Why is the conception of human rights so narrow? Does ending poverty mean nothing? China today is far more democratic than it has ever been including during the Republican era of Sun Yatsen and Chiang Kaishek. Yes the CCP monopolises power but people in China have far more say over how their lives are governed than the vast majority of Americans who are not part of the oligarchy. Democracy is not limited to Western style rivalry for power at the ballot box. Ultimately democracy is about equal say in how we are governed, regardless of ethnicity, gender, social class, caste, religion etc. Israel is “democratic” only in the narrow sense of having rivalry in the political process. But Jews have disproportionate say over social choice in Israel. That counts for nothing?
But that is COMMUNISM! :-) In the USA not only winners must win but losers must lose too. So there must be many poor people; in the USA the people who matter think that one of the horrors of communism is that winners are forced to pay to end the poverty of losers.
«Yes the CCP monopolises power»
Same happened with the Liberals in Japan and the Christian Democrats in Italy (etc.) for several decades, there have been several "managed democracies" (see also what happened to Corbyn in the UK recently).
Also in effect the CPC is a multi-party systems as members range from hard-core thatcherite to maoist.
Also the CPC does not quite "technically" monopolize power even if it has the "leading role" as it is part of a "United Front" coalition with other minor parties (among them the original KuoMinTang) who do get consulted and occasionally given a ministerial role.
«but people in China have far more say over how their lives are governed than the vast majority of Americans who are not part of the oligarchy.»
The PRC citizens do not have much of a say directly, but the CPC closely monitors public opinion and tries to satisfy (so far) even the interests of the lower classes; in the USA and other "[neo]liberal democracies" the mainstream parties only care about the "public opinion" of property owners (the middle-class) and of business owners (the upper-class) and the interests of the lower classes simply do no matter.
I never read Muñoz Molina´s opinion articles in El País. He expresses the platitudes of his generation who lived through the Spanish Transición and have achieved status and presence coming from a humble, if not poor, family background in the Franco dictatorship. This generation is, as the Spanish saying goes, "encantado de haberse conocido" (delighted to have met oneself), and see themselves as bringers of democracy to Spain (think Felipe González). They present themselves as pragmatic and realistic by accepting the present status quo as the only possible, and focussing on the limitations of the left (presented as self-criticism) , thereby coinciding with the weightiest criticisms of the right. The kind of ideas expressed by people like Muñoz Molina are firmly established in Spain even if they are so general and in part banal. I never read him, as I said, but maybe I should because, as the ideas are so common, one must pay attention to them to provide a critical reply, as you have done here.
Mainstream "news" focuses entirely on the now; and this perpetuates the absence (you rightly attack) of a lack of historical context. Also, as you again point out, to understand what's happening in one country means knowing what happens on a both larger and frequently smaller scale. Mali is a nation, but also a group of culturally distinct tribes, some of whom are split among other nations, as well. Nigeria is also a client state, its economy (white, gray, and black) supported outside forces that vie for a degree of control over the leaders they want or the leaders they don't want but will work with. Come to think of it, USia has made a habit of supporting dictators over the years, who in turn provide them with whatever is demanded. All that remains to do is for the US congress to apply a modern version of the term "Friends of Rome" to our preferred leaders.
This is one of the things I like about your content: you strive to open minds to views of history that are far from the mainstream, and closed in a way that does account for the rigidness of the Left, rather than just the problems of the Right. And you encourage your readers to see a huge, complex world that can't be fit into the little, sanctified scripts of academically approved histories. Bravo.
«Reportedly, Roosevelt used the line while referring to Anastasio Somoza who visited the U.S. after an election: To prime President Roosevelt for the visit, Sumner Welles sent him a long solemn memorandum about Somoza and Nicaragua. According to a story told around Washington, Roosevelt read the memo right through, wisecracked: “As a Nicaraguan might say, he’s a sonofabitch but he’s ours sonofabitch.”»
«USia has made a habit of supporting dictators over the years, who in turn provide them with whatever is demanded.»
The USA government like many imperial governments have four distinct attitudes:
* Countries that have resources and are backwards: run them through "sonsofabitch" tyrants who depend on USA support to stay in power so USA corporations can extract those resources giving a cut to the tyrants and their accomplices.
