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The difference between previous Russia/China collaborations is that they now realise that America can no longer be trusted. It must be brought down. Only question now is will it be brought down merely economically (loss of the dollar’s reserve status with ensuing impoverishment) or will it be military as well (nuclear war).
And it was all so unnecessary. If Russia had been welcomed into the family of Western nations we could have ganged up on the Chinese.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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| The difference between previous Russia/China collaborations is that they now realise that America can no longer be trusted. |
Neither has ever trusted America -- and for good reason. But Great Power relationships are never based on trust.
Do you mean America or Russia or China or the relationship?
| Only question now is will it be brought down merely economically (loss of the dollar’s reserve status with ensuing impoverishment) or will it be military as well (nuclear war). |
Oh, it was America. Great Powers never want to bring down other Great Powers, it is too destabilising to the system as a whole, which might mean their own status as a Great Power would be in jeopardy. I've never seen or see any signs that either Russia or China seek this. Best America, yes. Overthrow hegemonic America, yes. But even if either developed a pathological hatred of America they would quickly realise it cannot be 'brought down' however much they might want to do it. Only America can do this.
| And it was all so unnecessary. If Russia had been welcomed into the family of Western nations we could have ganged up on the Chinese. |
You have quite forgotten recent history. After the demise of the Soviet Union Russia was invited to join all the norms and clubs of the family of Western nations. They started off doing so, then they stopped doing so, then they started competing with the family of western nations. Finishing with the invasion of Ukraine which they must have known would mean confrontation with the family of western nations.
Don't believe your own propaganda. Whatever (foolish) things Ukraine did to Russia or Russian-speaking Ukrainians, they simply weren't in the same league as -- and certainly did not justify -- all out invasion with a war aim of the annihilation of Ukraine as a sovereign country.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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A routine but still informative exchange occurred over on Medium between the usual antagonists.
For those of you who don't follow these things in detail, the next president of the USA has locked horns with the Mouse over the latter being mildly more pro-LGBTQ+ rights than he is. I commented fairly deathlessly
| Joe, I didn't spot where you stand personally on the various issues raised. I got an inkling but when discussing these technical issues, it always helps to know for sure. Just in case it affects your judgement. Unless, like me, you find neither Mr DeSantis nor Messrs Disney greatly to your taste. But I suppose it is where you stand on LGBTQ+ that really counts. |
This got sixty-eight claps which for me is the equivalent of getting the VC and bar. I wasn't expecting a reply to my querulousness but the one I got is worth wading through (well, hopping over judiciously) because it shows that the liberal-left in America have no idea that their position is anything but sheer common sense and believed nem con by any sensible American. Also possibly how fond they are of parading their credentials as well as their case
| Joe Duncan wrote: | Hey Mick, thanks for reading and taking the time to drop a comment. I sincerely appreciate both. I’ll take that as a vote of confidence as I strive to be as balanced as possible when the facts permit. My opinion (this is an opinion piece, after all) is that it’s terrifying that a Governor is attacking a corporation for simply exercising their free speech (and not through campaign donations).
As I said in some comments above, make no mistake, Disney is doing what it thinks is best for its bottom line. They don’t care about the issue or those hurt by it. They only spoke up because they were publicly criticized for not speaking up. Disney actually donated massive amounts of money to the campaigns of the people who drafted and signed the "don't say gay" bill, hopefully a stain on their legacy. The “Don’t Say Gay†bill is absolutely needless and obviously destructive. It coincides with a flurry of other bills DeSantis has signed recently, many of them redundant.
As I covered on my Substack, The Science of Sex, Don’t Say Gay, the law that bans girls from talking about their periods in school, stuff like this is being pushed under the guise of protecting children. In actuality, it’s about silencing people and forcing us to be afraid to say certain things. In that article, I explained how teachers have historically been fired from schools for crossing the line and discussing sexual behavior with small children.
It would be damn-near impossible to find anyone in their right minds who thinks that school staff should be talking about explicitly sexual things (like sexual experiences) with children. I think we all universally agree that explicit sex talk with third graders is bad. But we already had a mechanism for dealing with that and teachers faced consequences, sometimes even jail time. The law exists because DeSantis it plays into textbook homophobia (“I don’t want my child around children whose parents are gay,†etc.).
