Two regs, less than 30 min old, both trying to launder the bullshit Kissinger did. Odd.
> hese are the hard decisions one grapples with as Secretary of State.
SoS of an imperialist country. During a time of America's greatest atrocities. And during a time where no one could challenge US hegemony. There is no statecraft to be learned here. There is nothing to learn from him other than what a piece of shit he is.
I mean, just admit that you don't want this hegemony to exist on the first place. Let people decide if they've enjoyed the dividends that have flowed from being the uncontested center of the world for a century.
But let's not pretend that there's some alternative world out there where we could have had clean hands, but not ended up in some communist dystopia where most of us wouldn't be here, because our parents or grandparents were liquidated.
I'm not the above commenter, but I imagine this take is not so tinfoil-y.
It's due to the Cold War we were experiencing around that time, and the fact that U.S. hegemony was only checked by a truly evil force (in its good nature, to be apologist). The USSR would have loved for the United States to end up the same type of place, with many millions dead or permanently interned in camps.
I imagine you're younger than to have experienced that type of fear, but it was real fear and a real threat. The questionable and bloody decisions our government made was largely to fight that threat and ensure that wouldn't happen to us.
Yeah, this is has just been the history of revolutionary communism everywhere it's been tried. IMHO completely worth fighting against, even with imperfect measures. I don't blame the Chileans for stopping it, and we were right to help. The alternatives were known to be far worse.
btw Allende was in office for 3 years before he was deposed.
> history of revolutionary communism everywhere it's been tried.
"revolutionary" is a clever way of excluding all of the successful models of socialism - like the scandanavian countries which consistently rank as the happiest countries on the planet.
Yes, it's a good way to stick to the cases where communism has been tried at 10-100M+ populations, and not get distracted by tiny, ethnically homogeneous, and as-arguable-as-not socialist countries like Norway or Sweden. Those too are hardly models for the US, but not for the reason that they required mass slaughter of one-third their populations.
As a Swedish citizen, I would like to note that we are not socialist — basically nobody in the country wants to be claimed as some example of socialism. The highest income tax rate is nearly equivalent to that of the US. :)
Hate to break it to you, but that wouldn’t lead to communism. The people it replaces are useless to the ruling class. At best we’d go back to feudalism, at worst we’d be deemed worthless and a drain on the planet.
I'm always confused when I see people talking about automated luxury communism. Whoever owns the "means of production" isn't going to obtain or develop them for free. Without some omnipotent benevolent world government to build it out for all, I just don't see it happening. It's a beautiful end goal for society, but I've never seen a remotely plausible set of intermediate steps to get there
The very concept of ownership is a social artifact, and as such, is not immutable. What does it mean for the 0.1% to own all the means of production? They can't physically possess them all. So what it means in practice is that our society recognizes the abstract notion of property ownership, distinct from physical possession or use - basically, the right to deny other people the use of that property, or allow it conditionally. This recognition is what reifies it - registries to keep track of owners, police and courts to enforce the right to exclude.
But, again, this is a construct. The only reason why it holds up is because most people support it. I very much doubt that's going to remain the case for long if we end up in a situation where the elites own all the (now automated) capital and don't need the workers to extract wealth from it anymore. The government doesn't even need to expropriate anything - just refuse to recognize such property rights, and withdraw its protection.
I hope that there are sufficiently many capitalists who are smart enough to understand this, and to manage a smooth transition. Because if they won't, it'll get to torches and pitchforks eventually, and there's always a lot of collateral damage from that. But, one way or another, things will change. You can't just tell several billion people that they're not needed anymore, and that they're welcome to starve to death.
The problem I see is that once the pitchforks come out, society will lose decades of progress. If we're somewhat close to the techno-utopia at the start, we won't be at the end. Who's going to rebuild on the promise that the next generation won't need to work?
Revolutions aren't great at building a sense of real community; there's a good reason that "successful" communist uprisings result in totalitarian monarchies.
