US Politics: Terminal America

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

1 minute ago, Rippounet said:

I said "isolation" not "isolationism."

Given the framework of your post, I'm not seeing much of a difference. Why is it bad for the U.S. to isolate itself militarily? Why should we continue to play world police for the EU? It's unfair in my view to call out the U.S. for doing this, when the rest of the west more or less adopts this policy.

[Rippounet]

16 minutes ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

Given the framework of your post, I'm not seeing much of a difference.

It's pretty much the very opposite of what I meant. By "isolation is bad on the world stage" I meant "performing unilateral military operations without the support of at least a couple of significant allies." Which the US might end up having to do thanks to Trump's fantastic leadership.

16 minutes ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

Why is it bad for the U.S. to isolate itself militarily?

Because American soldiers die? Because if the US keeps performing unilateral operations it will become obvious that it's just another rogue state ignoring international law whenever it suits its neo-imperialist purposes?

16 minutes ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

Why should we continue to play world police for the EU?

Given the mess that was left in Iraq after W's genius intervention, I'd really rather it didn't. I'd rather the EU had a military powerful enough to deal with its own regional problems and help friendly countries (like, say, South Korea) with theirs from time to time.

But this is besides the point. Contrary to popular belief, the US has almost never played world police. It doesn't protect stuff like "demoracy" or liberty." It generally couldn't care less about those (though saying it does always have a nice propaganda value, of course). It acts militarily to defend and expand its own commercial and geopolitical interests. To believe otherwise is to believe the propaganda that you are bombarded with on a daily basis. This is what historians tend to call "The myth of the reluctant/benevolent superpower." I personally recommend Andrew Bacevich's American Empire for a start, if only because colonel Bacevich's credentials as a diplomatic historian are impeccable.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

12 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

It's pretty much the very opposite of what I meant. By "isolation is bad on the world stage" I meant "performing unilateral military operations without the support of at least a couple of significant allies." Which the US might end up having to do thanks to Trump's fantastic leadership.

Because American soldiers die? Because if the US keeps performing unilateral operations it will become obvious that it's just another rogue state ignoring international law whenever it suits its neo-imperialist purposes?

Given the mess that was left in Iraq after W's genius intervention, I'd really rather it didn't. I'd rather the EU had a military powerful enough to deal with its own regional problems and help friendly countries (like, say, South Korea) with theirs from time to time.

But this is besides the point. Contrary to popular belief, the US has almost never played world police. It doesn't protect stuff like "demoracy" or liberty." It generally couldn't care less about those (though saying it does always have a nice propaganda value, of course). It acts militarily to defend and expand its own commercial and geopolitical interests. To believe otherwise is to believe the propaganda that you are bombarded with on a daily basis. This is what historians tend to call "The myth of the reluctant/benevolent superpower." I personally recommend Andrew Bacevich's American Empire for a start, if only because colonel Bacevich's credentials as a diplomatic historian are impeccable.

Ah, okay, I misunderstood you there, apologies. Honestly, I think we should avoid military adventure whenever possible, whether it's supported by allies or not.

I was just pushing back against the charge of isolationism as being a bad policy in an overall sense. It seems to be one that most of the rest of the world adopts.

 

/Just to clarify, I didn't use the term World Police to suggest that this is a noble policy. I believe it began as such, but as you say, it has become something else entirely.

[Altherion]

3 hours ago, S John said:

There is very little you can do.  Conservative media has created a system where they can never be wrong, their instincts are always correct.  Because the media is full of globalist liberals.  The education system is full of globalist liberals.  NASA and NOAA are full of globalist liberals.  Any place you can send these guys to educate them on what climate change actually is has been repeatedly dinged by the likes of Rush, Hannity, Levin, O'Reilly, etc, who have convinced millions that conservative media is the only place where you can get the actual truth, rendering scientific fact a matter of political opinion. Nevermind that someone may have spent decades studying this, if Jimbo Bumblefuck heard it was all just a bunch of BS on Rush and that aligns with his instincts on the subject, it's game over.

