I’d question the idea that failed diplomacy is always due to stupidity or irrationality. People’s interests are shaped by emotions, power dynamics, and values not just logic. Even when opinions and interests seem irreconcilable, there are often ways to avoid war if both sides are willing to make concessions. The challenge is that compromise often feels like a loss, which is why diplomacy sometimes falters. — ZisKnow

Clausewitz looks at war from the perspectives of nations states, but there's the notion of war as a civil war, which is a rather different kind of monster.

Civil wars can happen when the society simply breaks up and cannot take care of it's members as before. If someone can come up with a civil war erupting in a state where the economy was great and people prosperous, please tell me, because I don't know of such a civil war except for perhaps on exception (and likely here I'm showing my ignorance). The exception that comes to my mind is the American Civil War, where at least to history economical hardship wasn't the reason for the war. But here I can be wrong.

@Maw made that remark six years ago, so at least for me the link is saying "not found". Yeah, not everything stays in the net. And Scruton died five years ago. I would assume that Scruton as a traditional conservative wouldn't be so enthusiastic about the state of conservatism today, anyway.

Sad that conservatives like Scruton seem to be a dying breed.

I’m a bit late to the thread. Just to put you at ease, mathematical infinities are not the same thing as philosophical infinities. They are precisely defined and used as means to perform mathematical equations. Which is pretty much what sime has said. — Punshhh

Well, umm.... in Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory infinity is taken as an axiom. Hence there's no proof for infinity.

Then there's open question of the Continuum Hypothesis and it's status, which tells us that even math / set theory doesn't precisely understand infinity. Even the Cantorian system of a cascade of larger infinities is something that is under debate.

Of course as @jgill mentioned above, mathematicians aren't bothered about all of this as they have their limits (plus you do have non-standard analysis for infinitesimals), so one could describe the situation like mathematicians have outsourced the philosophical problem to set theorists.

The pogroms aren't a great example. If this exile were to happen, it's because the Palestinians were defeated by another civilization. But yes, exiles can have value. It's about how the culture understands the exile and what they do from there. I understand that exile is no walk in the park, but it's a completely different matter from genocide. — BitconnectCarlos

The issue here is that the Palestinian identity is fixed on Palestine, the territory, just as Zionism has fixed the Jewish identity on the land of Israel, the same territory. A Palestinian abroad aren't migrants, but see themselves as refugees. Thus they won't adapt to be Americans, Egyptians, French or German or whoever. For many Jewish people their religion is not their national identity, but for Israeli Jews zionism is part of their identity. Similarly it is for the Palestinians: the Nakbah and those cherished keys to their old now nonexistent houses that the families hold on as relics is what makes the Palestinian identity.

Peoples identities are lost either by cultural assimilation or by genocide. The sad reality in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is that there is no option of cultural assimilation. Israel is the homeland for Jews, not a "multiethnic country that celebrates it's diversity". The conflict itself is part of the national character of both Jewish Israelis and the Palestinians. And when you have different laws to different people, this is totally evident. And this is why there is no "great solution" for this conflict. Only bad ones.

Forced transfer or forced settlement has been used numerous of times, famously used by Stalin and the Soviet Union to control it's Empire. Ethnic cleansing came to define similar actions only during the Yugoslav Civil War. I hardly think it's so positive as you depict it to be:

Sometimes in exile things improve for the people. It allows them to rebuild in a better way. — BitconnectCarlos

So like the Pogroms in Eastern Europe that drove many Jews to migrate to America was ...actually a splendid thing to happen? :chin:

Yet as I've stated already, Azerbaijan did use ethnic cleansing / forced transfers, yet simply declaring publicly that nobody will be forced out, it worked perfectly. No condemnations whatsoever! Thing seems to be forgotten. Because they (the Azeris) didn't tell publicly that they want every single Armenian out.

I think Jordan and Egypt (and possibly Indonesia) taking Palestinian refugees would be a great solution and I hope it works out. — BitconnectCarlos

It's not a great solution and likely won't happen. It is as delusional to especially think that it's a great solution as is the anti-semitist thinking that Israel is a Western colonial project and the European Jews that have migrated there ought to migrate back to where they came from. After all, the Crusader States were for longer than present Israel has been around.

And no, I'm not saying that to be any solution, but just an example of the offensive "solutions" that people give.

Model Trumpian choice. Wanted as governor of South Dakota to deploy the local National Guard to the southern border with the financing of a billionaire. Didn't go through, but actions like holding the Trump line that the 2016 elections were rigged, ensured that she would get a position. And as a grandmother she's not yet ugly, which is important for Trump.

No, global trade needs one currency. — frank

Nonsense!

Have you ever heard of a system called a market? And it's simple math to trade with a basket of currencies. No, seriously, the global economy doesn't need one currency. For the vast majority of human history there hasn't been a currency in the role as the dollar was post WW2. This is the major fallacy that Americans seem to have about their awesomeness. It's all related to WW2 and the role the US dollar was given in the post-war system. Ask just why would the Arab states buy an sell their oil in dollars if it wasn't the security guarantees that the US has given to them?

. It's the dollar now because the Chinese want it to be the dollar. When they change their minds, it will become the yuan. — frank

When the global system is dollar based, why not. China doesn't want a conflict with the American Superpower and China simply isn't as aggressive as the US portays it to be. But yes, that can change...

