Notes from Google’s “diversity head”
An old blog post written by Google’s head of diversity, Kamau Bobb, has been spotlighted. It was written by Bobb when he was a research associate in technology at Georgia Tech, and appeared on his blog as part of a piece entitled “If I Were a Jew”:
If I were a Jew I would be concerned about my insatiable appetite for war and killing in defense of myself. Self defense is undoubtedly an instinct, but I would be afraid of my increasing insensitivity to the suffering [of] others…
If I were a Jew today, my sensibilities would be tormented. I would find it increasingly difficult to reconcile the long cycles of oppression that Jewish people have endured and the insatiable appetite for vengeful violence that Israel, my homeland, has now acquired.
The essay has a lot more in that vein. It’s really just standard leftist stuff, and not even as bad as some. I wish I could say the thoughts expressed there are unusual, but they’re not. Although Bobb pays lip service to the idea of Israeli self-defense, it’s clear that he thinks Israelis and Jews have little or no right to it.
And I would challenge Bobb to find a country attacked as Israel has been which shows anywhere near the compassion Israel regularly shows to the Palestinians. He will not find one. “Insatiable appetite for vengeful violence” – I think Bobb has no idea what those words actually mean, or how they would play out in the Middle East if they were true of Israel.
In addition, Bobb seems to think that all Jews around the world are responsible for what the government of Israel might or might not do. Bobb himself is black; is he responsible for all black-generated violence around the world, for example? That would be an absurdity, and collective responsibility shouldn’t be attributed to him or anyone else. But treating people collectively has become the essence of “diversity.”
In response to Bobb’s polemic, I’m reminded of a comment former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir made; “We can forgive [the Arabs] for killing our children. We cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children. We will only have peace with [the Arabs] when they love their children more than they hate us…”
“Bobb seems to think that all Jews around the world are responsible for what the government of Israel might or might not do. Bobb himself is black; is he responsible for all black-generated violence around the world…?” neo
I’m betting that he would hypocritically say no, he shouldn’t be judged as responsible for all black violence. But according to a then obscure Jewish preacher of the first century, he treads upon dangerous ground, “for with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.” (Matthew, 7,1-2)
As far as I can see, the one thing that can be pinned on Jews relevant to this topic is to have been disproportionately complicit in the creation and promotion of an untouchable class of Ungrateful Opining Affirmative Action Amok Golems.
Have at Arabs with the jawbones of asses to your hearts content, but please, oh please… stop trying to #$#$%ing fix the world. How’s that really been working out? No good deed and all that… Don’t you guys get tired of being bitten on the posterior? 🙂
Collective responsibility (without question one of the oldest, and perhaps the very worst, idea in the history of humanity) is the very essence of the dogma embraced by the votaries of the cult of The Great Awokening. It is a curious irony that, in 2021, those who advocate a color-blind variety of civic nationalism and who believe in judging others by the “content of their character” rather than by “the color of their skin” are ridiculed and vilified for their refusal to be obsessed by what they usually call the “immutable characteristics” of others, while instead judging individuals on their actions, as well as on their ideological inclinations and on the policies which they advocate and support.
If I were a Jew I would be concerned about my insatiable appetite for war and killing in defense of myself.
Tells you he was pig-ignorant and probably still is. Most of us are pig-ignorant about nearly everything; its just that being pig-ignorant, we don’t mouth off about it or even form more than the most idle opinion about it.
In his case, just a cursory familiarity with the history of the last century would prevent him from uttering such a statement. Israel hasn’t been at war with any Arab state in 47 years and it was never willingly at war with any of them bar signing on to the Anglo-French effort to re-take the Suez Canal. Israel has been at war with a series of paramilitary outfits working from Lebanan, Gaza, and the West Bank. What does he think paramilitary outfits do and why they are formed?
to have been disproportionately complicit in the creation and promotion of an untouchable class of Ungrateful Opining Affirmative Action Amok Golems.
IOW, Joseph Rauh was an ass, therefore you’re justified in your inane grudges.
Collective responsibility is becoming the norm, but it started (in a big way – surely a tribal version has been around since tribes have been around) with the Jews. They’ve always been blamed, and punished, as a group for the perceived or assumed sins of individuals of their faith.
My husband heard someone commenting recently that Pakistan was made of whole cloth at exactly the same time as Israel, to be a homeland for Muslims within the British empire, and the making of it displaced millions (Israel displaced a couple hundred thousand-ish, something like that, I understand). Yet no one argues that Pakistan shouldn’t exist.
@je:
Multi-ethnic Empires are ungovernable without Collective Responsibility. You live in one. Alas for you.
Expect more of it. What has the last year in the West been but non-stop applying of Collective Responsibility to Whites?
One prominent Managerialist Uber Bugperson Black pops up and has a go at the Jews now. Let’s see how many column inches of push back he gets cf. Blame Whites has gotten (zero)?
Multi-ethnic Empires are ungovernable without Collective Responsibility.
But we were getting so damn close – on the multi-ethnic front, anyway. I myself don’t believe the US can have been considered an empire for a long time. A hegemony, maybe.
@Jamie:
If you but talked to a few Indians about that :P.
Which I don’t recommend. Best avoided at the best of times.
@Jamie:
Empires don’t have to have crowned emperors and subject Kings and Potentates. They also don’t need trumpets and heralds with tabards. Just like something called a Constitutional Republic can have a marching band with fife and drum go back and forth on the White House Lawn 24/7 playing Yankee Doodle under the eyes of surveillance cameras and Secret Service Snipers with each band members every off duty utterance and movement given special attention by the security apparatus and have today the mechanics of power and rule be nothing at all remotely like its founding documents claim them to be.
You live in a multi-ethnic empire ruled by a bunch of figureheads and puppets financed by a largely invisible oligarchy. It happens to be clothed in a fancy Republican Costume and have ceremonial elections from time to time. Cute.
@Zaphod re: talking to some Indians about the existence of Pakistan – I’m sure! But the world press certainly gives the question a miss.
Re: empires: yeah, I’m a purist regarding the definition thereof. But even if we take your definition, all the more reason to cry, “We were so damn close!” We got through decades of evolution of social norms to the point where even today, my children (thank God) are far, far more in the content-of-their-character camp then in the collective-responsibility one (and my generation is largely even more so)… and now we’re seeing it all go to hell because grievance is just so much more satisfying.
But I guess that’s just my white fragility talking.
Luckily, Vox Day has come out to defend the Jews. Victory is assured!
http://voxday.blogspot.com/2021/06/the-anti-semitism-is-out-of-control.html
Now Beale (Vox) is a very complex and difficult individual who has some very strange ideas. So he could be wrong 😛
He’s so interesting and complex that he has published the Israeli military historian Martin van Creveld.
Zaphod, Zaphod, Zaphod. Words actually mean things “Constitutional Republic” is not the same thing as an “Empire” no matter how flawed it’s current means and methods of governance are. I’d say you are “cute” but that isn’t what that word means either.
@Jamie:
“So near and yet so far”
I guess that was scratched on the biggest bit of rubble which was left after the Tower of Babel was destroyed.
Not here to have a go at you. Not sure, too, that there is much time to grieve over what was not attained and is anyway now irretrievably lost. The Future is coming up on us all like a freight train.
OK, Ompty Dumpty.
Self-hating cowards. That is what they are and what they advocate for us to be.
I am not a Jew and I support their right to exist and to defend themselves. The Jewish people are the only people today that are safe to hate and villify.
Zaphod:
And now from the land of Can Do!
Chinese State Media Warns of Nuclear War with US In Wake of Covid-Origins Investigation
—Ace
Ace.mu.nu
Otay, Zaphod, you get to choose what words mean? Is the CCP an “Empire?” And what are “white values/interests” or “Western civilization” you are pining fijord?
Gee, I had to double check the name. When I first looked I read “Boob”. Tut tut.
I started to write that I would like to hear his definition of the point at which reasonable self-defense becomes an insatiable appetite for self-defense and killing. Then I decided, why?
