Zompist Bboard Again

Travis B. wrote: ↑Wed Mar 20, 2024 1:04 pm

jcb wrote: ↑Wed Mar 20, 2024 12:47 pm [snip]

Do you honestly think that the Republicans are going to help the average American more than the Democrats (which I presume you do considering the number of times I see you say "Dems" above)? If the Democrats are bad, the Republicans are infinitely worse (e.g. all their populism is a lie meant to deceive the populace, and they are most interested in stripping everyone other than cisgendered straight rightist White Christian males of all their rights).

I want to elaborate some more on my thoughts:
(1) The dems suck. The repubs suck even more. But only one of these things is guaranteed. The repubs are the party of megarich. As a corollary, they will always suck, because the megarich, through the sheer power of money, will guarantee that they have a party that promotes their interests. The dems, however, don't have to suck. Instead, they have chosen to suck.
(2) Frankly, the stakes are incredibly high. The fascists are on the doorstep. America just had a failed fascist coup. Another one is soon to come. The repubs are currently laying the legal groundwork ( https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archi ... er/670992/ ) to allow (republican) state legislatures to overrule the direct (democrat) votes of the people for president so they can distribute the electoral votes themselves, thereby legalizing their coup (which guarantees more conservatives on the supreme court, thereby embedding their power even more, yada yada). I fully expect this tactic to be used within the next 20 years. (I figure they won't use it if they win "normally", or their margin of loss is so great that they'll still lose, but otherwise, it will be used.)
(3) Defeating Trump in 2024 is not enough. Even if Trump loses in 2024, he may still live to run again in 2028. Even if he dies (He is 77 right now, after all.) before 2028, he has already set the direction of the republican party for the next generation. Trump may die, but Trumpism will live on. Instead, Ron DeSantis or some other fascist ogre will take his place. Even if he loses in 2024, through seminormal oscillation between the parties, the repubs may come to power again 4 or 8 years later. Furthermore, the repubs can do more damage in 4 years than the dems can fix (and improve on) in 4 years.
(4) The dems very urgently need a strategy that can permanently stunt the fascists. Mocking, alienating, and refusing to help rural, poor, unskilled, uneducated, working class, and white people is not that strategy, especially in a system that gives rural voters disproportionate political power. (You may argue that such is system is unfair, and it is, but don't complain that you didn't know the rules of the game after it stings you, because you did know them, and you should've played to win according to them.) I really, really don't want to live in a fascist dictatorship, but the dems' current strategy of alienating large swathes of the population basically guarantees that it's going to happen eventually.
(5) I do not owe the dems any loyalty. I am not their paid cheerleader. I criticize them because they deserve it. I find their elitist ideology loathsome. I think that working class people in America are worthy of a better life, and they don't. Holding my tongue about this because it'll make the dems look bad for the next election would be counterproductive, because the reason why they lose in the first place is exactly that bigotry.

a relevant issue if one is, for example, a utilitarian, is that the office of POTUS has consequences for both yanks and for everyone else. the continued dominance of the us empire is much more likely if the democrats are in office, I think, whereas during trump the US lost a loooot of its soft power and international prestige. for myself, this is sufficient that i'd prefer a crazy orange man win. domestically, though, the republicans are crazy cunts, no doubt there, but politics is not a game that resets every four years or whatever: if the democrats can afford to be seven femtohitlers better than the republicans it is because they're guaranteed any votes that belong to people who believe the earth is round etcetera, but if the democrats could not, in fact, win any elections with their 1992 neoliberal fukuyama shtick, then the system would probably have to grow a genuine alternative to the republicans, which would, ultimately, be better. here in my country we recently (on the big scale of things) got a breaking up of the duopoly of right wing vs. ultra right wing and... tbh, things are looking up: boric might have terrible approval ratings (though not that bad compared to other presidents) but also we're getting an actually halfway honest supreme court who no longer just goes "he's rich and right-wing, he's innocent obviously", we're getting corrupt cop officials taken to court, we're getting trains, public healthcare is getting better -for everyone, not just for the destitute- than the privatized "rich people survive poor people get fukt" system. destabilizing one of those awful one-party-two-mask systems *can* be a good thing.