In China’s telling, these strategies are less about offense — trying to dethrone the U.S. dollar or replacing it in the global system with the renminbi — and more about defense: strengthening China’s financial security and reducing its geo-economic vulnerabilities within the existing dollar-dominated global economic and financial system. Beijing wants to minimize its exposure to a potential dollar liquidity crunch and ensure its continued access to global capital markets even during times of geopolitical crisis.

No Chinese leaders have publicly expressed an intention to dethrone the dollar despite escalating geopolitical and trade tensions between the U.S. and China beginning in 2018. However, as those tensions persist, Chinese financial regulators and scholars have explicitly expressed concerns about Beijing’s vulnerabilities and urged government officials to step up efforts to protect the financial system.

Fang Xinghai, vice chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, has cautioned that China should urgently prepare for the possibility of being removed from the U.S. dollar-based global payment system — a form of “forced financial decoupling.” In such a scenario, Chinese entities would lose the ability to access the U.S. dollar or use it to conduct international transactions.

Hence it's obvious that the Chinese have had to think about this, especially seeing what happened to Russia after Putin invaded Ukraine. You can face then sanctions and severe problems in trade, but it's not an existential threat as Russia has shown. If they would invade Taiwan, the most likely response would be sanctions, freezing of assets and difficulties in normal trade.

They shouldn't. Remember what happened to Syria? — frank

What are you referring to? The line in the sand -speech by Obama?

The US debt will never be paid. It will disappear in the next global economic catastrophe. — frank

Well, then I guess it's paid with inflation. Looking forward to that 1000$ Big Mac? With a 1000$ Big Mac a trillion dollars isn't so much money. And there will be many trillionaires around.

Everyone will start over and Americans will turn back to their own resources. — frank

Oh don't be so dramatic. An economic crisis is just a rearrangement of assets and some generations finishing unemployed until they. But if you have invested well, you will profit from the debacle. And what "turning back to their own resources" are you talking about? That sounds very Trumpian. Do understand that the existence of our societies has always depended on trade.

I think what's finally dying out is the idea that the US is supposed to have global influence. That was cold war ideology. The new US only takes care of itself. That's been coming for a while. — frank

Well, it's taking a lousy effort to take care of itself. Because a lot of what it has depends on that it is a Superpower. Yet many think it's just the sheer awesomeness of the US that it has this role.

Starting from the role of the dollar. Without the US being the Superpower, there is no reason to give it's currency a special role global arena. The US dollar naturally would be important, but then it would be just one among many, just like basically the role that the euro has in international trade. This gives the US the ability to spend totally recklessly and have no worries about a current account crisis. It really affects the life of every American. We could be easily repeating the lines that only now Russia and China are talking about the "unfair" role that the US enjoys.

Then continuing to the simple fact that other countries listen to what the US president says. They don't listen to the prime minister of India says so much. Not even the Chinese leader gathers so much interest.That the West welcomes the US leadership role is again solely because of it's alliances and it's relations and it being a Superpower. In the 1930's or earlier that wasn't the case. So how much did the World listen to some US President? Only brief episode after WW1 was there a role for the US, but that went away quickly as the US went back home and withdrew.

It's sheer stupidity from the US to think that NATO isn't the Crown jewel of it's hegemony. A whole First World union equivalent of the size of the US has entrusted it's security to the US and wants the US to take the lead. How stupid can one be in giving up this dominant position? At worst make your allies former allies and either lukewarm or even hostile to you? It's now been repeated so many times over that the US possibly won't be there for it's allies that Europeans have understood this. Yet the Europeans are still treating the talks about Greenland as "Trump talk", but if Trump literally will want to expand the territory of the US as he said, even the most obstinate supporter of America's role in the security of Europe might change their heart.

I think the main reason is that nobody is telling to the Americans how their economy and thus their way of life has been depended on the country having the role it has. Nobody can tell Donald Trump what is the real price for him if the US would leave NATO.

The F-word has little use, as can bee seen in this thread. — Banno

Would the rapid decline of the liberal democracy and replacement of it with populist autocracy that is supported by few extremely wealthy oligarchs do? That really doesn't fit the f-ideology. That the democratic institutions become mere shadows of themselves and the liberal rule based order be replaced by might makes right as in the 19th Century? In the f-ideology the state institutions ought to be extremely powerful and dominant the extreme rich totally dependent on the state.

There is no ideology here to see, no 20th Century ideology as we have learnt. The only hugely popular accurate definition used by various different commentators (both American and foreign) is transactional. Everything is transactional. Trump supporters will define it as Trump measuring everything as what is profitable for the US and his opponents as what is profitable for Trump himself. If there's some guiding light in Trump's action, it is this transactional attitude toward everything. It explains the Trump talk of Europe "owing" to the US when the countries are spending less of defense.

Why call it "so-called", if Trump helps Netanyahu's dream to be fulfilled? The next issue will be to argue that "ethnic cleansing" isn't genocide, because it isn't mentioned in the definition of a genocide (as is for example of forcibly transferring children of the group to another group, which Russia is doing in Ukraine). For the Netanyahu government, removal of Palestinians from the borders of Isreal (which include Gaza, West Bank, Golan Heights) seems to be a plausible long term solution. And obtainable.