As we put one of the strangest, and most offensive, Memorial Days behind us; I would that those who talk about an American Empire, review history since about 1917. Reflect on how many American lives have been sacrificed to benefit others, compared with how much Empire was sought or gained. Think about 1945 for instance when great swaths of the World were literally ours for the taking; and we simply rebuilt a large part of it. I guess we have a different conception of “Empire”. Some would yawn and say such thinking is trite.
Oldflyer is 100% correct.
To try to understand others may wish to read or listen to “These Are the Boys of Pointe Du Hoc”. The D-Day Speech given by President Ronald Reagan on June 6, 1984.
@Oldflyer:
Just wrote a response suggesting that the blood of the fallen if anything must be crying out for vengeance given what has become of America today. Seems to have disappeared into comment moderation/censorship limbo.
Nobody is disparaging those who fought in all those wars, least of all me. But you might want to ask yourself, for what? Take a good look around.
Also, do you really think that military occupation is the only form of empire-building? Yes, we do have different conceptions. You seem interested in very outward manifestations. I think more like a Little Green Man from Mars. To LGMFM, just looking at the way the world works it would be pretty clear that there are two major Empires on the planet: USA and China. Both having lots of satrapies / client states — some more slavish and some more restive. The big weakness the USA has is that it invited the world along with invading the world. China keeps its Core free of troublesome foreign immigrants.
Colin Powell said the only land we wanted was that in which to bury our dead. Literally true.
It’s October 1917 and you guys are hitting me over the head with Borodino and the Siege of Sevastopol. You mean well.
@Richard Aubrey:
In which case, what in the name of holy @#$% was the USA doing in Iraq?
I’m as guilty as the next person of being blind and stupid 20/30 years back. I was all for go and whack them.
But seriously, apart from carrying water for Israel and keeping the pot stirred and the Arabs on the back foot, what was the point? What good was done? What national interest of the USA was served?
It served a whole bunch of Vested Interests (domestic as well as foreign), sure. And still does. Likewise Afghanistan.
Nations don’t get tied up in military entanglements all over the goddam Globe. Empires do. Complain about the nomenclature all you like, but as they say: Walks like a Duck, quacks like a Duck, @#$%s like a Duck… well there’s a fair chance you might just be looking at a Duck.
And I’m very concerned about the coming power vacuum as the Pax Americana implodes. The world will be a much more dangerous place. Still, if I were American and in America, I’d be more sensibly worried about American Problems than about which #%#$%$%^^ers have missiles on which islands in the Bab el Bob or whatever the #@$%.
I reiterate: No disrespect to the fallen. Separate issue.
I’ve never accepted the assertion that the United States is or ever has been an empire.
In the 20th century, global reach became a practical consideration and with it came the necessity for forward operating bases. As it’s far better to fight on your enemy’s soil than on your own. Most of the Southwest was sold to the US. Same with Alaska. The Spanish American war led to the temporary acquisition of the Philippines.
The obvious exception are the Hawaiian Islands but even that territory was not acquired through conquest. Which BTW King Kamehameha I did unite the islands through conquest and rather brutally too, throwing over 4000 opposing fighters off the Nuuanu Pali cliff on Oahu after they’d surrendered.
In every case; Guam, Puerto Rico, American Samoa and for a time the Philippines, were always essentially self-governing entities. Even Japan was only ruled over by MacArthur for 5 years. Soon after the Japanese adopted a viable Constitution, America stepped away.
Empires do not allow more than minimal self-governance. They appoint Governors from home to rule over the natives and backed up by troops from the home country.
Definitons matter, otherwise it’s all relative and you arrive in support of the Left’s narrative because you’ve allowed them to define the terms.
Walks like a Zaphod? Quacks like a Zaphod? It’s a Beblelbrox.
And if you are going to run a multi-ethnic de facto Empire… Yes you just kind of fell into it in 1945… sort of kind of…. but if you find yourself stuck with one and decide to keep on taking up the Intersectional Man’s Burden then you’re going to need to keep guys like this affirmative action clown at Google on a tight leash. Hard to shock and awe the far flung natives when they can go online and watch you tearing yourselves apart back home.
Zaphod finds his random cliché generator app. Thanks for sharing. He means well.
@GB:
Perhaps its escaped your notice that there’s still an army of occupation in Japan. It’s called something different, but that’s what it is.
Remove it and the Japanese would immediately have to awaken from their slumbers and re-write their Constitution to permit certain things.
A sane and less sclerotic US Government would hit the road out of Yokosuka and Okinawa tomorrow. Awaken the sleeping 500lb midget next to the Awoken Giant.
The United States has an Africa Command. As far as I can tell they are not busy researching how to make African Chicken MREs. Just WTF *are* they doing that is so essential to the security of the USA?
I love Ottoman analogies and am having trouble deciding whether or not AIPAC represents Capitulations to the French or the Genoese or the Venetians.
But shall we go back to collectively dumping on the ungrateful @#$%er at Google?
I don’t agree with Zaphod on much, but I think he’s right that contemporary America functions much more like an empire than a constitutional republic.
We don’t take land outright, but neither do we speak Latin or convene the Diet.
A former President would agree:
“[America] well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself, beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force. The frontlet upon her brows would no longer beam with the ineffable splendor of freedom and independence; but in its stead would soon be substituted an imperial diadem, flashing in false and tarnished lustre the murky radiance of dominion and power. She might become the dictatress of the world: she would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit.”
But seriously, apart from carrying water for Israel and keeping the pot stirred and the Arabs on the back foot, what was the point? What good was done? What national interest of the USA was served?
Zaphod:
I don’t recall anyone making those arguments for the Iraq War. Hussein was a dangerous dictator who admired Stalin, dreamt of leading an Islamic Empire, had used WMD and was committed to building more, including nuclear. He is no longer a menace and I’ll count that as a point. We also, I believe, soaked up a lot of jihad energy fighting in Iraq.
Nation-building might have worked over a longer time scale as in Germany or Japan, however Obama and the rest of the world made sure that couldn’t happen.
After 9-11 it looked to me like if we didn’t push back hard, we would eventually find ourselves in a nuclear war with Islamic countries, which would have been a horror. That didn’t happen either and I wouldn’t discount the Iraq War as a deterrent.
We can’t conduct an experiment to see what would happen without the Iraq War. However, I wouldn’t assume a future without that war wouldn’t include looking back and saying, “We should have stopped that SOB Hussein in 2003.”
Zaphod decides the US military in Japan is an army of occupation. Otay, Fonzie, you’ve lapped the Google clown of diversity. Congratulations! 🙂
@om:
The substantial presence of US Forces in Japan is so that the Japanese have plausible face-saving excuse to not massively re-arm and go nuclear in contravention of their US-Imposed post-war constitution which limits their military to defensive roles. It also keeps the Japanese Left and Right from tearing each others throats out over re-militarization.
What *would* you call it then?
People get bitchy about my free and easy impressionistic ways with Nomenclature, not grasping the Saphir-Whorf Blinkers ™ they’re burdening themselves with when they venture forth on their geopolitical cogitations. There’s a time and a place for precision and nit-picking — in fact much of our time should be spent in this mode — but nothing much new about the broad sweep of History was ever grasped that way.
@Huxley:
I can see some virtue in Gulf War I. It was a demonstration of total military technological domination. Massive wake up call to the Chinese.
And they woke up and popped some stims. Still awake now. America promptly went back to sleep.
Round 2 was stupid and pointless and the idea of occupation and ‘Nation Building’ — especially Nation Building beggars belief. But this is what you get when you have a politically correct insane elite which cannot even talk about the radical idea that Arab fellaheen and Germans or Japanese are fundamentally different. Madness.
Then we have Afghanistan… where a face-saving surrender to the Taliban and withdrawal is in the works. Guess where all the Afghans who worked for the vast foreign occupation infrastructure (the money poured into that @#$%hole is stupendous) for past 20 years are going to be coming to live as refugees so their throats don’t get cut? Guess how grateful they will be for this opportunity to settle in Detroit or Pomona or San Antonio? Any idea what they will do as soon as they’ve moved in? 😀
Madness, madness, madness. French Frigate firing broadsides into empty African Jungle Heart of Darkness Madness. I was as guilty of it as the next person. Kurtz didn’t set out to become Kurtz. Stuff just happened. Then more downstream stuff happened. That’s what’s most awful about it all.
