United States Politics Thread 47

[Torco]

Yeah, I like that reading a lot more. and incompetence is a perfectly reasonable hypotheses, considering the actors. we've had the convo about the costs of the collapse of the empire before, and I think i've made my position clear: it's that it's not like it won't have any bad consequences, of course there'll be a human cost but then again, it's not like USAID and the rest of what I'm here calling the apparatus of empire were causing zero harm. just recently the US couped bolivia (and arguably peru) they funded mercenary raids on venezuela constantly, galvanizing support for the regime, they fund lies and right wing think tanks throughout the world, and ¿how many lives and freedoms were lost when afghanistan went from socialist-backed secular country where women had rights to a mujahadeen-and-later-taliban-ruled hellhole?

at the risk of asking a dumb question, were those by USAid, or by the CIA et al? I thought the CIA was at fault there, while USAid was doing things like helping Cambodia remove landmines.

i don't think it's a dumb question. the fact is, that division of labour is not as clear-cut as that. klein's book about shock doctrine goes into some depth about it, and the wiki has some writing on that matter too. don't get me wrong, could be very functional to the us as an empire even without being a front for the CIA or intervening in all the other more obviously problematic ways: if an imaginary clean USAID funds half your hospitals, then you're likely to be very sensitive to the us diplomat asking for this or that vote on the UN floor.

nevertheless USAID is, amonst other things, a front for CIA covert ops. recently, USAID was found out to have been involved in couping or trying to coup bolivia, bangladesh, cuba, haiti, honduras... hell, what am i doing listing them, the organization has (had?) a literal office of regime change. yup. that's the department of regime change right there... one of em anyway, i'm sure the CIA has another. it's like when chileans go "the US wasn't involved in the 73' coup". they admit it on the record. they officially say they couped us. and there's an office where a bunch of guys's job is regime change. I'm sure both theoretical and applied.

names of projects USAID runs

USAID is, as well as being a front for the CIA, an aid organization. thus, they run aid programs. some of them are even good for the recipient countries, which is why they can be used as leverage on those countries. again, even a clean theoretical USAID [which doesn't exist but in principle might] is a good tool for an empire. heard of "soft power" ?

Though they in fact run those programs, that does not entail that those programs are the only things they do. look around some, USAID involvement in bangladesh coup, for example. sure, some of the sources you'll find are things like press TV, iranian media, or the times of india, or you know, media run by brown people from countries that are not western... but then again, they would be, wouldn't they?

And isn't it obvious why? CIA spies cannot just land on an airport and, when asked by the security guy about their reason for their trip, answer "imma regime change you you brown cunt". no, they say other things, such as "i'm a consultant, i'm here to fix some wells run by a humanitarian NGO". hell, they probably go and fix those wells too! a good spy protects his cover. and then, back home, they deliver a full report to some CIA handler, including a little USB drive or whatever. they'll embed themselves in NGOs, but also import-export businesses, architectural firms, but an organization like USAID is uniquely positioned to help. they even have an office for it.

The rest of the world kind of knows, zompist, about US aid and its ties to regime change. of course, in official documents they use language like "promoting democracy" or whatever, but grownups know what they mean by those words, just like we know that "synergizing personnel expenditures" means layoffs. evo morales kicked usaid out, you think he did it to promote fascism? like, okay, I get that you think i'm a fascist, but is AMLO a fascist too? is petro a fascist too? morales is kind of authoritarian, yes, but a fascist? is jeremy corbyn?

maybe everyone who isn't for the america world police forever project is a fascist, huh? just like the people who oppose ethnic cleansing are all antisemitic?

And yet in that very post Torco asks us to identify with the good parts of the Karmal dictatorship, instituted by a Soviet coup. I guess coups are OK if they're ordered by Comrade Brezhnev.

women had rights before the mujahadeen. great advances were made during the communist years for the rights of afghan women, which were of course rolled back as soon as the americans decided that it was time to give them some democracy. now, am i saying the commies were perfect angels? no. am i saying they were better than the americans? no. i'm saying what i'm saying: that the us bringing "democracy" somewhere does not end well for the people that "democracy" is brought to.

to be honest, i feel as if "the us bringing freedom to a country" just *means*, at least when I talk to other third worlders, the us couping your country, funding fascists and all the rest of it because they want your oil, or your copper. okay, maybe i talk with third worlders that are woker than the mean, or something, but still... are americans so naive that they truly believe that the us does not use aid as a weapon to destabilize other countries? is this like a common view over in the empire? i'm only half-way being jocular here, I'm also genuinely interested.

