I often hang out at Daily Kos, and it’s depressing how many ideologically pro-biden cheerleaders there are, there, as ideologically pro-trumpers, elsewhere. I guess the great game depends on having some on both sides.
Can’t any of these people see that they are being played by a malicious system that is constructed to control their opinions and the expression of their opinions, in order to allow the ruling two-party system to continue pursuing its own imperialist agenda? In a few places I hear rumbles that progressives are disappointed that Biden appears to be about to cave to the “hostage-takers” which is not surprising, given that caving is what the democrats do. They’re not a real opposition party, they’re doing their dance in order to eke out negotiating points of their own. I can’t tell if any of them are purely delusional (therefore acting in good faith) or if they’re showing a level of cynicism that would embarrass a Talleyrand.
Midjourney AI and mjr: “uncle sam, jumping off a cliff”
Let’s back up a second. The debt ceiling is a self-imposed financial control, on an organization that admits that it has no self-control, and consistently violates that control. The question is “how much money do we print?” and the answer is not “as much as we want to” it’s “as much as we will allow ourselves to.” The whole topic of national debt is not one I am qualified to get into, so I won’t, but suffice to say it keeps going up when one party or the other spends like a drunken sailor, while the other wags a disapproving finger attempting to shame them. That’s the rough outline. But there is a deeper, more important outline, which is ignored pro forma.
In the latest debt ceiling kerfuffle, we are told that the republicans may trigger a default, and that voters should blame them not, say, blame everyone in Washington. Sure, the republicans are triggering it, but the democrats also helped arm that trigger, and even set up a count-down. Did you notice how both “sides” in this fake event, who cannot agree on anything, agreed that defense spending doesn’t get touched? Oh, wait, I guess they do agree on something. They agree on $1tn in defense spending. I’ve said this before, and I’ll have to say it again: anyone who talks about the US deficit or budget, and does not mention defense spending, is not serious.
How not serious are they? They’re so not serious they bumped the pentagon budget up, while wringing their hands about how the republicans and the democrats might collectively cut veterans’ benefits. I’m not saying that the used-up warriors of the empire should go get fucked, but I don’t think they have any more claim for benefits than the people who financed the pointless wars – and certainly less than their victims. But, I digress. Let me get to the question I really want to ask.
The premise is that a US default will cause a financial market freak-out with global impact. I’m cynical enough to suspect that viewpoint is heavily promoted by people involved in the financial markets. But let’s assume, arguendo, that they have a point: the US defaults, the economy collapses into a depression, everyone gets fucked and it’s like we just “Brexit”ed from ourselves. Ok. As a retired US citizen, I would not enjoy watching my investments evaporate (they won’t because the fed will suddenly remember where the key to the money-valve is, and prop up the markets with good ole government-sponsored stock market manipulation) but wouldn’t it be a better thing for the world, and maybe even the US, if the economy took a great whale-harpoon self-inflicted shot in the ass? Because, if it did, that would potentially dramatically fuck up our imperial plans for sneaky global domination. Remember, the US is whining about cutting its own promises to its janissaries, retirees, and people who need medical assistance – and it just spent $16bn on an aircraft carrier that barely works. It is in the process of buying whole wings of F-35s that barely work and it’s already entrained spending $100bn annually on new offensive nuclear weapons that probably do work all too well. Both parties in Washington are in complete agreement about that, any disagreement is purely pro forma.
If the US face-punches itself so badly that it’s no longer able to be a “player” on the international scene, would that be such a bad thing?
Midjourney AI and mjr: “oh beautiful for spacious skies” the US landscape is studded with nuclear weapons ready to launch
It seems to me that, from a practical standpoint, it wouldn’t be great, because the US has a history of starting wars to boost its economy. That’s another, more subtle, way the US debt ceiling crisis holds the whole world in jeopardy: everyone else does not want to deal with starving Americans, it’d be like Putin’s Russia times 1000. [Note how the US response to Putin’s nuclear threats has been “we bet your shit won’t work but ours will.”]
Also, as we’ve seen the US is going to drag its feet about actually doing something like a “green new deal” because the oil industry has too much money to accept any dramatic cut-backs on use of fossil fuels. So, while it’s plausible to think “maybe the US would spend less on nukes and invest in energy” ha, ha, ha, those bastards will cut absolutely everything else until it gets down to a choice between no longer investing in the air the citizens breathe, or the department of defense – and you know citizens can hold their fucking breath forever, unless they are weak and entitled. I would hold out hopes for an economic re-alignment on the part of the US, emphasizing green energy and cost savings, you know, like the Brits did after Brexit. It seems clear to me that the US government will not get serious about climate change until we’re all dead. Admittedly, that looks like it’s coming charging over the horizon – which ought to make anyone suspicious why the US is building offensive nuclear weapons instead of windmills and solar farms.