Zaphod:
You’re not making an argument, just casting aspersions.
I never saw the Iraq War as a great solution. It was a bad choice that looked marginally than the others. Unfortunately, that’s what living in history is like rather than reading about it later.
In retrospect I would not support the Iraq War. If, for no other reason, it handed the 2008 presidency to Obama and gave the hard left an opening they are still exploiting and may bring the country down.
Nonetheless, I don’t buy all the “insane, how could we have been so stupid” second-guessing I hear today. In part it gives aid and comfort to the anti-war Democrats, who never had the interests of the US at heart.
Zaphod, so misunderstood, some folks don’t cotton to his bovine excrement posed as an awesome analysis of humanity and history.
It certainly isn’t an army of occupation. Too subtle for the man of the world to grasp?
Must be a free and easy word for it (to speak as Zaphod)? Sophistry. That’s a word that fits. Or just bovine excrement for those not so worldly and “sophisticated.”
@Huxley:
Where are/were Saddam Hussein’s Weapons of Mass Destruction? I seem to recall this as the primary publicly claimed Causus Belli.
I don’t think it’s casting aspersions to suggest that in general it’s a wise idea just leave messy far off situations alone. And if the USA is going to interfere then it had better have a coherent self-interested (= Good for the American People — not just good for DC Swamp Creatures and Perfumed Princes) foreign policy and be capable of reviewing it and adjusting it in a sane manner. It does not. And it is arguable — altho not here and now — that excessive foreign enmeshments are precisely the thing which makes US Establishment incapable of having coherent self-interested and *consistent* policies.
I mean we’re talking about the geniuses who for past few years have been attempting to do to Syria the same pattern was done to Iraq: namely dislodge the ruling minority despot Alawites and fracture the place into a thousand warring factions. How can anyone be so stupid as to REPEAT something which so obviously failed? It beggars belief? Yes… I guess I am ranting and throwing aspersions at an utterly insane mess of a system which consistently does the Least Good Thing.
The meta question is how did things get to be this way? We’re a long way from 1789 or 1865 or even 1945. There seems to be this curious lack of curiosity about this gigantic slow motion system failure we’re all living through.
Zaphod, not a US citizen, living in Hong Kong, worries about “we” and the situation we in the USA are in. Curious, what even two letter words can mean. Sort of like “is.”
@Om:
If you weren’t a Multi-ethnic Empire whose coming collapse will seriously destabilise much of the rest of the world, I wouldn’t need to care, now, would I?
I’ve got a really good idea.Why don’t we all just agree to disagree on this OT side-track and go back to complaining about Ungrateful Blacks who Criticize Jews. We can all agree on that, I’m sure.
I am impressed with the IDF “problem solving” in Gaza. The tunnel system was a compex maze that connected important facilities and which ran under civilian residential areas. Clearing the tunnels with infantry and fighting the “bunkers” would produce a blood bath for both Israel and the Muslim Brotherhood. I am sure that the Muslim Brotherhood leadership were “hiding” in someplace like Qatar or Iran, since they remembered what the Egyptian army did to their brothers with bulldozers, tanks, and explosives. Gaza was most likely in the hands of Mid to Upper Level “managers” who planned to hide in bunkers, shelters, etc. which were the “stations” of the Gaza tunnel “Metro”.
The IDF held back until they were sure that the Iron Domed could identify and kill Hamas rockets that were a threat to Israeli civilian areas. Then, instead of “invading” or playing “Wack-A-Mole with rocket launchers next to apartments, schools or hotels, the IDF employed bombs dropped from high levels, so they had lots of vertical energy to go deep into the soil of Gaza where their concusion would destroy tunnels, bunkers and other facilities. The “managers” were encouraged to run to the bunker/ststions by an IDF song and dance troup that put on a show near the border.
The “apartment block” (as the Democrat Media called it) had a antenna forest on the roof was a communications center probably with studios, offices and weapons stores (no one tells me anything). That Muslim Brotherhood communications and propaganda center was protected by civilian residences on three sides. The IDF got out their old textbooks and looked up “gravity”. The first few bonbs went deep and threw debris nearly straight up. I doubt that they were trying to destroy parking slots for the gang’s Mercedes Those bombs probably collapsed the rescue and escape tunnels. The next few were much closer and designed to break the foundation, thus collapsing the building. I don’t know if the concusion would have killed those hiding in the basement shelter, including, I’d bet, the “actor” who dressed as Mickey Mouse and taught the children how to murder Jews and other Infidels. The bombs could have been usewd to destroy the “electronics” in the upper levels, but, this way, if any of the “Great and Mighty” survived the concusions, they wouldn’t be in too good a shape when they were dug out from under the rubble pile a week later.
I am impressed. Anything I might have planned would have invoked memories of Dresden or Hiroshima and made the Med turn red. I suspect that Israel accepted this latest cease fire since they didn’t have any more good targets. The Democratic Media has tried to make the exchange seem like a victory for the Muslim Brotherhood since they scared Fatah/PA, but the stench of the terrorist bodies seeping out of the linear graves (tunnels) will be a characteristic of Gaza for decades. The Media will never report on those “missing” from the Brotherhood membership lists. “They waz Good Boyz. They wazn’t doin’ nuffin.”
Great work, IDF!
I have had debates with lefty Christians that supposedly oppose self defense but support abortion rights. These people would claim it would be wrong for a husband and wife to use a gun to defend their born child, but would support the right of those same parents to have had that same unborn child slaughtered.
@Jon Baker:
They long for Death. They won’t be disappointed.
Just had a random thought on my common refrain of ‘Police Your Own’ in relation to inter-ethnic group harmony in a multi-ethnic (OK, OK) Society.
Perhaps it might not work for American Jews because the American Jews who are most temperamentally suited to doing the policing of their own more progressive-radical and trouble-making brethren have all gone and settled the West Bank. Just random thought.
Now I for one would love to see Naomi Wolf dropped into a West Bank Settlement with her shiny new AR-15. Could be a whole reality TV show. But would it last more than one episode?
Also, why is the word D I N D U apparently censored in comments?
This is a wonderful new coinage which should be used more widely.
Perhaps a better description of post WW2 foreign policy would be “US Hegemony” not “ US Empire”.
That would be “US Hegemony” vs “ Soviet Hegemony” vs the lesser “ Chinese Hegemony”.
Two of those are in decline and the other is rising.
…And then if somebody can unite the Muslims, there will be four.
There is also a wanna be “ Globalist Hegemony” that is a little harder to pin down to a specific country, but the signs are that it is there. Its fans are part of the 5th Column that is undermining the US from within and without.
@jon baker:
I could go with that if it brings more people along with my (by no means original) thinking. Still can’t totally let go of the E Word since I have this thing about Ottomans and the USA is the Sick Man of the World today. But the E Word is probably too emotive for some Americans. A bit like pointing to Augustus and telling a Roman ‘Hey, you got yerself a King there’.
Also they think I am suggesting some original sin or culpability in past generations who fought in WWI/II. I am not Empires *happen*. They are not made. But once in existence take on a perverse logic all of their own.
It’s not unheard of for the elites of a multi-ethnic Hegemony to get up to their own tricks. Really what’s there to be loyal to once a certain level of ethnic dilution has been reached. An Idea? It is to laugh. The Phanariote Greeks, Jews, Armenians did all kinds of high status elite jobs in the Ottoman Empire (oops) and were constantly defecting and double-dealing with foreign powers — as did plenty of the actual Turks themselves.
There’s not a lot of Globalist reach *into* China. The Chinese are too smart for that. They are more than happy of course to use globalist institutions to sell the other fools more rope with which to bind themselves.
The evils of Globalism at Home are baked into the Chinese Psyche through Edumacational Propaganda from the age of 5.
Opium Wars, anyone?
I’ve been to the Protestant Cemetery in Macau where many of the Royal Navy, Marines, and Traders who died out here were buried. Many of the Navy / Marines at the Storming of Canton. There’s a Churchill buried in that churchyard. It’s a veritable United Nations. Nantucket, Boston, Uppsala, Bristol, Amsterdam, and on and on and on. They were all in on it. Baghdadi Jews and Parsee traders too… Camp Followers of Empire. Obviously those ones not buried in Protestant Cemetery. But Globalism. It ain’t new. Just bigger and badder nowadays.