were I american i'm sure i'd have a different opinion, but regardless, I think a lot of the soft vote of trump has to do with the same deal as milei, bukele, etcetera: the technocratic neoliberal fake-progressive system is so much not working that people seem like they'd vote for anyone who's proposing something different (of course the harder trump vote is just fascists, but there can't be thaaat many fascists over there... can there?). point being if the left keeps insisting on living in 1992 I think the fascists will win: the world needs different, and it's probably not going to come from the democrats.

That's a dangerous and twisted logic, Torco. Just because the present world (dis)order is bad (I do not like the term "neoliberalism" because it 1) is ill-defined and 2) denotes something illiberal), doesn't mean that a Trump presidency wasn't any better. In fact, it would be much worse - sure, the US would lose much soft power, but the danger of World War III would go up several notches (not to speak of the consequences of a US refusal to acknowledge any responsibility on the climate issue), which can't be what you want as the radical leftist you claim to be. It reminds me of some US far rightists who say that the US should have supported Hitler in WW II in order to prevent Stalin from enforcing communism on half of Europe. Of course, that would have enabled Hitler to enforce Nazism on all of Europe, which would have been much worse.

you're right, i don't want those things, and i'm not super firm on any of this (it is a repugnant-feeling position that i find myself in, i admit) but climate change looks like a lost cause, and I don't feel like biden is less WW3ish than trump: sure, trump has a wacky rhetoric, but on the level of actions the guy didn't start new wars, for example, and is a lot friendlier towards russia and north korea than the neoliberal establishment (not sure about chayna though). honestly the biggest reservation I have towards this weird position of anti-imperialist trumpism (pragmatic, ofc, guys awful) is that a trump-wrecked empire will maybe still have enough clout to drag the rest of the world, or at least its core satrapies (latin america, for example) right into fascism for maybe a century. i tend to fall on no on that last one, but not by much.

it sucks, but ultimately I think that without a sort of principled "na fuck the lesser evil" impulse a two-party system can stably and reliably move as right as it wants. like, this is not the case in reality of course, i'm extremating the example but theoretically: are we supposed to vote for the liberal hitlerites who only want to genocide 60% of the world population within six years because they're better than the conservative hitlerites who want to genocide 67% within four? i know we're not there, but the point is that a voting block who accepts infinitesimal deltas is a voting block that's incredibly easy to render irrelevant.

Another Trump term would only help spread fascism even more than it has already spread around the world. Remember, Trump was cheering on people like Viktor Orbán and Vladimir Putin. Conversely, the Dems have been against the further spread of fascism. And the position you are espousing here is very much "both sides"-ism in many ways, which itself is dangerous.

Torco wrote:i'd prefer a crazy orange man win

Torco wrote:and is a lot friendlier towards russia and north korea

We did learn things in the 1990s— some of them the same things that should have been learned in the 1920s. And one of those is that there is no fake fascism. Edging toward fascism with a smirk and a wink is not being near fascism, it's being a fascist.

You support a US fascist and you support a Russian fascist. You are a fascist.

Being born into the Jehovah's Witnesses cult, I myself not identifying in the slightest with that religion or it's ideologies, being neutral* or trying to please both sides is taking the side that will almost always lose. Being neutral means you are actively fighting having an opinion. That's very hard to do, especially nowadays.

*If anyone who reads this doesn't know, being "neutral" is one of the major ideas taught into people who join the Jehovah's Witnesses cult. However, they also find themselves suspiciously right sided for an awful lot of ideas. I'm not saying being right sided is wrong, just that that is most definitely NOT neutral.