This is very much like the story of the boy who cried wolf: they media has been lying and misleading so long that many people don't believe it anymore even when it says something true. Here's a poll from HuffPost/YouGov:

Quote

Overall, 25 percent of Americans in the new poll say the media is an enemy to people like themselves, with 19 percent calling it unfriendly. Just 17 percent label the media friendly and 13 percent view it as an ally, with 26 percent not sure.

A full quarter of the population thinking of the media as an enemy already sounds pretty bad, but it gets worse when you break it down by voting record. 60% of Trump voters regard the media as an enemy and another 23% call it unfriendly. By contrast, only 2% of Clinton voters think of it as an enemy and 9% think of it as unfriendly. The media chose a political side and it's going to be difficult to get people on the other side to trust it again.

3 hours ago, S John said:

The wisest course of action is that as renewable energy sources improve, any country with any sense at all should be pushing towards use of renewable energy sources as quickly as possible.  Less CO2 in the atmosphere, and an overall cleaner and less polluted environment.  We may not yet be ready or able to fully shift to renewable, but that we should ASAP, is a no-brainier and anything else is just carrying water for the fossil fuel industry.

I think the environmentalist made a grievous mistake in focusing on "climate change" (née "global warming") rather than on results which are more tangible now. It's a peculiar phenomenon in that as far as we can tell it is true, but it sounds exactly like a scam.

Act now or face certain doom! Doom, I tell you! When? Oh, I don't know for sure. A few decades to a century from now... but by then it will be too late to prevent it and it will be really, really bad. You have to act now!

It would have made a good secondary argument, but as the primary one it is vulnerable in a way things which people are affected by right now (e.g. smog, gas prices, etc.) are not. Fortunately, renewable energy seems to be growing much faster than expected anyway:

Quote

The Energy Information Administration (EIA) has released numbers on US electricity generation for the first quarter of 2017, and renewable energy numbers are coming in big.

According to the EIA, renewable energy sources like wind, solar, and geothermal power accounted for 10.68 percent of total electricity generation in the first quarter of 2017. If you include electricity from conventional hydroelectric plants, renewables made up nearly a fifth of total electricity generation—as much as 19.35 percent.

The striking part about that number is that the EIA, a statistical department within the Department of Energy, couldn’t foresee how dramatically renewables’ share of the electricity mix would increase just five years ago. In 2012, the administration predicted (PDF, page 87) that electricity generation from renewable sources would increase “from 10 percent in 2010 to 15 percent in 2035.” Even by 2015, the administration predicted (PDF, page ES-6) that “The renewable share of total generation grows from 13 percent in 2013 to 18 percent in 2040.”

I think we'll exceed the expectations of the Paris conference, but not so much because of government intervention as because renewable technology is crossing over into mainstream usage. If you have the infrastructure for them, electric cars are simply better than internal combustion cars. The price of solar energy is decreasing and it is already comparable to that of energy from fossil fuels in many places. The technology has to get a little better and it will be cheaper in most of the United States (without subsidies) at which point the market will take over.

[Rippounet]

7 minutes ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

Ah, okay, I misunderstood you there, apologies. Honestly, I think we should avoid military adventure whenever possible, whether it's supported by allies or not.

I was just pushing back against the charge of isolationism as being a bad policy in an overall sense. It seems to be one that most of the rest of the world adopts.

No problem. Little do you know how much in favor of isolationism I am. I think the US and Americans would be far better off if it were at least a bit more isolationist. I mean, I understand that the Pax Americana has its good sides for everyone, but indulging in regime-change or nation-building just isn't working out.

[mormont]

4 minutes ago, Altherion said:

This is very much like the story of the boy who cried wolf: they media has been lying and misleading so long that many people don't believe it anymore even when it says something true. Here's a poll from HuffPost/YouGov:

A full quarter of the population thinking of the media as an enemy already sounds pretty bad, but it gets worse when you break it down by voting record. 60% of Trump voters regard the media as an enemy and another 23% call it unfriendly. By contrast, only 2% of Clinton voters think of it as an enemy and 9% think of it as unfriendly. The media chose a political side and it's going to be difficult to get people on the other side to trust it again.