So I’m starting to wonder if the most moral and effective response to the debt ceiling crisis is to tell Washington, “punch yourself in the fucking face, please, be my guest.” Because the people who’ll get hurt the worst are the wealthy (in terms of total value, though not importance of value) but really it’s more like, “hey assholes, why don’t you do it, step aside, and let China rule the world for a while.” That’ll put some sense in ’em. They’d rather kill everyone in China (and are preparing to do exactly that) rather than let China rule.
What really blows my mind is that the republicans actually might trigger a depression, “to own the libs” or something, in spite of the fact that the party survives almost entirely on donations from the wealthy and corporations that they seem to want so badly to fuck in the ass. And what scares me is that the democrats, also a bunch of nihilists, might do that, just because they know it’ll play badly in the next election. Collectively, they have positioned themselves in what Sun Tzu called “death ground” (the strategic situation that you can only get out of by fighting like hell).
If anyone in Washington reads this, and is having trouble punching themself in the face, give me a call and I’ll come down and do it for you.
To keep the populace from demanding change the Circuses need ever new acts, and the Internet ring has opened the AI act which will thrill everyone with spectacular images and descriptions of the ongoing collapses. The Roman empire collapse took more than a century, while the British empire took less than one. The Germans brought the record down to less than a decade and Russia is now after it with two years the goal, then America whispers to China, “Hold my beer…”
… why don’t you do it, step aside, and let China rule the world for a while.
Please ask the Tibetans, Hong Kongers, and Xinjiangese about that before making any lasting commitments.
https://youtu.be/Z_JOGmXpe5I
Pierce R. Butler@#2:
Please ask the Tibetans, Hong Kongers, and Xinjiangese about that before making any lasting commitments.
Partly, it would be nice to be anti-imperial again, when it’s not my empire I’m being anti-
I have written elsewhere that I think the British committed a moral crime when they actually gave Hong Kong to China, like they agreed to. [stderr] WTF, these are people not trading cards. It’s not like the brits to suddenly be all concerned about honoring their committments to national sovereignty. These are the guys who casually re-draw maps with abandon. I guess the message is “(shrug) who gives a fuck.”
Dunc@#3:
Yes, exactly. Except the republicans are so stupid they might not think through what they are doing.
(+5 for the reference to one of my favorite movies)
Love that analogy.
“go Brexit from yourself” sounds like a good insult.
(looks at a map)
I think it might be more defensible to say the crime was when we took it from them in the first place. I mean, it’s not like Hong Kong is the Isle of Wight. It’s more like if China had taken the Isle of Wight from us, and only handed back recently. Suggesting giving it back was a crime is suggesting the Imperialist aggression that seized it in the first place was fine. (See also Falkland Islands and dozens, probably hundreds of others around the globe, most egregiously Diego Garcia, just to drag US imperialism into it as well).
What, realistically, were the UK’s options for 1997? Hang on to it? Imperialist pig-dogs! Hand it back? Moral criminals! I think the UK made the best of a bad job. Consider: the handover was in 1997. If you type “prodemocracy protests Hong Kong” into Google, they apparently started in 2019.
Now: I’d consider a deal by the UK that kept Hong Kong tolerably halfway free for over 20 years while technically under the yoke of the CCP was pretty good under the circumstances. Also, anyone actually living in Hong Kong in 1995 could realistically have seen which way the wind was inevitably blowing and decamped to the UK or elsewhere while they still could. There even specific provisions made for such action. Gradual imposition of reduced freedoms was hardly unpredictable. The only thing that baffles me is why there’s anyone left in Hong Kong.
sonofrojblake@#7:
I think it might be more defensible to say the crime was when we took it from them in the first place.
I didn’t say that because I thought it was obvious.
Imperialism has been a sequence of massive crimes.
I think the UK made the best of a bad job. Consider: the handover was in 1997. If you type “prodemocracy protests Hong Kong” into Google, they apparently started in 2019.
China was careful to tighten the screws slowly. There was a stated policy of trying to keep Hong Kong special, but over time that changed. I believe the prodemocracy protests were triggered by China’s decision to extend its law enforcement into Hong Kong. Admittedly that’s a big thing – it’d be like the US trying to extend its laws to Cuba. Oh, yeah.
What, realistically, were the UK’s options for 1997? Hang on to it?
Give the people in Hong Kong a choice: become a free state or rejoin China. In either case allow those who did not agree with it to go wherever they wanted. But still, it’s a crazy thing that an entire population is handed off like a trading card. Disgusting, really. But that’s the logic of nationalism.
Why does Uncle Sam look like he ought to be riding a skateboard?
Whenever anyone talks about the “crazy” things that the progressives have been pushing for, I remind them that the typical yearly increase in the DoD budget (which usually is over and above what the DoD asked for) is enough to pay the tuition for every student at every public college/university in the country. In reality, it’s never about having the money to do these things. The US has plenty of money to do great things for its people and the planet. The problem is that our system doesn’t want this. It wants private profit at the expense of all else.
