Note: Behind the green door is a post about what is now considered a classic children’s film, a post about joining the Gaia cult via battery powered tools and the Sunday podcast. Subscribe here or here.
There has always been a fascination in the West with ancient philosophy, especially the Greeks, as it is assumed Greeks gave us philosophy. Studying the Ancients used to be a central part of liberal education. You could not be a well-rounded, educated person without at least some exposure to Greek philosophy. That has died out in elite circles, but it continues in less elite circles. The internet is full of philosophers without portfolio talking about and teaching the Ancients.
The funny thing about this recent fascination with the Ancients is that it tends to ignore the part most relevant to our age, which is the Peloponnesian War. The internet is full of people interested in the pre-Socratics and, of course, legions who want to talk about Plato and Aristotle, but few hipsters are into what is arguably the most important war in human history, or at least Western history. Similarly, Thucydides is the one Ancient who seems to be on everyone’s ignore list.
One reason for that is despite the greatness of Athens, she was on the losing side in this great battle in the ancient world. Not only did Athens lose to Sparta, but she also lost her democracy for a period when the Spartans imposed an oligarchy. This was eventually overthrown, but the aftermath was the Golden age of Greek philosophy, which suggests maybe it was not Athenian democracy that gave us Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle but the failure of democracy that produced these men.
That is open to dispute, obviously, but given the times, it seems that the place to start, if one is hoping to find answers to the current crisis in the ancient world, is not the time after Athens lost the war, but the period before it. The heroic ideas that come from the Ancients are in the period prior to the Peloponnesian War, when the Greek world struggled to unite in order to defeat the Persians. This was the time of Thermopylae, Marathon, and the great sea battle at Salamis.
It was after the stunning defeat of the mighty Persians that Athens was at its peak politically and militarily. This is where to start when thinking about what went wrong leading to the defeat at the hands of Sparta. Athens was economically, culturally, and militarily stronger than Sparta, so what happened that eventually led to Athens losing the war to Sparta and her allies? More important, what does this have to do with the American empire in the current crisis?
The first thing to consider is Athenian democracy during the wars with Persia evolved into a wartime operating system. The focus of all internal debate was toward the goal of beating back the Persians. More important, the great success over Persia validated this way of organizing Athenian society and how it approached the world. Her identity was created during the victory over Persia. Put another way, the telos of the Athenian way of life was making war, not making peace.
It is why Athens wanted to continue the war with Persian after the Battle of Plataea, which was the final victory over the Persians. In the process of beating back the Persians, Athens had become a war machine. Sparta, on the other hand, wanted no part in what would be a foreign adventure. For the Spartans, the defeat of Persia changed nothing about how they engaged with the world or organized their society, so it was just another successful defense of their homeland.
Put another way, the lesson the Spartan rulers gained from the victory of Persia is that you should always be vigilant in defense of the homeland, by making sure to never get tangled up in a foreign adventure. Athens, in contrast, came away sure that their culture and political order were morally superior. The proof of this was the victory over the competing moral order of the time, what the Athenians saw as tyranny. The Athenian way of life was morally superior to the alternatives.
Now, this is a topic that could fill a library, but the very general point is that the reason Athens became so warlike after the defeat of Persia is that Athens was morally defined during the Persian war. While it did not think of itself as an empire or a war machine, it did come to assume it was the morally superior moral order. It beat back the Persians because it operated on a higher moral plane. This sense of moral superiority inevitably led to the aggressive behavior toward the Greek world.
There is a parallel for our age. The American empire has become a belligerent and reckless giant in geopolitics. Like Athens, the American empire projects power over the seas and through control of the financial system. Also, like Athens, the American empire is hell-bent on picking fights with the great land powers. Instead of Sparta it is Russia and now China. The American empire today looks a lot like what the ancient world faced with the Athenians before the Peloponnesian War.
To continue the comparison, we could look at the American victory in the Cold War as something like the Athenian defeat of Persia. From the perspective of both sides of the Cold War, the struggle was not an old-fashioned fight over resources and status, but a fight between two competing ideologies. Ideologies are about how men ought to organize their societies, so an ideological war is a war over competing moral systems and the winner can claim the moral high ground
The United States, after the Second World War was the defender of freedom, not simply the winner of the war. The eventual defeat of Soviet Communism was proof the American way of doing things was the only proper way of doing things. It is why the end of the Cold War did not result in a long-earned peace dividend, but rather one crusade after another to impose liberalism on the world. The so-called end of history was the start of the great liberal crusade to set the world right.
The other angle here is that the American empire, like Athens during the wars with Persia, evolved into a war machine during the Cold War. The great engine of war making that was created to beat the fascists quickly converted to a way of life seen necessary in defending against communism. For close to half a century, the American empire was a war society. Everything was organized for that purpose, so after the Cold War, that purpose needed a target.
Of course, you can probably start this parallel back further and compare the defeat of the fascists with the defeat of Persia. In this version, the Cold War is one part of what will be seen as the American Peloponnesian War. The first half was the Cold War and the second half, which will lead to a final end of this democratic empire, will come at the hands of the Russians or Chinese or both. It is not a perfect parallel, as historical parallels are never perfect.
If you prefer, you could drop the parallel to the Peloponnesian War and just focus on the fact that Athens evolved morally during its war with Persia. Similarly, the American empire has evolved in wars against what it has viewed as anti-democratic and anti-egalitarian organizing systems. The birth of the American imperial mindset was Gettysburg and for over a century since the Civil War, this imperial mindset has found one monster to slay after another.
In the end, the reason America is now seen as a global bully and troublemaker is it is what it evolved to do which is find wrongs to right. The America that evolved to become the global superpower, the final superpower, did not evolve to keep the peace, but to defeat enemies of its moral order. Like Athens after the defeat of the Persians, the American democracy needs an enemy to exist. As with Athens, the rest of the world now must figure out how to disarm a global belligerent.
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Whoa, shiny new comment system. Cool.
Heh, it’s less honery for sure. I see I can’t upvote my own comments or double and triple vote others.
And since it already looks like I’m talking to myself, the new formatting is nice. Nice work.
I was just watching a video about Hawaii last night. The native that was giving the filmmaker a ride around basically said that that’s how Hawaii became part of the United states. Color revolution. The US came in and changed the government with the help of the business interests there. We have a very dirty history they didn’t teach us about in school. Makes you wonder if we aren’t the evil empire. We certainly are these days.
https://youtu.be/oAMMopBnXQ0?feature=shared
The Tucker Carlson Encounter: Aleksandr Dugin
https://tuckercarlson.com/the-tucker-carlson-encounter-aleksandr-dugin/
“You have won, Captain, the others have run off. It appears Evil retreats when forcibly confronted. But your conflicting philosophies remain puzzling to us.Your “Good” and “Evil” use the same methods, achieve the same results”
One of your best. I tend to see the cold war as the beginning of our Peloponnesian war and the outcome of the cold war as a victorious battle in a war we will ultimately lose.
I like the new comment formatting/system. I’m unable to login to Disqus from this page, though. I keep getting this error:
Disqus
Invalid Request: Invalid parameter: redirect_uri (should match predefined callback URI)
Looks better and cleaner.
I think you’ve written about this before, iirc, but the Athenian disaster at Syracuse during the Peloponnesian War was a key marker on the trail to collapse. That misadventure shared many features of modern America’s empire: arrogance, incompetence, lying, etc.