The media did indeed choose a political side, and it wasn't Clinton's. They slaughtered her. Whether or not you agree, her supporters all agree on that, but they still trust the media anyway.

Think about that. The situation is, not for the first time, not as you are trying to portray it. One side trusts the media whether or not it is on their side: one side hates it, whether or not it is on their side. Why? Because one side's leaders have spent the last decade trashing the media any time it says anything inconvenient, as noted above. Because one side finds the truth and facts inconvenient and hit on the idea that if you trash the bearers of information, you don't have to deal with the truth.

4 minutes ago, Altherion said:

I think the environmentalist made a grievous mistake in focusing on "climate change" (née "global warming") rather than on results which are more tangible now. It's a peculiar phenomenon in that as far as we can tell it is true, but it sounds exactly like a scam.

Are you just trying out random ideas here? No, not to any sane person it doesn't.

[Maithanet]

8 minutes ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

Ah, okay, I misunderstood you there, apologies. Honestly, I think we should avoid military adventure whenever possible, whether it's supported by allies or not.

I was just pushing back against the charge of isolationism as being a bad policy in an overall sense. It seems to be one that most of the rest of the world adopts.

Trump loves to complain about how allies in Europe and Asia benefit from being under the American defense umbrella.  There is definitely a reasonable policy debate to be had that America should draw back that umbrella to focus on "America First".  After all, why are we spending billions on military bases in Germany, Italy, South Korea, etc, when bridges, schools, and power plants are deteriorating at home? 

But instead, Trumps policy is simultaneously advocating a less active military AND an increase in military spending.  If we are ramping up military spending (which he wants), then why not at least get the ancillary benefits of having allies across the world be reliant on American military protection, giving us a dominant positions in virtually all other negotiations?  Why are we simultaneously retreating from global military leadership AND increasing military spending?  It makes no sense. 

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

1 minute ago, Maithanet said:

Trump loves to complain about how allies in Europe and Asia benefit from being under the American defense umbrella.  There is definitely a reasonable policy debate to be had that America should draw back that umbrella to focus on "America First".  After all, why are we spending billions on military bases in Germany, Italy, South Korea, etc, when bridges, schools, and power plants are deteriorating at home? 

But instead, Trumps policy is simultaneously advocating a less active military AND an increase in military spending.  If we are ramping up military spending (which he wants), then why not at least get the ancillary benefits of having allies across the world be reliant on American military protection, giving us a dominant positions in virtually all other negotiations?  Why are we simultaneously retreating from global military leadership AND increasing military spending?  It makes no sense. 

Right. I don't have any illusions that Trump is pushing an isolationist policy that makes any sense. Any move of this sort should come with a large cut to military spending. 

I'm trying to think of a policy that Trump has forwarded that makes any sense. 

[Rippounet]

38 minutes ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

/Just to clarify, I didn't use the term World Police to suggest that this is a noble policy. I believe it began as such, but as you say, it has become something else entirely.

I'm not even sure it was ever a noble policy tbh. The historical record tends to show otherwise. Not that there aren't a handful of instances of the US genuinely intervening to protect some grand values, but it's nearly impossible to find any that didn't have some kind of ulterior motives. What's more, some military interventions in the past were even worse examples of imperialism than they are today -if you can believe that.

Williams' famous book The Tragedy of American Diplomacy is the starting point for this kind of revisionist thinking if you're interested (a bit old, Bacevich is way more up to date, but it never hurts to read the classics):
 

Quote

Statesmen and other influential American figures at the start of the 20th century believed that the dramatic surge of expansion that sharply marked the 19th century was essential to American prosperity and security going forward. In his book The Tragedy of American Diplomacy, William Appleman Williams tracks the continuity of this idea through the middle of the 20th century, and contrasts this uncompromising pursuit of expansion with the American belief that this economic intervention would also bring peace and wealth to the rest of the world. The tragedy that Williams promotes to the title of the book is the fact that American ideals contradicted themselves: they spoke about freedom and self-determination while simultaneously depending on privileging American access and control.