But Chinese Globalism for YOU is OK. No worries and would you like some Fentanyl with your fries?
Zaphod sings Can Do!
After attrmpting to redefine empire, occupation army, and claiming the USA is already analogous to the Ottomans, although not as good since the Ottomans were a scourge for much longer, I have to wonder how many sharks can
Zaphod jump in one thread?
It’s gotten ever easier to jump the sharks since the Chinks got too rich and ate all their fins.
Threads, you say?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xV8rgAyiwd4
Zaphod, always a class act.
From what I understand this result — the attacks in question — are at least partly encouraged by Netanyahu whenever he winds up in political trouble.
THAT said, I don’t think he needs to try very hard to get these morons to start something. It’s kinda like calling them “mother f***rs!” … it’s amazing how many will instigate an actual physical fight with you just for using those words on them.
Zaphod:
From the Urban dictionary:
History:
Dindu, when used by itself or in combination with “nothin” (not to be confused with “nuffin”), is not a racial pejorative. This term specifically targets the supporters of criminal behavior and the associated MSM narrative. Nevertheless, in 2016, social media started banning it. In an attempt to bypass forum censors, commenters began posting various similar sounding alternative spellings (din-du, dindü, diñdu, dinndu, dinduu, dintdu, etc).
I am in the presence of people who obviously think on a more sophisticated level than do I. For instance, I would never consider the force that we maintained in Japan at their request, for the past 50 odd years an occupying Army. I thought that the net effect was that Japan had a largely free ride on their own defense. I suppose that some would consider the forces that we maintained in Germany, or in Korea, for decades were also Imperialistic occupiers. Odd, the gnashing of teeth whenever we contemplated drawing down the size.
Apparently, Frederick thinks on a different level as well, for I have no idea what he is talking about. If he simply means that, since the JFK/LBJ era, we have developed a habit of being drawn into conflicts that do not benefit us, then we could agree. Since we have obviously gained nothing of value from these misadventures, I am not sure how that equates to Empire building. (I excuse Wilson, FDR and Truman for various reasons.)
Frederick, too bad you did not identify the former President. I do not recognize the quote. The context and language sound as though it may be from a period when there was a strong isolationist sentiment. At one time that would be a wise policy for a weak country in a contentious world, and many would still consider it so. Nevertheless, for some time the appropriate, morally defensible role for the United States in so many ambiguous situations around the world is debatable. (One fool recently, and publicly, opined that the the United States had no business in Europe in WWII.) As it is, one segment of the world condemns American activism; while the disadvantaged and oppressed clamor for it. The latter are grateful, for a period of time.
I may have shared this experience before; but, in my mind it speaks to other’s attitudes toward what some call American Imperial actions. Last winter I encountered another older man while fishing. He wore a ball cap with a Vietnamese flag emblem; and I engaged him, A former Army officer, he escaped with his wife after surviving “re-education”. They were picked up at sea and ended up in Israel, where their two children were born and they lived peacefully for five years. But, they left and came to America, because in his words: “I wanted to live in the greatest country in the world”.
}}} Where are/were Saddam Hussein’s Weapons of Mass Destruction? I seem to recall this as the primary publicly claimed Causus Belli.
Then you are massively WRONG.
There were a dozen reasons listed at the time, and of course, the MERDIA have only bothered to mention — for the last 15y — the single one which was — AFTER THE FACT — incorrect.
That almost no one in Congress claimed it was incorrect AT THE TIME should be a telling point of how little was actually known about the situation.
FURTHERMORE (in addition to the below), the far-from-GWB-fan Hans Blix acked — after the war allowed direct examination and re-evaluation of his capabilities (which – GASP GASP GASP – was a direct requirement of the deal that left him in power, note, so he was already violating THAT part of what allowed him to remain in power) — BLIX is on record as stating that Saddam was within 90 days of volume production of Anthrax, and 180 days of volume production of Botulin. So, three months and six months from being able to provide weapons to “terrorists” “whom he had nothing to do with”, for attacks on the USA and Europe.
Note also: At the time of 911, there were SIX known terrorist training camps in the world.
THREE of them were in Iraq. And one of THOSE had an intact airframe for training in plane takeovers. Was this, perhaps, used by those who took over the four flights? Good question. Not answered. But that’s the way *I* would bet.
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2015/05/19/5-reasons-the-iraq-war-was-not-a-mistake/
@OldFlyer:
Once again. No disrespect to you or your old comrades.
Vietnam. Hate to break it to you, but VN today has turned out to be a rather OK place. Hard now to see that all the fuss was worth it.
And they beat you guys. Sure they did it with a lot of help from Russia and China and from your home front fifth columnists by ‘not playing fair’… but they did. Having your (even back then) terminally corrupt military industrial complex and deep state three-letter types go around assassinating the one South VN President who might have worked out and running drugs left-right and centre in SE Asia and running a Garbage-In-Garbage-Out Operations Research BS Nonsense Managerialist McNamara IBM360s by the acre Cluster@#$^ instead of doing it properly didn’t help…
Hindsight sure… but there was plenty wrong at the time. Obvious Systemic Issues. I am not remotely interested in the *morality* of the thing. Just how it was done… and done badly. And it was all above your pay grade and outside your purview as a serving officer who should be outside politics and second-guessing in the moment and you did your duty. All good.
But that doesn’t mean that one just sweeps it all under the rug and doesn’t lance the boils and try to figure out how not to keep doing these things again and again and again… Failure modes matter. A few 737s flip upside down and crash and you start wondering if something might be wrong with the design or the operating and maintenance manuals or all three. Or something as yet unknown. You don’t go getting all upset with the the guys who poke around the wreckage because they are dishonouring the pilots or the Holy Books of Renton.
Zaphod sure thinks he has all the answers now for what happened then. But in the here and now he living under threat of the CCP in someone else’s country, bitching at us. Funny that, we are obligated to protect his lifestyle and keep a hidey hole for him to run to. Not so wise after all.
Zaphod,
As of 2017 there were about 39,000 US Military personnel stationed in Japan. That is not a sufficient number for an “Army of Occupation”. Most are on the Island of Okinawa and comprise support personnel for a forward operating base whose presence was first directed at the Soviets and now at the CCP.
You state, “I’m very concerned about the coming power vacuum as the Pax Americana implodes.”
But apparently fail to realize that a Pax Americana can only be maintained by both the presence of forward operating bases and a demonstrated willingness to apply military force in support of that Pax.
Which brings us to Iraq. Prior to George Bush’s invasion of Iraq every major democrat politician (with the exception of Barack Obama) is on record stating unequivocally that Iraq was known to be in pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and that he might well have them already. It was thought that Saddam’s possession of chemical WMD’s was a certainty. There was concern that Saddam might secure nukes from Pakistan. The first Gulf War was fought to prevent the possibility of Saddam attacking Saudi Arabia. A concern shared by the Saudis to such a degree that they very reluctantly agreed to US Military bases on their soil. Had Saddam secured control of the Saudi oilfields, his ‘leverage’ with the EU especially would have been greatly enhanced and they would have been forced to effectively drop their participation in the sanctions and have effectively ended them.
But those valid concerns and beliefs were NOT why the Bush II administration invaded Iraq. That rational was advanced because it was thought to be most persuasive.
9/11 was why Bush invaded Iraq.
In order to understand the reasoning that led to that invasion, it is necessary to understand the underlying factors that supported the 9/11 act of terrorism. They are; Islamic fundamentalism, rogue nations and the enabling nations that protect the rogue nations.
“Rogue states never turn out to be quite the pariahs they are deemed. They are only able to cause, or at least threaten to cause, mayhem because they enjoy the covert support – usually by means of technology transfers – of one or more major powers within the charmed circle of global ‘good guys’.” Margaret Thatcher
The major enabling nations supporting Saddam’s defiance of the sanctions were France, Germany and Russia. Plus of course a lip service only U.N. France and Germany’s motivation was economic.
In Russia’s case, Islamic terrorism was seen as a useful proxy for aggression against the U.S.