We have parallels today in the form of the US naked retreat from Afghanistan, defeat in Iraq, and now a looming defeat in Ukraine. As I often say, you can’t lose 3 wars in 25 years and not have there be consequences. There’s a reason why the American Public soundly rejects war in Ukraine. They don’t know it or perceive it this way, but it’s the Syracuse Problem: they know it’ll end in disaster for us militarily (their kids will be sent to die, 30,000/month), economically, etc. But the lunatics in charge are blind to this. Because that’s what lunatics do.
Russia and China aren’t exactly in great shape either. So to some extent our ability to keep lumbering along is that Russia is weak and China is too self centered. China is actually better off taking Russian territory than risking a nuclear exchange over Taiwan. Russia has things China needs.
The huge divide between the Lunatic Class (cloud people) and normal citizens continues to expand. Which is why the US Government (FISA 702 re-auth) is much more concerned with policing malcontents inside the USA than with any other threat outside of Russia. It’s why they feel compelled to confirm 2018-2020-2022 election fraud by constantly screaming how any dissent is a crime. Elections so legitimate they have to put people in prison…
I don’t know how this ends, but maybe worldwide demographic collapse saves the planet from destruction.
OT, does anyone understand what the end game of the CIA/Soros is with the Gaza protests all over major Blue cities and universities? I don’t understand why they are funding this, it only makes ol Joe look bad when ol Joe is in charge. Unless it is a Bolshevik / Menshevik power play, in which case who is the nascent Lenin? Hillary? Obama?
I just don’t get it.
The golem always turns on its creator. It was fine when the golem was tearing down Confederate statues and burning down cities, but now…
I don’t know whether or not this was the intended outcome, but Civnat G. Normiecon sure is going on and on about look how the left are the real anti semites and we have to support our greatest ally
Getting conservatives back on board with censorship, to the point of supporting hate speech laws, has been the upside so far. That’ll cost every Republican a few points with white men. (Shapiro strategy!)
The endgame is to exclude Jews from whiteness, officially.
Remember, that campaign was begun with a claim that Jews are wholly unrepresented in and by Hollywood. And now they’re endangered innocents in academia, too!
Like the eagle-and-bear cage or the lampshades, the story must always be unbelievable. Hubris without nemesis.
I would disagree, in that Athenian morality did not drive its aggressive conduct post Persian Wars, rather its morality evolved to support its social/economic/military structure. Athen’s innovation was to take its liability: landless citizens, into an asset by paying them to row the triremes.
However this again flipped to a liability as the rowers did not want peace, as it would have meant starving, and it was expensive to pay the rowers (who were citizens and had a say in policy). So the rowers wanted war, and ideally “free land” so they could no longer be dependent on rowers’s wages but have land. Which meant taking it from others. Hence the Athens morality of “doing good” was the justification for keeping the rowers paid. The Sicilian expedition was easy to understand (“get that land”) in retrospect.
In the US, big industrial wars with conscription has been a political and social disaster, outside the two World Wars. And even then, had the Japanese not surrendered and fought for two more years at the cost of say, 6-10 million US dead (not wounded), even that would have no longer been “the good War.”
What the US settled on post-Reagan was drawing down the conventional Navy (which was the big loser in the peace dividend) and the Clintonian alliance of Spec Ops, “Big Army” and drone/air attacks with a boutique, Louis Vuitton type military that did not scale but made luxury profits for the winners (aerospace, Spec Ops Olympics suppliers). And the need to keep the Spec Ops dudes employed in Spec Ops Olympics and a steady supply of luxury missiles, drones, and air frames is what drives US morality. [Allies like with Athens just go along].
What our leaders don’t understand is that Luxury Wars are no longer possible. Not even against Hootie and the Blowfish in Yemen (yes, that’s a joke son!) EVEN those guys, illiterate goat herders, can with help from Iran drive off the Louis Vuitton US Navy. [And it looks like we will have to withdraw from Niger, and possibly Djibouti, to be replaced by Russia and China respectively there.] EVEN at current “pretend war” levels we are losing to shambolic opponents.
Against modern industrial peers with superior SCALE, mass conscription will turn into MASS REVOLT faster than you can say LBJ. Not even the wokest woke wants to die on the Russian front for DEI.
[But again, my view is morality is an end result of power politics, it does not drive it, merely justify it.]
Excellent article. History’s lessons are often as plain as a pike staff for those who are willing to learn from them.
Btw, I see we have new comment format/system – me like…
What we, as dissidents need is an enemy that can and will kick the American “democratic” ass. I doubt there’s been any country in the last 100 years or so more proficient than the good old US of A in killing other people around the world – all in the name of muh democracy, of course.
“In the end, the reason America is now seen as a global bully and troublemaker is it is what it evolved to do which is find wrongs to right.”
A perfect description of American foreign policy of the last 35 years.
How many of us here would follow Dementia Joe, the pants-shitter, into battle? Not a one I’ll wager. He is the virtual opposite of Leonidas, and yet he has ascended to become King of the USA. That is all you need to know about how far we have fallen as a nation. Worse still, tens of millions of Americans will go to the polls this November and vote to return him to power. What does that say about the quality and character of our brethren?
Can this deficit of fortitude be cured by voting harder? Are you stupid? You cannot forge a Spartan from persuasion and whining. You cannot grow a spine by suckling at the Federal tit all your life and begging for more gibs.
There has to be a culling and gauntlet of hardship to restore strength, intelligence, and honor. The Russians did this in 3 decades following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. We can do likewise.
Mind boggling though at how many White Males are still in the Military…
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Good analysis Z-man. After the victory in the Cold War, America kicked Saddam’s ass. At that point, the boys should have come home. Instead Bush put American troops into Somalia, of all god-forsaken places. Then it was on to Bosnia, and since, its been endless war all over the globe, to no good for anyone.
In the very late 1800s many European liberals were horrified when America started to build an empire in the Philipines after victory in the Spanish-American War. It betrayed the entire concept of America as some kind of new land of freedom and liberty, and made it just another imperialist power like England, France, the Ottomans etc…
Who of us, at this point, would say the Great White Fleet, WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, and endless pointless wars and bombings around the globe, up to an including Ukraine has been a benefit to normal Americans?
With the nation now being overwhelmed by peasant armies of Aztecs, Bantus, Somalis, Arabs, Chinamen and Hindus, it has clearly been an unqualified disaster which has not yet reached its nadir.
You could say that WW2 was the ill tide that still lifted all American boats nonetheless. It brought unprecedented wealth in which we have all shared in one way or another. Though it’s now ebbing.
We should have brought everyone back even before Iraq 1. There were no babies tossed out of incubators and SH was a paper tiger who simply got tired of Kuwaitis stealing his oil. He was no Hitler but you never would have known that after the Amen Corner (H/T Pat Buchanan) had their way. It all set the stage for OBL/9 11 etc. etc.
I will groan along with all of you as I ask my question: Were the post-Persian Greeks controlled by a foreign people who hated them?
Was there an ethnic group of wealthy and capable foreigners who took control of the Greek minds and empire and used those to dispossess the Greeks and to fight their wars for them?
I’m as sick of asking this question as you are hearing me utter it.
No they weren’t that dumb Brother…
Without inserting a hostile tribe commandering the government and whites eager to aid the hostile tribe, nothing that is happening can truly make sense.
Unfortunately most people are terrified to acknowledge that even to themselves.
You can see that in how Republicans like Speaker Johnson were understanding of BLM violence but want to send the National Guard to campuses to stop, violently if need be, any condemnation of Israel.
They didn’t have the Statue of Liberty or Ellis Island.
Wars for liberty are always dangerous, since liberty is typically a casualty of war.
