murder rates
The first empires were better - but still awful - as we progressed the violence rate kept dropping
The 17th Century had less war and death than the 16th
The 18th had less war and death than the 17th
The 19th had less war and death than the 18th
The 20th had less war and death than the 19th
America simply followed the trend - YES the American Empire was better than the British - but as it was 100 years later it damn well should have been
Its Western Civilisation as a whole that has progressed
You could argue that the USA led the way from 1945 to 1970 - but sometime in the 70's the USA was overtaken by Germany, Scandinavia and eventually the UK
Hopefully you guys will get your act together and get the USA back running
I approve of the long-range trend Pinker sees; but I am reluctant to celebrate it, lest we jinx it. Also, it is perverse to take pride in it, worse still national pride, for pride is a grave moral error. Far saner to express faith in such virtue, tempered by nervous rational doubt.
ReplyDelete"- but it is just exactly what the British Empire had done before then"
ReplyDeleteAgain... malarkey?
Oh, sure, Gandhi himself said that the Brits moved RESPONSIBLE imperialism forward a couple of notches. Paraphrasing: " Okay, so Hilter or Stalin or Akbar would have just killed me and have done with it, while I can appeal to your younger generation over your hypocrisy. So, you want a medal as the best empire so far? Fine, you'll get a medal. After you leave!"
Still, there is no comparison. Gandhi's #2 complaint about the British Raj was rampant mercantilism! Destroying Indian industry to favor British workers and mills. The OPPOSITE of Marshall's policy. And it was under pressure from the US that Britain let go of India and started preparing other lands for independence. Remember Suez Crisis? (I guess not.)
ALL the rest of what I described earlier is true and it was reversal of EVERY preceding empire, by Marshall and other geniuses.And it is a pity you just shrugged it all off in order to double down on a blatantly false assertion.
Your list of 'less war and death" is - hpw shall I put it... insane? I lost almost ALL of my fourth and fifth etc cousins to the madly murderous 20th century (first half.). The world was torched and descended into a hell from which it seemed there'd never again be any light. This whole thing that PS said, which you exaggerate ... is the weakest part of Singer's otherwise excellent book.
"You could argue that the USA led the way from 1945 to 1970 - but sometime in the 70's the USA was overtaken by Germany, Scandinavia and eventually the UK"
No YOU could argue that ludicrous assertion. And I can refute it. Even post Gorbachev there was only one essential nation that could not be done without. ALL of the spectaculat progress made by Germany & Japan... then S Korea and yes CHINA came from indulgent policies of this 'empire." This was no mere quantitative difference. It was qualitiative in every meaningful way.
You clearly skimmed and shrugged off my earlier list, which is about ways PA was OPPOSITE to all other empires. I guess cognitive dissonance is strong. So go ahead and shrug. But I got the facts.
Oh, all of that leaves out the SCIENCE! And the messages of suspicion of authority and individual rights and diversity and tolerance spread by HOLLYWOOD vastly more effectively than even the Sermon on the Mount. And the trait of criticising authority and the empire safely and sometimes (not this time) helpfully. Again, NAME another example?
Feh.
No Dr Brin
ReplyDeleteI read your list - and its simply not true
For a very brief occasion the USA did help its former enemies - while trying to cripple its former allies - then it was back to normal
The British Empire was the best at its time - vastly better than the American Empire during that period - The American Empire 50 years later was better than the British Empire 50 years before
Remember it was the American Empire in the Philippines that caused Kipling to write that wonderfully satirical "White Man's Burden"
To the British that was a deeply satirical mocking of the empire - to the Americans it was an instruction book
Wars - even with WW1 and WW2 the death rate during the 20th century was LESS than the 19th century
Science - the USA is just a wee bit larger than the UK - and it has contributed more to science - but NOT in regard to population!!
Your Hollywood did promote SOA - yes
But it promoted a very "dumbed down" version
British media promoted the same idea - but with a bit more of a twist
Example
Star Trek - the captain and crew "beams down" - there is a problem so they pull out their phasers
Blake's Seven - The away team "beams down" back to back with weapons drawn -
I really like Star Trek - but Blake's Seven was more edgy
Duncan, "while trying to cripple it's former allies" seems likely you're referring to one of our (Formerly) GOP's efforts to regain relevance in the late forties, after they'd clung to the status quo too long early in the previous decade. Doing their jobs well for a half century or so might've earned them the respect they crave, but ambition works against that.
ReplyDeleteWho to root for?
ReplyDeletehttps://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2023/Items/Oct12-2.html
...
There's also one other problem on the political front for Republicans. Donald Trump undoubtedly senses that he might get some of the blame here, or at very least that his signature foreign policy achievement is going up in smoke. And so, he's gone on the attack. Biden's in the Trump crosshairs, of course, but so is... Benjamin Netanyahu. In an appearance on Fox, Trump slammed the Israeli PM for being "unprepared." And in a speech in Florida yesterday, Trump appeared to make fun of Israel for getting caught unprepared, attacked Netanyahu for not helping with the assassination of Qassem Soleimani, and said, in reference to Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, said it was not smart to "listen to this jerk." We don't think such rhetoric is a winner, politically.
Ideology has the flaw that we see in dictatorships with yes-men. Dictators surround themselves with people who tell them what they want to know.
ReplyDeleteIdeologists make sure they only read what they want to read.
But what we need to know is more important.
Emphasis mine...