Torco wrote: ↑Wed May 08, 2024 1:20 pm a two-party system

Honestly, I feel like it's his whole binary two party thing that might be throwing everything in a loop. Well, not just that, but it's definitely not helping. Usually when ideas, philosophies, and people have to be sorted into two boxes, a whole lot of nuance is lost. Nuance is important, especially when wars, other nations, and the overall health of the planet is on the line.
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Torco wrote: ↑Wed May 08, 2024 1:20 pm climate change looks like a lost cause

Another Trump presidency would probably not do much good, especially for this. Just because it looks really bad doesn't mean you actively accelerate it. That's kind of like noticing the brakes are gone on a car and slamming the gas.
heck of a first post, huh?

and I don't feel like biden is less WW3ish than trump: sure, trump has a wacky rhetoric, but on the level of actions the guy didn't start new wars, for example,

Trump doesn't have a coherent overarching world view. He has his own personal business interests, and that's it. Remember the "Muslim ban" when he banned people from some middle-eastern countries from travelling to America?... except for ones that had his hotels. What makes you think that he wouldn't possibly whimsically assassinate a top leader of Chile if it personally benefitted him?, or if the army presented it as an option to him after (hypothetically) the US embassy in Chile was attacked? (The latter is what happened with Qasem Soleimani, after all: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/04/us/p ... imani.html )

and is a lot friendlier towards russia and north korea than the neoliberal establishment

He's friendly with Putin and Kim, because he's a natural autocrat who's attracted to other autocrats. He looks at the way that Russia and North Korea are run, and wants to run America the same way. This is not an improvement. Again, what makes you think that Chilean fascists wouldn't see this as a green light to coup the country (again)? The logic being "If other countries get to be fash, then why not us too?" Also, they could be assured that America wouldn't intervene on behalf of democracy. (Yes, I'm aware that the CIA helped coup the country last time.)

zompist wrote:You support a US fascist and you support a Russian fascist. You are a fascist.

and legally antisemitic too, I suppose. but seriously now, i support neither: i just care to a similar degree about americans and non-americans, and so if something is going to be bad for americans but good for the rest of the world, I will tend to prefer it: and it really looks like trump is more likely to loose the empire than biden. it's not clear that trump *will* be better for the rest of the world than biden, of course, as jcb points out, but if he were that also has to enter the equation: the rest of the world really ought to get a chance at self-government sometime this century. no russian or chinese has put a fascist in power in my country yet, and that's not nothing.

Kesshin wrote: ↑Wed May 08, 2024 3:50 pmheck of a first post, huh?

I'd say .

Kesshin wrote: ↑Wed May 08, 2024 3:50 pmHonestly, I feel like it's his whole binary two party thing that might be throwing everything in a loop. Well, not just that, but it's definitely not helping. Usually when ideas, philosophies, and people have to be sorted into two boxes, a whole lot of nuance is lost. Nuance is important, especially when wars, other nations, and the overall health of the planet is on the line.[/size]

yes, but nuance is not the only thing that's lost, you also lose democracy: not totally, of course, it's not like two party systems are indistinguishable from a regular old dictatorship, and multi-party systems have their own problems, but in duopolies, through agenda-setting, you can basically make it so in each election everyone votes rationally and still get the results a tiny minority wants at the expense of most people.

Another Trump presidency would probably not do much good, especially for this. Just because it looks really bad doesn't mean you actively accelerate it. That's kind of like noticing the brakes are gone on a car and slamming the gas.

sure, but what's on the other side of the scales, you know? I agree, trump is fucking psychotic, vis a vis climate change and other things, but imperialism is... you know, also horrible: how many millions upon millions of life expectancy years lost to needless poverty *outside* of the us do we think we're at? it's pretty clear that the laissez-faire pseudoeconomics the empire enforces, to put it simply, have kept millions in misery for half a century or so, that's not nothing. ultimately i think things are more complicated than "which candidate's positions and values are better than the other"

jcb wrote: ↑Thu May 09, 2024 1:11 am

and is a lot friendlier towards russia and north korea than the neoliberal establishment