I’m not particularly fond of either Disney or DeSantis, personally. But I’m used to corporations being soulless machines that don’t give a damn about you and I. What I’m not used to is my Governor targeting a corporation for a full year in the name of retribution, especially as his party is kicking around the idea of functionally banning blogging here in the state by making us bloggers register with the State of Florida. It all feels pretty dystopian. I would be lying if I said I don’t sometimes worry that just reporting the facts will go too far and someday, I’ll be punished by the State of Florida for doing just that. |
I didn't think it would do any good but I felt impelled to draw the issue I had raised to his and the medium crowd's attention (Joe has sixteen thousand followers).
| Mick Harper wrote: | | So you are generally not in favour of expanding LGBTQ+ rights but despite that you felt, on this occasion, the constitutional issues were of sufficient importance to require bringing them to our attention. That is unusual. Indeed, in my experience, unique. |
I await developments but I doubt there will be any.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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More Tex-Mex Comedy
There are tens of thousands of folks from the more battered parts of Latin America on the march towards Nirvana because the Covid restrictions are due to end. This spells trouble for Joe Biden. The Democratic base would be outraged if they're kept out and he might not get nominated. Xenophobic voters might not vote for him if they aren't. What to do? Keep 'em milling till after the election of course, but that has its own problems
Biden administration sending 1,500 more soldiers to Mexico border
Troops will assist with administrative duties as Biden administration prepares for end of Title 42 border restriction. |
Gee, Mr President, do you really think you'll need all that firepower?
| The soldiers will perform “non-law enforcement duties†such as data entry and warehouse support, DHS said. “This support will free up DHS law enforcement personnel to perform their critical law enforcement missions,†the department said. |
"Listen up, marines. Anyone with experience of double-entry book-keeping, one pace forward. If you can drive a forklift truck, give your name to the CSM."
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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One of the great banes of foreign policy is the principle 'what you have, you hold'. This doesn't apply in other spheres of life. Take my broken down exercise bike. Please! I'll even pay you. Or my maxed-out credit cards. If you want to make me an offer I can't refuse, I won't refuse. As long as you pay the monthly installments so my credit rating isn't affected, you can keep 'em. You can even change the name on them if you like, I won't object. Unless your name is Serbia and the name on the card is Kosovo
| Elections that took place in the north of Kosovo in four municipalities with a Serb majority registered the lowest turnout ever in the country’s history at just 3.47%. A total of 19 polling stations were opened with 45,000 Kosovo citizens eligible to vote, but just 1567 people cast a ballot. |
No, tell you what, I'll keep the useless and ruinously expensive credit cards and you can take a long walk on a short pier because 'What I have, I hold'. And I'm gonna tell you why.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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It all started in 1389 with the Battle of Kosovo, when the Turks beat the Serbs and extinguished Serbia. They could have freed themselves in 1448 at the second battle of Kosovo but they backed the wrong side (Turkey) rather than the right side (Hungary) but actually it turned out to be the right side because Turkey was shaken off in the nineteenth century whereas the Hungarians would have taken until the twentieth. All you have to remember is that the word Kosovo has big reverberations for Serbs.
Kosovo was pretty much entirely inhabited by Albanians. So when Yugoslavia started breaking up in the 1980's most people got their independence except the Albanians who, the Serbs insisted, must remain part of Serbia. What you remember, you hold.
Naturally the Albanians revolted, naturally the Serbs tried to get rid of the Albanians. They could have done it the easy way, recognising Kosovo as an independent state, but 'what you have, you hold' required them doing it the hard way, massacring enough Albanians to persuade the other Albanians to flee into Albania, getting bombed into oblivion by NATO, having an independent Kosovo anyway, and being treated as a pariah by one and all (except Russia which, believe me, is worse than one and all including Russia).