What it means for the 0.01% to own the means of production is that they can offer access to privilege in a hierarchical manner. The same technology required for a techno-utopia can be used to implement a techno-dystopia which favors the 0.01% and their 0.1% cronies, and treats the rest of humanity as speedbumps.
There are already fully-automated murder drones, but my dishwasher still can't load or unload itself.
I suspect "the 0.01% own and run all production by themselves" isn't possible in the real world. My evidence is that this is the plot of Atlas Shrugged.
If they're not trading with the rest of the world, it doesn't mean they're the only ones with an economy. It means there's two different ones. And the one with the 99.9% is probably better, larger ones usually are.
Revolutions aren't great, period. But they happen when the system can no longer function, unless somebody carefully guides a transition to another stable state.
That said, wrt "communist" revolutions specifically - they result in totalitarian dictatorships because the Bolshevik/Marxist-Leninist ideology underpinning them is highly conductive to that: concepts like dictatorship of the proletariat (esp. in Lenin's interpretation of it), vanguard party, and democratic centralism all combine to this inevitable end result.
But no other ideological strain of Marxism has ever carried out a successful revolution - perhaps because they simply weren't brutal enough. By means of example: Bolsheviks violently suppressed the Russian Constituent Assembly within one day of its opening, as soon as they realized that they don't have the majority there. In a similar way, despite all the talk of council democracy, they consistently suppressed councils controlled by their opposition (peasant ones were, typically).
Bolsheviks were the first ones who succeeded, and thereafter, their support was crucial to the success of other revolutions - but that support came with ideological strings attached. So China, Korea, Vietnam, Cuba etc all hail from the same authoritarian tradition. Furthermore, where opposition leftist factions vied for dominance against Soviet-backed ones, Soviets actively suppressed them - the campaign against "social fascism" in 1930s, for example, or persecution of anarchists in Republican Spain.
Anyway, we don't really know what a revolution that would stick to democratic governance would look like, long term. There were some figures and factions in the revolutionary Marxist communist movement that were much more serious about democracy than Bolsheviks - e.g. Rosa Luxemburg. They just didn't survive for long.
idk. Countries used to build most of their infrastructures them selfs. There are still countries in western Europe that run huge state owned businesses, such as banks, oil companies, etc. that employ a bunch of people. The governments of these countries were (and still are) far from omnipotent. I personally don’t see how building out automated production facilities is out of scope for the governments of the future while it hasn’t been in the past.
Perhaps the only thing that is different today is the mentality. We take capitalism so much for granted that we cannot conceive of a world where the collective funds are used to provide for the people (even though this world existed not to long ago). And today we see it as a natural law that means of production must belong in private hands, that is simply the order of things.
Most people are barely aware of crypto, let alone the negative effects of it. Once people become more informed, hopefully more and more people will see what a plague on society it is.
The people who have that specific stance on crypto are usually those who know just enough to have to form an opinion but not enough to realize how little they know.
The right to govern extends from the consent of the governed. It's not a question of who "should" own Hong Kong based on some centuries old history. It's a question of who the people of Hong Kong choose to govern them. Had an open referendum been held in 1997, it's almost certainly the case that the citizenry would not have voted to return to the tutelage of the dictatorship in Beijing.
This is something I don't understand as well. Why didn't Hong Kong choose to become an independent state when they had the chance? They could have thrived like Singapore does.
Hong Kong is still a more free society. So probably its not a good suggestion to make it worse than what it is already due to heavy handed approach to national security. Please check report in Hong Kong (52 points) [1] and Singapore (49 points) [2] on freedom.
In Hong Kong one can go for protest if its not breaking the National Security Law, in Singapore no one can protest unless approved by Police, recent case highlights it when a student send a tweet to protest when Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison visited Singapore [3].
Hong Kong is still very good when it comes to internet and freedom of expression. Also it follows common law jurisdictions and judges are able to give judgements against the government in many instances. Also Singapore has POFMA [4], which is worse than rules in Hong Kong.