Rogue nations provide the logistical support and territorial refuge for terrorist groups. Aka Pakistan, Iran, Qatar, etc. Enabling nations ensure that rogue nations only endure slaps on the wrist in the UN and issue propaganda designed to block any effective efforts at bringing real consequence to the rogue nations. That propaganda insists that only consensus achieved in the UN justifies military action by one state against another.
After 9/11, George Bush’s speech at the UN, where he declared to the world that “you’re either with us or against us” was intended to send a message to both the rogue nations and to the enabling nations that the ‘game’ had changed. That a fatal line had been crossed. The invasion of Iraq was meant to demonstrate to the rogue and enabling nations that America was finally fed up and entirely serious about ending state sponsored terrorism. The removal of Saddam and conquering of Iraq was meant to demonstrate to the rogue nations that the cost of supporting terrorism was now too costly to continue.
The democrats and media derailed that message, sabotaged the invasion of Iraq’s moral basis and eviscerated that strategy.
It’s true that trying to bring democracy to Iraq was a fatally flawed strategy. Bush believed that a desire for freedom and self-determination was a universal value. He, the neocons and myself did not understand that a culture whose values are antithetical to self-determination was not fertile ground for the implantation of democracy. Our own cultural biases prevented that now obvious insight.
Fighting small wars overseas and conducting “police actions” is indeed costly in blood and treasure. In abandoning them, America will learn that the alternative of refusing to “bite the bullet” will be far more costly because dictators and totalitarian regimes are incapable of a “live and let live” policy.
The ancient Roman truism still applies; “if you would have peace, prepare for war.”
@GB:
There was more money and goodies for all involved in invading Iraq than in leaning heavily on the French, Germans, and, yea verily, even the Russians back when. Took the line of least resistance — not because the F, G, and R super tough and invincible but because too many corrupt vested interests wanted a re-run of Gulf War I.
Please re-read my words. Nobody is claiming that the US Military is in Japan to make them Obeyyyyy Muh Instructionsssss. Read the about the mares nest would be stirred up if the Japanese were left to their own military devices. Which I think they should be. Just like skin in your own Game is good for Jews (original argument for Zionism) why shouldn’t it be good for Japanese? And bad for Chinese. Cool.
Honshu, Okinawa and Guam are all toast in next peer level conflict. If absolutely *must* contain the Dragon, then had best do it from bases further out. There’s these things called missiles. Chinese have got more of them than they need to crater every runway and naval base. Then what?
Marines and AF may big in Okinawa. Pacific fleet leans heavily on Yokosuka, Sasebo and some other bits and pieces. You do get that all these petty officers and commissioned and many enlisted on the ships have families and kids in school on and around bases in Japan? Turkey shoot. It’s all just silly and unnecessary in 2021.
Chinese drop few ***thousand*** — they’ve got ’em — conventional warhead theatre ballistic missiles on these joints, what you gonna do?
They are not there based in those bases in Japan as a result of some sane *coherent* cognizant of the strategic situation in 2021 appreciation of the sand table. They are there because of ancient history, vested interests both Japanese *and* American, institutional inertia, and sheer plain wishful thinking.
I’m not going to convince you. That’s OK. I guess nearly all Arabs believe that the Yom Kippur War was a great idea to this day. We’ll all be arguing about these things in Caves to keep warm during the next Ice Age.
Neo’s link to Jim Treacher in the Covid Lab Leak post also has a section relevant here, in his inimitable rhetoric.
https://jimtreacher.substack.com/p/now-wapo-is-backpedalling-about-the?r=17yh5&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&utm_source=twitter
If you have never seen that video by Long, indulge yourself.
“Once again. No disrespect to you or your old comrades.”
Next time zman makes an honest comment here will be the first.
The cretinous Bobb is too ignorant of real history and facts before his cartoon post-(Howard) Xinn history takes over to be taken seriously. Apparently.
This, this thread had devolved into two themes. Empire and Zaphod’s certainties.
I happen to have actually delivered a paper on Empire and the US West Pacification of Indians, at a history conference on Imperialism. It was post 9/11 event in 2006 in Chapel Hill, NC, where an NEH assistant director invited me to submit an application to lead a sponsored seminar on my topic. So, my interest in replying here is well founded
“Empire” is a geographically large enterprise of political, economic, or cultural consequence — paradigmatically
all three. After this, it’s up for contentious grabs. This, New York’s motto is “The Empire State.”
But since Israel is hardly geographically large, why are we set upon arguing over this? Envy of the Jews, I suppose. Or worse, outright hatred.
Which gets us back to Bobb’s pathetic ignorance — endemically pathetic.
To correct the Zaphod pro and con debate, The American Empire originated as a consequence of victory in WWII, preceded by the Atlantic Charter in the summer of 1941. The UK and US signed on for the outlines of a post-Imperial and post-colonial world order.
National right self-determination was to become sacrosanct.
William Odom and his co-author Dujarec (?) argue in “America’s Inadvertabt Empire” that the US thereby established an Empire if a new type.
Past Empire’s were established and maintained by coercion and the threat of coercion. By contrast, this Empire was established by centrifugal forces such as the desire to grow rich (which is precisely the temptation that Trump offered to Nork’s Kim Jun Un in Singapore through a film: grow rich like South Korea!).
The basic qualification is a written constitution, popular sovereignty, and the Rule of Law.
This is, in essence, the OECD’s 40 odd member states.
If this then be EVIL, as Zaphod somehow believes, then please make the most of it!
As Pamela Geller argues, I’ll support civilized against the Barbarians in nearly every fight.
Zaphod doesn’t even argue for that libertarian fig-leaf — the moral superiority of pacifism.
Obloodyhell
Thanks for your work on the WMD. Also the various other reasons. Recall the lefty saying Bush should make up his mind among which reasons?
The Z-man did it. He made an assertion which takes a lot of work to prove that he is wrong. Which was the point. To wear out the other party. He’s wrong. He knows he’s wrong. But somebody is going to have to go to great lengths to prove it for the benefit of third parties watching. And when nobody takes up the effort, Z wins and the third parties are misinformed. It’s from Rules for Radicals, I think
Back in the day, 1936, when Hitler ordered the militarization of the Rhineland, a “single French platoon which fought back” (possibly an exaggeration, maybe a battalion) would have caused the German officers, strongly apprehensive about the affair knowing their parlous state of combat power, to go back to Berlin and can Hitler.
So. No WW II (perhaps the Japanese, not seeing any western diversion in Europe would refrain).
And how would historians today characterize the French resistance? Sordid victor’s vengeance Struggle for markets. Military-industrial complex.
Can anybody make the case–of course not–that one of the US’ many efforts overseas precluded WW III?
I certainly don’t know. But I’m certain that the non-event of 1936 would be covered to the disadvantage of the French meanies against the poor Germans only seeking to reunify a shattered country.
Multi-ethnic Empires are ungovernable without Collective Responsibility. You live in one. Alas for you.
Thanks for the witless ex cathedra. Always an education.
“Empire” is a geographically large enterprise of political, economic, or cultural consequence — paradigmatically
That’s a subset of the definition. An empire assembles ethnically distinct territories, formerly sovereign territories, or colonial settlements. The closest you get to that in today’s world would be India or Indonesia.
Zaphod sings the Can Do! and mourns the loss of the British Empire and what has become of England. But Zaphod can’t be bothered about England and the leftist policies that have destroyed it. CDRSalamander have posited that the CCP should not assume their Three Gorges Dam will be standing for long if they get conventionally aggressive towards Okinawa or Guam.
Can Do! Zaphod Can Do! or Can Swim?
TJ wrote a term paper and gave a speech.
Can we use a little logic here? Israel has enough nuclear weapons plus delivery systems to devastate Iran completely. Presumably, Iran knows this, so keeping up a low-intensity war with Israel is not aimed at winning, it’s aimed at controlling their own population by maintaining a constant state of emergency…an old trick. So why the nuclear weapons? Who do they really hate and want to dominate: The real enemy…the Sunni? They want Mecca, and hope that becoming a nuclear power will propel them to leadership of the Muslim world. (Not likely.) Our foreign policy is so silly that it may defy description? There are so many false premises.
@William Graves
“Our foreign policy is so silly that it may defy description? There are so many false premises.”