The baseline expansionist goal of the United States took several different forms during this period, but the core impulse remained remarkably consistent. Williams largely presents this book as a broad history of this ideology, where public figures are read as symbols of broader social trends. Reading history this way, Williams turns mainly to public records, noting the strong way that the use of language remained consistent even among leaders who, when studied from other perspectives, seemed to disagree strongly over policy. Such disagreement took place within the context of a more pervasive consensus. Williams identifies clear expansionist language, and its implications, from McKinley, Teddy Roosevelt, Wilson, Hoover, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, as well as many of their key advisers and other influential individuals and groups, as they emphasized the importance of specific policies such as the Open Door Policy, the Good Neighbor Policy, and the Marshall Plan. What arises, then, is a powerful picture of expansionism itself as the key to a broad continuity within American policy.

 

20 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

Why are we simultaneously retreating from global military leadership AND increasing military spending?  It makes no sense. 

Exactly.

[Maithanet]

17 minutes ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

Right. I don't have any illusions that Trump is pushing an isolationist policy that makes any sense. Any move of this sort should come with a large cut to military spending. 

I'm trying to think of a policy that Trump has forwarded that makes any sense. 

It's just really unfortunate, because I actually think that there are people on both the left and the right that could get behind a drawdown of America's military presence overseas (although the military would hate it).  Not all of them, obviously, but in many ways Trump was ideally positioned to make that argument as a populist Republican.  Any Democrat who suggest spending less on the military will get eviscerated, and most Republicans love American expansionism. 

Yet another example of a policy that Trump could have pursued that would have potentially given him a bipartisan win.  I am increasingly convinced that he so completely defeated the Democrats and cowed the Republicans that if he had actually been a clever politician rather than just a snakeoil salesman, there were a ton of things he could have done to make himself relatively popular. 

[SkynJay]

32 minutes ago, Altherion said:

This is very much like the story of the boy who cried wolf: they media has been lying and misleading so long that many people don't believe it anymore even when it says something true. Here's a poll from HuffPost/YouGov:

A full quarter of the population thinking of the media as an enemy already sounds pretty bad, but it gets worse when you break it down by voting record. 60% of Trump voters regard the media as an enemy and another 23% call it unfriendly. By contrast, only 2% of Clinton voters think of it as an enemy and 9% think of it as unfriendly. The media chose a political side and it's going to be difficult to get people on the other side to trust it again.

 

What an absurd line of though.  People not trusting the media does not mean the media has been lying.  It means a group of people dont like what it is saying.  The media can report facts (and usually does because it is not a single monolithic group that cant be fact checked) and still not be trusted by those who dont like said facts.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

2 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

I'm not even sure it was ever a noble policy tbh. The historical record tends to show otherwise. Not that there aren't a handful of instances of the US genuinely intervening to protect some grand values, but it's nearly impossible to find any that didn't have some kind of ulterior motives. What's more, some military interventions in the past were even worse examples of imperialism than they are today -if you can believe that.

Williams's famous book The Tragedy of American Diplomacy is the starting point is this kind of revisionist thinking if you're interested (a bit old, Bacevich is way more up to date, but it never hurts to read the classics):

I think you could point to WWII as a fairly safe example, but it all kind of slides downhill after that.

[Dr. Pepper]

3 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

I watched many people on CNN being interviewed about whether or not they believed in climate change, and so many of the deniers were relatively young, in their 20s and 30s. I'll likely be dead by the time it happens, but I am fondly imagining them dealing not only with millions of refugees arriving in ships that drop them off on the coast at night, but internal refugees, from low lying coastal areas of the US.

I can see demands that those ships be blown out of the water, but are they going to shoot the people from Florida and Georgia and the Carolinas, all the way up the east coast, the Gulf coast and the Pacific coast? Cause, honey, the north west passage is free of ice all summer, Greenland is green, and vegetation has shown up in the Antarctic. That ice is melting 10 times faster than scientists thought possible.

Why do newscaster continue to ask if people 'believe' in climate change.  We're not talking about the Flying Spaghetti Monster where it's existence resides in people's heads and where belief is an active choice.  It would be absurd to ask them if the earth was round.  It's established fact.  They ought to be asking if they understand climate change or if they've read the science about climate change.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

21 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

It's just really unfortunate, because I actually think that there are people on both the left and the right that could get behind a drawdown of America's military presence overseas (although the military would hate it).  Not all of them, obviously, but in many ways Trump was ideally positioned to make that argument as a populist Republican.  Any Democrat who suggest spending less on the military will get eviscerated, and most Republicans love American expansionism. 

