âThe extent to which America nuked itself is not completely appreciated still, to this day, by most Americans, especially younger Americans,â (Dr. Wellerstein) said.
The House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party(I guess they need to be kept busy)
Republican members argued that not only was diplomacy a sign of weakness, but so too is trade, with two calling for the end of all trade with China moving forward. While questioning Rozman Kendler on why the U.S. continues to trade with Beijing, Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-Mo.) said âweâve got to stop everything going to China,â because a âwillingness to be a partner with them endangers us down the road.â
On a slightly more up-tempo note, the 2023 Women's World Cup soccer tournament starts today. Our USA women are predicted to win. WUS's first game is Friday night against newcomer Vietnam.
As a side note, Hub and I were in Paris during the 2018 Cup and went to Sweden vs. Canada... WOW! Dads and daughters from all over the world, stadium was packed and this was only the second or third round. Gave me whole new respect and appreciation for Girl Dads!
Known as âthe arsenal of democracyâ during World War II, America has now simply become an arsenal, with a military-industrial-congressional complex intent on forging and feeding wars rather than seeking to starve and stop them. The result: a precipitous decline in the countryâs standing globally, while at home Americans pay a steep price of accelerating violence (2023 will easily set a record for mass shootings) and âcarnageâ (Donald Trumpâs word) in a once proud but now much-bloodied âhomeland.â (...)
For whether you call it fascism, as with Nazi Germany, communism, as with Stalinâs Soviet Union, or democracy, as with the United States, empires built on dominance achieved through a powerful, expansionist military necessarily become ever more authoritarian, corrupt, and dysfunctional. Ultimately, they are fated to fail. No surprise there, since whatever else such empires may serve, they donât serve their own people. Their operatives protect themselves at any cost, while attacking efforts at retrenchment or demilitarization as dangerously misguided, if not seditiously disloyal.
The global 'good guy with a gun'.
Yep, there's a lot of truth in that, but again "it is only half the story"
All political systems survive on the basis of the support given to them by the people they govern. There are better and worse ways of getting that support. Winning them over with reason, inciting religious-type fervour, coercing them or downright suppression.
This battle never stops and the political landscape slips and slides over time. That said, while being far from perfect, the US system has got a pretty good track record compared to others, basing its system on reason and checks and balances. It still gets my vote. Were the fascists to truly take over and erode the system, I'd very quickly change my view accordingly.
Known as âthe arsenal of democracyâ during World War II, America has now simply become an arsenal, with a military-industrial-congressional complex intent on forging and feeding wars rather than seeking to starve and stop them. The result: a precipitous decline in the countryâs standing globally, while at home Americans pay a steep price of accelerating violence (2023 will easily set a record for mass shootings) and âcarnageâ (Donald Trumpâs word) in a once proud but now much-bloodied âhomeland.â (...)
For whether you call it fascism, as with Nazi Germany, communism, as with Stalinâs Soviet Union, or democracy, as with the United States, empires built on dominance achieved through a powerful, expansionist military necessarily become ever more authoritarian, corrupt, and dysfunctional. Ultimately, they are fated to fail. No surprise there, since whatever else such empires may serve, they donât serve their own people. Their operatives protect themselves at any cost, while attacking efforts at retrenchment or demilitarization as dangerously misguided, if not seditiously disloyal.
It's about half of the story. The US wants to remain the sole superpower and preserve 'primacy'. And that has implications.
and this month's winner of stating the bleeding obvious goes to...
.. the only point you forgot to mention is that some of those implications are viewed very favourably by countries threatened by large autocratic neighbours.
This takes us back to the new alliance of former Soviet satellite states (namely the Baltics from Finland south, through Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Ukraine, to name the most vocal, they I mentioned a few weeks ago.
These guys are not stupid. They know the game the US is playing, but still see NATO as by far their best bet for their defensive future. But they are not going to rely solely on that. Rather, they are rearming at an extraordinary rate, Poland in particular. Remember, these guys got royally f-ed over by both Germany and Russia and continue to be played for fools by the arrogance of the both Germans and Russians to this day. As soon as they have their own arms industry up and running to scale, they won't be as reliant on US support as they are now and will be much more assertive against Russia than the current pissing contest where they are forced by the US to fight with one hand tied behind their back.
It is also noteworthy that a massive cooperation in arms manufacture is currently evolving between South Korea and Poland, which makes perfect sense, when you see the parallels between them.
So, as for US wanting "primacy".. that is fine with most of the western world most of the time. The bigger threat for the other NATO countries is not the current primacy of the US on the world stage, but the rise of fascism there locally. This would automatically nullify its moral leadership of the western world, which is still, first and foremost, a club of shared values.
So it is no wonder that Russia has been investing massively in destabilising US domestic politics via various channels. It's the most effective weapon they have.
But it's also no surprise that many of the other countries in NATO have woken up to their need to keep a viable defence force. We may not be able to rely on the US in future after all and it's high time to prepare for that.
agreed. The irony is that the Republicans are writing this as if Biden is Hitler and our imperial aspirations are destroying cultures around the world and making it unfair to China.
They don't know what they want, but they sure as hell don't want Biden getting credit for anything good, so they bring out the pretzel machine.