And has been for yonks. The question is *why* is it virtually always infallibly ‘wrong’? A Simpleton would just whip out Mearsheimer and Walt and say QED. Not entirely wrong where US Middle-East Policy is concerned, but it doesn’t go anywhere near explaining all the mis-steps in the M-E or in other far away theatres.
I think the whole system is irretrievably corrupt and there are so many perverse incentives pulling in so many different directions that it invariably produces the wrong answers if Right Answer is defined as ‘Benefiting or at least not harming the American People’s Interests’. It may well produce the Right Answers for special interest groups inside and outside USGov/Military/Defence Industry/Wall Street — but to the Man in the Street, they’re going to look like Systemic Failures (for the nth time). The System does not exist for benefit of the Man in the Street, though, does it? Eisenhower knew.
@Everybody Else: Empire!
Here’s a photograph of U.S. Naval Air Station Port Lyautey, Morocco, in the late 1950s:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c4/Kenitra_American_Base.jpg
Just one of many far-flung U.S. military bases that we maintained during the Cold War.
Call it what you will, but we maintained a de facto empire during those years. Little and not-so-little self-contained outposts of America. It didn’t really matter whether we ran or influenced the countries we were in or whether they wanted us there. We were there. In some places, we still are. It’s valid to ask whether that still serves our national interests. To the extent that we can agree on what those are anymore.
@Oldflyer:Frederick, too bad you did not identify the former President. I do not recognize the quote.
Huh, Google must have been down. It’s John Quincy Adams.
If he simply means that, since the JFK/LBJ era, we have developed a habit of being drawn into conflicts that do not benefit us, then we could agree.
I’d say “actively meddling” as opposed to the passive “drawn into”. We keep soldiers in some nations for the purpose of being “drawn into” a conflict, that’s pretty intentional wouldn’t you agree? I mean they didn’t miss their bus and get lost, did they? A large infrastructure exists to keep them there.
Since we have obviously gained nothing of value from these misadventures, I am not sure how that equates to Empire building.
Who’s “we”? There are large numbers of people, not all of them Americans, who profit hugely from our meddling around the globe. You seem not to be among them, and neither am I. We’re not adding territory, not extracting gold or oil, not enslaving subject nations, you’re right.
Modern warfare is much more expensive than any possible profit that could be extracted in such ways, and has been since at least 1900.
I would say our foreign policy exists primarily to put tax money into pockets. Like much of what government does. And so yes “we” benefit for certain values of “we”, the “we” that get to decide where to keep troops and how many weapons to buy.
To profit this way it is unnecessary to annex anything.
At one time that would be a wise policy for a weak country in a contentious world, and many would still consider it so.
Why would it not be appropriate for a strong country? It seems you imply that a strong country must ever extend its power or revert to being weak? And you also say this strong country gets “drawn into” conflicts yielding “nothing of value”? This is a curious idea of “strength”. Is this kind of “strength” even desirable?
I think a commercial republic, strong and free, could do perfectly well keeping the sea lanes open, its soldiers at home, and its interactions with other nations confined to trade except in extreme emergencies. Surely that could supply all the national greatness you could desire. It might even fill as many pockets as the current set of policies; but the pockets would be different ones, and there’s the issue right there.
As it is, one segment of the world condemns American activism; while the disadvantaged and oppressed clamor for it. The latter are grateful, for a period of time.
In Iraq that period of time was measured in what, weeks? And how grateful are the people of Afghanistan would you say, that we propped up a corrupt government, not over concerned with civil liberties, for 20 years?
I don’t imagine you’re a fan of central planning based on what you post here. Nation building is a similar folly. We are not wise enough to determine what is best for other people and give it to them whether they want it or not. We are not wise enough to sort out who is the oppressor and dispense justice. Especially in WWII, where we disposed of one set of genocidal tyrants by enthroning another. What we did was expedient, yes… in a extreme circumstance, and this singular circumstance has been used ever since to justify what we do now in a very different world.
As John Quincy Adams said immediately preceding the bit I quoted,
“America, with the same voice which spoke herself into existence as a nation, proclaimed to mankind the inextinguishable rights of human nature, and the only lawful foundations of government. America, in the assembly of nations, since her admission among them, has invariably, though often fruitlessly, held forth to them the hand of honest friendship, of equal freedom, of generous reciprocity. She has uniformly spoken among them, though often to heedless and often to disdainful ears, the language of equal liberty, equal justice, and equal rights. She has, in the lapse of nearly half a century, without a single exception, respected the independence of other nations, while asserting and maintaining her own. She has abstained from interference in the concerns of others, even when the conflict has been for principles to which she clings, as to the last vital drop that visits the heart. She has seen that probably for centuries to come, all the contests of that Aceldama, the European World, will be contests between inveterate power, and emerging right.
Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will recommend the general cause, by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example…”
“Her glory is not dominion, but liberty. Her march is the march of mind. She has a spear and a shield; but the motto upon her shield is Freedom, Independence, Peace. This has been her declaration: this has been, as far as her necessary intercourse with the rest of mankind would permit, her practice.”
If he were a Jew I’d be entirely in favor of bullying the shit out of him at Hebrew School.
I have read the back and forth about “Empire” with great interest, and I particularly appreciate TJ’s contribution exploring the historical use of the term and its various non-pejorative uses in American history. To which I would add Thos Jefferson’s conception of an “Empire of Liberty” that goes all the way back to 1780.
So a lot of the uproar here is about the perception pf pejorative connotations. I read Zaphod as being brutally frank about the structure of whatever we wish to call the post-1945 and especially post-1989 American role as guarantor of the peace and protector of the world system. The analogy to the Ottoman Empire is intriguing. Similarly, one could look to the example of the later Roman Republic, which was an empire in fact long before it ever recognized an Imperator as holding supreme power. And of course, the Republican laws, forms and titles continued long into the Empire.
Any study of the current Imperial City should conclude that a variety foreign states have their hooks in various factions of our Nomenklatura. Those hooks may be some combination of sympathy and true belief, bribery, blackmail, and the lively expectation of good things to come. The role of the old USSR is well known. The split among the State Department foreign service professionals between the Iran sympathizers and the Saudi sympathizers was legendary. But none of them can compare with the money China has to spend. This financial power is China’s greatest asset.
Fredrick:
You lost all credibility when you analyzed we and WWII; ‘one genocidal tyrant versus another’. USSR, Germany, Japan (all the same to Fredrick), vs Allied powers (all evil racist genocidal to the left). But give me my libertarian fantasy land, eh, Fredrick, from the mid 1800s.
Nation building is a similar folly.
There is no such thing as ‘nation building’
We are not wise enough to determine what is best for other people and give it to them whether they want it or not. We are not wise enough to sort out who is the oppressor and dispense justice. Especially in WWII, where we disposed of one set of genocidal tyrants by enthroning another.
We didn’t.
TJ wrote, “The basic qualification is a written constitution, popular sovereignty, and the Rule of Law.”
.
Ah, Houston, we’ve had a problem.
Frederick makes excellent points.
The problem with every “Forward Policy” is you always acquire a new frontier that needs pacification.
The highest statesmanship lies therefore in knowing which interests must be defended—up to and including waging war—and which frontier squabbles deserve minimum investment. In other words, where to stop.
Oh for the good old days of Empires and colonies, say 1913. The French, Britain, Germany; the big dogs so to speak, and all the lesser dogs, the US, Dutch, Belgians, Ottomans ….. What could possibly go wrong? What’s an empire after all (mostly melanin)?
And of course, I forgot two other European Empires, Russia and the Austro/Hungarians. Oopsie.
Frederick, as I said you think on a different level. I would not write with the intent that someone go to Google to interpret my intent. As an aside, since there are fortunately other options, I do not go to Google, and distance myself from them to the extent I can, which is not enough.
As far as keeping troops on foreign soil so as to create a pretext for war; that is absolute BS. We have kept troops on foreign soil as “trip wires” in an effort to prevent wars. That is a policy –or at least a term– that I detested; although it may, or may not, have been effective in places like Korea and Germany. During the Yom Kippur war our eastern Mediterranean Task Force, which was out numbered about 2 to 1 by the Russians may have been considered a trip wire–although I actually think we were twice as good as the Russians.