As far as the US stepping aside and some other country becoming “the big cheese”, I don’t necessarily think that would be an improvement for the planet. It’s not as if a more sane country, like say, Finland or New Zealand, is going to be in the driver’s seat. Anyone who really wants the driver’s seat probably should have their license revoked.
jimf@#10:
The problem is that our system doesn’t want this. It wants private profit at the expense of all else.
Someone once described the US as “a department of defense with an economy and government attached to it.” A more thoughtful analysis would have to look at the entire structure of the US economy – perhaps we might say, fairly, that the US economy is dependent on its military expenditures – the DOD is not just a means of conquering other places, it’s a mechanism for propping up the entire US high tech sector. You know, the old “command economy” and all that. Supporting argument: every new tech that comes along seems to get militarized, to bring it under the DOD economy. I remember when amazon AWS and “cloud computing” appeared on the horizon and were immediately a financial/political football within the intelligence community and between the vendors. Same with SpaceX, etc. [By the way, I think it’s ridiculous that the intelligence community is not counted in the DOD budget: it’s also a swamp-based money bag for the mil-tech sector]
Empires exist to loot other places, and funnel the wealth to the empire’s elite. The way that inequality is on the rise in the US makes me think that imperialism is also on the rise.
As far as the US stepping aside and some other country becoming “the big cheese”, I don’t necessarily think that would be an improvement for the planet. It’s not as if a more sane country, like say, Finland or New Zealand, is going to be in the driver’s seat.
Sad, but true, as the great philosopher Metallica once said. Any other power in the driver’s seat would probably do the same as the US: overspend on “defense” and exempt itself from climate treaties.
[Tangentially, I was genuinely impressed by Jacinda Ardern’s Cincinattus-style stepping down at the peak of her attainment of power. It seemed almost as though, you know, the power wasn’t why she did it. I have often commented here and there that humanity needs to get over its habit of placing the worst people in charge of things, and now whenever I say that, I think of Ardern.]
Marcus,
I think that’s obvious when one looks at the way defense contractors pour out the gravy: new systems are always spread across a large number of congressional districts so that they can get support from a large number of congressional members in both the Senate and the House. It’s also why BRAC was so contentious in the 90s.
It was Eisenhower who warned us of the “military-industrial-congressional complex” (interesting how that got shortened to just “military-industrial complex”, as if Congress has no role to play in it). Unfortunately, his parting shots against the MIC have largely been ignored by the media and the professional commentariat, probably because it would’ve been impossible to paint him as being “soft on defense”, having been the former supreme Allied commander during WWII and all.
I do not know if it is still the case, but back when I was in college some 40+ years ago, it was estimated that half of all scientists, engineers, and workers in high technology were employed directly or indirectly by defense concerns. I understood the lure of it as the pay is high (I wound up making a fraction of what my fellow graduates made because I went into academia instead), but Imagine what we could have accomplished if most of those people worked in humanitarian and similar fields.
jimf@#12:
I think that’s obvious when one looks at the way defense contractors pour out the gravy: new systems are always spread across a large number of congressional districts so that they can get support from a large number of congressional members in both the Senate and the House.
Chuck Spinney has pointed out a few times that the technique is not just to make it easier to gain approval, but it’s also to make it harder to cancel a program when it inevitably overruns schedule and costs. Spinney used to post a lot of stuff about pentagon follies but I think he’s trying to enjoy a retirement, now. One other point he makes, which I have touched on in some of my F-35 postings, is that program acquisition numbers are deliberately inflated when the program is proposed, so they can cut delivery numbers while keeping the cost basis the same, to hide the fact that the program is 2x, or even 10x more expensive. Coram’s book Boyd goes into some of this as well.
It was Eisenhower who warned us of the “military-industrial-congressional complex” (interesting how that got shortened to just “military-industrial complex”, as if Congress has no role to play in it). Unfortunately, his parting shots against the MIC have largely been ignored by the media and the professional commentariat, probably because it would’ve been impossible to paint him as being “soft on defense”, having been the former supreme Allied commander during WWII and all.
It’s Spinney that promoted the MICC acronym; I think Eisenhower only referred to it as the MIC.
All that said, the MIC came into being in its metastasized form under Eisenhower. So, hey, Ike, we appreciate the warning regarding the colossus you built but maybe it was already a bit too late?
I do not know if it is still the case, but back when I was in college some 40+ years ago, it was estimated that half of all scientists, engineers, and workers in high technology were employed directly or indirectly by defense concerns.
That’s right, depending on how you count it. It’s stealthy – I know some folks who were building cloud computing platforms unaware that they were surveillance systems for collecting cell phone call data. They were told it was a generic voice capture management platform that had eventual marketing use (figure out what phone users are talking about so you can target them with very suspiciously omniscient ads) but it was NSA all along. Also, what about IN-Q-TEL? CIA covertly or semi-overtly gets companies making them tech they think they will want in the future – it’s hugely influential.
So, yeah, the pentagon has a government and an economy attached to it, to feed it.