If the destabilization of especially Jordan (and Egypt) is the next issue on the agenda, then hardly anything else would be more effective that this. The last thing that the governments of these two countries want to be is willing participants and enablers of the ultra-nationalist zionists plans for moving all Palestinians out of Israel. As Jordan had to fight earlier the PLO earlier and the Egyptians are no backers of Hamas, the last thing for the two countries is to have huge refugee camps of Palestinians with Hamas.

Also, the fact that the border between Jordan and Egypt have stayed peaceful is because both of the countries armed forces can ensure their side of the peace deal with Israel. That's what an actual peace means. Hamas in the refugee camps won't have none of that.

And let's remember that their is an enthusiastic lust for war within the Netanyahu administration, who insist the war to continue. And why not? It isn't going to be that there's any sanctions hurled at Israel because of this, so simply keep on...

(Times of Israel, 15th Jan 2025) Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich insisted Wednesday that the war in the Gaza Strip must continue, but did not explicitly say whether he will back or oppose an emerging ceasefire deal to release hostages held by Hamas in the Palestinian enclave.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is reportedly pressuring Smotrich to resist a call from allied far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir to exit the government if it approves the hostage agreement on the table.

Ben Gvir has now exited the administration, Smotrich is still hanging on. So the cease-fire is for six weeks. What happens then, we'll see.

Of course I'm not just talking about the Trump family. What rock have you been living under that you think oligarchy only became a thing under Trump? — Tzeentch

Again with the strawmans, Tzeentch. Do we start with the Robber Baron's era or United Fruit Company or Halliburton, or go with the Koch Brothers or with the so much loved George Soros?

Anyway, I think today it's far more obvious, with billionaires like Elon not putting their wealth and other duties on hold (or aside) when applying to government positions. At least formally Dick Cheney as vice President wasn't anymore the CEO of Halliburton. But DOGE is just there in the open and Elon can enjoy both worlds. And nobody cares.

Nothing new under the sun. The US has been an oligarchy for decades, and it still is. It's just that the previous oligarchs have been ousted and they don't like the new ones, so we have to suffer through the whole sanctimonious melodrama. — Tzeentch

Well, if you are talking about the Trump family with also the Kushner family, I guess you are right:

(BBC, 14th Feb 2024) After leaving the White House, Mr Kushner's private equity firm received a $2bn (£1.59bn) investment from Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund.

Mr Kushner worked closely with Saudi Arabia on a number of issues during the Trump administration.

He has denied that the investment represented a conflict of interest.

Add into the context Elon, and there's the obvious inner circle.

This has been common practice in the US for decades. The only difference now is that the billionaires are not on the team you like, so suddenly it's fascism. :yawn: — Tzeentch

Again, it isn't fascism when the state is working on behalf and for one rich individual. And even if similar things have happened before, it hasn't been so clear, so obvious. Earlier managers from corporations or rich people had to put aside their holdings when acting in a government position. Now Elon has simply circumvented that with the aloof DOGE and can be the World's richest man at the same time as he plans the US state to better for him.

For a leader (of the executive branch) to try to seize the control of the other branches and also to stifle the free press is something that can indeed happen in a republic without it being turned into a fascist state. I would argue that autocratic leadership doesn't have to mean that the country is fascist. One can argue that it's a "fascist" move. But then again a lot of political ideologies are against liberal democracy and the separation of powers. Think of Marxism-Leninism. The role of the government can actually be small and power can be with an oligarchy around the leader.

Fascism, obviously. — Tzeentch

Well, who'll be judge of that... Trump is already called that.

but it's not fascism in the way that it looms over the EU under the unelected Queen Ursula. — Tzeentch

What? Queen Ursula?

The EU is a de facto confederacy.

Yes, the institution tries desperately to push for federalism and tries to act as a United States of Europe, but that won't happen. The fact is that the union is made up of sovereign nation states, talking different languages, having different cultural and historical backgrounds and in the end, being sovereign nation states. You can imagine something else and perhaps convince the Americans here, but that is the fact. California or Texas aren't sovereign states and their foreign policy is handled in Washington DC, but Spain and Ireland are sovereign states and their foreign policy isn't done from Brussels.

The executive branch, the Commission, just as the Council of the European Union, is under the control of the sovereign states. It won't happen, there's always going to be a Hungary or an Austria or some country whose leader is opposed to things the majority are pushing. This is structural and endemic for the union.

What happens, and will happen, is that countries like Hungary (or similar) will try to portray the EU's executive branch as "fascist" or "deep state" or whatever. But this is just political rhetoric.

I wouldn't be happy with the EU Parliament taking more power, because that would undermine the Parliament of my own country. So people wanting to give more power to the EU Parliament are in my view crazy.

Took so long into the Trump presidency? I guess how this discourse will go: remember FDR! The 22nd amendment is so new, just given in 1951.

They have to put that through likely before the midterms, as likely then the honeymoon is likely over.

It’s such an elementary and obvious fact - that the consumers of the importing country are those who pay the tariffs — Wayfarer

Just like with inflation, people simply don't understand this or simply won't care. And thus any outrageous reasoning will carry through.

And as I've said, Brexit showed with the British people that once a populism takes hold and it's consequences start to really suck, those that went with the populist streak will be in denial for a really long time. People will believe in the "Morning for" -moment and think that the populists will make it better. These people will simply just become quite silent in the end and once the administration changes, then they have all of this built up fury about how things suck.