Oblio, perhaps it is a simplification; but, I presume that Empire connotes that one people are paying tribute in some form to a foreign based ruler. Eh?
The wisdom of particular post 1945 actions by the U.S. may be debated. The only way to label them as Empirical is to accept a distorted deifinition of the term.
Oldflyer,
Subsidizing client states instead of taxing them is somewhat novel, though even here paying subsidies to allies to keep them in line and to multiply one’s forces was classic British imperial and foreign policy. We may have pursued that to a self-defeating degree.
I don’t think discussing the imperial aspects or features of American foreign policy is inherently a distortion of the word or even implicitly critical of the US. I am with people like Niall Ferguson on this. I reject the Communist propaganda of much of our lifetime that treats “Imperialist” as a term of abuse.
Chickens came home to roost, Bobb fired? Kamau Bobb will be back, maybe in the Biden administration?
https://www.businessinsider.com/kamau-bobb-google-diversity-head-antisemitic-blog-post-2021-6
h/t Instapundit
Come to think of it, London provided such subsidies to the Americans into the 1760’s. The trouble started when they want to collect duties on sugar and molasses imports, and I think create a paper monopoly (though I need to research that one). The Crown, deeply in debt after 70 years of global warfare, didn’t have much in the way of “Inland Revenue” (as it called its IRS to this day), and so it depended on customs duties.
Just one of many far-flung U.S. military bases that we maintained during the Cold War. Call it what you will, but we maintained a de facto empire during those years.
No, we had military bases, which generally have three or four digit populations and territory measured in acres. There is no such thing as a ‘de facto’ empire unless foreign governments are satrapies. They aren’t, except in the imagination of Noam Chomsky.
Note that since 1946, the % of the armed services’ billets located abroad has varied between 13% and 30%. The majority of the billets have been, consistently, in Germany, Japan, and Korea. The ratio of military expenditure to domestic product saw its peak in 1950-53 at about 14%. It declined consistently from 1953 to 1978, bar the period running from 1964-66. It increased from 1978-85, then declined from 1985-2000, then increased from 2000-10, then declined again for the next eight years. At around 4%, it’s near the post-1940 nadir and notably below the Cold War median of 6.7%. The % of the male population between the ages of 18 and 45 enrolled in the military is (if I’m not mistaken) as low as it has been in the last 80 years.
@ zaphod…
I still cherish my ‘I Like IKE’ button!
The root of the problem, “call it what you will.” Words do have meanings.
Zaphod started this particular “call it.”
Oh for the good old days of Empires and colonies, say 1913. The French, Britain, Germany; the big dogs so to speak, and all the lesser dogs, the US, Dutch, Belgians, Ottomans …
The countries with the most populous portfolio of overseas dependencies ca. 1922 were Britain, France, the Netherlands, and Japan in about that order. Germany began to put boots on the ground in Africa and the Far East around 1892 and had lost everything by 1917. The American portfolio consisted of the former Spanish portfolio as it was in 1898 (and a few odds and ends). The vast bulk of it consisted of the Philippines, which was never intended to be a durable possession. Japan’s foray into overseas acquisition lasted about 50 years and ended ignominiously.
@Oldflyer: I would not write with the intent that someone go to Google to interpret my intent.
Neither would I. You said you didn’t know what President said the words. Google or the search engine of your choice would have found that in the time you took to tell me you wish I’d said which one it was. I wasn’t asking you to use the Internet to read my mind.
As far as keeping troops on foreign soil so as to create a pretext for war;
Your words. I did not use these words. I said the troops are there to “draw us in”. You were lamenting that we were being “drawn into conflicts that do not benefit us” as though we didn’t have deliberate policies to ensure that we are drawn into such conflicts…
We have kept troops on foreign soil as “trip wires” in an effort to prevent wars.
…and you concede that these policies exist. We are saying exactly the same thing, except when I say it you read in some extra invidiousness by using words like “create a pretext” which I didn’t use.
It does kind of sound like we’re talking about labels. Some people think “empire” is a criticism. In the end it generally devolves into No True Scotsman.
The US may well not be an True Scots Empire but certainly there is an extent of meddling in the business of other lands and peoples that is sufficiently empire-like to merit the comparison and then the question would be is the US at that level.
Diversity (i.e. color judgment) is a Pro-Choice religious dogma that denies individual dignity, individual conscience, intrinsic value, and normalizes color blocs (e.g. the racist designation “people of color”), color quotas, and affirmative discrimination. It complements the principle of political congruence (“=”) advocated by the Progressive Church, Synagogue, Mosque, Agency, Corporation, Chamber, Clinic, etc.
Baby Lives Matter
Fredrick must assume that other countries don’t have interests and political goals and ends. They certainly couldn’t be meddling in “our” business or in other countries (whose interests align with ours) business. Oh to live in the 1800s with John Quincy Adams.
Diversity, whether Jew privilege or White privilege, inherited responsibility, and through color association (e.g. racism), is a woke and morally broke dogma.
Frederick, your admonishments are acknowledged. Although I paraphrased your words, perhaps poorly, the context is valid. We followed a trip wire policy. That is exactly the opposite of what you postulated. It is intended to prevent war not draw us into war. My objection is simply out of sympathy for the human trip wires.
As far as Britain “subsidizing” the colonies, I think it would be more accurate to say that they were investing in their enterprise so as to attain best return. To compare Britain’s attitude and actions in the 17th and 18th centuries to those of the United States over the past one hundred years strikes me as disingenuous.
Perspectives vary.
America is best characterized as a LEO. However, economic and social welfare policies could be considered coercive. China, on the other hand, practices colonialism through overwhelming immigration reform, marriage of its excess males (following Pro-Choice/one-child) to native women, and welfare policies (e.g. arbitrage, shared responsibility).
Bush 2 ended the war in Iraq that started with Bush 1, sustained by Clinton, with diverse causes (e.g. human rights), and a “pretext”, if you would call it that, of development of WMD, including confirmed discover of precursors and resources.
Obama saved the Iraq War and progressed it with Iraq War 2.0, or the greater Middle East, Africa, Europe, and Asia (effectively global) war, and [catastrophic] [anthropogenic] immigration reform and collateral damage.
In related news, the Biden administration has doubled down on excess deaths through federal funding of abortion fields… clinics.
The US may well not be an True Scots Empire but certainly there is an extent of meddling in the business of other lands and peoples that is sufficiently empire-like to merit the comparison and then the question would be is the US at that level.
It’s not empire-like at all. And people who talk this way don’t bother to define ‘meddling’ or ‘business of other lands’ or to differentiate either from mundane cross-border relations.
Oldflyer,
I think you meant to take me and not Frederick to task about who bore the cost of the British garrison in America before the War of Independence. I assure you I am not being disingenuous. The facts are pretty clear on this point…the Americans did not pay for it except to the extent that British imports of American products generated customs duties. Of course, one could and people have made the argument that our military garrisons overseas have indirectly led to benefits at home by creating stronger trading partners. But nobody says the British Empire was not an empire, even when it was only legally a kingdom.
A sophisticated version of this argument asserts that the US systematic deficits to this point reflect an export trade in which we export security and other countries buy our debt, which amounts to a subsidy because otherwise interest rates would need to be much higher. In addition, we benefit from having the premiere reserve currency, with all that implies for influence over intl financial institutions and trade flows. Intriguing thought, but too clever by half. The Chinese are not buying our debt because they want our security.
You were quite right to raise the question of finance. That needs more attention in all historical discussions. I am working on a thesis that says people like Ben Franklin understood how fragile the Crown’s finances were—he had been a senior bureaucrat in London—and therefore the limits on London’s ability to coerce the colonies.
Of course, one could and people have made the argument that our military garrisons overseas have indirectly led to benefits at home by creating stronger trading partners. But nobody says the British Empire was not an empire, even when it was only legally a kingdom.
Huh? There were 17 British dependencies in North America. Neither Japan nor Germany is a dependency of the United States.