* Countries that do not have resources and are developed: let them have "managed" domestic self-rule via a local "sponsored" political class as long as they accept USA suzerainty over their military, security and foreign affairs and allow USA finance and tech corporations to establish themselves.
* Countries have have no resources and are backwards: ignore them as worthless unless some are convenient for USA DOD or CIA bases.
* Countries that have resources and are developed: enemies to surround, isolate, breakup.
Another chink in the endlessly repeated 'Contra el Imperio' argument. It's not as if we've all been assigned to give grades to every government in the world. I'll grade my own government because it funds its wars with my taxes. F for Vietnam. F for Chile. F for Iraq etc. I may have an opinion on the Khmer Rouge but I'm not obliged to grade it. And any American who felt he or she ought to grade China or the Soviet Union but refused to grade his or her own government's imperial gestures is a knave or a fool.
I have sympathies for both Molina, the "repentant liberal," and Milanovic, the "unflinching realist." How would a synthesis of both positions look like? I can take from Molina the invitation to think about past mistakes while upholding liberal democratic values and from Milanovic that we need to be realistic and make these lessons work for the future.
If you are a movement you must have both. Both the "realist" here and now solution that solves the problems for the establishment, and a long term better solution that solves the problems for people in general.
You might not be able, in the short run, to achieve more than the first. But to remain relevant you have to insist on the second as well.
But, of course, people who insist on who shall govern other countries than their own are not worth to take seriously at all. They are prigs.
«Before Maduro was abducted, so was Noriega—and with many more victims and 20,000 US troops attacking the country with no authorization by any international body.»
That might have been a grey case as the parliament of Panama declared a state of war with the USA, which was to say the least quite stupid.
«Before Greenland was threatened, so was Iraq, and again with many more victims too.»
Yugoslavia? Libya? etc. Anyhow both Greenland and Iceland were invaded and taken into "conservatorship" by the UK and the USA in 1940.
«On the evening of 10 May, the government of Iceland issued a protest, charging that its neutrality had been "flagrantly violated" and "its independence infringed"»
“The United States has discussed obtaining Greenland from Denmark since the 19th century. There were talks within the US federal government about purchasing Greenland in 1867, advocated by secretary of state William H. Seward, and again in 1910. However, in 1916, the United States proclaimed their recognition of Danish sovereignty over all Greenland as a condition for their purchase of the Virgin Islands in the Treaty of the Danish West Indies. Since World War II, the US has had at least one military base in Greenland. In 1946, the US secretly offered to buy Greenland, but it was rejected by Denmark. Since 1949, Greenland has been under the protection of NATO, of which the US and Denmark are both members. Nevertheless, the Joint Chiefs of Staff proposed acquiring the island in 1955 [...]
The US has long seen Greenland as vital for the defense of its mainland, and former war plans listed Greenland as one of the territories the US would seize and fortify in a hypothetical war. During World War II, the US invoked its Monroe Doctrine and occupied Greenland to prevent use by Germany following the German occupation of Denmark. The US military remained in Greenland after the war, and by 1948 Denmark abandoned attempts to persuade the US to leave. The following year, both countries became NATO members. A 1951 treaty gave the US a significant role in Greenland's defense and allowed it to have bases there.”
A number of roaring buffoon nowadays are "shocked shocked that gambling is going on in this joint" as to the USA imperial presidence and describe Trump as an "unpresidented" special case:
“Our children need to know that they – the citizens of the exceptional country, the most powerful, good and noble country in the history of mankind. Most of all, America is indispensable — and exceptional — because of our values […] The world looks to us to stand up for human rights, LGBT rights, religious and ethnic minorities, women, people with disabilities and people everywhere who yearn for peace.”
The theory as I understand it (and I do not agree with it) is simple: Novorossya, the Donbas and Crimea belong to the people of Lvov and Kiev and not to the people currently living in Novorossya, the Donbas and Crimea because the latter are just mongol-mongrel invader terrorists ("orcs") that have squatted on the sacred land of pure aryan-slav Greater Ruthenia for just a few centuries and must be pushed out.
No it did not. But whilst a 'liberal' rules based order always was a sham, as it coincided with a period of unprecedented global stability and wealth, it was a sham worth persevering with.