[Torco]

like... is USAID an aid organization or a front for the CIA? ¿por qué no los dos? ¡ciertamente los dos!

[keenir]

like... is USAID an aid organization or a front for the CIA? ¿por qué no los dos? ¡ciertamente los dos!

I'm going to guess its that commercial turned meme of "Why not both?"

[Torco]

It's also complete nonsense for Torco to complain about "Empire", given that he's cheering on Trump's efforts to make things easier for the Russian empire in Europe and for the Chinese empire in Asia. (Yes, Torco, I know that neither Russia nor China have ever done bad things to Chile, but, while this may come as a shock to you, Chile is not the only country in the world.)

I don't think we mean the same thing by empire. you seem to think imperialism consists on territorial expansion, which... okay, yeah, sure, people use that word in that sense sometimes, but the us empire is not just the us and puerto rico plus samoa. your logic seems to be something like "because russia is invading a neighboring country, it is engaging in imperialism". not of the kind the us is engaging in, though. the us empire is a lot more sophisticated than it having annexed puerto rico. the whole world is not beholden to the trade rules of moscow, for example.

but even if we grant that russia is imperializing ukraine, and that therefore trump is supporting one empire while dismantling another. what of it? does that mean that it is bad for the american empire to be rolled back? can't i prefer there being three empires instead of one?

you speka of the american, russian and chinese empires. china there's an argument for, but russia is hardly an empire, that's like saying Irak was being imperialistic when it invaded iran. everything is not everything, and not all war is imperial conquest, but just for the sake of argument... okay, let's posit that these three empires exist: they're hardly equal! the us has 700 military bases throughout the world, china has... one? in djibouti I think? yeah, I wish the us empire was relatively less powerful than it currently is. this entails, by necessity, that i wish other countries were more powerful, relative to it. you can have the opposite position, you can prefer a world where america is the sole superpower forever. eternal washington dominance, but that is a concrete, specific position, not a logical necessity such that all other views are ridiculous.

[bradrn]

Massive crowd protests tariffs on Heard and McDonald Islands

Hah, very funny.

More seriously, the Sydney Morning Herald actually has a possible explanation for this one:

One theory is that American trade officials charged with coming up with the lists of countries for tariffs used AI to scrape the internet for any mention of any trade around the globe. Doing that, you get obscure mentions of tariff rates on exports from a Heard Island to nations including Canada and Greece.

Some of this data comes from the World Bank via a website that compiles global trade data that suggests the US imported more than $1 million worth of transportation equipment from Heard and McDonald.

But the data is incorrect, being either an AI “hallucination” or an input problem given there’s nothing to be exported from the islands. No one in the United States Trade Representative office charged with pulling together Trump’s tariff plan appears to have checked whether this data was correct, whether Heard and McDonald are actually a country or where the islands are located.

Also in today’s news: Australia’s biosecurity laws are ‘all nonsense’ because ‘oh, what, the seeds are different? Other people in the world are using seeds that, insects ... come on’, and the ‘EU hate our beef because our beef is beautiful and theirs is weak’. (Both courtesy of Lutnick, who astonishingly managed to communicate in an even more obviously deranged way than Trump.) I’m not usually one to accuse people of projecting or mirror tactics, but… seriously, like, what else could this even be? There is only one world leader who would use such reasoning for his own policy decisions, and that is Trump and no-one else.

(Yes, I know I’m preaching to the choir here, but sometimes you just have to vent…)

[rotting bones]

Seems to me they're concerned the existing institutions of empire aren't exploitative enough. They think the people doing the work are taking advantage of the exploiters, and a lot of psychotics think that sounds about right. It's a sad indictment of the mental health crisis in America.