ReplyDeletehttps://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/08/opinion/international-world/israel-hamas-attack.html
As a nation, Israelis acted as if we could afford the luxury of a vicious internal fight, the kind in which your political rival becomes your enemy. We let animosity, demagogy and the poisonous discourse of social media take over our society, rip apart the only Jewish army in the world. This is our tragedy. And it carries a lesson for other polarized democracies: There is someone out there waiting to gain from your self-made weakness. This someone is your enemy.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/10/opinion/israel-hamas-protests-left.html
ReplyDeleteThat was followed by a demand for “an immediate cease-fire and de-escalation.” Someone should tell the New York congresswoman: To call for a cease-fire, now, is to shield the killers from consequences and deny their victims the right to effective self-defense. It is, in the language of the old left, “objectively” pro-Hamas, even as it masquerades as a call for peace.
At least the loony left is consistent, calling for cease-fires in both Ukraine and Israel, rewarding the aggressors in both cases. The mad right defends Israel's right to defend itself in manners that they explicitly deny to Ukraine.
Wow.
ReplyDeleteThis was a rough week, and it isn't even over, so far.
Saturday, the cruel, barbaric, and unforgivable acts of Hamas in Israel, and the start of the war.
Sunday, elections in two states (Hesse and Bavaria). In Bavaria, 30% elected parties with known antisemitic stances In Hesse, the AfD got 18.4%. (Keep that in mind.)
Anti-Israel, pro-Palaestinian protests all week. Tomorrow could get ugly with Hamas calling for worldwide action. People civilians, not police- organize to protect synagogues in the West and Berlin, while in Saxony, the police arrested people wielding Israeli flags. In Berlin, police refuses to comply to arrest Pro-Palaestinian protesters.
To top it of, there are leftist and lgbtq+ groups who support those protests, somehow forgetting that they would be instantly executed by Hamas. And forgetting about the fact that Hamas leadership, living (for now) peaceful and secure life as millionaires and even billionaires elsewhere.
Bernie Sanders - yes, your Bernie - has been first invited then disinvited for dinner by Saskia Esken, current chair of the social democrats. He published a relatively nuanced message which, apparently, gets you immediately canceled in the current climate. While tomorrow, Chancellor Scholz welcomes the despot ruling Qatar, who has been a supporter of Hamas (and is one of our new energy suppliers since we weaned of russian gas).
Two Carrier Fight groups plus half a dozen warships operating in the Eastern Mediteranian. Air Strikes on Syria, troop movements by Iran are reported.
Immigration laws have been tightened to a degree I cannot fathom, including a backdoor policy allowing public service technically enslaving refugees for communal work. I hope the courts will kill that bill fast.
And guess who is loudest in crying "Antisemite! Antisemite!"? Conservatives. Who become more and more the type of killer clowns throwing around excrements and explosives so prominent in the GOP. The same conservatives who enabled those parties to win at the last sunday.
And always these empty word shells like "The security of Israel is Germany's raison d'etat". The multiple and utterly failure that is Netanjahu and his cabinet of crooks is never even mentioned, or the reason why the intelligence community seems to have failed so catastrophally.
Stay safe, everyone.
Lift your spirits. The latest version of the Strandbeest! Prepare to be mesmerized! You want art? THIS is art!
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWGlbpEZkNA
Alas, Duncan doubled down on (paraphrasing) "Okay so the American Empire incrementally improved a few things from the already better British one, but only incrementally and no credit for intent."
Bosh and utterly ignoring every single example that I gave, of non-incremental REVERSALS of 6000 years of the way all previous empires behaved. Deliberate reversal, by some of the smartest statesment the world ever knew. But though he claims to have read my list, he ignores every single point.
Well, I like him and at least his fixations are aimed toward the better world that we all want.
Re: Strandbeest
ReplyDeleteI see from Theo Jansen's Wikipedia page that he was inspired by "The Blind Watchmaker" by Richard Dawkins. There's an old video called "Evolution IS a Blind Watchmaker" that is also mind blowing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcAq9bmCeR0
I don't know if anyone remembers my explanation of the collapse of the Maya many years ago, but what is happening in Israel and Gaza brought that to my mind. On both sides of this conflict they are doing what the Maya did - if your strategy stops working, do it harder. With the Maya, their civilization rose in a context of inter-village competition, each trying to over-awe the others by building the biggest temples. As is so often the case, the thing that caused their civilization to rise is what caused it to collapse. To build their temples they needed a lot of labor, so the birth rate went up. That meant that they had to cut down more forest for agriculture. They also needed a lot of wood to burn so they could extract lime from the local limestone for mortar. Eventually the positive feedback loop they created collapsed, as positive feedback loops generally do. They cut down too much forest, which created massive erosion, which damaged crops and fields, reducing agricultural yields as their population grew. How did they respond to this mess? The built bigger temples. You can guess how well that worked.
ReplyDeleteHamas wants to free the Palestinians from an oppressive Israeli occupation. Decades of firing rockets and murdering random people hasn't worked, so what do they do? The same thing harder, just like the Maya. Ironically, Israel was kind of doing the same thing. Israel wants to stop Hamas terrorism, but killing random Palestinians hasn't exactly worked. So what do they do? Form an extremist, hard-line government that doubles down on oppressing the Palestinians. I hope the people in charge on both sides sit down and think this through, because a whole lot of innocent people on both sides are living and dying a nightmare.
This is why conservatism is a suicide pact. The #1 rule of survival is: Adapt or Die. Conservatism is refusal to adapt. It's doing the same thing harder, then blaming everyone else when it makes things worse. We are feeling it in America, after decades of supply-side stupidity, which only makes things worse, the middle class is mostly sinking into poverty, and the conservatives just want to double down on "trickle down" and scapegoat everyone else. Not looking good.
On that cheery note...
Paul SB
Der Oger:
ReplyDeletePeople civilians, not police- organize to protect synagogues in the West and Berlin, while in Saxony, the police arrested people wielding Israeli flags. In Berlin, police refuses to comply to arrest Pro-Palaestinian protesters.