He's friendly with Putin and Kim, because he's a natural autocrat who's attracted to other autocrats. He looks at the way that Russia and North Korea are run, and wants to run America the same way. This is not an improvement. Again, what makes you think that Chilean fascists wouldn't see this as a green light to coup the country (again)? The logic being "If other countries get to be fash, then why not us too?" Also, they could be assured that America wouldn't intervene on behalf of democracy. (Yes, I'm aware that the CIA helped coup the country last time.)

very much fair enough: as i mentioned this is the weakest point in my position: they will of course, chilean fash and the rest of the fash as well, be encouraged by this. but a relevant fact is that trump and his guys are rather incompetent, and the level of opposition that will be levelled at him will be a lot more stringent than the token level of opposition a biden white house would get, even regarding the same policies: biden kept the wall and the concentration camps for migrant children, for example, and no one bats an eye because "hey, he's better than trump". if trump wants to nuke mexico that's horrible, but if biden wants to nuke mexico it's "oh, well, better than trump tho, what are you gonna do". can you imagine how much stronger the opposition to us support of the israeli genocide would be if it was trump sending the weapons to flatten a city full of civilians?

in this, I suppose the pivotal thing is where the US military stands on fascism: as I understand it the imperial military is not amicable to a fascist takeover of the country by fuhrer trump, which means that the empire, if trump wins, will be in turmoil and internal conflict and all the rest of it, but won't outright go fourth reich, you know what I mean? of course I could be wrong, and if i was this would flip me pretty quick, tbh, cause if trump could get away with what he really wants -to turn the US into a bigger russia- that would be absolutely disastrous: every fascist everywhere would get CIA support to coup, and we could even see nukes flying around which... yikes.

and yeah, it could be that the risk is not worth it, even if i'm right. man, it's a shitshow.

Torco wrote: ↑Thu May 09, 2024 12:59 pm

Your argument seems to rest on the assumption that we live in the American Empire and that casting it off (which you call "self-government") would be an improvement, which I don't agree is the case. (For one thing, America doesn't extract tribute from the rest of the world, as much as some people, such as Donald Trump, seem to think otherwise.) America is certainly a cultural hegemon but its leverage over the rest of the world is soft power (which, frustratingly, it has spent the past two decades recklessly wasting, hence Putin cycling the starter motor on Russia's imperialism during that time).

Torco, you seem to believe that Trump as president won't result in Trump pushing fascism on a global scale. Do you seriously believe this is true? Do you seriously believe that Trump will not help support fascists outside the US such as Orbán and Putin?

on this I am with rammstein. or, well, the song, I actually don't know, lindemann might be fash himself for all i know? you get the point, though, we're all living in america.... yeah, we live in the us empire, the most powerful empire in the history of the planet, and the only one to ever be the sole world hegemon to boot, I thought this was more or less uncontroversial. its power is also not mostly symbolic or soft:

up until recently almost all international trade proceeded using the imperial coin (and it's still something like 90%),

the majority of internet traffic goes through its websites,

it can can persecute journalists who who oppose it even if they are in other countries (not even criminals, mind you, just people who publicize its atrocities)

it has troops stationed throughout basically the entire world, except in a few countries.

when a government displeases the empire, it simply replaces it. (save a few exceptions where it hasn't managed to do so, the map only shows the successful ones)

the empire does exact its tribute, just not through clear and explicit channels.

almost everyone knows this to be the case. (notice how the numbers also correlate decently well with how educated the population of each country is) no other country would elicit nearly as strong a consensus on being under the political influence of. there's other things I don't think I need to find links to continue with this stylistic artifact, I trust: it consistently ignores so-called international law without repercussions, for example, and the UN is, you know, within its borders, which is what you would expect if the case was, as I claim it is, that while countries exist and are independent and sovreign de jure, the reality is it's all ruled mostly (except for some hinterlands not-yet-fully-incorporated) from washington. not to mention it has an army that is fantastically stronger than any other, possibly than all others, and a capacity to project power globally, which is something almost no countries can do. sure, the US probably can't win a conventional total war against russia or china, but that's simply cause no one can: but no country can oppose it militarily except in such rare cases as russia, who is having three years worth of trouble swallowing a much smaller and weaker neighbour, such a thing hadn't happened since the fifties.