I mean... at this point i really get the feeling this "new" or "alt" right, especially in the US, has little to no boundaries regarding what they will believe: for all my life, tariffs were the most socialdemocrat, radically left wing position one could take in international economic matters, but orange man says tariff good and now the whole US right is like yay tariffs! if orange man were to go like "we need to ban insulin" even right-wing diabetics would hail it as an excellent measure. I say "alt" in quotations cause there's really nothing alt about it, being the official ideology of the richest man on earth *and* that of the most powerful politician on the planet, not to mention the official religion of social media at this point, it's basically the establishment at this point

https://youtu.be/1ts5wJ6OfzA

[Raphael]

It's also complete nonsense for Torco to complain about "Empire", given that he's cheering on Trump's efforts to make things easier for the Russian empire in Europe and for the Chinese empire in Asia. (Yes, Torco, I know that neither Russia nor China have ever done bad things to Chile, but, while this may come as a shock to you, Chile is not the only country in the world.)

I don't think we mean the same thing by empire.

Yes. I mean empires. You mean countries you don't like.

you seem to think imperialism consists on territorial expansion, which... okay, yeah, sure, people use that word in that sense sometimes, but the us empire is not just the us and puerto rico plus samoa. your logic seems to be something like "because russia is invading a neighboring country, it is engaging in imperialism".

No, because Russia clearly wants to conquer as much of the world as possible. Anyone who's paid attention knows that Ukraine is just the first step. Also, because a lot of the people running Russia clearly have a "If we conquer a place, it's rightfully ours for the rest of human history" mindset.

not of the kind the us is engaging in, though. the us empire is a lot more sophisticated than it having annexed puerto rico. the whole world is not beholden to the trade rules of moscow, for example.

Yeah, Russia is less sophisticated about its empire than the US is. Thing is, if you have enough blunt force, it can be as effective as more sophisticated methods. And while I don't really like either option, I'd rather have someone make a trade route that indirectly has an impact on my life than have someone put a bullet in my head.

but even if we grant that russia is imperializing ukraine, and that therefore trump is supporting one empire while dismantling another. what of it? does that mean that it is bad for the american empire to be rolled back? can't i prefer there being three empires instead of one?

There are already three empires instead of one. Before Trump, they consisted of two mutually hostile camps - the USA vs. China and Russia. That meant that smaller countries that got into trouble with one empire at least had the option of asking another empire for help. Now, there's a serious risk of them all ending up at least indirectly allied with each other, so that that option would disappear. Which would mean a much more dangerous world for smaller countries.

you speka of the american, russian and chinese empires. china there's an argument for, but russia is hardly an empire, that's like saying Irak was being imperialistic when it invaded iran. everything is not everything, and not all war is imperial conquest,

Russia is the largest country in the world. What do you think how it got that way? At the start of the European imperial expansion, what later became Russia consisted of a patch of land near Moscow. The expansion of what was then called the Grand Principality of Moscow into the largest country on Earth happened at the same time as the buildup of the European colonial empires, and it doesn't make sense to see it as all that different as a process. Yes, land-based rather than see-based, but that's not that much of a difference. One of the main differences between Russia and the Western European powers is that Russia never lost most of the places it had conquered, and never got over the idea that empires are glorious.

but just for the sake of argument... okay, let's posit that these three empires exist: they're hardly equal! the us has 700 military bases throughout the world, china has... one? in djibouti I think?

Earlier in your post, you talked about the importance of more sophisticated methods of empire, such as trade rules. Now you're suddenly back to counting military bases.

yeah, I wish the us empire was relatively less powerful than it currently is. this entails, by necessity, that i wish other countries were more powerful, relative to it. you can have the opposite position, you can prefer a world where america is the sole superpower forever. eternal washington dominance, but that is a concrete, specific position, not a logical necessity such that all other views are ridiculous.

Nope. I don't want the USA to do anything militarily or economically in the large parts of the world where they're neither wanted nor needed. I'm all against US, or more generally Western, interventions in those parts of the world. All that I want is for the smaller countries of Europe and East Asia to be well-defended against Russian and Chinese imperial expansion. That's not too much to ask.