Wait...the (presumably right-leaning) police in Germany side with Palestinians over Israel? That wouldn't happen over here, even (or especially) if Trump were president again.
there are leftist and lgbtq+ groups who support those protests, somehow forgetting that they would be instantly executed by Hamas.
I've never understood our own leftists supporting Muslims. Ok, I kinda get their taking up the cause of the "occupied" Palestinians and the pre-9/11 notion that Muslims in America and Europe face discrimination. But supporting actual terrorist murderers who would (as you point out) gladly kill all of the liberals, feminists, and LGBTQs that they could?
As I say, I don't get it.
And forgetting about the fact that Hamas leadership, living (for now) peaceful and secure life as millionaires and even billionaires elsewhere.
I suspect not living for much longer.
Paul SB:
ReplyDeleteHamas wants to free the Palestinians from an oppressive Israeli occupation.
I'm not sure they do. Yassir Arafat may have genuinely wanted to free Palestine, but Hamas in particular seems more interested in the power and legitimacy they derive from the Palestinians in Gaza remaining oppressed.
* * *
Someone here mentioned the IRA and the "Troubles" awhile back. It's hard to remember now, but when Americans thought of "terrorists" in the 70s, the image wasn't entirely Arab the way it became after 9/11. It was kind of evenly split between Arab and Irish. Even the Star Trek TNG episode called "The High Ground"--which was pretty obviously about whether terrorism is ever justified--had elements which could have made the setting analogous to either Northern Ireland or Israel.
Scalise drops out. I'm no US politico, but I'd say a significant number of the residually sane Rs might make Jeffries the Speaker as a statement.
ReplyDeletescidata, that surely is the fantasy.
ReplyDeleteSurely at least 20% of Republicans in the House (indeed, across America) would love to find a way out of this mess. Not just the Speaker fight, but the entire "Never negotiate, never govern, never legislate, never lead" vow that has been the core of the GOP ever since 1996, when Dennis "friend to boys" Hastert (and Jim Jordan's mentor) ruled that no Republican may ever again do those things. IDEALLY the way out would be to end gerrymandering so primaries, dominated by partisan radicals, would no longer bully reps into mania. IDEALLY light would drive the blackmailed out of politics. IDEALLY a large segment of 'decent' Republicans would split off from the madness, the way Liz Cheney did, and save something of American conservatism, before it is too late.
Won't happen? I know. But there IS a maneuver that might at least help bandaid the current mess!
Put up to a vote a TEMPORARY HOUSE RULE allowing motions & votes to - FOR JUST 2 MONTHS - be done by SECRET BALLOT! For just those two months, the decent 20% of GOP lawmakers... plus maybe another 50% who at least aren't crazy or putin-blackmailed... would be free to negotiate and pass essential bills with Democrats, while retaining a way to tell their radicals: "Who... ME?"
It's a simple, procedural workaround... and the rule change would require only SOME guts and patriotism from just a dozen or so 'decent repubs'... allowing the rest of 2023 to see stuff actually done, on our behalf.
The latest strandebeest is reminiscent of some scenes from the music video of Sting's "If I Ever Lose my Faith", namely those showing a caravan of carnival players making their way along a beach.
ReplyDeleteAfter thirty odd years of Hastert, I think the habit has become ingrained. All sanity has long since fled the gop crucible. (so please refute by naming eight 'residually sane Republicans', please?)
Speaking of sanity, Israel has just warned *everyone* (1.1 million people) to vacate Northern Gaza in 24 hours. Um, why? (as in: what is a totally unrealistic order like that going to achieve?)
... and the situation for the Voice referendum isn't looking promising (but we can only see).
On the darkly amusing side, someone posted the following 'inspirational quote':
"I am tired and would like the world to be different."
Maybe that Sting video is more appropriate than I realised...
... and I did like the strandebeest.
ReplyDeletePaul SB: «Hamas wants to free the Palestinians from an oppressive Israeli occupation. Decades of firing rockets and murdering random people hasn't worked, so what do they do? The same thing harder, just like the Maya.»
ReplyDeleteOoooookay, that’s where I call bullshit, although to be fair, this is a mistake many people make.
“The Hamas brand of violence is fated to fail no matter what” is one of the many variations of the “Violence NEVER works” mantra, which is just not true.
In fact, studies have shown that under the right set of conditions, blind violence by maximalist insurgent groups have better chances to succeed than more peaceful methods
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2014/04/22/actually-sometimes-terrorism-does-work/
Basically, when state actors overreach, answer to rebellions with excessive force, they tend to destroy their non-violent opponents first while making it easier for their more violent opponents to find new recruits, so you end up with maximalist violent groups which are the last ones standing and have no trouble renewing their ranks no matter how many get killed by state actors.
As explained in the article and the studies it stems from, excessive state violence rewards bad behaviour.
Now that does not means that what Hamas did was some masterstroke by evil geniuses manipulating Israeli authorities into making self-defeating moves, things happen far more stochastically than that, think social inertia and momentum more than a clash of deliberate strategies.
***
Larry Hart:«Hamas in particular seems more interested in the power and legitimacy they derive from the Palestinians in Gaza remaining oppressed.»
Do not confuse the status quo and what comes after.
Hamas most certainly wanted to demolish the pre October 7 status quo of a blockaded Gaza, a de facto occupied West Bank and an ongoing colonisation spear-headed by far-right settlers who clearly intend to commit an ethnic cleansing.
Now there’s a convincing argument to be made that what they want to replace the status quo with is equally bad if not worse, but one of the main evidence of Netanyahu’s glaring incompetence was that he spent years convinced that Hamas would be content to lord over the Gazan Bantustan and receive scraps from Qatar, he thought he could bribe the organisation into not opposing the status quo anymore, and we’ve all seen how fucking stupid that idea was.