(Pity the poor staffers who have to try and explain this to him….’ahem, Mr President, the fact is….. :yikes: ) — Wayfarer

That was the stuff of the first Trump administration. Then people tried that. Not now. Nope. Nobody is going to tell him that. Likely Elon will tell Trump how much that will hurt Trump's own wealth and people can convince the most outrageous actions by reading what outrageous countertariffs EU or the World in general will put up with the US.

The real issue here is that Trump as many Americans are totally ignorant is that the whole economic system is rigged for the US, not against it. Trump is simply dismantling the Superpower status of the US. Why would the Middle Eastern oil producers just use US dollars in the oil trade? Why would the US dollar have the role it has in the global monetary system? It's really not because the US is so awesome, the economy of the rest of the World is larger than of the US. It's all because of the alliances, because of WW2, that the US enjoys this.

Yet a good question is really if this truly is fascism, as the term usually is used as a derogatory insult. There's not the worship of the state itself as in fascist Italy etc. Much looks more like a populist leader with an oligarchy which doesn't care about the separation of powers or the institutions.

Who'd like to take me up on a bet that in 4 years nothing of particular note will have happened, and you all are a bunch of hysterics? — Tzeentch

Define what is "of particular note".

Is it something like the collapse of the Soviet Union or unification of Germany? A financial crisis? Pandemic? End of the dollar system? Conflict over Taiwan? Breakup of NATO?

What would you consider as of particular note?

The difference is, it appears it won’t be filled with the typical symbolic crap, like when Biden violated the agreement with the Taliban by wanting to pull out of Afghanistan on September 11th, the anniversary of the World Trade Center attacks. And all that other cheapened rhetoric which serves only to further divide the people in that Slavic conflict. — NOS4A2

???

The divide is already there between the Russians and the Ukrainians. And Russians with others non-slavs.

ACTUALLY....

The crap did start with the Peace process made by Trump's administration. And here I can give some logic to Trump when you think about it. Because the reasoning just WHY the US was in Afghanistan was that otherwise it would be a "terrorist haven" from where the terrorist would somehow swim to attack Continental US. This idea was repeated again and again, that it made somehow far more sense to Americans than the Domino-theory from the Vietnam-era. If so, then the obvious point for Trump was that Taleban promised not to attack the US and not to be a "terrorist haven".

Well, the Taleban hadn't been in the first place the instigators of the 9/11 attacks, only the financier of the attack as a guest in Afghanistan. Hence it was obviously effortless for the Taleban to agree with this, because their objective was Afghanistan to be their Emirate (as it is now). Not attacking the US. This deal totally undermined the the Republic of Afghanistan: naturally the Taleban continued the fight, yet didn't attack the US.

Imagine if similar peace agreement was done by North Korea during the Korean war. I assume that gladly Kim Il Sung would agreed not to attack US forces or the USA, then dealt with Chinese help with the feeble South Korea.

Hope Trump has learnt the lesson of not trying to have a peace at all costs. Like with the Taleban. Because that was really crap.

I personally doubt this will work, since such actions have already been tried — NOS4A2

I agree. Typically nations that are in peace might be vulnerable to sanctions, but a country that is transforming to a wartime economy doesn't care so much about it. They are already playing that game at a totally different cost level.

60 million deaths in WW2? I thought it was more like 20-30 million.

They won't surely do that when Trump has such moments. Oh no. And one thing is of course that many Trump supporters are ignorant about a lot of things. Why wouldn't those Spaniards be part of the BRICS-nations. Isn't the S there for Spain? :wink:

Many won't notice the things the Trump says, just what "expanding our territory" sounds like to Panamanians. It's like George Bush invading Iraq and then claiming the it's a Crusade America is on. Al Qaeda had a field day with that gaffe.

And the gaffes don't stop. Just like George W did two years ago confusing Putin's invasion of Ukraine with his invasion of Iraq, which is just hilarious!!!

Lol. :lol: Don't assume that Americans would look objectively at both Biden and Trump in the gaffes they do. The vast majority of Americans are either for Trump or Biden and thus against the other. They will never accept such an obvious truth that both old men are showing signs of senility. Just as they will never accept that the disaster that happened in Afghanistan is the fault of both presidents and their administrations.

And this is one of things that Trump might not understand or take into account. If he let's say puts high tariffs against Denmark in order to get Greenland, he is basically doing it with all EU. So in the end, just like with the first Trump administration, one can think that Trump will avoid the worst disasters.

Yet things like Trump going for the Panama Canal might really happen. We shouldn't forget what happened during the older Bush administration. How that will play out this time will be interesting, because Latin American countries might not like it (or simply don't like it). And naturally Trump, as being totally honest with his intensions, doesn't hide the imperialism at all. For Trump the idea of "China controlling the Panama canal now" might be enough of a reason for military action. The idea behind that, I guess, is that a Hong Kong company won the contract for operation of the container shipping ports located at the canal's Atlantic and Pacific outlets.

Yes. Perhaps in many cases he doesn't have to care so much if the executive orders flop either in the courts or in Congress. Trump simply can state it as an example of "Deep State" fighting his administration. And likely his base will be OK with that. At least he tried.

For example the idea of changing the Constitution (or bypassing the Constitution) of taking the birth right citizenship away is likely not going to succeed. But that doesn't matter so much for Trump.

(The Hill, 21st Jan 2025) Twenty-two Democrat-led states and two cities challenged President Trump’s executive order restricting birthright citizenship, which on Tuesday kicked off the first legal battles between his new Justice Department and Democratic attorneys general.