“The answer is simple. Power. The power to illuminate the far corners of the globe! Not for higher profits, but for higher understanding between the people of this great planet. And what do I respect in return? Worldwide domination. Complete, utter, total, worldwide domination. But not of governments and ideological domination, but to eliminate tyranny and isolation. Tonight I will read you my declaration of principles. A promise to the men and women of this planet, my brothers and sisters whom I so humbly serve. I promise to be a force for good in this world! Fighting injustice! Crushing intolerance! Battling inhumanity! Striking a blow for freedom at every turn!”
This is excerpted from a speech by James Bond villian Elliot Carver in Tomorrow Never Dies (1997). It sounds as if it were ripped straight from the BFE’s blueprint to gaslight the nations of the world into thinking it is benevolent and harmless. The BFE believed its own bull, of course. Unfortunately, much of the rest of the world did too until it was too late.
I said two years ago that the failure of the sanctions against Russia looked like a Suez moment for the US. The inability of the
AthenianUS Navy to break a land-based blockade in the actual Suez region could be another.It is unclear to me whether anyone in the Green Zone actually believes anything they say or not. My limited contact with individuals involved in the maintenance of empire suggest that they are prepared to believe anything and prefer not to think about it very much. I think the Russia hoax broke their minds and Covid cauterized that wound.
It is similarly unclear whether anyone on the inside understands just how fast the US global position is unravelling. My guess is that anyone who understands the nature of the situation keeps their mouth shut in order to keep the shekels flowing.
But where will the Pentagon’s Syracuse moment occur? Will a similar discombobulation of the political class occur in the aftermath as it did in Athens?
Perhaps not Syracuse-level, but I’m waiting for the USN to be ordered by the Puppeteers to force the Bab-el-Mandeb with a suitably greased-up(*) CVBG.
*Imagine having to serve on the USS Harvey Milk. How do they tolerate it?
Have to also factor in Tom Wolfe’s observation that the New Left is the 3rd great religious awakening in American history. The anal flag has replaced the cross as the sign of morality our evangelists push around the globe.
The big differences is that Christianity was not primarily pushed by the government nor made a condition for proving your worth and goodness to the Empire.
Now anywhere that a young boy does not have an opportunity to have a man’s penis in his anus, anywhere that all young children are not encouraged to mutilate their sexual organs or women are trapped into having families instead of the Sex and the City lifestyle, America will be there to wave the anal flag and force convert the natives.
Like Constantine using Christianity to unite the Late Roman Empire and the cross as his standard. In hoc signo vinces (By this sign, conquer.)
This New Left religion is being used to unite the disparate satraps under US domination as national identities are undermined and the traditionalist barbarians are assaulted. The rainbow flag emblazoned with in cock signo vinces is the new standard late Imperial America fights under.
Much of the population doesn’t want anything to do with this, but there’s a strong contingent among Boomercons that think it’s still 1985 and want to go around the world getting revenge and writing wrongs. From a recent exchange:
A: “In most of the world, there’s a pretty clear recognition that Russia and Hamas are allies. Doesn’t that mean that all of these protesters are engaged in Russia collusion?”
Vizzini: “The US gives more money to Gaza than Russia.”*
B (responding to A): “Worse. Those that are citizens are providing aid and comfort to our enemies. That’s treason.”
Vizzini: “Our enemies? Has Hamas attacked the US recently? Have we declared war on them? The entire mess is none of our business.”
B:”Hamas is an Islamist terrorist organization supported by Iran. All Islamist terrorist organizations are enemies of the United States since 9/11 and we’ve owed Iran an arse-kicking since 1979. China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran (and their puppet countries) are our adversaries.”
So, B is all riled up to take on the entire world in the name of various old slights and what I perceive as some mandate to set the world in order, as the Zman says.
So it’s not just the globalist left agitating for this. These guys are so-called conservatives.
*A side thread:
C (replying to my first comment above): “Who in DC is doing Russia’s job for them?”
This “Russia on the brain” attitude is kind of incredible. The idea that Russia is manipulating the US’s behavior in Gaza. Even if that were true, and it is not, it would be more shameful for the US than Russia.
Oh, I guess I forgot to rant over the idea that publicly speaking out over an issue (right or wrong and important to the US or not) could every conceivably constitute treason. Consider it ranted. Of course, that boat sailed long ago as J6 protestors languishing in jail for years for minor trespassing incidents know only too well. “Leader of the free world” my ass.
Also, I like that there’s an edit function now, except when I try to save an edit it tells me my email address is invalid. It is not.
I don’t see an editing function.
I either maybe has to do with being a member or not…
Oh guess you are a member as well just a different color so who knows…
Look anywhere at normiecon cuckservative sites and there are dozens of comments about the dangers of Islam. I don’t want Mohammedans here, but neither do I want Israelis and ‘dual citizens’ here. And the parents and grandparents of those ‘citizens’ were the ones occupying campuses and protesting various ‘isms’ in the ’60s ad ’70s. And to tie any of this to Russia is laughable – as ridiculous as the various TEOTWAWKI books setting up Russian invaders of a collapsed GAE, or using German soldiers as the ‘blue helmets’ invited in after a collapse. So many oldsters are just stuck on stupid.
And none of this even begins to mention all those warning about the dreaded ‘communist’ and ‘socialist’ agendas, utterly ignorant of what our economy actually is these days and totally ignoring demographics.
It’s kinda of ironic that the people who are stuck in their ways are the most easily manipulated…
It is astounding to watch the Republican Party explicitly and Democrats implicitly move to criminalize criticism of Israel. It has been mind-blowing. Does anyone seriously believe these political actors give a flying one about their constituents?
Future historians, if they exist, will view the Ukraine debacle and the Gaza slaughter in tandem and perhaps use the confluence of events as an easy marker for the GAE’s rapid and permanent decline. You can feel the shift underway in real time now.
If anybody here needs convincing re the old Boomercons, just go read The New Neo or Ace of Spades. The amount of cognitive dissonance, special pleading, copes, just-so stories, and insane bloodlust against ‘Over There’ (for multiple values of same) is off the charts.
People who have “found absolute truth” tend to become fanatics. I think that is what we’re seeing with the crusades to spread gay parades across the world. Eventually they will come across men who will say no and mean it. And then there’s shrill rage and tantrums. And here we are
Truth is absolute. Otherwise it’s an opinion. Trick is knowing with which you are engaging.
“…after the Second World War was the defender of freedom, not simply the winner of the war. “
I understand where you’re coming from here. Indeed, the line sold the American people was that America was the winner of the Second World War—and perhaps this was true in the Pacific theater. I’m not so bold as to say so in the European theater. We seem to forget to include our allies—especially the USSR, which bled the German’s dry of men and equipment.
To the support of my “revisionist” thinking, we seem to have “won” no major wars since WWII. Korea, Vietnam, ME…all were less than stunning successes no matter how you look at them. The current conflict in Ukraine pits a NATO/USA trained, equipped, and possibly led force against a 1st world power, Russia, with little success. Would a few divisions of American troops directly in the fight change the situation?
Of course there is the conflating factor of political will as verses technical know how and fighting strength.
Socrates was quite close with Critias, and, of course, Alcibiades. There is justifiable reason for philosophers not to talk about that war if they want to keep their heads safe from the demos.
WWII – US absolutely crushed in the Pacific Theater. In the Eastern Theater Russia did the heavy lifting. The US came away from that dual theater victory thinking it had taken both on its own. This was probably a first fatal conceit.