***
Tony Fisk:«as in: what is a totally unrealistic order like that going to achieve.»
The goal is deniability: when the death toll rise -again- the politicians and military higher-ups with say that the people who died had been warned and are the sole responsible for their death.
“But it’s stupid!” I already hear you say; “Nobody with more that three neutrons rubbing together will see that such an order was impossible to implement on such short notice!” And you’d be right, but in case you didn’t notice, the current batch of Israeli leaders do not care if their denial is plausible or not. The goal is to have all the racist perverts who get a boner at the thought of witnessing the massacre of arabic-speaking brown people and enjoy a disproportionate echo in today’s media ecosystem loudly pretend that they believe appropriate measures to spare civilian lives were taken.
Larry Hart said...
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure they do. Yassir Arafat may have genuinely wanted to free Palestine, but Hamas in particular seems more interested in the power and legitimacy they derive from the Palestinians in Gaza remaining oppressed.
I haven't done enough research to verify all the claims, but there have been arguments made (including by Israelis) that Hamas was supported as a counter to Arafat's Fatah because Fatah seemed too willing to compromise to create a peaceful free Palestine.
In a sense Hamas does indeed want to create a free Palestine. That sense is that Hamas wants to extinguish the Jews. They want to kill them all, every one, until they are no more. They aren't the only Arab group that righteously proclaims that intent, and this isn't a new thing.
ReplyDeleteSo many people seem to forget this. Israel is surrounded by people that have continuously proclaimed their intent to eradicate them, and that have actually worked towards that goal. Anyone who thinks Palestinians are victims of long persecution should be demonizing groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, and the Arab nations in the region who have purposely refused to aid their brethren Palestinians for decades, not the Israelis. If not for those groups there could have been a Palestinian state and peace, several times.
Hamas and Hezbollah don't give a flying fuck for the Palestinian civilian masses. They purposefully use them as human shields. Instead of protecting them they put them out front. Anyone who thinks Hamas are valiant representatives of the Palestinian people sticking it to their oppressors is detached from reality.
To slightly alter a line from Michael Corleone in Godfather II,
ReplyDelete"There are things that have been going on between Arabs and Jews for thousands of years!"
That will likely continue until the lesson of "A Taste of Armageddon" ("I will not kill, today.") or "Day of the Dove" ("Only a fool fights in a burning house.") are internalized.
On the local US scene...
ReplyDeletehttps://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2023/Items/Oct13-1.html
The foundational proposition of a democracy is that you put forward your best candidate, you take your best shot, and if you lose, you try again the next time. But thanks substantially to Donald Trump, the calculus has changed for many/most Republicans. They feel entitled to wins EVERY TIME, and if they don't get them, they won't concede (graciously or otherwise) and they won't play nice. The reason that elections for speaker rarely go past the first ballot (as in, not once in a century prior to this year) is that the conference/caucus election is supposed to be THE election. Once a person has been nominated as speaker by their party, everyone in the party is supposed to fall in line, even if that person wasn't a member's preferred choice. But now, the House GOP sees the nomination as merely a suggestion, and the members feel they are free to continue acting as free agents. That attitude, plus the near-zero margin of error, makes it exceedingly difficult to elect a speaker. Fox's Bret Baier, who's pretty dialed in to Republican politics, reported yesterday that, according to what he's hearing, "Jesus of Nazareth could not get 217 votes right now." Probably right; Jesus was a Jew, so there goes the votes of Paul Gosar (R-AZ) and Marjorie Taylor Greene right there.
Larry Hart: the lesson of [TOS episodes]
ReplyDeleteIn my own notes, I frequently use ST episodes as shorthand because I've watched every episode dozens of times over many decades. Not an ideology though*; I don't dream of living in the Federation (call me Flint). I think TASAT would be useful for the same shorthand, but for connecting avid SF readers to the wider world.
* "It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." – Aristotle
Larry: Someone here mentioned the IRA and the "Troubles" awhile back. It's hard to remember now, but when Americans thought of "terrorists" in the 70s, the image wasn't entirely Arab the way it became after 9/11.
ReplyDeleteThat was me. Also remember that during the 70s, the IRA got significant financial support from Irish-descended Americans. (Amusingly, those Americans were quite right-wing, while the IRA was left-wing. Devlin caused quite a stir in Boston when she said she felt more at home among oppressed blacks than she did among Irish-Americans.)
Apparently, during the 70s suggesting that Americans not support IRA terrorism was politically extreme, enough so that in 1977 it was headline news when politicians suggested just that:
https://www.nytimes.com/1977/03/20/archives/four-top-democrats-urge-halt-in-support-for-ira.html
A newspaper report from 1987:
WE HAVE seen it before and we are apt to see it again. The Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) explodes a bomb in a mall or on a crowded street. Within an hour, American television viewers see shrouded corpses, ambulances speeding away with the luckier victims and interviews with uncomprehending survivors.
When other terrorists around the world cause the same sort of carnage, American politicians and media are quick to assail those who back them with money and propaganda. Not so with the IRA. This is strange. It would be so easy. One of the IRA's sources of support is not in some exotic hideaway, after all, but right here in the Bronx.
It is called the Irish Northern Aid Committee (Noraid). It was convicted of violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act in 1981 by U.S. District Court Judge Charles S. Haight for failing to list the IRA as its principal foreign agent.