Yeah, I tend to agree. This seems to be one of the rare issues that mostly cuts across party lines. It seems to me the constituency is mostly for a more isolationist policy. The problem seems to be pork, moreso than anything else. There's so much money in it that we can't seem to wean ourselves off of it. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Maybe I missed it, but I'm surprised this hasn't become a bigger story:

Quote

Russian officials spoke openly about “derogatory” financial information they claimed to have on then-candidate Donald Trump and his close circle of advisers during calls intercepted by U.S. intelligence, CNN reported.

Two former intelligence officials and a source in Congress confirmed the information. One source told the broadcaster the intercepts during the 2016 campaign were about finances and whether Russia had leverage on Trump’s inner circle.

The Russians believed "they had the ability to influence the administration through the derogatory information," one of the sources told CNN.

http://www.newsweek.com/russian-officials-spoke-openly-about-financial-dirt-trump-team-report-617535

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, Rippounet said:

But this is besides the point. Contrary to popular belief, the US has almost never played world police. It doesn't protect stuff like "demoracy" or liberty." It generally couldn't care less about those (though saying it does always have a nice propaganda value, of course). It acts militarily to defend and expand its own commercial and geopolitical interests. 

Wait a minute now. Are you seriously suggesting that the U.S.'s toppling of the democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran in 1953 wasn't us acting as the world's police, but instead an attempt to keep the cost of oil down? My my sir, how dare you! 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Well this is pretty funny:

Quote

President Donald Trump, a professed Presbyterian, courted Christian voters throughout his campaign and attributed his party nomination largely to evangelical support.

But a new report from CNN suggests the president doesn’t entirely grasp the differences among Christian denominations.   

Just days before his presidential inauguration, Trump met with two Christian leaders at his office in Trump Tower. The Rev. Patrick O’Connor, senior pastor at the First Presbyterian Church in Queens ― where the president was confirmed as a child ― and the Rev. Scott Black Johnston, senior pastor of Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, had been invited to pray with the incoming president.

 

In comments previously unreported, the pastors told CNN, Trump boasted: “I did very, very well with evangelicals in the polls.”

O’Connor and Johnston reminded Trump that neither of them is an evangelical. To which the president-elect reportedly asked: “Well, what are you then?”

The pastors are both mainline Protestants ― like Trump, who describes himself as a Presbyterian. O’Connor and Johnston explained this to the president-elect, who nodded and asked them: “But you’re all Christians?”

“Yes,” they said. “We’re all Christians.”

Trump’s failure to grasp basic religious literacy stands in contrast to his efforts to fashion himself a devout Christian and pander to Christian audiences. But it fits with other comments he’s made that demonstrate a fundamental inconsistency with his professed faith.

On the campaign trail, Trump boasted that he has never repented or asked for forgiveness, both of which are essential activities for most Christians. He once described the Holy Communion as a time “when I drink my little wine and have my little cracker.” 

Trump has also bragged about committing adultery, repeatedly joked about dating his own daughter, and has shown little concern for the world’s refugees ― an issue of urgency for many American evangelicals. 

But all this little mattered little to his evangelical base. In June of 2016, Trump met with nearly 1,000 evangelical Christians during a conference for conservative leaders in an attempt to win over a voting bloc that has consistently helped sway the GOP vote. He received a standing ovation before taking the stage, and in the months that followed ― full of controversies that would have likely crippled other candidates ― evangelicals remained his loyal fans.

Come November, more than 80 percent of white evangelicals threw their support behind Trump.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-evangelical_us_5931a8bfe4b02478cb9b2600

 

[Rippounet]

12 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Wait a minute now. Are you seriously suggesting that the U.S.'s toppling of the democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran in 1953 wasn't us acting as the world's police, but instead an attempt to keep the cost of oil down? My my sir, how dare you! 

Obligatory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMGi0bYXNLM