Then in its egalitarian pitch to win over the world, it dispossessed its natos. From Korea to Afghanistan the best it could do was a stalemate and then ultimately was chased our by goat herders. Now its bluff has been called in Ukraine. It deconstructed its society in a propaganda campaign with the world and told the POCs you are the future and you are us and made them the founding of this new order.
Now, it needs to mobilize its men to win ground wars, but it spat in their face in numerous ways in the past 30 years. They burned through all of its political capital and now its legitimacy. Their bargain with the POCs was the deconstruction but why would they fight for what they hate and deem evil – they took the bargain of the gibs and position in the caste system over Americans for the gibs and the gibs alone. They have no desire to build this up.
China and Russia know this. It isn’t even clear that the GAE Regime knows this. It seems from what we can see that they are only growing more angry and frustrated at the White Flyover Rural Rubes who for some reason won’t heed the call to be dispossessed and fight for the mosques, all-Muslim city councils, and the new state flag that is the flag of some Somalian provinces. At the same time, The Greatest Ally is showing the GAE’s domestic shock troops what they were really fighting for in the first stage of the color revolution. Most of them will accept being crushed but some who are committed will now join the dispossessed in understanding the pecking order. More loss of legitimacy an the other flank of the political spectrum they sit astride.
The chickens are coming home to roost. Will a handful of billionaires decide they prefer to clean house over accepting vassalage under the dominion of China? I think those are the fate we need to prepare ourselves for. If the former is the fate of post-America, our side has a chance to be towards the front of the line if/when that plays out in our lifetimes.
The Regime has really screwed up and the train wreck’s motion becomes faster as the months roll by.
Like Athens after the defeat of the Persians, the American democracy needs an enemy to exist
Maybe not an enemy per se but a raison d’être? Old Fred J. Turner’s notion was that the frontier was the crucible, producing and refining the stereotypical American characteristics. When that Westward wave crested and broke at the Pacific, we began looking abroad for new frontiers to conquer. As those frontiers shrank, did we the transmogrify that conquering questing from the purely territorial into the moral monsters Adams warned us about?
Lengthy interview with economist Michael Hudson (and others) on the US and China:
“In today’s show, we look at how the United States is responding to this structural transformation of China’s economy. Our short answer is: badly. It keeps military and diplomatic tensions high, continues provocative visits of high-ranking officials to Taiwan, and tries to stoke up trouble between China and its neighbors, and rings China around with new military alliances.”
https://www.unz.com/mhudson/how-the-us-is-waging-economic-war-on-china/
Th Athenians also got into trouble with their smaller allies. These little statelets were always clashing with neighbors and dragging Athens into conflicts. The Athenians couldn’t ignore these troubles lest they lose imperial prestige. (The Kagan book does a good job explaining this.) They had plenty of little Israels, Ukraines and Taiwans draining their strength.
It’s interesting to watch the world emerge from GAE. You can see it everywhere. Russia’s ability to withstand both sanctions and then everything NATO had to throw at it started the change in attitude. America’s impotence in the Middle East made people realize that Russia wasn’t a fluke.
Now, we have China telling the US to shove it.
The problem, of course, is, as Z notes, the US doesn’t see itself as a global bully. We view ourselves as on a near-religious mission to remake the world in our image – under our control. Losing our status as the global superpower means more than just a political event to the US; it’s like accepting the devil into your world.
In addition, it means acknowledging that our morality isn’t THE morality. But for a country that is defined not by a people, culture and history, but by a moral code, this is unthinkable. If China or Russia or Iran can successfully live in a different way from the US, what binds America together?
The end of GAE will be dangerous. Religious cults don’t usually disband quietly.
I foresee a deadly convergance of Kool Aid and comet…
“In the end, the reason America is now seen as a global bully and troublemaker is it is what it evolved to do which is find wrongs to right.”
And the entrenched interests which profit from war— the military-industrial complex, and the politicians which support (and are supported by) it— can play the morality card— “righting wrongs the world over since 1945”— to justify their warmongering.
It’s with a bit of irony I see reference to the Peloponnesian war. For all those VDH critics out there, I refer you to:
“A War Like No Other: How the Athenians & Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War” by Victor Davis Hanson.
This work is the recognized penultimate writing on this event, short of referring directly to a collection of ancient texts.
VDH always struck me as one who knows a lot and learns little. But he’s not alone in that.
If he *did* learn anything and tell us about it, the Hoover would chuck him out faster than Alcibiades could flop it out.
So iow just another regime figure mouthing the party line to hold onto his sinecure
VDH has a Boomer type mindset. You don’t agree, fine. That mindset however takes nothing away from his scholarship, which was the point of my comment and reference. His scholarship is *separate* from his opinions on current matters for the most part. This seems to be a hard lesson for some in this group, i.e., if you are not hard DR, you are cast into the void and maligned. It’s a bad look.
Interesting analysis, although, as you imply, you can easily argue against the Ancients being a product of failed democracy… since they obviously flourished as public thinkers… after the Corinthian War and during a period of… democracy.
Why is the “dissident right” so enamored with “failed democracy?” Does Z ever say, even in passing, what he thinks we should replace it with? (What is described on the right as failed democracy isn’t)
Punk, you’ve got a point there. The way I solve it is to retain a “sort” of limited democratic process. I’ve argued for “earned suffrage” here numerous times. Simply fogging a mirror I believe does not entitle you to the same say as mine in affairs of State. In short, age and citizenship are not absolute qualification to vote. There may be—and should be—many more qualifications.
It would be interesting to see what everyone here who sat down at a table together could come up with in terms of having a society worth living in…I’m sure the first and foremost would be a homogeneous society…
Wouldn’t you still call this democratic government then though? You’re an intelligent commenter here; how do you square that with what the “dissident right” obsesses over regarding our “failed democracy?”
I have no problem with it if you believe in some sort of limited democracy, but as I stated in a recent thread and you’re sort of confirming for me, the branding for the “dissident right” is for the once-politically-active but now jaded. Essentially those who voted for Reagan or maybe Bush.
No, there are rules/limits on everything—including the right to vote. Those under 18 or as yet not a US citizen cannot vote in Federal elections—yet we are termed a democracy (of a specific form). Earned suffrage is just that, every resident in the USA is able to earn the right to have a say in how the country is run. Most however, will not be able to achieve this—just like most people cannot be doctors, or engineers, or even drive a car (legally). If we can have standards and licensing and training for these activities/professions, certainly the most important function within a society is its leadership and we can and should attempt to be led only by the most capable.
The problem is to connect restrictions with the ability to achieve the right to vote. So of course, a “Whites only” can vote won’t be achievable sans an ethnostate.
@Punk, the way I’d prefer to solve it is to drastically excise powers from the body politic. There’s absolutely no reason people should have a “vote” in what I can have in my refrigerator. Or in whether I can sell pop-tarts in just the foil packs, even though they are not properly labelled. Or “loosies”.
If you reduce the powers of government to selecting the national flower, or anthem, or declare this National Artichoke Day, or any number of things of similar nature, no one would really care who was voting.
Does Z ever say, even in passing, what he thinks we should replace it with? (What is described on the right as failed democracy isn’t)
This is the million dollar question. The U.S. govt as set up by the founders was as good as anyone could hope for.
But it depended on a “virtuous people.”
This is the key always.
Virtuous benevolent monarchy?
Good to go. Malevolent monarchy no. No matter the form of govt Good, descent ppl in charge make the difference.
Or at least good, descent ppl to keep the Machiavellian prince in check. Replace prince with, congressman, senator, president. The princes out number those who would keep them in check. I’ve asked the same question here more than once. What would Z have?