So now we can turn to Kosovo.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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When Yugoslavia was being organised into a federal system under Tito (though words like 'federal' have a limited meaning under Communist dictators like Tito), it was obvious that the Albanians were 'an entity'. I put it like that because they weren't small and Serb like Montenegro, nor were they big and non-Serb like Macedonia, nor were they historic and non-Serb like Croatia and Slovenia. Nor were they a mess like Bosnia-Herzegovina. But above all there was an actual Albania just across the way and it wouldn't do to remind everyone that that wasn't necessarily set in stone.
So they were made into a sub-division of Serbia. But to make them big enough to be an entity and to remind them who was in charge, their natural boundaries were widened to incorporate some Serbs and given the memorably Serb name of Kosovo. I'm telling you all this because it's important to remember that the Kosovar Albanians lived in an administrative convenience whose boundaries were most definitely not set in stone.
Hence, when they gained their independence, they found themselves with a whole bunch of Serbs along the Serbian border who didn't want to live in Kosovo but in Serbia. Naturally the Serbs revolted, naturally Kosovo wanted to get rid of the Serbs, naturally they could have done it the easy way and just passed this strip of land back to Serbia but naturally 'what you have, you hold' required them doing it the hard way. By refusing to allow the Kosovar Serbs to use Serbian number plates on their cars.
Now don't read on, I need a lie down, but watch the news instead because there will be something like a war between Kosovo and Serbia -- maybe hot, more likely cold -- but anyway it will go on for years (which in the Balkans means centuries) and will totally dislocate Kosovo (and maybe Serbia) and all because of 'what you have, you hold'. And because I believe in the principle as well I will be holding on to you with further examples. So read on.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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We're in Russia now and it's the nineteen-fifties with Nikita Khrushchev in charge. It's a federal state made up of soviet republics reflecting the various people that have, over the years, been incorporated into Russia (though 'federal' has a limited meaning in communist dictatorships). Nikko has a Ukrainian background and decides, for one reason or another, to shift the industrial Donets basin out of the Russian Soviet Socialist Republic and into the Ukraine Socialist Soviet Republic. Since it's a communist dictatorship not a federal state, nobody much cares. Or even notices.
Until the Soviet Union breaks up into its constituent republics and Ukraine finds itself with a bunch of Russians on its eastern border with Russia. Now they could do it the easy way...
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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On Ukraine's western border there's Moldova. This goes back to Tsarist times so I won't bother you with the history but suffice it to say that one half is Romanian-speaking and one half is Russian-speaking. They could do it the easy way...
Also on Ukraine's western border is Slovakia. I will bother you with a leetle history this time. Long, long ago there was a country called Bohemia which was a very successful state that incorporated a lot of Germans and a lot of Slovaks but was mainly Czech. Until it was itself incorporated into the Habsburg Empire. Hence, when the Empire was broken up into its constituent parts in 1919, the Slovaks were given to the Czechs and the Czechs found themselves with a German minority along their German border. They could have done it the easy way...
In 1991 the Czechs found themselves independent once more (it's a long story) and had to decide what to do with the Slovaks. Finally someone did decide to do it the easy way and both Czechs and Slovaks lived happily ever after. And then there's...
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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I can't believe how ignorant our talking heads are when it comes to the basics of British politics. They really have no excuse because those basics haven't changed for several hundred years:
1. There's a customary governing party
2. There's a customary opposition party
3. The first one wins general elections unless
4. It's in an existential crisis
5. Or Britain is. |
Are the Tories in an existential crisis? No, but they are coming out of one. Is Britain? No, but it's coming out of one. Are the Tories going to win the next election? Not necessarily because Labour is also a customary governing party.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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| Thailand, Laos and Vietnam report hottest days on record |
When this is just streamed across the bottom of an Al-Jazeera news bulletin as if it's the latest football results, you can be pretty sure things are much more terrifying than anyone can do about.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Chile is always a wonder to behold. It is the richest, most developed, most homogenous country in Latin America so naturally it is in constant trouble. Like its comparator, Argentina, it can never get its politics right. The latest snafu came about like this
1. The left came to power quite peaceably and democratically a couple of years ago but instead of just putting through much needed reforms, it decided it just had to fight a battle against the long-gone regime of Pinochet.