Who does Noraid aid? Fundraising letters sent out in 1971 and 1972 said: "Our support goes exclusively to the Provisional IRA and those who are working with them." Where does the money go? "Our funds are channelled through Joe Cahill of Belfast to be used for the advancement of the campaign in Northern Ireland." What is the relationship between the IRA and Noraid? "We are fighting a guerrilla war and will continue to do so. We, the members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army, will fight and die until victory is ours. Remember, the Irish Northern Aid Committee is the only organization in America that supports the Provisional IRA."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1987/03/22/irish-troubles-american-money/593e3941-826e-4719-bc79-8eb528f8ac70/
Larry,
ReplyDeleteYou could very easily be right about today's Hamas. When a movement consistently fails for nearly a century, it's highly likely that the participants will turn their attentions elsewhere, like to internal power struggles. It's a little like how the Republicans claim they are for small government, but never actually shrink the government. If they did, they would no longer have those accusations to hurl at their political opponents. Likewise welfare and fiscal responsibility. Republicans need huge deficits to blame on Democrats, and "welfare queens" to act as scapegoats in their political campaigns.
PSB
Laurent,
ReplyDeleteI'm not suggesting that armed insurgencies never work. That would be pretty stupid, living in a former colony that rose against its colonial masters and won. What I said was that both sides continued to pursue strategies that have failed for 80 years, but act as if they only did the same thing hard enough, they would get what they want.
Maybe the more interesting question here would be to engage in a historical counterfactual. The State of Israel was founded on land the Jewish people had mostly vacated in 79 A.D., and forcibly removed the people who had occupied the place for generations. It should have been obvious that this was going to cause huge problems for generations to come. And plopping them down in the middle of hostile states, made more hostile by the perception that their fellows were being robbed, murdered, and persecuted by the Israeli State. Maybe trying to resurrect Israel wasn't such a good idea? Given their ancient claim to the land, they probably would have strenuously objected to being given a land of their own anywhere else, though, and that would have smelled too much like what America did to so many of its native peoples. What do you think?
PSB
Darrell,
ReplyDelete"Anyone who thinks Palestinians are victims of long persecution should be demonizing groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, and the Arab nations in the region who have purposely refused to aid their brethren Palestinians for decades, not the Israelis. If not for those groups there could have been a Palestinian state and peace, several times."
- For the most part I agree. Hamas and Hezbollah are clearly terrorists, and the surrounding Arab nations seem to just want to use Palestine as a propaganda tool. However, I'm doubtful that there could have been a peaceful two-state solution. Even without the terrorists, the issue of Palestinian people being forced from their homes, mostly without compensation, and the brutality with which both the Israeli military and settlers treat the Palestinians weren't going to be solved if the Palestinians did whatever the Israeli government told them to do without question or complaint. Maybe it would have been better to put the Jewish state somewhere else, but there aren't a lot of places that humans don't already occupy, and those that are empty of human habitation are for good reasons. What a quandary...
PSB
Yeah, it didn't work out well either in The Yiddish Policeman's Union by Michael Chabon, where they were given a chunk of Alaska as a homeland. :)
ReplyDeletePSB,
ReplyDeleteWe'll never know how the past almost peace agreements of the past may have worked out because in each of the couple of cases where it looked like it could actually happen the Palestinian leadership of the time backed out, even after being granted nearly every condition they demanded. Israel has made good faith efforts on more than one occasion, no Palestinian authority has.
There is plenty to criticize about Israel over the years but it is really telling that every time there is an incident Israel is held to account by the world for anything they do while the other side is not. I ask anyone to give an example of another nation that at any time in human history has shown the restraint that Israel has shown given the existential provocations they've been faced with. Certainly not the US or any European nations.
Paul SB:
ReplyDeletethe issue of Palestinian people being forced from their homes, mostly without compensation,
The way I understand it--and I wasn't there, nor was I born yet--is that the incoming Zionists bought the land from the mostly-absentee landlords, and then the tenants living there were out of luck. Not much different from here when landlords jack up rents when a higher class of tenant becomes available in a gentrifying neighborhood.
Legally, they were probably in the right, but with hindsight, it might have been better to have made deals with the tenants to begin with.
PSB: Maybe the more interesting question here would be to engage in a historical counterfactual. The State of Israel was founded on land the Jewish people had mostly vacated in 79 A.D., and forcibly removed the people who had occupied the place for generations.
ReplyDeleteYeah, the slogan "a land without a people, for a people without a land" was a bit of a porker. IIRC, Brazil was floated as a possible location, too — with the same disregard for anyone living in the intended state.
It does raise the question of whether it is possible to establish a new state without dispossessing someone.
I'm reminded of a story I read a long time ago, written in the style of Kipling, of the White Queen's solution to the problem of both Indian partition and Northern Ireland: moving the muslims of India to NI. Might have been in an anthology edited by Pournelle, but I wouldn't swear to it. A decent O Henry-style twist ending, but of course the population densities don't work. (And I doubt it was intended at all seriously.)
PSB: I'm not suggesting that armed insurgencies never work. That would be pretty stupid, living in a former colony that rose against its colonial masters and won.
ReplyDeleteDo they ever work without an external power supporting them? Your rebellious colonists had French support: arms, money, troop, naval support… to Britain it was a rather insignificant theatre in a global war.
Robert,
ReplyDeleteYou can research this, but I believe Haiti had no or very little outside support when it became free. The French were rather distracted, but the Brits they were at war with did not want to support rebellious slaves to any extent.
Pappenheimer
Robert,
ReplyDeleteYour rebellious colonists had French support: arms, money, troop, naval support… to Britain it was a rather insignificant theatre in a global war.
Yep. It should also be pointed out that we had a hand in stoking that flame. It was effectively a world war, but doesn't get a number since much of the colonial period involved the major powers fighting or catching their breath to fight later.
For those of you who can consider vaccination, please consider the new one for Covid. The virus made its way into my home this week just before I planned to get the booster. I'll likely survive it (our ICU's aren't packed), but it's more than a little unpleasant.