[Raphael]

More seriously, the Sydney Morning Herald actually has a possible explanation for this one:

One theory is that American trade officials charged with coming up with the lists of countries for tariffs used AI to scrape the internet for any mention of any trade around the globe. Doing that, you get obscure mentions of tariff rates on exports from a Heard Island to nations including Canada and Greece.

Head. Desk.

[zompist]

names of projects USAID runs

USAID is, as well as being a front for the CIA, an aid organization. thus, they run aid programs. some of them are even good for the recipient countries, which is why they can be used as leverage on those countries. again, even a clean theoretical USAID [which doesn't exist but in principle might] is a good tool for an empire. heard of "soft power" ?

How would you like malnutrition, disease, epidemics, women's health, education, mine clearing, and all the other things I listed done without "soft power"? You really think the US should stop feeding people and running hospitals? I think rich countries are obliged to help the world and that increasing worldwide misery is a crime, but you go on cheerleading fascism and non-American coups.

maybe everyone who isn't for the america world police forever project is a fascist, huh? just like the people who oppose ethnic cleansing are all antisemitic?

What the fuck is wrong with you?

And yet in that very post Torco asks us to identify with the good parts of the Karmal dictatorship, instituted by a Soviet coup. I guess coups are OK if they're ordered by Comrade Brezhnev.

women had rights before the mujahadeen. great advances were made during the communist years for the rights of afghan women, which were of course rolled back as soon as the americans decided that it was time to give them some democracy. now, am i saying the commies were perfect angels? no. am i saying they were better than the americans? no. i'm saying what i'm saying: that the us bringing "democracy" somewhere does not end well for the people that "democracy" is brought to.

And what I said is that the Americans and the Soviets fucked up Afghanistan for decades. Ironically, both sides tried to advance women's rights. While also killing millions of Afghans. Is it so hard to understand that fostering women's rights is fine, killing millions of Afghans is not fine?

to be honest, i feel as if "the us bringing freedom to a country" just *means*, at least when I talk to other third worlders, the us couping your country, funding fascists and all the rest of it because they want your oil, or your copper. okay, maybe i talk with third worlders that are woker than the mean, or something, but still... are americans so naive that they truly believe that the us does not use aid as a weapon to destabilize other countries? is this like a common view over in the empire? i'm only half-way being jocular here, I'm also genuinely interested.

You're not "woker than the mean"; you're a cheerleader for fascists and you like coups, dictators, and foreign interventions when they come from the Kremlin.

But to answer your question, most Americans are neither fascists who want to fund fascists, nor communists who want to see the world burn. I know the tankie manual hasn't been updated since 1953, but if you looked around a little you'd find that world poverty and starvation are way down, diseases are being eradicated, once-dirt-poor countries are now industrial behemoths, democracy is far more widespread, and the US does not actually control the world. (Look up your own country's major trading partner.) This is not to say that everything is great; any American leftist has a long wishlist of terrible things that need changing. I'd say most of us think "feeding people" is not one of those terrible things, and "expanding fascism" is one of those terrible things, but your super-woke self obviously feels the opposite.

[Raphael]

Massive crowd protests tariffs on Heard and McDonald Islands

Related, this post from Language Log:

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=68776

[Ahzoh]

More seriously, the Sydney Morning Herald actually has a possible explanation for this one:

One theory is that American trade officials charged with coming up with the lists of countries for tariffs used AI to scrape the internet for any mention of any trade around the globe. Doing that, you get obscure mentions of tariff rates on exports from a Heard Island to nations including Canada and Greece.

Head. Desk.

We're fucked

[WeepingElf]

People, I can't laugh about all this. We may be facing the next Hitler (though I sincerely hope he isn't), and everybody is just pulling jokes. That's not a good way of dealing with the situation (though I don't know what else one can do about it).

[alice]

People, I can't laugh about all this. We may be facing the next Hitler (though I sincerely hope he isn't), and everybody is just pulling jokes. That's not a good way of dealing with the situation (though I don't know what else one can do about it).

I think the comparison is, thankfully, a little far-fetched. Trump is too old and capricious and not motivated by anything resembling a coherent ideology, and in charge of a destructive but not-very-competent administration. And the Rest of the World are a lot wiser to it too.

But still, merely joking isn't enough to make it go away.