For example, when considering manifest destiny, banana republics, bay of pigs etc....in contrast is Trump simply saying the quiet bit about US imperialism out loud? 'Yeah I'm doing the illiberal imperial thing, what are you going to do about it?' Threatening Venezuela, meh, threatening us with Greenland, whoa! Hence 'Liberal' countries can no conduct a, let's pretend by looking the other way policies. Now liberal democracies must calculate whether US or China is the bigger immediate threat?
Carney correctly identified that we're in a transactional world now where middling countries must look to make coalitions of the willing whilst holding their noses when dealing with both the US and China.
«Carney correctly identified that we're in a transactional world now where middling countries must look to make coalitions of the willing whilst holding their noses when dealing with both the US and China»
Carney seems to me a financier with zero political power base (like Sunak, Starmer, Draghi, Macron, etc.) who has been simply appointed by his "sponsors" to run Canada, so my guess is that whatever he says is "sponsored".
In particular I think that the current CDN+UK+EU governments do not regard themselves as newly independent ex-vassals of the USA as they claim, but rather as not-vassals of the nationalist/consolidationist faction of the USA, while continuing to be zealous vassals of the globalist/expansionist faction of the USA. They seem to me to be operating as directed by the latter faction in pretending to be ex-vassals of the USA in order to embarrass Trump ("who lost Europe/Canada/UK?").
The EU+CDN+UK governments know very well that the USA utterly control the supply routes of essential imports for the UK+CDN+EU, control the shipping routes of their exports, and have a large pro-USA "fifth column" in the EU, and no EU government wants to risk being sanctioned or color-revolutioned by the USA government.
Note: technically Canada is self-sufficient in oil and cereals so it could be more independent but there are other factors...
So their shows of anti-Trump zeal are purely for optics, like sending 15 german soldiers to Greenland (and pulling them back when Trump growled at them).
Why is the conception of human rights so narrow? Does ending poverty mean nothing? China today is far more democratic than it has ever been including during the Republican era of Sun Yatsen and Chiang Kaishek. Yes the CCP monopolises power but people in China have far more say over how their lives are governed than the vast majority of Americans who are not part of the oligarchy. Democracy is not limited to Western style rivalry for power at the ballot box. Ultimately democracy is about equal say in how we are governed, regardless of ethnicity, gender, social class, caste, religion etc. Israel is “democratic” only in the narrow sense of having rivalry in the political process. But Jews have disproportionate say over social choice in Israel. That counts for nothing?
«Does ending poverty mean nothing?»
But that is COMMUNISM! :-) In the USA not only winners must win but losers must lose too. So there must be many poor people; in the USA the people who matter think that one of the horrors of communism is that winners are forced to pay to end the poverty of losers.
«Yes the CCP monopolises power»
Same happened with the Liberals in Japan and the Christian Democrats in Italy (etc.) for several decades, there have been several "managed democracies" (see also what happened to Corbyn in the UK recently).
Also in effect the CPC is a multi-party systems as members range from hard-core thatcherite to maoist.
Also the CPC does not quite "technically" monopolize power even if it has the "leading role" as it is part of a "United Front" coalition with other minor parties (among them the original KuoMinTang) who do get consulted and occasionally given a ministerial role.
«but people in China have far more say over how their lives are governed than the vast majority of Americans who are not part of the oligarchy.»
The PRC citizens do not have much of a say directly, but the CPC closely monitors public opinion and tries to satisfy (so far) even the interests of the lower classes; in the USA and other "[neo]liberal democracies" the mainstream parties only care about the "public opinion" of property owners (the middle-class) and of business owners (the upper-class) and the interests of the lower classes simply do no matter.
I never read Muñoz Molina´s opinion articles in El País. He expresses the platitudes of his generation who lived through the Spanish Transición and have achieved status and presence coming from a humble, if not poor, family background in the Franco dictatorship. This generation is, as the Spanish saying goes, "encantado de haberse conocido" (delighted to have met oneself), and see themselves as bringers of democracy to Spain (think Felipe González). They present themselves as pragmatic and realistic by accepting the present status quo as the only possible, and focussing on the limitations of the left (presented as self-criticism) , thereby coinciding with the weightiest criticisms of the right. The kind of ideas expressed by people like Muñoz Molina are firmly established in Spain even if they are so general and in part banal. I never read him, as I said, but maybe I should because, as the ideas are so common, one must pay attention to them to provide a critical reply, as you have done here.