The two separate lawsuits, filed in Massachusetts and Washington state, ask federal judges to rule the order contradicts the Constitution, which under the 14th Amendment bestows citizenship on anyone born in the United States.

“President Trump now seeks to abrogate this well-established and longstanding Constitutional principle by executive fiat,” one group of states wrote in their complaint.

If executive fiat would really overturn here the courts or the courts up to the Supreme Court would OK changing the Constitution, that would extremely worrisome.

We shouldn't forget that the US still has separation of powers.

We'll see how that goes. But he cannot bypass both houses. He would have to have quite the leadership skills by going on ruling without the Congress. And now he still has a very good position in the Congress and a party that is loyal to him. Telling will be the midterms.

I wonder how that order will be implied when it's an Anti-Trump crowd trying to invade the White House. :snicker:

Then it will be "I want the US Army and Marines to fight these bastards." And actually we did see that earlier, btw. Just look how pissed off Trump was at general Milley. So this is just white washing and trying to rewrite history in a very Soviet way. Even if the Dems did go after him like the Republicans went after Clinton.

What is behind Trump's success is the Christian mythology of the westward movement being the will of God and churches believing Trump is God's chosen leader. — Athena

If you think about it, this idea of "Deus Vult" is all very same for all Abrahamic religions. I would argue that in Islam this is even more obvious as the link between state and the religion is far more larger as the Rashidun Caliphate basically was established by Muhammad himself. This isn't also something confined to the West. Just think about the former deity of the Japanese emperor.

I would argue that the West even with all it's formal separation of Church and State and it's secularity still have traces to religion and policies, especially when some somber issue like war, is viewed as the "Will of God". In a way you putting emphasis on Trump not putting his hand on the Bible (as he did the first time) tells that the link to our quite religious past hasn't been cut off. I would view it that he's just very old, like Biden was and thus gaffes happen.

So talking about the policies and what Trump is doing while in power is whining about a lost election? — Christoffer

Talking critically about the policies and what Trump is doing while in power is whining about a lost election.

Actually, any negative or critical talk of God Emperor Trump is a sign of the person suffering from Trump derangement syndrome, at least in the eyes of the cult members. Actually, anything that isn't supportive of Trump is a sign of that.

The latest T proposals speak of sending U.S. military down to the border before figuring out how that fits in with the other federal, state, and county jurisdictions.

As a citizen here, that promotes the expansion of federal power above that of local communities. It hurts the brain to have self-identified Libertarians support such measures. — Paine

Sending the military in has a look that the President is "really doing the most" to tackle an issue. Trump doesn't give a shit about federal, state and country jurisdictions and / or military readiness, as once the troops are on the border, well, they sit there.

Of course closing a border is totally possible. We've had to do it and I can assure you it's absolutely devastating for the border region. And this is where it goes from just rhetoric to reality. Naturally Trump doesn't want to close the Mexican border altogether. Mexico is a larger trading partner than China and there's far more of those who legal migrants. And Trump doesn't want the economy to stall. But since he's for raising tariff's with everybody, some kind of trade war can indeed happen. Hence it's going to be combination of trade and migration policies that will effect the economy. And that's why many are anticipating stagflation: inflation with weak or even negative growth. Yet as Trump is a "transactional" president and not ideological, he can change the most economically disastrous promises, if he understands the actual effects.

More important than that is the proposed abandonment of regulation in all its forms. The efficacy of the anti-regulation movement will produce the most immediate outcomes for life in our nation. The environment, levels of education, standards of police behavior, acceptance of chosen forms of identity, equal rights under the law, national responses to health threats, etcetera. — Paine

You can aptly talk about the power of the American oligarchs increasing with Trump. Never underestimate the power of Elon Musk. If it's between Elon and some Steven Bannon, it's the Bannon-type Trumpsters that will be the hangaround fans outside the circle of power telling themselves that Trump stands for them and their important.

Even with the double talk of "draining the swamp" or going after "the deep state". Well, the "Deep State" in Trumpland are only his political rivals and government employee that he is disappointed at. And not of course the "Deep State" he would like to have around to do his bidding.

Whatever bad and good we may have done for others, the dissolution of our infrastructure is what will consume the next decade. — Paine

This likely will continue regardless would it be a Trump or a Harris administration starting. The US is such a huge economy that the idea that infrastructure doesn't need federal aid, but the market forces will take care of it will continue. There are enough cities and municipalities that are prosperous enough to take care of their infrastructure, so why waste money? That some cannot do this, that they have severe economical problems usually suffering the opioid epidemic doesn't matter. The "Rust Belt" is there to give a base ground for populists like Trump promising that things will change with them.

What is 'quite telling' is that in light of this you're still trying to give Biden credit, while unwilling to acknowledge Trump did a good thing. — Tzeentch

I'm not a great fan of Biden, never have been after the disaster in Afghanistan. And with Ukraine, the nuke scare worked like a charm on Biden. Even if the guy had been long around during the Cold War.

But let's see what Trump does with Ukraine. At least Kellog is reasonable.

This forum is turning into a clownshow with all the adults whinging over a lost election. Jesus. — Tzeentch

That's what the Trump supporter hope or see through their orange tinted glasses.

And the philosophical, not any political or present day commenting, has never been a clown show.