I could be mistaken but I believe Z said he has no preferred form of govt, he’s an analyst. Correct me if I’m wrong.
The system in place is workable. If the money, grift, and psychopathy could be eliminated or put in check.
Fuck just term limits would make a difference.
<i>The U.S. govt as set up by the founders was as good as anyone could hope for.</i>
The Constitution? No. The Articles came much closer. With the Constitution, you needed over 50% of Congress to be virtuous. With the Articles, as few as 1 virtuous man would suffice, depending on how that state chose its representatives.
That’s the real reason for the Philadelphia Coup — it was too damn hard to be corrupt under the Articles.
A virtuous people were assumed, yes. But there were restrictions at the time. That was to allow basically only free White males the franchise. This was eroded over time and needs no elaboration as to how just that has ruined an initially good idea.
“The society that separates its scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools.”
— Thucydides
In the ’70s US military leadership was given over to “scholars” (so credentialed), most prominently Carroll Quigley, whose memory nobody execrates enough. Globohomo begins then and there.
What we call wokeness is a management strategy, the subjection of a mutually hostile multiracial soldiery to a newly invented civic religion: diversity. “Diversity is our strength” is a marching cadence.
The military being military, it converted its internal propaganda to an imperial mission. No American war since Vietnam is even arguably defensive—of America or of anyone else. They are *pure* crusades.
We’re also 0-3 in the past 25 years. Not a good look.
Absolutely fantastic column today, Z. Completely spot-on.
I recall there was quite a bit of talk about the Peloponnesian War back in the 1980s before the Cold War ended. International systems theorists were pretty big on using it as a model of a bipolar world order. A number of observers argued that the U.S. was a democracy like Athens, and the USSR was bellicose and warlike like Sparta.
They did, however, tend to ignore the part where Athens lost. They also tended to ignore the fact that the U.S. has treated a number of smaller foreign countries like Athens treated Melos — join our alliance, we’ll kill you.
Didn’t Bush say “You’re either with us or against us?”
“…maybe it was not Athenian democracy that gave us Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle but the failure of democracy that produced these men.”
No “maybe” about it. The discussion in “The Republic” takes place after the overthrow of the Thirty Tyrants, a Spartan occupation regime. No doubt Socrates’ advocacy of a dictatorship of a Guardian Class of philosophers was seen as anti-democratic and sympathetic to Sparta, and led to his indictment and trial.
“To continue the comparison, we could look at the American victory in the Cold War as something like the Athenian defeat of Persia.”
“Instead of Sparta it is Russia and now China. The American empire today looks a lot like what the ancient world faced with the Athenians before the Peloponnesian War.”
I have no disagreement with your conclusion, but the biggest flaw in the analogy lies in the above two sections. After Athens defeated Persia, Sparta became the new enemy. How is it possible that after our modern Athens defeated modern Persia, the modern Persia is again the enemy?
In my opinion, modern Athens (GAE) never defeated Persia. The “victory in cold war” was just an internal propaganda construct to forget the defeat in Vietnam. I instead see GAE as a longer time-frame version of German empire.
A. It had it golden age from 1895-1913 matching GAE golden age after WWII.
B. The defeat in WWI matches defeat in Vietnam. First Vietnam was was not against Vietnam, but rather against China+Russia and the other side won. Second, internally Germans never thought they got defeated and blamed local political problems as the cause of ending the war. The same goes for Vietnam war in the context of GAE.
C. The inflation of 70s == German hyperinflation. Both led to collapse of the existing currencies. In case of USA, Bretton Woods gold-backed dollar got replaced with permanently inflating dollar.
D. The following period == rule of the Nazis. Our “Nazis” stayed at the bottom in Germany, and so it is difficult to see the similarity between two periods through the fog of propaganda.
E. “Victory in cold war” ==> many European victories Germans or German-assisted countries had prior to WWII, including the Spanish civil war.
The best books to see this analogy would be any book published in early 1930s on German economy. In one of them, I read about the economic philosophy of deficit spending making countries richer being prevalent in Weimar Germany. I am sure everybody today sees that kind of thinking as silly, right? 🙂
The other thing I like to point out is that US entry into WWI was through propaganda. That is when Barnays and team entered the “military theater”. Since WWI, US leaders doubled and tripled down on this then novel war-fighting technique. The trend continues even today but with clownish effect. The opponent is always a “ruthless dictator”, and we have to save the population to feed democracy to the masses.
How is that related to the previous comment? German empire also had a winning technique (fighting skills of Prussian Junkers), which was effective in late 1900s but eventually got neutralized by other powers and industrial war. Nevertheless, third Reich continued many Junker antics even though it was officially “socialist” and thus against landed elites.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/45340045
In my analysis, American empire best understood as an inverted German empire.
The modern propaganda technique was adopted from the British. The Wilson Administration allowed and encouraged Fleet Street literally to set up shop in the United States and disseminate propaganda. The British press had done this in every war starting with, ironically enough, the American Revolution. Yes, Hearst boasted of doing the same in the Spanish-American war, and both sides in the American Civil War pumped out less over the top propaganda, but the British truly excelled at it and from WWI onward their methods were adopted. It produces ludicrous nonsense in the digital age but was very effective until just recently.
Furthermore, the OSS hired an absolutely brilliant British propagandist who went on to produce most of the post-war and Cold War narratives.
A British Brit, not a crypto- or imported Brit. The guy was a legendary talent; Bill Donovon brought him to the US where he near single-handedly wrote, directed, or structured our Intelligence arm of domestic propaganda.
Now, since Intelligence has gone rogue, forming its own ‘thing’- I don’t know if we should call Intel a class, a government, an economy, or even a nation- one of its primary weapons is propaganda. We can allocate some blame to the vaudevillians, since admin, literacy, and numeracy have been their niche and forté ever since the scribal clerks collectively called “Joseph” in Egypt, but that is only their natural habitat. The Mockingbird foundation was laid by a Brit.
(The article detailing his contribution to the Cold War order refused to give up his name. Stiff upper lip and all that, I suppose.)
It’s ironic, as I think you once pointed out, Kagan Cult patriarch Donald wrote “The Peloponnesian War.”
If one couldn’t get away from Fukuyama’s stretching it more than a bit Hegelian Hotchpotch in the 90s, the Oughts were afflicted with big brained takes on DK’s book. Wouldn’t go so far as to refer to him as the Good Kagan… but head and shoulders above the rest and certainly more aware of the evils of hubris than the rest of that poxed clan.
The question is what is the Big-Brained Book of the 2020s? Or what will it be?
Nice job of connecting the dots using the analogy of the Greeks / GAE to describe history repeating itself and the lessons never learned.
It makes absolutely no sense, that the GAE won the cold war, and Russia reorganized itself as a western capitalist / market driven economy, and although not a true “democracy” which the U.S. isn’t anyway, but a relatively “soft oligarchy.”
Russia is over there, no longer spreading communism minding its own business, and doing business in their corner of the world. But the GAE is like a blue haired feminist; Never happy!!!
The GAE is so busy bitch slapping the rest of the world, that it’s completely ignored the problems within its own borders,
and what enabled the GAE to gain super power status in the first place. A homogeneous body politic, a strong industrial base, patriotic pride, which is now blasphemy, strong fiscal policy, and social stability. Those things are long gone.
It’s like the playground bully who sits around drinking, drugging, and stuffing his face and allowing himself to get out of shape. Then some kid sacks up, punches him in the nose, he bleeds out, and all the kids stand there laughing at him.