In Hong Kong anyone can form a company and manage it without having a local permanent resident or citizen as Director. In Singapore one cannot form a limited liability company easily unless has a local permanent resident or citizen as Director (for others need a special conditions and permission).
I have no love for the CCP but I think this type of caricature simplification is both wrong and not insightful. The CCP members are not some cartoon villains bent on world domination.
The British did not allowed them to choose either. The members of legislative created by the British is based on appointment not elections. The British only decided the reform the legislative after the handover sealed.
The CCP prevented the British from enacting democratic reforms and any self-determination in Hong Kong, under the thread of military invasion. This isn't on Britain, they tried decades prior.
Sounds like a good approach. Why not put it to practice by letting China own Florida for 150 years, then see who Floridians want to join at the end of it.
>The right to govern extends from the consent of the governed.
First I must say that what's happening to HK is tragic, and I very much empathize with their situation, and am not at all in agreement with how the CCP is handling this.
But this is quite the take! I don't know if you're US-based, but by that logic if the Native Americans held a referendum, they would have most certainly not allowed the U.S. government to form on their land.
This is simply a case of Big Stick Ideology, something the U.S. is quite familiar with [1]
Yes, that is why people feel that what was done to Native Americans was wrong. By which I mean that Americans believe it was wrong. It was also 200 years ago, and no explicit treaty had been signed to another world power granting them rights (the French and Spanish sold them out).
Unless you think it was right and the Big Stick is right, then HK is more than tragic. It is a violation of international treaty and of human rights.
The U.S. has a whole history with Latin America that was a lot less than 200 years ago. I'd argue that many outside of the U.S believe this policy isn't a thing of the past.
>French and Spanish sold them out
I don't find the suggestion that those that were subjugated needed rights granted to them by outside groups, including those that colonized them to begin with.
Again, I'm in agreement that this is wrong, but I also believe that "Rules for thee but not for me" is not a very productive type of diplomacy either.
If that's the case we would see an effort to reverse those wrongs by reverting all the economic benefit that America gained at the expense of Native Americans. All the land and lives taken, and all the wealth and prosperity they could have generated. The total sum if repaid would probably erase a significant part of America from the map.
So it was wrong. But clearly not wrong enough to warrant erasing America and its wealth from existence. Saying sorry and expressing regret is cheap. Actual action is expensive.
As an aside, I wonder what the psychological effects are from growing up in a nation where the public discourse is all about how the nation was unjustly founded. If a significant part of the next generation believes that America's historical foundations are rotten to the core and that its existence is a tragedy, what happens next?
> If that's the case we would see an effort to reverse those wrongs by reverting all the economic benefit that America gained at the expense of Native Americans.
Note that, like LatinX, Native Americans is something only white people say. They call themselves Indians. Activist/government terms usually end up kind of patronizing for some reason.
(And they were called Indians before people from India were called that.)
India has been used in the English language for over 1,000 years, and in Latin and before that Greek for at least 1,500 years before that, along with Indian and its equivalents in other languages.
This was of course well before anyone used the word "Indian" to refer to Native Americans.
Even before America was discovered, "the Indies"/Indians/indios was used to refer to Ethiopia as well as India. They didn't have very clear ideas of where things were but that also suggests it was just meant to refer to any tropical area.
Or you can use backformation and say it's short for Indigenous.
The name India literally derives from the Sindhu river (aka the Indus river), which became Hindu in Persian (S->H is a common sound correspondence between Sanskrit and Persian), and dropped the initial H when getting into Greek. It was also used to refer to some areas beyond India -- (i.e, modern Indonesia or the "East Indies", but the origin of it was from civilizational India.).
I've never heard of India being used to refer to Ethiopia. Ethiopia itself is a phrase of Greek origin, and dates back at least to Herodotus.
Yeah, as a neutral observer, I feel conflicted. What the CCP is doing feels wrong.
But on the other hand, China was forced to agree to the HK situation particularly since they were at a disadvantage militarily and economically to the British empire.
China (CCP) would understandably not be in a mood to comply with agreements they felt coerced into.