Mainstream "news" focuses entirely on the now; and this perpetuates the absence (you rightly attack) of a lack of historical context. Also, as you again point out, to understand what's happening in one country means knowing what happens on a both larger and frequently smaller scale. Mali is a nation, but also a group of culturally distinct tribes, some of whom are split among other nations, as well. Nigeria is also a client state, its economy (white, gray, and black) supported outside forces that vie for a degree of control over the leaders they want or the leaders they don't want but will work with. Come to think of it, USia has made a habit of supporting dictators over the years, who in turn provide them with whatever is demanded. All that remains to do is for the US congress to apply a modern version of the term "Friends of Rome" to our preferred leaders.
This is one of the things I like about your content: you strive to open minds to views of history that are far from the mainstream, and closed in a way that does account for the rigidness of the Left, rather than just the problems of the Right. And you encourage your readers to see a huge, complex world that can't be fit into the little, sanctified scripts of academically approved histories. Bravo.
«All that remains to do is for the US congress to apply a modern version of the term "Friends of Rome" to our preferred leaders.»
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2021/02/24/rascal/
«Reportedly, Roosevelt used the line while referring to Anastasio Somoza who visited the U.S. after an election: To prime President Roosevelt for the visit, Sumner Welles sent him a long solemn memorandum about Somoza and Nicaragua. According to a story told around Washington, Roosevelt read the memo right through, wisecracked: “As a Nicaraguan might say, he’s a sonofabitch but he’s ours sonofabitch.”»
«USia has made a habit of supporting dictators over the years, who in turn provide them with whatever is demanded.»
The USA government like many imperial governments have four distinct attitudes:
* Countries that have resources and are backwards: run them through "sonsofabitch" tyrants who depend on USA support to stay in power so USA corporations can extract those resources giving a cut to the tyrants and their accomplices.
* Countries that do not have resources and are developed: let them have "managed" domestic self-rule via a local "sponsored" political class as long as they accept USA suzerainty over their military, security and foreign affairs and allow USA finance and tech corporations to establish themselves.
* Countries have have no resources and are backwards: ignore them as worthless unless some are convenient for USA DOD or CIA bases.
* Countries that have resources and are developed: enemies to surround, isolate, breakup.
Another chink in the endlessly repeated 'Contra el Imperio' argument. It's not as if we've all been assigned to give grades to every government in the world. I'll grade my own government because it funds its wars with my taxes. F for Vietnam. F for Chile. F for Iraq etc. I may have an opinion on the Khmer Rouge but I'm not obliged to grade it. And any American who felt he or she ought to grade China or the Soviet Union but refused to grade his or her own government's imperial gestures is a knave or a fool.
I have sympathies for both Molina, the "repentant liberal," and Milanovic, the "unflinching realist." How would a synthesis of both positions look like? I can take from Molina the invitation to think about past mistakes while upholding liberal democratic values and from Milanovic that we need to be realistic and make these lessons work for the future.
Molina (and comrades) smells strongly of moral condescension, which repels masses. So, intellectual narcissism = political irrelevance.
But Munoz Molina is the author of a wonderful novel called 'Sepherad.'
Nevertheless, that depends on who you are.
If you are a movement you must have both. Both the "realist" here and now solution that solves the problems for the establishment, and a long term better solution that solves the problems for people in general.
You might not be able, in the short run, to achieve more than the first. But to remain relevant you have to insist on the second as well.
But, of course, people who insist on who shall govern other countries than their own are not worth to take seriously at all. They are prigs.
«Before Maduro was abducted, so was Noriega—and with many more victims and 20,000 US troops attacking the country with no authorization by any international body.»
That might have been a grey case as the parliament of Panama declared a state of war with the USA, which was to say the least quite stupid.
«Before Greenland was threatened, so was Iraq, and again with many more victims too.»
Yugoslavia? Libya? etc. Anyhow both Greenland and Iceland were invaded and taken into "conservatorship" by the UK and the USA in 1940.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_occupation_of_Iceland
«On the evening of 10 May, the government of Iceland issued a protest, charging that its neutrality had been "flagrantly violated" and "its independence infringed"»
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proposed_United_States_acquisition_of_Greenland
“The United States has discussed obtaining Greenland from Denmark since the 19th century. There were talks within the US federal government about purchasing Greenland in 1867, advocated by secretary of state William H. Seward, and again in 1910. However, in 1916, the United States proclaimed their recognition of Danish sovereignty over all Greenland as a condition for their purchase of the Virgin Islands in the Treaty of the Danish West Indies. Since World War II, the US has had at least one military base in Greenland. In 1946, the US secretly offered to buy Greenland, but it was rejected by Denmark. Since 1949, Greenland has been under the protection of NATO, of which the US and Denmark are both members. Nevertheless, the Joint Chiefs of Staff proposed acquiring the island in 1955 [...]