Just as with the help of many computers you are having a discussion with a person from another continent, similarly the populist can reach more people with the help of AI, rather than the costly and difficult campaign staff & volunteers.

Populist using AI rules... over the traditional populist.

Good thing that Artificial Intelligence will eventually take over the task of guiding and governing by appeal to arguments instead of stirring the unthinking feelings of the crowd. — Arcane Sandwich

Also, it's just far more easier for those in power to control the debate through AI. Imagine just how many people intelligence services and various secret police have employed to listen and survey people? Now everything can be done by computer!!!

Just curious, why would you pick up a six-year old thread about Roger Scruton and urge everybody to watch a documentary about a reporter against the Phillipine autocrat Rodrigo Duterte? What has this to do with a traditional conservative like Scruton, that are now basically silenced? Yes, social media obviously favours disagreement than agreement.

What Scruton wrote about populists (in 2017):

Populists are politicians who appeal directly to the people when they should be consulting the political process, and who are prepared to set aside procedures and legal niceties when the tide of public opinion flows in their favor. Like Donald Trump, populists can win elections. Like Marine Le Pen in France and Geert Wilders in the Netherlands, they can disrupt the long-standing consensus of government. Or, like Nigel Farage and the Brexiteers in Britain, they can use the popular vote to overthrow all the expectations and predictions of the political class. But they have one thing in common, which is their preparedness to allow a voice to passions that are neither acknowledged nor mentioned in the course of normal politics. And for this reason, they are not democrats but demagogues—not politicians who guide and govern by appeal to arguments, but agitators who stir the unthinking feelings of the crowd.

I don't think he was a supporter of Trump ...or Duterte.

Meanwhile, instead of continuing on Biden's policy of wanton destruction, Trump achieved a cease-fire in Gaza.

I wonder if folks on this forum are able to acknowledge that, or if the cognitive dissonance would make their brains implode. — Tzeentch

The first question is "what cease-fire"? A prisoner exchange would be more proper definition that has happened. A "cease-fire" in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict usually means that there simply isn't so many bombing strikes and rocket attacks as before.

And quite tellingly you are forgetting that the Biden administration was involved with the negotiations and took along also the incoming administration representatives. So both admins worked behind the back. And yes, Trump declared that there would be hell to pay. Of course, do note that also Bibi was finally influenced to back down here and negotiate. So there was also pressure on Israel too.

What is the positive thing that I will give credit to Trump that people do really think he would be so reckless that entangle the US into the fighting in Gaza or walk out of NATO. Those threats worked, for example NATO countries raised their expenditure because of Trumps threats at least partly, even if the main reason was Putin's invasion of Ukraine (and not the comments of any President).

But then again, many people do feel that Trump could go berserk and take the US out of NATO (and hence disassemble the Superpower status of the US). Yet many now understand this transactional populist. You can see it in the Greenland debate: the European countries aren't buying Trump's bluff. Hence they're not anymore surprised with Trump's rhetoric as the first time around.

Will there be trade wars, the removal of the Department of Education funding, the weaponization of the DOJ and the FBI, camps of stateless people, and a new colonial ambition to signal our withdrawal from the alliances built over decades of shared adversity? — Paine

Uh...will he finally finish that Big beautiful wall he talked so much? I guess that is forgotten, and won't come up as it is, um, a bit embarrassing reminder that the first term promises weren't achieved.



What definately will happen is that has been already cleary shown after the election: Trump's attention goes from this to that and the administration will be chaotic as Trump is chaotic. And the Republicans (and people like NOS4A2) will spin this the best way possible. There's a lot of hopeful, wishful thinking going around. That nevermind the Trump tweets etc, the administration will work just fine. Well, the Biden administration was a disaster also, but I guess it worked just fine too. Yet be it about taking Greenland or renaming the Gulf of Mexico, it's everything about just being in the limelight and not actually planning something to the end.

The Wall is actually a perfect example. Nobody in the Trump community cares a shit about it anymore, so it's not going to surface again. And this is what will happen to many things that Trump is talking about to do. The next crisis, the natural disaster or terrorist attack or demonstrations will take nearly all of Trump's focus. Social media is focused on literally the present day. Something like sending away 11 million people in an union with democratic institutions would be a monumental task, which the Trump yes-men and -women won't be capable of doing. But it's great to promise that kind of things during the election. It will make enthusiastic the Trump base, and it will horrify the anti-Trump liberals, who are people Trump and his base want to horrify. All the proper media frenzy has been spurred by this, which is the main goal. A totally different issue is reality. Just what was accomplished with the 12 billion or so put into the Great wall of Trump wall just show what Trump is capable of doing.

(BBC, 12th Jan 2021) However, only 80 miles of new barriers have been built where there were none before - that includes 47 miles of primary wall, and 33 miles of secondary wall built to reinforce the initial barrier.

The vast majority of the 452 miles is replacing existing structures at the border that had been built by previous US administrations.

President Trump has argued that this should be regarded as new wall, because it's replacing what he called "old and worthless barriers."

Hence to a similar compartment we can put the bitching over Greenland. If you ask Trump or Trump officials, they surely will continue the line that "Purchase or aqcusition of Greenland is in the works" until the last days of the administration, but nothing really will happen. Because... the US won't invade or go to war with a NATO ally. But it will pass... just like the idea passed earlier.

46,000 dead souls were needed for a cease-fire. It is hard to give relevance to Western organisations such as the UN, honestly. — javi2541997

Is it 46,000? Time will tell.