ReplyDeleteTake care of yourselves.
I'll drop by when I have the energy for it.
Was just telling my wife we need to get boosted - she's not antivacc, just tired and doesn't get out much. But we're hitting an SCA event this weekend. I should have dragged her over last weekend.
ReplyDeletePappenheimer
Alfred Differ:
ReplyDeleteThe virus made its way into my home this week just before I planned to get the booster. I'll likely survive it (our ICU's aren't packed), but it's more than a little unpleasant.
After 3 years of avoiding it, my wife brought home COVID right before Labor Day, and then I got it over the long weekend. She didn't have a rebound, but I did, so I was sick most of the first half of September. Thank goodness it's not as deadly as the early 2020 version was, but it's still not tea with the freakin' queen.
I'm getting the new vaccine as soon as possible, and not because anyone is forcing me to.
Battling the beest myself. Not too bad. Gives me time to catch up on Brin - that kid can write. But I can't breathe in solder smoke for now, so the SELDON I is on ice. That's an inside joke for electronic prototyping nerds (ICE = In Circuit Emulator).
ReplyDeleteGood luck Alfred and all!
ReplyDeleteRobert:
ReplyDeletethe slogan "a land without a people, for a people without a land" was a bit of a porker.
To be fair, then, so was "Jewish gold for worthless land," the slogan of the landowners who gladly sold their holdings, letting their ex-tenants fend for themselves.
IIRC, Brazil was floated as a possible location, too — with the same disregard for anyone living in the intended state.
It does raise the question of whether it is possible to establish a new state without dispossessing someone.
I've often wondered (in a "Mike Doonesbury's Summer Daydream sort of way) whether the US could have offered some truly-uninhabited land in the southwest desert region as a "New Israel". They might have made the desert bloom--a win win for the Zionists and for America.
I had meant to go get the Covid vaccine today, but our Kaiser setup is kind of a mess right now and the line probably would have taken over an hour (and they are not taking appointments). So instead I got the flu shot, which I meant to do separately anyhow, since there was no line.
ReplyDeleteI miss the more efficient setups we had last year with appointments, drive through vaccinations, etc. Now it's just a line full of people, few of whom are wearing masks- I wonder how many people will get sick just waiting in line.
I suspect in 2 weeks things will have died down so I will go then. I've got over a month till I'm doing any travel, which is the only significant risk exposure I get anyhow. I've yet to have Covid and I plan to avoid it as long as possible.
I'm waiting for my age group to be able to get the EBB vaccine up here. Last year I had to wait until people 60+ got it, now that I'm 60 the cutoff is 65. Sigh.
ReplyDeleteGot a flight planned in three weeks, which I booked because vaccines were going to be available in early October. Should have expected my Troy government would screw it up again.
In 2000 Bill Clinton brought Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Arafat to Camp David to try and negotiate a peace deal. Clinton used all his persuasion to get Barak to agree to a compromise where the Palestinians would get an independent state. The rub was that some land had to be swapped. The total territory would stay the same; Israel would pull out all the settlers from the West Bank and Gaza, and some land in the West Bank would be swapped so that the borders would be more defensible. It was a big risk for Barak; the deal was very unpopular. But if it had worked, maybe the resulting peace would have been worth it.
ReplyDeleteBut Arafat turned the deal down. Soon thereafter, the second Intifada broke out. Barak's government fell and he was replaced by Ariel Sharon. Why did Arafat turn it down? Who knows. He was probably under a lot of pressure from his hard core militants who wanted nothing less than total victory. Also, he was corrupt as hell and the permanent state of near war was very profitable for him.
It's hard to imagine that before the first Intifada in 1987, Gaza was fairly prosperous with a lot of cross border traffic and many Gazans working in Israel. Things kept getting worse with each iteration of the violence.
This new war is tearing my soul apart. I do not doubt that many Palestinians wish to live in peace. But Hamas played a clever game of appearing to give up on the struggle to focus on good administration. Instead, they were planning the most deadly anti Jewish violence since the second world war. The violence of Israel's counter attack will brutalize more Gazans. Their strategy seems to be the worse, the better.
This attack has probably set back peace by a generation.
I think things started to go pear-shaped when Rabin was assassinated.
ReplyDeleteTony Fisk «I think things started to go pear-shaped when Rabin was assassinated.»
ReplyDeleteThe Israeli Left should never have been content with just putting Yigal Amir in jail. It’s the entire messianic settler movement that should have been dismantled here and there. No settlements in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza, no excuses to not give full control over all these territories to the Palestinian authority in the name of “security”.
Just like the 19th century Republicans, the Israeli Left committed the folly of not giving their enemy the coup de grâce, even after it assassinated their leader, and instead let it lick its wounds, and as a result, the Peace Process collapsed like the Reconstruction did.
Winning the peace has always been harder than winning the war. Maybe Alexander had some success long ago. Pax Americana is the only modern example. Tribalism is so much easier. This was the main theme of FOUNDATION.
ReplyDeletescidata:
ReplyDeleteWinning the peace has always been harder than winning the war. Maybe Alexander had some success...
Alexander Hamilton?
Winning is easy, young man.
Governing's harder.
For most of my youth, I thought Alexander Hamilton was a crewman on the Enterprise because of his mention in "The Squire of Gothos". I was confused though about how a 23rd century person was felled by a flintlock pistol. I was never very swift.
ReplyDelete@scidata,
ReplyDelete"The Squire of Gothos" was, I believe, maybe the only TOS episode which attempted to put any kind of time period to the series' present. IIRC, it mentioned some specific numbers of centuries back in time the squire was getting his information from.