The GAE has experienced a number of bloody noses at the hands of pip squeaks like Afghanistan and the various rag tag Muslim terrorist groups.
Now the world is laughing at the bully who is way past his prime.
At the same time the Global American Empire is the global bully, it’s also working furiously at replacing its own White citizens. History tends to repeat, but never exactly. I’m guessing the war machine Athens wasn’t trying to import new people to replace their own.
Observing America’s headlong rush to ‘diversify’ its military— with ‘leaders’ like Admiral ‘Rachel’ Levine, and not just homosexuals, but ‘trans-sexuals’ and ‘strong black women’ in positions of command, while white male patriots are actively weeded-out— you know the Chinese are laughing their asses off… watching as we destroy all that once made us great.
Levine is not really representative of the military as his position is of Surgeon General. A position that I believe now gets two stars, but really requires no military background. I do however acknowledge the deterioration of the military ethos via DIE.
Hah. The Athenian general Alcibiades was a homo, and he switched sides from Athens to Sparta and then back again. He appears in The Symposium, and drunkenly states that he had tried to fuck Socrates, but Socrates had no interest.
So maybe there is a comparison between all the queers in American public life today and in ancient Athens…
I don’t know I think most of the world has fallen for the equality stuff. I worked wit middle class Chinese for several years and they seemed to be no different than americans
There are benefits from that, however, the Pentagon knows it can’t fight a war against a real military….
Yes. There may be some useful comparison to Ancient Athens, but this treason being carried out by the ruling class of Western nations has no parallels in history. Whites are complacent somnabulists walking into a nightmare scenario. Unless they can be woken up (in the anti-woke sense) our Western nations are doomed to become ghastly hollow shells of themselves. It may already be too late.
But we have to have hope that some remnant at least can be saved. If America existed on the Eurasian continent, it would go without saying that either Russia or China would literally physically conquer us but it remains to be seen if that will be the case with America’s oceans traditionally thought to act as a buffer against invasion. Instead, the wreckers have found a way to invade without firing a shot. If we survive, history will provide a useful lesson to our descendants of how our enemies did it.
Or not, if our descendants are so few and scattered that the enemy writes the history books.
Or not, if our descendants are so few and scattered that the enemy writes the history books.
It’s really amazing to me that most seem to be ok with that…
I just talked to a very conservative female about white replacement and it’s as you would expect. She said well, the works we’ll be more dark hued, but who cares, there’s one race the human race.
I called her a genocidal maniac.
I call her a Mudshark.
Either conqueror will have little use for the unproductive “vibrants” in their midst.
Aristotle must have had some experience with it. “It is the habit of tyrants to prefer the company of aliens, to that of citizens at the table in society. Citizens they feel are enemies. But aliens will offer no opposition.”
I just read a speech by the most evil man in history. He was complaining how England crushed and dominated all these coubtries. But thE Brit’s were enriching their people not insulting and replacing them
Boris Johnson?
As was Athens…It made a practice of bullying smaller states, and ultimately lost everything because of its catastrophic and delusional Syracuse expedition, pushed by Alcibiades, where its entire army was wiped out…Compare our Afghan war, and the debacle currently going on in the Ukraine, both of which are very far from America’s borders…
I smiled at the “like a blue haired feminist” haha You really do have to wonder why DC was so hellbent on kicking up a fuss with Russia. I think historians of the future will conclude that Moscow tried very hard to get along. But no, DC had to humiliate and threaten Russia. Eventually the Russians had had enough.
Completely agree!
“Ideologies are about how men ought to organize their societies, so an ideological war is a war over competing moral systems and the winner can claim the moral high ground.”
I have trouble with this, because I’m not sure that ideology has a moral element. It can claim to, but I think it’s probably pretending.
For instance, the French Revolution was more explicitly ideological, supposedly more enlightened and more reason-based, and more explicitly about overthrowing the established order. Look at how quickly France evolved into a war machine, and how quickly it broke down.
If anything, the American Revolution has become a French Revolution, perhaps owing to the confusion of ideology and morality, and perhaps it’s the latent morality of Americans that’s applied the brakes.
Part of the problem is that people tend to be Humpty-Dumptyish when they use the word “ideology”.
Zman recently characterized it (but didn’t explicitly define it) as a vision of a possibly utopic end state, bundled with a means asserted to reach that end state. The end is definitely a moral appeal, but the means may or may not be.
So for the French Revolution, the end state was a moral appeal, i.e., libertie, egalitie, fraternatie, (which may or may not be one’s desired end state) but the means asserted, reason, cannot get you there.
The Jacobins were certainly “ideological” Ideology meet guillotine.
Yes. Either one is using the wrong tool, or one is deceived, or one is lying.
I regret the time I spent reading Thucydides cover to cover. My advice is save yourself. Cliff’s notes if you must.
There was never a time that America, or the GAE, was not expansionist, and therefore imperial. Certainly it precedes Gettysburg. It also precedes the Mexican War. The admonishments of the founders about monsters to slay were never heeded all that much.
At least in more recent times, the imperial mindset seems ultimately driven by the pursuit of maximum profits, as opposed to “enough” profits. Where merely rich is not enough, the aim rather is to become as rich as gods. Thus the impetus for offshoring, among other things. I’m not sure if this was the case in Athens.
Imo Athenians didn’t have industry and high tech, so there was a limit to how much they could indulge their ideals.
The Greeks also didn’t have ubiquitous, free internet porn.
Come on, I’ve seen them urns! The Greeks were known for their erotic pottery.
Erottery, the experts call it…
And the earliest depictions of Mandingo are on their black-figure stuff.
Yeah, but I’ve been to toga parties that weren’t far removed from that.
Lacking internet porn the Greeks had no alternative but to practice the real thing. Apparently.
I generally agree, Jeffrey, but there has been a sharp turn for the worse of late. The United States indeed always has been a warring, bloodthirsty entity convinced of its superiority, but the drive to kill and destroy has accelerated. Something changed and it seems linked to a quicker time preference, shorter attention spans, and general impulsiveness. You can feel the wheels coming off as the GAE careens from one misadventure to another.
Google is more the contemporary problem than an Athens redux led by vibrants.
At least our wars and conquests on the North American continent were for the tangible benefit of the American Nation.
We really started going abroad to slay monsters starting with the Spanish-American War, and we’ve never stopped. That, coupled with being immediately followed with Teddy Roosevelt’s “Great White Fleet” and meddling in the Russo-Japanese War started us down a bad path.
I, for one, will never forget the Maine and thank the almighty that we have the blessings of Puerto Rico under the aegis of the good ‘Ole USA.
I assume you’re referring to manifest destiny. But I’m not quite sure that taking land from Indian tribes for whom the concepts of the nation-state and land ownership were alien is imperialistic in any meaningful sense. What the BFE has done since the end of the Cold War, however, most certainly is.
Land ownership within tribes. Between tribes, not so much. Lots of bloody fighting recorded between tribes—or bands of related tribes against other bands for territory. Instead of deeds and surveys and courts, they had guns.
It’s definitely worth reading for general literacy. For instance, if you are interested in what an actual time of plague is like and how people behave during such a time it is a great resource. More generally, you see that morally and politically speaking there has essentially been zero progress in 2400 years, I would say even a clear regression in these areas, especially if scale is factored in. One interesting difference that jumps out is unlike the GAE-ZOG empire the Athenians actually had to come up real money to build their triremes and fill them with mercenaries and if the general in charge failed he was put to death when came back. It is also striking to imagine our own legislative assemblies and executives next to those described by Thucydides. All you can do is shake your head and laugh at how outrageously inferior our asylum of imbeciles and cowards is. Thucydides never records a time where a drooling dementia patient with a loaded diaper is propped up before an assembly filled with craven degenerates and drug addled zombies meeting at the pnyx to formalize the loan of another gazillion talents at 7% interest from Phoenician bankers to then give back to the Phoenicians to fund their battles with Persia and genocidal aggressions in North Africa.