(The Lancet) We estimated 64 260 deaths (95% CI 55 298–78 525) due to traumatic injury during the study period, suggesting the Palestinian MoH under-reported mortality by 41%.

46 or 64? Well, it's still in the tens of thousands. Not hundreds of thousands. So that's good.

Yet it's a cease fire. With Hamas. Without participation from other countries. I remember that Bibi Netanyahu was declaring last summer that Hamas was nearly finished. Now...

(all Israel news, Jan 2nd 2025) Despite more than a year of military operations against the Hamas terrorist organization, Hamas has recruited between 12,000 and 23,000 new fighters, Israel’s Channel 12 news reported, and confirmed by the Jerusalem Post on Wednesday night.

According to the new report, Hamas currently commands a surprisingly high number of between 20,000 and 23,000 terrorist fighters if combined with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) forces present in the Gaza Strip. Until recently, the Jerusalem Post reported, terrorist forces were estimated to be reduced to about 12,000 fightera

And of course, this is the time when the media ought to forget that in the Middle East a "ceasefire" doesn't mean what a ceasefire means in other parts of the World.

(Jan 18th, CBS) Despite the ceasefire news, sirens sounded across central Israel on Saturday, with the army saying it intercepted projectiles launched from Yemen.

The Iran-backed Houthis have stepped up their missile attacks, in recent weeks. The group says the attacks are part of their campaign aimed at pressuring Israel and the West over the war in Gaza.

There were also continued Israeli strikes into Gaza. The Palestinian Health Ministry said at least 23 people were killed in the previous day.

Also, during the first phase, Israeli troops are to pull back into a buffer zone about a kilometer (0.6 miles) wide inside Gaza, along its borders with Israel.

Still, this underlines what was already the obvious question of what really Netanyahu wanted. As if there would be a military solution with Hamas being destroyed and the Palestinian issue somehow going away.

So this thread goes on, likely far longer than the Trump thread...

The real question is if China would try to occupy militarily Taiwan, which other countries would assist the US, if the US opted to intervene. Would Japan commit? Would South Korea commit? Apart from those two, the other countries have not much to give in sea warfare. What would Australia do?

Japanese Navy is back with combat aircraft...

Yes, I agree. He would be heavily criticised, and his works would suffer a bit of censorship, or at least he would be sued and seated in a trial. — javi2541997

Hence we are far more open to hear what truly a Japanese writer writes and we don't immediately go for the character assassination. We tolerate views that we would immediately not even to bother to listen, if it would be our society. What comes to my mind is the stereotypical cultural studies student, who is fascinated about cultures and traditions of all people except his or her own.

Yes, I know Japan had imperialistic views towards Korea and China, but according to Mishima, that's just politics, and he wanted to focus on the spirit of the nation, and (again) Japan is intrinsically violent, although they promoted actions of peace since the 1945 debacle. — javi2541997

And that is a far more nuanced view, which makes it interesting.

A very good point, ssu. Honestly, after reading biographies on Mishima's life, I think he had never expected such a reaction from the Self-Defence Forces. — javi2541997

He didn't understand that the Japan Self-Defence Forces was a totally different animal than the Imperial Army or Navy of the past. These institutions had been disbanded and the first implementation of the SCAP was to form a the National Police Reserve in 1950, and the JSDF was formed as late as 1954. And this is actually very crucial to understand post-WW2 armed forces of Germany and Japan. There was a dramatic ideological change from as both Germany and Japan cut their ties to the past military culture and started with citizen-soldiers and with influence of American military training. (In fact the WW2 era Wehrmacht continued in the East German Volksarmee as there was no emphasis on changing the old culture in the DDR as there was no denazification effort as Communist East Germany assumed it had no ties to the Wehrmacht.)

For example in Finland there was no disbanding of the armed forces or serious organizational changes, the armed forces that now joined NATO is the same army as fought in WW2 alongside the Third Reich (and later against it) just as the modern US army does trace back to the military of WW2 era.

Hence this made the Japanese soldiers to be trained and tought quite differently than from the discipline of the Imperial Army or Navy. And especially since Yukio hadn't himself served, I assume his idea of the men making up the military was more of a polished and shining propaganda view of what the actual military is like. And the followers in his own private army were something totally else than the cooks and clerks of the JSDF listening to his speech.

Usually being in a army shatters ones high views as the normalcy of the members and the bureaucratic of the institution hits home.

Look how the people are laughing at him and his katana. — javi2541997

They are not at all laughing at him, but smiling and in the following video you can see people clapping their hands. And I suspect that the Japanese male next to him is likely a veteran officer of Onoda that was there to convince him that the war is over. Also note the American officer and Phillipine Army general. Here is actual video of the surrender. He is treated with quite the respect with a lot of Phillipine Army officers around him, not at all as some lunatic.

Damn! I have always missed that pure loyalist behaviour that the useless politicians of my country don't have... — javi2541997

Weren't you Spanish? I think that you will find it in your history too.

ssu, I don't follow you in that quote. What do you mean by "instant recoil" if Mishima would have been German instead of Japanese? — javi2541997

Think about. What would we think about a writer that would be an ardent patriot like Mishima if he would be German? He would be the jingoist ultra-nationalist and people would just try to find hints of nazism, white supremacy and racism in his writings. How would a German who would favour Prussian militarism look like today?