The US has long seen Greenland as vital for the defense of its mainland, and former war plans listed Greenland as one of the territories the US would seize and fortify in a hypothetical war. During World War II, the US invoked its Monroe Doctrine and occupied Greenland to prevent use by Germany following the German occupation of Denmark. The US military remained in Greenland after the war, and by 1948 Denmark abandoned attempts to persuade the US to leave. The following year, both countries became NATO members. A 1951 treaty gave the US a significant role in Greenland's defense and allowed it to have bases there.”
A number of roaring buffoon nowadays are "shocked shocked that gambling is going on in this joint" as to the USA imperial presidence and describe Trump as an "unpresidented" special case:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jan/25/global-rule-of-law-donald-trump-approval-ratings
«The global rule of law is not collapsing – Trump is the lone problem [...] most Americans see him as an aberration»
Because this is how things always were before Trump:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/restoring-american-exceptionalism-1440801129
“Our children need to know that they – the citizens of the exceptional country, the most powerful, good and noble country in the history of mankind. Most of all, America is indispensable — and exceptional — because of our values […] The world looks to us to stand up for human rights, LGBT rights, religious and ethnic minorities, women, people with disabilities and people everywhere who yearn for peace.”
Hurrah! Hurrah! :-)
How is Russia “imperialist” in Ukraine?
Actually explain it without invoking “self evident” aphorisms
«How is Russia “imperialist” in Ukraine?»
The theory as I understand it (and I do not agree with it) is simple: Novorossya, the Donbas and Crimea belong to the people of Lvov and Kiev and not to the people currently living in Novorossya, the Donbas and Crimea because the latter are just mongol-mongrel invader terrorists ("orcs") that have squatted on the sacred land of pure aryan-slav Greater Ruthenia for just a few centuries and must be pushed out.
No it did not. But whilst a 'liberal' rules based order always was a sham, as it coincided with a period of unprecedented global stability and wealth, it was a sham worth persevering with.
For example, when considering manifest destiny, banana republics, bay of pigs etc....in contrast is Trump simply saying the quiet bit about US imperialism out loud? 'Yeah I'm doing the illiberal imperial thing, what are you going to do about it?' Threatening Venezuela, meh, threatening us with Greenland, whoa! Hence 'Liberal' countries can no conduct a, let's pretend by looking the other way policies. Now liberal democracies must calculate whether US or China is the bigger immediate threat?
Carney correctly identified that we're in a transactional world now where middling countries must look to make coalitions of the willing whilst holding their noses when dealing with both the US and China.
«Carney correctly identified that we're in a transactional world now where middling countries must look to make coalitions of the willing whilst holding their noses when dealing with both the US and China»
Carney seems to me a financier with zero political power base (like Sunak, Starmer, Draghi, Macron, etc.) who has been simply appointed by his "sponsors" to run Canada, so my guess is that whatever he says is "sponsored".
In particular I think that the current CDN+UK+EU governments do not regard themselves as newly independent ex-vassals of the USA as they claim, but rather as not-vassals of the nationalist/consolidationist faction of the USA, while continuing to be zealous vassals of the globalist/expansionist faction of the USA. They seem to me to be operating as directed by the latter faction in pretending to be ex-vassals of the USA in order to embarrass Trump ("who lost Europe/Canada/UK?").
The EU+CDN+UK governments know very well that the USA utterly control the supply routes of essential imports for the UK+CDN+EU, control the shipping routes of their exports, and have a large pro-USA "fifth column" in the EU, and no EU government wants to risk being sanctioned or color-revolutioned by the USA government.
Note: technically Canada is self-sufficient in oil and cereals so it could be more independent but there are other factors...
So their shows of anti-Trump zeal are purely for optics, like sending 15 german soldiers to Greenland (and pulling them back when Trump growled at them).
Could it be that the struggle needs to be updated for the replacement of the rules-based international order by a transaction-based American order?