On a unrelated note, it seems weird to me that you can both downvote a comment and assign a smiley face to it. I haven’t tried but it looks like you can.
I guess I was never among that mass who operate under the belief that today we are more enlightened, so that part didn’t jump out at me so much
I’m wondering about the comparison between past times of famine, and modern. People in the past were less diverse, more agricultural, more religious, more closely related to neighbors. I don’t think we’ll compare very well at all.
I regularly watch the Duran feed on Rumble. Their analysis of Blinken’s trip to China was great and breaks down the American unhinged approach to ‘diplomacy’. While losing a proxy war to Russia and right after throwing a giant pile of money at Taiwan for weapons, the old Trotskyite shows up in China and starts making threats.
The Chinese rightly told him to piss-off just as we would if the Chinese ordered us to stop trading with Canada. Now we move into the sanctions and escalation stage with another world power. While we continue a crusade that most Americans don’t care about, the rest of the world wonders how and why we lost our minds.
Starting a sanctions war with China may turn out to be the great blunder. The Russians are different from the Chinese in that they will continue to do business with the West, even as the West levies sanctions and supplied Kiev with weapons. China is different. She will look for ways to retaliate once sanctions come. China supplies a lot of critical items to the United States.
The GAE has competing factions. Some are pro-China, others anti-China, and its policies toward the PRC are therefore schizophrenic. One moment they are threatening war, the next Yellen pops up in Peking downing beer with the leadership. The incoherence could cause a devastating financial hit, you are right there, and at least some policymakers know it. Others don’t seem aware or to care at all.
The most representative image was when Macron and Van der Leyen flew to Beijing and Xi sent her home and just talked privately to the French president. There was little doubt who was serious there and who was not.
Interestingly, we see here that the Finkels’ desire to strike back at ancient enemies isn’t the only thing driving the Blackberry Fruitcake Empire’s foreign policy madness.
Up til just now I had been under the impression that bfe stood for butt forking empire
Pretty close to the same thing.
Going after Chinese banks is a sign that the US is running out of weapons. The US is pulling out the big gun: the dollar. I suspect that a lot of DC analysts think that sanctions didn’t work against Russia because it’s a special case, a commodity exporter that world simply couldn’t afford to cut off. I’m guessing that we think that China is more vulnerable to sanctions.
But as you note, China supplies a lot of critical products to the US. It can cause the US economy a lot of trouble if they retaliate. The other issue is that the more the US cuts off Russia, China and Iran from the dollar system, the more networks they create to trade outside the dollar. We weaken the power of the dollar every time we use it as a weapon.
I will say this: what China has done is remarkable for a nation that has historically had challenges feeding itself. Not for lack of talent, there just isn’t a ton of good farmland there. It makes me wonder.
Yeah, they’ve done a lot with a little. The combination of Russian resources with Chinese manufacturing (and their smart, though corrupt people) will be far more than enough to take on GAE.
We’re moving into a very different world geopolitically. Granted, it doesn’t do much for whites in the US. We’re still screwed, but it’s interesting to watch.
We’re moving into a very different world geopolitically. Granted, it doesn’t do much for whites in the US. We’re still screwed, but it’s interesting to watch
Wonder how much pain it will take to get Whites off their butts, to start doing what is needed to save them from being genocided…
South Africa says that we’ve got a long, long way to go.
I get a kick out of including black run SA in the BRICS – what, these numbnuts think that SA is still some kind of economic powerhouse? Right…
It’s interesting that many seemingly contrary popular American political ideologies all conspire to bolster the strength of China and Russia.
Take the neoliberal economic dogma about “letting the market decide” even when the market seems to decide that your country is better off without any of its own industry. This is generally believed to be in opposition to environmentalism except that environmental extremism is a big part of why our fossil fuels industry is being strangled.
It’s almost as though various factions within our society that place ideological purity above practicality were being manipulated by… someone…
I can’t imagine who of course. Who would do such a dastardly thing?
The GAE did all that it could to hand it to them on a platter
I agree, and good for them for taking advantage. I’m wondering about the fundamentals. Could their domestic market suffice, or do they rely on exports? Like Citizen says, partnership with Russia is a boon, but that echoes the old Soviet/Chicom thing, and the present US/China situation is the result of US Cold War policy that wasn’t retired. It’s almost like what’s emerging is the old Cold War dynamic, except we’re the bad guys now lol. I wonder about it. People talking liberation instead of containment. Slippery stuff.
More importantly, to my mind, is the question of how difficult it would be to restart American industry. Who knows?
Same with Russia. Putin bringing Russia back from the Yeltsin/Harvard Boys/Oligarch created hellscape means he will go down in history as one of the greats.
I was suspicious of Putin/Russia until I read that they had banned the adoption of Russian children by Americans, because gay married couples have adoption rights here. Then I realized that whatever the risk of resurgent communism, they had a lot more common sense and common decency than OUR ruling class
Insufficient celebration of Sodomy is one of the major drivers of the Russophobia. But you have to go back to 1555 and the incorporation of the Muscovy Company In , the first trip (Via the northern route) was sold as having revealed a vast land of great riches ruled by a barbarian people. Hence Ripe for the plunder. This British obsession was passed on to the US.
It also seems quite clear the BFE is driving Russia and China into one another’s arms. Anybody in Nineveh-on-the-Potomac who thinks that is good for AINO is quite insane.
Future robot historians will marvel at the stupidity of the Biden foreign policy team. They’re doing everything that they can to accomplish the exact thing that they should be doing everything to avoid: Bringing China and Russia together.
They’re also hastening the move away from the dollar, the last big leverage that the US has.
They will go down as the worst US foreign policy team in history – and it won’t be close.
Unless, of course, they are doing it on purpose.
You can’t blame this exclusively on Biden. The entire foreign policy regime sings from the same song book.
American diplomacy managed to keep the two apart for over 70 or so year. Biden blew it in two.
Had to put a new blower motor in my furnace a couple months ago, and though the furnace had one of those “Proudly Made in the USA” stickers on it, the motor itself had Chinese squiggles all over it, and I had to use a voltmeter to figure out which wires go where.
And every household appliance is made there.
Interesting to think how much less energy we would use if even a small fraction of Chinese goods needed replacing.
The dollar is a weapon you only get to use once. Then everyone finds a different currency to trade with.
The US citizenry lost that war in Ukraine, big time, as soon as the attempts at sanctioning Russia backfired. The consequences of losing the dollars hegemony status will be catastrophic.
But don’t worry, I’m sure the ruling class will still be able to do the important stuff – jet around scolding commoners about their carbon footprint.
Critical items? Hell, everything I buy is from China…. Amazon would collapse in a matter of months if China turned off the spigot. That’s about to come I fear as China is divesting of its stockpile of US treasuries at as fast a rate as it can.
It’s a two way street. If the flow of goods from China stops, both the US and China have problems. Both are dependent upon the other to maintain some form of economic stability.
I like to think that the US would benefit more in the long term from this as it might (key word: might) force US citizens to start manufacturing their pwn goods again. Surviving the short term upheaval would be difficult but it might be the catalyst we need to expel the invaders and return to a more self reliant society.