I know it has long since been established that TOS takes place in the 23rd century, but I don't remember that being mentioned in the show itself, and in my earliest viewings, I imagined it much further in our future. More like a Foundation-level future in which the twentieth century would have faded into quite distant memory.
I didn't have a clear idea of the centuries, I was more interested in the characters. There were a lot of callbacks to Kirk's past in TOS. Brothers, crew mates, old flames, etc. I suspected that Hamilton was one such character, also Lincoln from another episode, which probably started the trail to US history that eventually put me wise. American history was not a key element of Canadian public school back then, especially in the sticks where I grew up.
ReplyDeleteWeird Can-Am crossovers are intriguing. I saw a show recently that said that the raccoon hat that Ben Franklin wore all over France was obtained while on a visit to Canada. He wanted to fit the French preconception of New Worlders, which of course meant New France around that time. Another time on a school trip to Old Fort York (Toronto), the guide explained that the fort defended us against the Americans. Occasional coins showing presidents instead of kings and queens were keepers for sure, probably the same in reverse for American kids.
scidata:
ReplyDeleteprobably the same in reverse for American kids.
The Montreal Expos was probably the first thing I knew about Canada as a kid.
But when I want to summer camp in the 60s, one of the games we played on the camp bus was to look for Nova Scotia license plates. At the time, I didn't know what or where Nova Scotia was, and to this day, I can't understand why there would have been more than one such license plate in Illinois.
scidata:
ReplyDeleteOld Fort York (Toronto), ... defended us against the Americans.
It didn't defend you against my wife and myself honeymooning in Toronto (arriving on Canada Day no less). We'd gladly live there, or in Vancouver, if you guys would let us.
"The saddest are these...'It might have been.'"
ReplyDeletehttps://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/12/opinion/israel-palestinians-gaza-peace.html
...
By the end of the year [2000], Clinton brought the two sides to the White House. At the pivotal meeting in December, he slowly read aloud the peace plan that would come to be known as the Clinton Parameters. It called for uncomfortable sacrifices from both parties but gave each side what the U.S. negotiators believed they needed.
A few days later, the Israeli cabinet voted to accept the plan. Yasir Arafat did what he generally did. He never said no, but he never said yes. The Saudi and Egyptian ambassadors in Washington strongly pressured him to agree to a deal, but perhaps feeling pressure from back home, or sensing where Palestinian public opinion was, or feeling that the provisions for the refugees were insufficient, Arafat dallied. Momentum frittered away. Just before Clinton left office, he had one of his final conversations with Arafat. Arafat told him he was a great man. According to his memoir, Clinton replied: “I am not a great man. I am a failure, and you have made me one.”
Larry Hart: "The saddest are these...'It might have been.'"
ReplyDeleteAnd the wisest are these: Carpe Diem
On a lighter note, the I have a 1st Amendment RIGHT to be a traitor!! motion in the Colorado 14th Amendment disqualification case was laughed out of court. The case begins in earnest shortly, and moves forward in several other states too.
scidata,
ReplyDeleteBen Franklin was a savvy diplomat. He dressed and behaved as the role required of him. Remember, his job was to spin the conflict into a world war.
Adams failed to understand the role. Too much the Puritan I suppose.
------
Old Fort York
The British defended you. They were the credible threat.
Years ago I was on a tour in Washington State up near the border and got to visit an old fort of ours. The gun placements are still mostly there. Big guns that use their recoil to lower themselves out of the line of fire. The guide explained to us that the fort was staffed with serious people up until the border was settled during the Polk Administration. After that, no one here believed the British wanted to get involved much, so the process of demilitarizing our border got underway.
One of the best historical decisions I think the US ever made was to let you all be (mostly) after our concerns about the British diminished. Be aware, though, that one of our motivations for getting into WWI when we finally did was a minor risk that Britain would sue for peace and possibly trade colonies to secure it. Great Powers did such things back then. If they had, we likely would have had to act. (An alt.history with horrible outcomes.)
This round of Covid isn't as deadly, but we are having to watch my MIL's blood oxygen saturation levels closely... and she hasn't eaten much in a few days.
ReplyDeleteI'm fine if you discount the gross symptoms and pain, but it's obvious this thing can still kill the oldest among us.
------
On more pleasant thoughts, my first realization of Canada's existence occurred on an elementary school playground when I dug up a nickel from a sandbox and it would stick to a magnet. Strangest nickel I'd ever seen. I lived in southern New Mexico at the time, so that little nickel was a long way from home.
The thin silver lining around the dark cloud of "Long COVID" is it say make health insurance too painful for Wall $treet, thus ending their opposition to single payer. But I'm not holding my breath for it.
ReplyDeleteAlfred Differ: May you and yours get well soon!
ReplyDeleteWhere in southern NM did you grow up? Was it Las Cruces or Alamogordo? I grew up in Portales.
Hope you get over your Covid bout, Alfred.
ReplyDeleteNon-medical advice: rest! Long covid appears to arise from the damage to blood vessels, capillaries in particular. Excess oxygen demands can't be met locally => micro-necroses
Alfred Differ:
ReplyDeleteit's obvious this thing can still kill the oldest among us.
My wife and I took great pains not to expose my mother when we had it. So far (God willing and the creek don't rise) she's still never had it at all.
one of our motivations for getting into WWI when we finally did was a minor risk that Britain would sue for peace and possibly trade colonies to secure it.
Ok, I obviously know much less about the First World War than I should, but in what sense was Britain vulnerable enough that they'd need to sue for peace rather than declare victory and go home if they wanted out of the war? They weren't being bombed or invaded, were they?
when I dug up a nickel from a sandbox and it would stick to a magnet.
Heh. "We've known for centuries that 'nickel' is a misnomer, but what can you do?"
scidata:
ReplyDeleteThe case begins in earnest shortly, and moves forward in several other states too.