The other comment I made... Biden is going to be playing the Marjorie Taylor Greene speech on his own ads for the 24 election. She's so catastrophically stupid, she had no idea how all of the things she was saying might actually be viewed by most Americans as good things. She's a national embarrassment...regardless of the party/people you support.
It's unfortunate that it's now down to (mostly) conservatives to question imperialism and militarism. It's still a bipartisan support project. See defense budgets and continued 'nation building'.
Some of that is merely partisan dynamics. They go high/right, we go low/left, and vice versa.
It's about half of the story. The US wants to remain the sole superpower and preserve 'primacy'. And that has implications.
agreed. The irony is that the Republicans are writing this as if Biden is Hitler and our imperial aspirations are destroying cultures around the world and making it unfair to China.
They don't know what they want, but they sure as hell don't want Biden getting credit for anything good, so they bring out the pretzel machine.
The other comment I made... Biden is going to be playing the Marjorie Taylor Greene speech on his own ads for the 24 election. She's so catastrophically stupid, she had no idea how all of the things she was saying might actually be viewed by most Americans as good things. She's a national embarrassment...regardless of the party/people you support.
So what's not clear is what would the writers prefer. OK, guilty as charged...the US wants to be a superpower. Are the conservatives suggesting that's a bad idea? That having allies to possibly address China's global plan is a bad thing? Is part of making America great again losing influence and security everywhere else? (...)
Amidst the dross that clutters the New York Times op-ed page on most days, glimmers of enlightenment occasionally appear. A recent guest column by Grey Anderson and (...)
So what's not clear is what would the writers prefer. OK, guilty as charged...the US wants to be a superpower. Are the conservatives suggesting that's a bad idea? That having allies to possibly address China's global plan is a bad thing? Is part of making America great again losing influence and security everywhere else?
If they aren't careful, they are going to make Biden into one of the great statesmen of the 21st century. Hell, you've got MTG out there screaming that he's focused on jobs, the middle class, education, middle america, healthcare and workers. He's doing infrastructure and fighting global warming!!!! Damn Him!
Besides not paying taxes and letting companies do whatever they want, the Republicans seem to support having no government and surrendering everything that created the country they occupy. "The great revival of the American Empire". Unless you're one of them "woke" types, that sounds pretty good.
Amidst the dross that clutters the New York Times op-ed page on most days, glimmers of enlightenment occasionally appear. A recent guest column by Grey Anderson and Thomas Meaney offers a case in point.
âNATO Isnât What It Says It Is,â declares the headline. Contrary to the claims of its architects and defenders, Anderson and Meaney argue persuasively that the central purpose of the alliance from its founding was not to deter aggression from the East and certainly not to promote democracy, but to âbind Western Europe to a far vaster project of a U.S.-led world order.â In return for Cold War-era security guarantees, Americaâs European allies offered deference and concessions on issues like trade and monetary policy. âIn that mission,â they write, NATO âhas proved remarkably successful.â A plot of real estate especially valued by members of the American elite, Europe thereby became the centerpiece of the postwar American imperium.
The end of the Cold War called these arrangements into question. Desperate to preserve NATOâs viability, proponents claimed that the alliance needed to go âout of area or out of business.â NATO embraced an activist posture, leading to reckless state building interventions in Libya and Afghanistan. The results were not favorable. Acceding to U.S. pressure to venture out of area proved to be costly and served chiefly to undermine NATOâs credibility as a militarily capable enterprise.
Enter Vladimir Putin to save the day. Just as Russiaâs invasion of Ukraine provided the U.S. with an excuse to forget its own post-9/11 military failures, so too it has enabled NATO to once more constitute itself as the chief instrument for defending the Westâand, crucially, to do so without actually exacting a blood sacrifice from either Americans or Europeans.
In this context, the actual fate of Ukraine itself figures as something of an afterthought. The real issue centers on reviving damaged aspirations of American global primacy. With something like unanimity, the U.S. national security establishment is devoted to the proposition that the United States must remain the worldâs sole superpower, even if this requires ignoring a vast accumulation of contrary evidence suggesting the emergence of a multipolar order. On that score, Putinâs recklessness came as an impeccably timed gift. (...)
You never refer to a rules-based order without ironic quotes. Is that because you dismiss the concept; i.e. you think a rules-based order s a bad idea, or something else?
I think internationalism is a good idea when approached in a genuine manner.
Lol. You're trying to trick me. I'm not panicked. It's not my thing. I'm just bored. I'm more the type to ease into the discomforts of straight line futility in the shape of the murder merry-go-round. I was a '70s soldier in Europe. Sure, it was a different time and situation, or was it? I learned about the warm blanket of justification in the cold war. After all, a little hot blood goes a long way. Ask any low ranking battlefield veteran who ever stared into the eyes of death. Redundancy is all the rage these days. Witness the advancing knowledge of experience. I'm also a realist in the form of an idealist. I know we're always moving in the wrong direction and I can accept the reasons even if I can't accept the rationale. I resolve to do better next time.
The US and its faux ârules-based orderâ
A recent UN meeting about the Iran nuclear deal showed how Washington doesnât live up to the standards itâs constantly preaching.
You never refer to a rules-based order without ironic quotes. Is that because you dismiss the concept; i.e. you think a rules-based order s a bad idea, or something else?
The US and its faux ârules-based orderâ
A recent UN meeting about the Iran nuclear deal showed how Washington doesnât live up to the standards itâs constantly preaching.