Could we, though? The Thing’s “economic” plan if he gets re(s)elected includes up to a 44.6% capital gains tax. And it looks like there are plenty of Republicans who would support it.
Not just the politicians, either. The entire continent is filled with envious, greedy bastards who are bound and determined to force manufacturing investment overseas.
No argument wrt a “two way” street. But China is a proud nation under a dictatorship of sorts. The USA is a degenerate nation with degenerate leadership. Who would you bet on to draw—and enforce—a red line?
I’m not sure what you mean by d/e a red line. The US and China aren’t geographic enemies. If trade between the two were to hypothetically come to a full stop, I think both countries would be unable to pursue any kind of warfare due to the immediate domestic upheaval. Would one or the other start launching nukes over it? Obviously the US government is much more susceptible to doing something like that. But blowing up your supplier/consumer won’t solve anything either.
If China quits sending stuff our way, then useful products will go to the advantage of other peoples, perhaps their internal markets.
If China quits buying our govt’s crappy IOUs, while we are forced to buy from more expensive sources – very inflationary at both ends (value of $, scarce goods).
Interesting stories lately about US and Canada banning sales of agricultural land
to Chinese. If they can’t buy useful assets, what use is our bonds/dollars to them?
China supplies a lot of critical items to the United States.
A bit of an understatement Z.
No Chinese goods, it all comes to a screeching halt.
Auto parts as bad as they are, and pharmacuticals are enough to completely cripple the U.S. economy and issue in complete societal chaos.
This. All prescription drugs and OTC meds come from China and India. You cannot even buy apple juice that’s not manufactured in China (often from American-grown apples shipped over to China for processing). And as you mention, auto parts. And not only does the GAE no longer have the capable workforce we once had (crisis of competency) but we no longer have the machine tools to even build the factories. We will essentially have to start from scratch to rebuild a manufacturing base – what little we have left is 25+ years out of date.
Add in the downed Key bridge and usual problems in the canals, and shipping makes it all even more tenuous. Perfect time to pick a fight – they are in a hurry to use up what little remains of our supposed ‘military might’ before it’s clear even to our alien ‘elites’ that the cupboard is bare and that girrrl power won’t cut it.
Use up what little remains of our White Guys…I really can’t grasp why Whites like being used as pawns for people that hate them…
That’s one reason I had hoped Trump would win reelection and continue tightening trade sanctions and encouraging domestic production. It took us at least 50 years to reach this low ebb in trade deficit. It won’t come back over night—even if the Southern Chinese States, Mexico, and India step in.
Iran will soon be able to threaten our ports with nukes, making negotiations with moslems much less reasonable than they now are.
The difficult and vulnerable part of making nukes is enriching the uranium – now that Obama / Biden have allowed / subsidized that, the rest is easy.
I worked for a major auto parts chain as a counter guy a couple of years ago. You would all recognize one of their 5000 stores.
It was a TERRIBLE experience. Probably 90% of the shit they sold came from China. Almost all of the of the brake pads they sold were from INDIA — where half the country shits in public.
The mark-up on that stuff was insane. For instance, they would sell a Chinese brake rotor to a walk-in customer for maybe $100. But they would sell the same rotor to a local shop that ordered a lot of parts for $30.
If that rotor was shipped all the way across the Pacific, then trucked across the continental U.S. and they were making money selling it for $30, what could they possibly have been paying for it? Five bucks? Ten, maybe?
They had a great warranty — when that crap came back under warranty (which it did frequently) they would just give the customer another piece of Chinese junk. The Chinese-rebuilt alternators had an absurd rate of return.
My “boss” was a lowlife with face tats and no teeth making $15 an hour and living in a trailer park. His brother was doing life in prison. He fired me.
Yay, “capitalism.”
Gotta be some creative accounting for it to be cheaper to ship American apples to China, turn them into juice and use all that petroleum to ship them back.
Heard that apple story before too,
Nope. The industry standard is to concentrate fruit juices, then reblend them back with water to a specific sugar content. It’s why fruit juice varies in sweetness from region to region. Just like the US South likes sweet tea, they like sweeter juice.
However, when you make concentrate, you necessarily concentrate pesticide residues. If it goes above the allowable limit here in the States, they have to toss the whole shooting match as some level of hazardous chemical, even though once diluted, it will be back well within standards.
Rebuilding an industrial base from scratch would be pretty difficult.
The only people who will be able to afford it will be the same people who have made themselves rich and powerful by outsourcing our economy to death.
Heard the one about https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/26/us/politics/semiconductors-chips-us-subsidies.html
The only difficulty I see rebuilding an industrial base is getting lazy Americans to do that kind of work “even for a good living wage.”
Because you know… It’s beneath them.
We got COVID because China was on the losing end of the Trump trade war in 2019. That was their way of combatting Trump by having him overthrown. They’re not quite ready yet.
I don’t think any country at this point stands to lose much from Western sanctions. There are too many ways around them and the emergence of the BRICS block gives them a place to run to that is outside the petrodollar.
In the US, our lunatic leaders look increasingly impotent. If it’s one thing any government cannot withstand, it’s the idea among the general population that the central government is incompetent/impotent. That’s why they are putting so much effort into CBDC and spying on regular citizens (and arresting them for thought crimes like J6). They’re losing their grip on the outside world, and so they are tightening their grip on the country.
Historically, that hasn’t ended well for people in power.
One can make the argument that sanctions, or the threat thereof, are a useful tool when faced with unfair trade practices or currency manipulation. Those are issues that directly affect the people of your country. But to pull the sanctions card over Chinese refusal to accept the morality of the Western managerial class? Why would you play with fire over something that cannot provide anything tangible to the people you are charged with representing?
You don’t have to answer that question, I know the answer as well as anyone else here, but my goodness this should have been hammered into these peoples heads at the Walsh School, or SAIS, or SIPA, or wherever they got their credentials.
Sanctions just make the small hats and other power players ecstatic. They are the principal middlemen who step in to launder goods so that the paperwork makes it appear the sanctions were honored, meanwhile screwing the people in the country issuing the sanctions who bear the price in either going without or paying more. These middlemen get filthy rich as a result.
It’s an act of war to blockade a country. Why any nation would do it to itself is bizarre, and even moreso that so many of the people will cheer it on.
Yep. They’re changing all the names on the fake news stories from “Russia” to “China”. And the stupid sheep will probably lap it up.
We should avoid foreign entanglements and yet anticipate the rest of the world coming here and disarming us?
I do not think so. I may hate my neighbor but he knows better than to tell me how to behave. Some street shidder arriving from poo-istan telling me what to do is a dead street shidder. We’re not Athens with sticks and rocks. 400 million firearms and a trillion rounds in civilian hands. If the rest of the world possesses intelligence, it will stay directly out of American internecine conflict and pray the nukes aren’t enabled.
“We’re not Athens with sticks and rocks. 400 million firearms and a trillion rounds in civilian hands.”
You won’t do shit.
Perhaps, but it doesn’t take much to disrupt the infrastructure and cause havoc on the civilian population “asleep” in their beds.
Without Tribe no one will do anything, except at most for their own personal defense and some won’t even do that knowing that they will spend the rest of their lives in jail especially if they live in a big city…
It’s fascinating how people always ascribe their good fortune to some kind of moral superiority
And their failures to the stars: “This is the excellent foppery of the world, that when we are sick in fortune we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and stars…”
“God is punishing me for my sins” is a common one. Often triggered by a low checking account balance.
Everyone is the hero in their own story. Even bad fortune is usually the result of some immoral behavior instead of just owning it.