2. Chile, they announced, must rid itself of the last vestige of fascism, the Pinochet constitution -- that's right, the one that had just brought them to power!
3. So they produced a standard, modish one. Fine. Then their own left wing started adding all kinds of ultra-lefty goodies. Non-ultras always find it difficult disagreeing with things they are supposed to believe in, but don't really, so these were accepted. Not so fine, the Chilean people rejected it in a referendum. Back to the drawing board.
4. They called an election to select a panel of people to construct a new constitution. Only the ultra left were outraged by this and boycotted it.
5. So the right got elected instead and their ultras have just announced there was nothing wrong with the Pinochet constitution but they will be adding some ultra right goodies.
6. To be continued until the next Pinochet returns and they can start all over again.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Pakistan is in big trouble. Pakistan is always in trouble but normally the army pulls it out if things get too bad. Now it is the army that is the trouble. The story so far....
Imran Kahn has proved to be a very much sharper operator than any of us who watched him growing up as a cricketer, a playboy and as a billionaire's son-in-law would have thought possible. He won the last election handily (something that almost never happens in Pakistan) and was ensconced safely in power, as much as that is ever possible in Pakistan. He embarked on the long-needed process of reining in the army. Not as a military's force -- the problems in the region are too many for that -- but as an industrial force, it has its finger in every Pakistani pie and owns many of them.
Naturally the army disagreed, bribed a few MPs to switch side, Kahn lost a vote of confidence, resigned and the opposition took over in government. Naturally the electorate disagreed and started rioting. The army/government riposted by arresting Kahn on trumped up charges, mainly of corruption (he seems not to be, making him unique in Pakistan). This led to a sort of thé dansant as Imran would turn up for a bail hearing with a lot of supporters at his back, the court would send him home again and everyone waited to see what would happen. Finally, on a really weird one involving Britain, they decided to actually imprison Kahn.
The cow dung and the fan are joining up from several directions -- not least the fact that Pakistan has been hit by a succession of natural disasters that require all hands should be on the pump -- and we shall just have to wait and see. It can't get better but one fears it will get a lot worse. Probably a military government but, as we are seeing all over the world, military governments are not what they used to be in this age of total communications.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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A dramatic new factor has entered the migrant debate. I think it can be agreed that the main route in is for migrants to present themselves physically at a border and trust that a combination of bureaucratic inertia and liberal sentiment will do the rest. The Americans are now insisting that all applications are done by email and since every migrant, be they ever so lowly, has access to the internet this is proving to be a gamechanger.
'Undocumented' now means being turned away without further ado. Even asylum-seekers from countries where the internet is not available will pass through countries where it is -- a far cry from not applying for asylum in countries passed through. Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing is not for AE to judge but it can certainly predict with some confidence that governments anxious to overcome liberal sentiment will embark on the long march to acquire an electronic-savvy bureaucracy.
To judge from the American experience the inertia will now most definitely not work in migrants' favour.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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| The evidence is overwhelming that juries, and their verdicts, are influenced by rape myths. Scottish Jury Research working paper, 2019 |
Applied Epistemologists know all about the phrase 'the evidence is overwhelming' in an academic context. We have a standard reflex: "It certainly overwhelmed them." We also know quite a lot about myths and the fact that academics along with everyone else tend to believe them rather more often than they should. All this has arisen because Scottish politicians are proposing rape trials be conducted without a jury. This is being opposed by Scottish lawyers who think one judge is a worse judge about how ordinary people behave than fifteen (in Scotland) ordinary people. But why is a change being considered anyway? It is because in jury trials
Rape & attempted rape: 51% of prosecutions result in convictions
All offences: 91% of prosecutions result in convictions |
To this ordinary person, fifty-one per cent does not seem unreasonable when it is so often a case of 'he said, she said'. But to the unordinary people who run the country, it is too low (which is probably true) and a judge will convict more than a jury (which is certainly true) but only a good thing if the correct forty-nine per cent gets boosted towards ninety-one per cent.
That is not very likely when judges are part of the liberal elite who believe in rape myths just as wholeheartedly as the rank and file, except they are different rape myths. On the whole I'm on the side of the jury not being out on this one.
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