Bush 2 ended the war in Iraq that started with Bush 1, sustained by Clinton, with diverse causes (e.g. human rights), and a “pretext”, if you would call it that, of development of WMD, including confirmed discover of precursors and resources. Obama saved the Iraq War and progressed it with Iraq War 2.0, or the greater Middle East, Africa, Europe, and Asia (effectively global) war, and [catastrophic] [anthropogenic] immigration reform and collateral damage.
This is incoherent.
Art+Deco,
The question was whether failure to levy taxes means you don’t have an imperial situation. You and I agree, the colonies owed allegiance to the Crown and were part of the British Empire.
I go beyond that to say that the legal form doesn’t determine whether or not something is an empire. A republic can be an empire, as shown by Rome, the Dutch, and even the Venetians in a small way.
I go beyond that to say that the legal form doesn’t determine whether or not something is an empire.
I cannot help but notice that people who talk this way do not state their boundary conditions beyond making analogies.
This is incoherent.
What is “incoherent”? War 1.0. War 1.5 (the end of 1.0). War 2.0. War 2.5. Progressive conflicts? The refugee crises a.k.a. immigration reform? The cause and effect?
the argument that our military garrisons overseas have indirectly led to benefits at home by creating stronger trading partners
Cooperation with mutual benefits. Presumably under voluntary conditions. Although, the “benefits” could be perceived as coercive a la vaccine(s) with promises of liberty, stimulus, and freedom from liability. It depends on how much informed autonomy the sovereign entity retains.
“Especially in WWII, where we disposed of one set of genocidal tyrants by enthroning another.” – Frederick
“You lost all credibility when you analyzed we and WWII; ‘one genocidal tyrant versus another’. USSR, Germany, Japan (all the same to Fredrick), vs Allied powers (all evil racist genocidal to the left).” – om
The first set of tyrants, as I read Frederick’s statement, was Nazi Germany, and we enthroned the USSR under the Stalinists. Or, perhaps more precisely, chose not to dethrone them when we might possibly have had the opportunity, and left that task for a later day.
Please note the weaselly adverbs; opinions differed then and now.
For a wider definition of “set” we can add Japan being displaced by China, but there you have the Nationalist vs Maoist bait-and-switch to consider.
Very salon-style discussion here; we needed crumpets and tea to complete the model.
and we enthroned the USSR under the Stalinists. Or, perhaps more precisely, chose not to dethrone them when we might possibly have had the opportunity, and left that task for a later day.
His assertion was rubbish and your alternative is as well.
Art+Deco,
Easy there, partner. Things can be alike in some ways and different in others.
@Art+Deco:His assertion was rubbish and your alternative is as well.
I wonder if Poles would agree with you. WWII was fought ostensibly to preserve their independence and then they were handed off to Soviet domination. Same with the Baltic republics. We legitimated that not merely by failing to prevent it, but through the United Nation institutions we built, for example in the Security Council. We chose to make the Soviet Union a partner on an equal footing. From a realpolitik standpoint, ok, but I don’t think it’s the moral high ground.
We even blamed the Katyn massacre on Germany for them. We convicted Nazis of crimes the Soviet Union committed. At Nuremberg we charged Doenitz for the same submarine warfare we practiced against Japan. We had the decency not to convict him.
We extradited people who fled from them back to them, to be murdered or enslaved.
Hungary and Romania and Finland were different cases and their post-war treatment could be said to have followed from their alliances, but they collaborated with Germany through having no other choices. We had other choices.
It’s fine to say that the US, like other nations, has interests. It’s fine to say that we’re still a shining city on a hill even when we compromise our principles.
I just stick at saying we’re a shining city on a hill BECAUSE we’re somehow fulfilling these principles by the acts of compromising them…
The Soviets were quite well enthroned without our help before 1939, ask the victims of the Holodomor, oh you can’t, they were all dead. The Soviets knew how to keep their power (think Beria, Gulags, Kolyma ….) In the fall and winter of 1941 the Soviets managed to hold off the Germans before they captured Moscow or Leningrad without our immediate help but certainly benefited from our after that. And of course we were not exactly in any position to dethrone the Soviets in 1945. Or am I missing something. Enough to make one a bit puzzled about the level of stupid posing as an argument.
Preventing the USSR from doing what it planned to do in Eastern Europe would have been immensely difficult, practicall impossible.
Preventing the USSR from expanding its influence westward was itself a challenge.
There were some victories, to be sure (e.g., W. Berlin and ultimately Austria—keeping in mind that Vienna is East, i.e., SE, of Prague).
In fact, the West had its hands full trying to keep certain NATO countries (with their Euro-Communist Parties) in line…
Related:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Unthinkable
Fredrick:
Do you know for instance that the US Army in Europe had a shortage of Infantry Divisions? Those are called boots on the ground? Do you consider that when fighting in Europe ended it wasn’t over in the Far East (Japan)?
Iwo Jima, Okinawa. Some losses there too buck oh.
Poland got royally screwed, again. Finland got screwed by geography again (sucks to be neighbors with Russia) as did the Baltics.
Not the worst choices in a bad situation? Cry me another river. Or whatever …
I wonder if Poles would agree with you. WWII was fought ostensibly to preserve their independence and then they were handed off to Soviet domination. Same with the Baltic republics.
All of which were occupied by Soviet Russia at the end of the war. We didn’t have any options there.
We legitimated that not merely by failing to prevent it, but through the United Nation institutions we built, for example in the Security Council. We chose to make the Soviet Union a partner on an equal footing. From a realpolitik standpoint, ok, but I don’t think it’s the moral high ground.
We never ‘legitimized’ anything and the United Nations is not an autonomous power center.
We even blamed the Katyn massacre on Germany for them.
So what? Did we have reliable information that Germany was not responsible?
We convicted Nazis of crimes the Soviet Union committed. At Nuremberg we charged Doenitz for the same submarine warfare we practiced against Japan. We had the decency not to convict him.
He actually was convicted and the Nuremburg tribunals were a joint venture, not something done by our government unilaterally. Again, this is irrelevant to the question at hand.
We extradited people who fled from them back to them, to be murdered or enslaved.
Who? And, again, of what relevance is this to your core contention?
Hungary and Romania and Finland were different cases and their post-war treatment could be said to have followed from their alliances, but they collaborated with Germany through having no other choices. We had other choices.
Huh?
I’m not inclined to listen to you free-associate unless I get paid for it.
Finland got screwed by geography again
Finland was given comparatively congenial treatment.
Agree wrt Finland. They lost some land to the Soviets and had to mind their Ps&Qs during the Cold War with the Soviets. Not as bad a the Baltic states or Poland by any means.
Seems that the Boomer Class USS Neocon has broached bigly. Hadn’t you guys better get a green board and dive, dive, dive before all this thrashing about upon the billowing blue wet stuff adversely impacts the General Dynamics share price?
Zaphod:
And the horse or hearse you came in on.
Care to redefine some more words or water ski behind that submarine?
Can Do! Zaphod Can Do!
What this thread demonstrates to those with eyes to see is that History looks very different depending upon one’s vantage point.
Lot of Jews in here. As far as they’re concerned, One Big Thing happened in C20 and literally anything is permissible and indeed admirable if it rectified that situation and made (they hope) it unlikely to ever happen again.
That’s cool. Irish have their One Big Thing. Poles have their One Big Thing. Ukrainian Slavs have their One Big Thing. Armenians have their One Big Thing… and on and on and on… Hell, Russians have their One Big Thing (Great Patriotic War). Japanese have Two Big Things which they can kvetch about whilst ignoring the Big Thing they did to the Chinese. The Chinese have several Foreign Big Things they moan about whilst studiously ignoring the Elephant in the Room of some Humongous Things they did to themselves.
Big Things Abound. They are comforting, nay self-defining things and we don’t like to let go of them. They also tend to be useful for justifying the other Things we do.
Legacy Americans of a certain age have their One Big Thing: Defender of the Free World and Light on the Hill.
None of these Big Things hold much value for a Rational Actor trying to Maximise Utility. But since when were humans rational?
How would Zaphod know how many Jews are “in here?” Would Neo know how many views, lurkers, vs commenters and then know how many Jews versus all other categories of people there are? But why does Zaphod focus on melanin and Jew or non Jew? It is his one big thing, a sickness? Sad.
Can Do! Zaphod Can Do!