throughout history empires rarely directly control their provinces: instead, they almost always have sub-kings, duques, counts, and other great poobas under a million different names: many emperors even calling themselves 'king of kings', or primus inter pares they way a more modern ruler might call himself, say, the leader of the free world. provinces rarely have complete independence or dependence: instead, local elites decide on most things: but when the emperor speaks, he is either listened to or the duke, count, markis, satrap or governor is gonna get it: and of course, emperors could rarely fully control what happens in the more faraway provinces the way all governments can exert only so much power at any given time. the fact our states have laws that say otherwise doesn't mean 'president' couldn't be just another name for such a satrap: a shah under the shahanshah.

@Travis: i just said he will? but then again, the actually existing us empire also promotes fascism: it did in spain, it did in latin america, it currently does in countries like saudi arabia and, yes, israel. under the guise of anticommunism it has supported plenty of fascist groups in europe, and even beyond government action (let's not forget the ruling class of an empire is part of that empire, and it can have a division of labour internal to it: this wouldn't be sociologically or historically remarkable), henry ford had a subsidiary company in nazi germany: this company was a slave camp, or at least, slaves worked there. so like, the empire already supports fascism throughout the world. it would support fascists... more, you say? yes, surely, but probably not that much, and possibly less competently, resulting in less support of fash in future: in exchange, we get... yeah, the empire dissolving to some degree or other, which is good, not least cause it would result (if us empire already supports fascists abroad routinely, which it does) a reduction in fascism: for my money, the second effect should be bigger than the first. plus, in this historical context, this could be read by the democrat faction of the imperial aristocracy (you know, the us ruling class? the sort of people whose cousins are senators and ceos, generals and hedge fund managers, etcetera) as the old neoliberal establishment shtick not working: this would be a correct read, mind you, from a purely machiavellian, realpolitik perspective populism and anti-establishment is where it's at: look at milei! he got elected, and has a fanatical fanbase even now, with all argentina is going through: we need our own firebrand, politically incorrect, offensive attention-grabber (plot twist: their next candidate is milder than bernie sanders, but to the left of biden). by contrast, what's the signal to that same aristocratic faction if biden wins? something like "meh, we can even fund the most media-covered genocide since WW2 and it won't matter: even with china pumping our country full of beheaded palestinian babies (which we failed to react in time to anyway) anyone to the left of hitler is gonna vote for us anyway: man, we're golden"

Torco wrote: ↑Thu May 09, 2024 11:01 pm almost everyone knows this to be the case.

You might want to look at the rest of that Pew research rather than just the bit where everyone largely agrees the US is an interfering busybody; they also largely agree it's a force for good in the world. My favourite historian Bret Devereaux has talked about this in the past in greater detail.

A multipolar world would be one with an increased amount of violence as the various poles jockey for position with one another. I really hope I don't have to convince you this would not be a good thing for anyone, especially smaller countries, regardless of how much you think America promotes fascists.

it's common for people to think they're rulers are good: a lot of being a ruler is convincing the ruled that you're good, after all.

A multipolar world would be one with an increased amount of violence as the various poles jockey for position with one another. I really hope I don't have to convince you this would not be a good thing for anyone, especially smaller countries, regardless of how much you think America promotes fascists.

if we think the empire is good, then of course that's a valid reason not to want the us empire to lose power, but surely you see that at least sometimes "instability" is good, as it can lead to good changes: and look at the historical record: ever since unipolarity the world has gone to shit, wages have stagnated vis a vis inflation, young people are much much poorer than their parents, higher education, residential ownership and a halfway decent job have become unachievable, aspirational goals most won't get, the big mac's price in hours of work has skyrocketed, etcetera: other than fun little tech gadgets (which I like as much as the next guy) life is just worse under the market fundamentalism of the empire unopposed. if things keep going this way we're gonna be reminiscing, in 2060 or something, about "man, remember when we had labour laws? those were the days" as we toil until we're 96, doing 16 hour days to pay our six-square-meter flats that cost six million dollars a month or whatever.