Above all, remember how the Japanese soldiers of the new Self-Defence forces reacted to Mishima. They started to hiss and jeer.

In fact, I would argue that if there's a "culture war" between the right and the left in Europe and the US, so too is there a similar thing in Japan, but it's very Japanese. And the sad story of Yukio Mishima is part of that, just like the story of the last Hiroo Onoda, the last Japanese soldier to surrender in the Phillipines in 1974. Well, he too was disappointed about post-WW2 when he finally got back to Japan.

Hiro Onoda surrendering in 1974. He died at the age of 91 years in 2014.

Onoda’s three decades spent in the jungle – initially with three comrades and finally alone – came to be seen as an example of the extraordinary lengths to which some Japanese soldiers would go to demonstrate their loyalty to the then emperor, in whose name they fought.

Refusing to believe that the war had ended with Japan’s defeat in August 1945, Onoda drew on his training in guerilla warfare to kill as many as 30 people whom he mistakenly believed to be enemy soldiers.

I wonder what Mishima would have written about Onoda.

I'll try to give a thorough response to you here.

Stop supporting Israel — T Clark

Well, years ago when Ron Paul was campaigning for the Republican candidacy in 2008, I thought his simple line getting all the troops had a lot of merit. Wouldn't it be great that the US simply didn't mess around so much? It's a nice idea, but then we have to understand that not everything the US has done has been wrong. Above all, not everything bad that happens is because of US actions. US inaction can have a worse outcome. Usually when the US has been able to gather a large alliance and especially when it has gotten an UN permission, the military actions have been just, understandable and needed. When it has NOT been so, when the US hasn't been able to gather a broad coalition, when it has operated by itself, the outcome has been usually a disaster.

Was it right to defend South Korea against a Russian sponsored North Korean attack? I think yes, personally I like K-pop and stuff that comes out of the country. And the country finally has been a democracy and the South Koreans are far more better off than their Northern counterparts.

Was it right to create a large coalition and drive out Saddam Hussein from Kuwait? I think yes. That was the second aggressive war that Saddam had started toward it's neighbors, even if Kuwait had backed it in the war against Iran. Back then the US followed the advice of it's Arab allies and didn't go into Iraq. Unfortunately this success lead to neocons going later berserk.

Jihadism isn't the reason why the US is in Middle East. Actually there are countries that are OK with the US and do want it to be around. So what would happen if the US left? Well, that creates a vacuum, which is filled by some way.

We can already see what happens when the US has lost interest: other regional actors take it's place. Just look at how active in Africa have the Gulf States have become (in Libya and Sudan). Look at the actions of Turkey. Or how Saudi-Arabia went to war with Yemen and nearly went to war with a GCC member, Qatar.

So I think there is a role for the US to play in the Middle East, but more of leadership role than unitary actions. Unfortunately especially the Trump administration doesn't care a shit about creating alliances and bringing states together.

Stop supporting repressive Islamic regimes — T Clark

Which regimes you define to be repressive Islamic regimes? Do note that Islam is far closer to the state as Mohammed himself was the first leader of the Muslim state. Hence it's no wonder that Arab states, especially those which are monarchies, do have state religion. Do you put into this category Saudi-Arabia? How about the UAE or Egypt? What about Jordan? And how about the wavering states of Lebanon and Syria?

Stop supporting Israel — T Clark

Well, this has a thread of it's own where I've voiced my opinion about this. In short, this has far more to do with domestic politics in the US than is about foreign policy and not because of the Jewish American voters, but because of the millions of Christian Evangelists who see supporting Israel as a religious matter. And as I've said in that thread, France was earlier the supporter of Israel, not so the US. And the Cold War era thinking doesn't have anything anymore to do with the US-Israeli relationship as it did earlier.

(Bibi talking to his American base)

The artificial states for Putin don't end up with Ukraine. This is why he is a threat... in the end also for the Russian people themselves.

If you're like me, you probably spend a lot of time trying to unwrap the meanings of contemporary social lenses like "post-metaphysical" or "post-modern." The meanings become clearer if you grapple with them in the context of the succession of social lenses that preceded them, from enlightenment to romanticism to scientific positivism. — Pantagruel

One should obviously understand modernity in order to understand the criticism of post-modernity. And as you say, "the context of the succession of social lenses that preceded them, from enlightenment to romanticism to scientific positivism".

Unfortunately this rarely happens. People simply study Habernas or Foucault and that's it. Why study those past things that "you should object to".

And then there's the culture war crowd for whom post-modernism is a swearword. So even less intellect there.

Confucianism, for example, sits right at this juncture of the material and the moral. It does not appeal to a god for justification (nor offer salvation). But it does seek to define morality as it can be best actualized in the here and now. In this, it is strongly akin to Stoicism. Values made real. — Pantagruel

So are you hoping for a synthesis after the thesis of modernity and anti-thesis of post-modernity?

One of Mishima's traumas was not having the chance to fight in WWII, because he thought it would be priceless to die defending the honour of his homeland. Since then, he always had a fetish for war and bellicose topics. Too much passion on him? — javi2541997

In my view Mishima is a great example how patriotism and nationalism and the militarism involved with that isn't something that we Europeans have invented. These ideas are old and universal. And also when it's someone that isn't "us", like with Mishima, we don't have this instant recoil that we would have if Mishima would have been a German, an Englishman or an American. This tells something about us, not of the Japanese or their culture.