Groucho Marx famously said that he'd never belong to a club whose standards were low enough to admit him as a member. Likewise, no state where Trump has a chance of winning is going to forbid him from running on 14th amendment grounds. Pity.
This is why I don't use those password-saving apps...
ReplyDeletehttps://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2023/10/i-locked-myself-out-of-twitterx-and-now.html
...
I had to enter my password, which I thought I knew, but, apparently, I did not and had not saved anywhere. "Fuck it," stoned brain said again. "I'll reset the password." But, see, because another time a few people I trusted said I should do 2-factor authentication so I had set that up, I needed to enter my super-secret code I had gotten by linking Google Authenticator (or whatever the fuck it's called) to Twitterx.
I entered that code, which I had saved, except I guess that I hadn't because it didn't work. "Fuck it," my now aggravated and stoned brain said. "Get a new code," which should have been easy because the app for authenticating had been linked to Twitterx, as I already fucking explained. So I opened the iPhone and Google Authenticator decided to update. And by updating it reset itself and fucked off with my connection to my Twitterx account and now I couldn't get a new code and I couldn't get into Twitterx because I had started the process of resetting my password and I couldn't back out of it once I was at the second factor stage and god fucking damnit, I hate everything.
...
"Fuck it," I thought one more time. "I'll click on Support." And I did. And I described my situation. And I got an email saying they would get back to me in a few days or maybe a little longer and I've emailed every few days to say, "What the fuck, Elon?" except politely because Elon's a little overly sensitive about that kind of shit and, well, he's the overlord, right?
...
Strangest nickel I'd ever seen. I lived in southern New Mexico at the time, so that little nickel was a long way from home.
ReplyDeleteWe've got bigger nickels…
https://www.flickr.com/photos/etherflyer/6045476079
Re: 14th Amendment
ReplyDeleteAs I understand it, SCOTUS will ultimately decide the legality, not state legislatures. The US Constitution is still the final decider. And even bagmen and stooges may not want to give up that power.
and Google Authenticator decided to update
ReplyDeleteThis is why I have auto-updating turned off on all my devices. I want to control when it happens.
Google doesn't like that, and on the desktop there is no way to stop them updating when they want to. I was once billed for a data overage when the Efex suite decided it needed a multi-GB update just before the end of the month on my very-limited data plan.
I now have an unlimited data plan, but I still avoid Google apps because I don't trust them.
@scidata,
ReplyDeleteI think it is up to states to decide on ballot access, even though the USsc might decide on ineligibility for the office. Conceivably, a state could send its electors for an ineligible candidate. Until that candidate actually wins, no law has been broken. As far as I know, there is no legal definition of running for an office, and no laws regarding who can do so.
Remember that a Republican doesn't need to win a majority of electoral votes to ascend to the presidency. As long as the waters are muddied enough that no candidate reaches a majority, they can count on their 26 state delegations in the House of Representatives to install their own. Now, if that candidate is ineligible (under 35, not a natural-born citizen, a traitor), the court might have to get involved. But just imagine the disruption, threats, and open violence that would ensue if Trump were to win by the rules of the game and then not allowed to assume the office.
Larry,
ReplyDeleteReaching back a bit in the discussion, England was bombed in WWI. The tech wasn't there to do much damage yet, But German zeppelins, and later Gotha bombers, definitely hit London. (And British heavy bombers returned the favor).
That by itself wouldn't have done enough damage to cause a shift in the war; the far more fearsome threat to England (in both wars) was damage to its shipping fleet. Germany believed that if they sank enough cargo ships, England (starved of foodstuffs and raw materials) would have to concede. Densely populated islands are vulnerable that way - ask the US Navy about its plan to end the war with Japan in WWII without invading or dropping a nuke*.
Pappenheimer
*as a side note, the ethics of 'incineration of two cities' vs 'mass starvation of a nation' make this a murkier prospect than it sounds at first hearing
I should note that Germany wasn't self-sufficient either and relied on transport ships as well, which the British fleet blockaded from arriving at German ports. The difference here is that surface ships could intercept and turn back shipping, but German U-boats could not reliably do that, so they sank the ships instead. (This applies to both WW's.) Much the same effect but far worse PR.
ReplyDeleteRe: morality of blockading an island nation, see Grave of the Fireflies
Pappenheimer
Given the way the 20th Century developed, especially WWI, I deem HG Wells's SF novel THE WAR IN THE AIR (1907) to be his most prophetic and amazingly accurate work.
ReplyDeletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_in_the_Air
It does seem odd that he assumed zeppelins would dominate and it would take many years for heavier than air flight to take off. But Bleriot's channel crossing was 2 years later.
Unknown «Densely populated islands are vulnerable that way - ask the US Navy about its plan to end the war with Japan in WWII without invading or dropping a nuke*.»
ReplyDeleteSome Japanese dignitaries did say that the USSR entering the war against Japan shocked them and drove them to accept the surrender more than the two nukes.
And the reason for it was that with the Japanese navy either sunk or without fuel, it would have been rather easy for the USSR, even with most of its war fleets away from the Pacific, to invade Hokkaido which was Japan’s last remaining bread basket.
Imagine, what little food remained ending up under the control of Joseph I-did-the-fucking-Holodomor Stalin.
In fact the politicians, generals, nobles and people within Japan were more daunted by the atom bombs... while the generals in China/Manchuria, with most of the Army, cared far more about the Soviets.
ReplyDeleteTojo's "We have to make Japan strong through conquest so it can withstand the assaults from the Soviet Union when it inevitably attack us" might have been one of the most glaring case of "Karma won't wait the afterlife to show you the receipt for your folly"
ReplyDeleteonward
ReplyDeleteonward