Torco wrote: ↑Fri May 10, 2024 10:05 am it's common for people to think they're rulers are good: a lot of being a ruler is convincing the ruled that you're good, after all.

A multipolar world would be one with an increased amount of violence as the various poles jockey for position with one another. I really hope I don't have to convince you this would not be a good thing for anyone, especially smaller countries, regardless of how much you think America promotes fascists.

if we think the empire is good, then of course that's a valid reason not to want the us empire to lose power, but surely you see that at least sometimes "instability" is good, as it can lead to good changes: and look at the historical record: ever since unipolarity the world has gone to shit, wages have stagnated vis a vis inflation, young people are much much poorer than their parents, higher education, residential ownership and a halfway decent job have become unachievable, aspirational goals most won't get, the big mac's price in hours of work has skyrocketed, etcetera: other than fun little tech gadgets (which I like as much as the next guy) life is just worse under the market fundamentalism of the empire unopposed. if things keep going this way we're gonna be reminiscing, in 2060 or something, about "man, remember when we had labour laws? those were the days" as we toil until we're 96, doing 16 hour days to pay our six-square-meter flats that cost six million dollars a month or whatever.

The "multipolar" world of the Cold War resulted in countless dictatorships and civil wars across the globe, as they served the interests of both the US and the Soviet Union, and the world became much more free and stable after its end, when said dictatorships and factions in civil wars lost their usefulness and support.

agreed on the more peaceful front: I don't know about "freer", but because I probably have a thicker concept of freedom here: since the start of the decline of the soviet union (let's say from andropov on) wages are stagnant vis a vis, inflation, productivity, and housing prices meaning a larger and larger share of the social product goes to a few ultrarich people through executive bonuses, higher and higher rent, capital gains (exploitation), etcetera: that's the opposite of freedom: wages are, remember, the way most people trade in freedom for access to survival goods: if they get less of the latter per unit of the former invested that makes them less free. also since the eighties the IMF has imposed various policies, privatization laissez faire economics etcetera, leading to artificial poverty in the world costing however many millions of life expectancy years lost, poverty, death from preventable disease etcetera. Africa seems to have caught up with the con, and is veering more and more towards other economic spheres, notably china. no i don't think I buy the us navy's "a global force for good" motto. the list of the us empire's evildoing is extensive, embargo of cuba blablablablablabla. also supporting genocide and authoritarianism has categorically not lost usefulness for the empire, e.g. the holy land.

Like, I get that people from the imperial core feel positive about the empire, as even the non-ultrarich ones benefit from it (and also, cultural hegemony etcetear) but you'll understand, I'm sure, if i'm not as positive. of course the soviet union was awful too, but the fact an alternative existed forced capitalist countries to be less predatory: you know, allow unions etcetera.

Torco wrote: ↑Fri May 10, 2024 11:38 am Africa seems to have caught up with the con, and is veering more and more towards other economic spheres, notably china.

Not true; the Belt and Road Initiative has, to quote Dr Devereaux, "spent a lot of money buying roughly zero allies, globally", and China is running out of the money of its own citizens to spend on it, especially when the huge blob of population currently in their late fifties starts to retire.

possibly it has bought zero allies, but according to the IMF it is the largest trading partner and also the largest lender for african countries, which is different from getting nowhere. its conceivable china's power has peaked, though, time will tell.

To get this thread back on track, what would an AI Trump do?

oh, shit you know the guy's gonna sign up for the elon musks's upcoming "upload your mind" business. it's gonna be called "eternity" or whatever.