I genuinely don't understand the full situation, and I'm not trying to imply that the CCP is in the right.
I'm just trying to understand if the whole "bullied into a disadvantaged agreement" is a valid world view to take.
Hong Kong was built from nothing by the British. Before the British arrived and settled HK, it was but an empty jungle mountains sticking of an estuary on the Ocean. By comparison, the powerhouse of southern China, Guangzhou, was plenty populated. They ceded some empty land to the brits to build a trading port some distance away.
Why would the Communist Party of China have more of a claim to this land than the brits? When HK was ceded and built, the CCP didn't even exist and wouldn't for a few more hundred years. A different power (the Qing empire) controlled the land from afar. They are from a different ethnic group (Manchurian), from modern day northern China / Russia, and have very little to do with the Cantonese people who inhabit southern China.
> Almost like making it legal, relatively cheap, and easily accessible makes it so you don't have to resort to desperate means.
I think the question of legality muddles the argument. Its illegal to drive under the influence yet many do and some end up in horrific accidents.
We're stewards of the next generation. We're their parents, teachers, role models. Our aim should be to reduce the use of crystal meth, and other drugs that cause self-harm. No different than promoting exercise, knowledge, healthy lifestyles, etc.
Making something illegal is a powerful disincentive - but we don't expect it to work 100% perfectly. Its important to recognize when something isn't working - but lets not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Government policies are like supertankers and once they're operating at speed, they're hard to stop/steer.
The "gateway drug" assertion isn't an "all or nothing" issue. There's nuance to it.
Ask a bunch of drug addicts if they used weed before [heroin|coke|speed|lsd|<insert-drug-of-choice>|aota], most of them will say yes. At least the ones I've been hanging out with in NA for the past 25+ years.
Does that mean, smoke weed and you'll automatically end up using other drugs? No.
>Ask a bunch of drug addicts if they used weed before [heroin|coke|speed|lsd|<insert-drug-of-choice>|aota], most of them will say yes.
Correlation != causation. The idea of a 'gateway' drug is absurd.
The simplest explanation is that people with mental illness or trauma will self medicate. So given that, it makes sense that the easiest to acquire/least scary drugs would be the first used. I bet even more people got started on alcohol as their first 'treatment'. That doesn't make it a gateway drug.
Here is one study that shows the discrepancy of how "outsiders" think about Marijuana as a gateway drug vs. "insiders":
> Marijuana is often referred to as a gateway drug due to its placement in the stage-like progression of drug use (Kandel, 2002; Zimmer & Morgan, 1997). This study examines the gateway drug concept from an insiders' perspective. Qualitative, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 51 current and former users of marijuana. Data were collected between 2000 and 2002. Data on drug histories and perceptions about marijuana as a gateway drug were analyzed. While 80.3% (n = 41) of participants initiated their drug use experiences with alcohol or tobacco, one-third (n = 15) used an illicit drug other than marijuana prior to initiating marijuana. The adults in this study varied with regard to their perceptions about whether or not they thought marijuana was a gateway drug. Forty-five percent (n = 23) expressed viewpoints characterized as mixed or conflicting, 35% (n = 18) did not support the idea that marijuana was a gateway drug, and 19.6% (n = 10) strongly supported the notion.
30 years? The 90s still had police going hard on drug dealers and users.
And I didn't realize the Sackler family was skating by cause the DEA stopped arresting marijuana users.
Also, on the more conspiratorial side, it is curious how opioid supply and use flourished as soon as we were in Afghanistan. Kind of like it did when we were in Vietnam. Two areas known for poppies and heroin. Given what we know about the FBI encouraging terrorism so they can then claim they stopped it, I wouldn't be surprised if the CIA/JSOC was funneling in the drugs for cash and the DEA was mopping that up for cash/reason to exist.
> hese are the hard decisions one grapples with as Secretary of State.
SoS of an imperialist country. During a time of America's greatest atrocities. And during a time where no one could challenge US hegemony. There is no statecraft to be learned here. There is nothing to learn from him other than what a piece of shit he is.