Dean
2d ago
That goes for the US as well, they have incentives to downplay, ignore, reframe all their own barriers(for example in the airbus-boeing trade fights). You said ‘military support for advantageous tariffs’ is an agreement. Doesn’t sound like the EU agreed to it.
Of course the EU did not agree to it. The EU didn't exist at the time the transatlantic alliance was formed.
Partially as a result, the EU inherited the economic aspects of it and not the strategic, and as such paid less concern to the areas outside its perview (the military/geopoligical strategic considerations), which was less a bug and more of a feature for some of the EU's key leaders (Germany but especially France, who has approached the EU as a way to try and decrease American influence and increase French influence over the continent).
Of course they are, the question is what the europeans are getting out of it, since according to your view, the buyer (guy with a trade deficit, here the european) is just handing out ‘subsidies’. So if I buy oil from an arab, that’s a fair trade, but if you buy champaign from me, that’s a subsidy?
This would be an inept reading of the position previously provided, and a worse description of the strategic bargain previously described, unless you believe the European NATO contribution in the Cold War amounted to champaign.
You have a 25% tariff on light trucks including SUVs, which is the majority of the US car market.
And which are not an equivalent portion of the Eruopean market, and which further demonstrates that average tariff barriers are still a meaningless number, for the reasons demonstrated.
As I said on principle I don’t mind equalizing all the tariffs (though I’ve just read the 25% light truck ‘chicken tax’ seems hard to repeal because of bipartisan support) , but it’s not going to help your trade deficit because the deficit is not caused by preferential tariffs.
That sounds like the argument of someone who would like to preserve preferential tariffs, after attempting to quibble that they existed and/or their degree of relevance while existing in a status quo of substantial tariff walls.
This does not sound like a credible argument to an incoming administration who believes that preferential tariffs make trade deficits worse, and notes that you are making your argument from behind substantial tariff walls.
No one ever truly wins these economic fad arguments, they wax and wane. It's true that european elites are fond of their dirigisme, and it always ends up being an expensive clusterfuck.
As it may well be, but both the American trade deficit and the American garrisons in Europe are non-trivial expenses and have been argued to be clustfucks in their own right.
The point that political arguments are overturned over time does not mean that they are not won or loss, merely that their victories are transitory. Take pride in your cultural accomplishments- the Europeans are shaping the Americans, rather than the other way around.
Nothing. If they don’t think trade benefits them, I can try to argue that it does, but if they don’t see it, I’m not offering a bribe, they can just walk away. They’re a free country.
And thus you and Donald Trump have concurred that the baseline alternative to a negotiated agreement is preferable to both the status quo and any of your proposed alternatives, with no blackmail required.
Buying an item in the supermarket (or trading beans for bacon with my neighbour) is a mutually beneficial transaction.
If the supermarket is losing money selling to you, it is not a mutually beneficial transaction.
A transaction is only mutually beneficial for the supermarket if both parties are getting something they want that is worth more (to them) than what they give up. What the supermarket wants in exchange for your purchases is money. If the supermarket is losing money on the deal, it is not getting more than it loses.
I don’t owe walmart military service afterwards.
Because Walmart is not subsidizing you for a military alliance. Which is why the supermarket metaphor is, again, bad. The European-American alliance relationship is not like your relationship with Walmart.
It's fine that you don't want to provide military support to your allies. It's even fine if you don't want military allies. Just don't expect to benefit from economic benefits provided in exchange for a military alliance without the military alliance.
Was this military-support-for-one-sided-tariffs agreement commented on by anyone at the time (preferably european)?
...yes. There is plenty of historical documentation on the strategic rational of the Marshal Plan, from both sides of the Atlantic. It is not hard to find. Nor is the history of the European-Japanese and European-Korean trade relations.
You can search for it on your own if you are curious, though I'd actually recommend against the Europeans for anything more recent (since the EU's creation), since the EU establishment has significant interest incentives to downplay, ignore, or reframe why US-EU tariff barriers are at the level they are. The general EU-adjacent policy sphere refrain is that EU tariff walls don't meaningfully hinder American trade with Europe, but also that equivalent tariff barriers is very bad.
These needlessly complicated ‘subventions’ breed confusions. Next time we’ll take it in cash, not in trade.
If you insist, pending your ability to arrange such. Mercenaries with little military capabilities to offer have little ability to dictate terms, however, and cash transfers are less enduring than trade concessions.
You’ve had a way bigger deficit against china than us for a long time. What did they agree to do for you in order to get this preferential treatment?
And you'll note that Trump has been an even larger advocate of tariffs against the Chinese than against the Europeans. This is a poor whataboutism, given the politician involved.
As for what the Chinese agreed to- the answer is they didn't, nor did they need to beyond some promises for market reforms that they've largely ignored. The post-Cold War US administrations thought integrating China into global markets markets would lead to political liberalization, which would have been the 'benefit.' This was expected to occur naturally. It did not occur / has not occured, and is generally considered a major strategic mistake of the Clinton administration.
We have a big deficit against saudi arabia – is that a subsidy too?
No, European purchases of middle eastern energy is transactional. Notably, the Arabs are making a profit off of providing their good/service to the Europeans at market rates.
The average tariff between US-EU is 3%.
There is no meaningful 'average tariff.' Averaging non-comparable categories leads to meaningless numbers, given the difference in the scale of the economies those tariffs apply to and the relative importance applied to them.
To bring a relevant specific category: automobile manufacturing. During the first Trump administration, it was considered extremely provocative when Trump raised the import tariff of 2.5% on European cars, in a context of importing 1.15 million cars for around 43 billion. At the time, the European tariff barrier for automobiles was 10%, in a market about 260k US cars exported for around 6 billion.
Even if there was an entire category of X-but-small trade volume at 0% tariffs, that wouldn't mean the 'average' tariff was 5%.
I don’t mind equalizing if you find an ‘unfair’ percent here and there, but it’s not going to meaningfully change the balance of trade, because it depends on other characteristics of the economy.
The characteristics of the economic differences is the point of the protectionism.
From a macroeconomic perspective, the US primarily exports services and resources, and inputs manufactured goods. This is in part a result of the American macroeconomic decision to export manufacturing during globalization, which significantly impacted American manufacturing capability while bolstering other parts of the world- especially China. Various parts of those industrial base losses were relevant to military production rates, as military industry is converted from / tied to domestic industrial manufactuing capacity.
The Americans are in the process of re-industrializing, for strategic and other reasons. Part of that is setting the rules so that the economic incentives of companies isn't to immediately decamp industry and then sell from outside of the US to the US. These are characteristics of the economy that are being deliberately changed.
In this respect, the Americans are aligning to a European norm. The Europeans were embracing industrial policy as a systemic government priority well before the Americans, and won the argument. Trump, Biden, and now Trump again are adopting a more European-understanding of the value of trade barriers.
So Trump is still going to claim exploitation and raise tariffs 25 % and so the people, agreeing to disagree, will mutually consent to the unraveling of mutually beneficial trade.
There is not a mutual consensus that it is mutually beneficial trade. That is a point you do not acknowledge because you do not want to agree that it is not mutually beneficial, even though your concession is not necessary, by definition, for there to be a lack of mutual consensus.
You may think the trade is mutually beneficial, and you may think that the Americans should feel the trade is mutually beneficial, but your thoughts do not matter for whether the Americans in question believe it is mutually beneficial trade. If they do not, they will not continue as if it is.
The question, as raised earlier, is what you are willing to offer to make it convincing to the Americans that it is in their interest. Given that they do not believe the current exchange ratio is favorable, you can either increase incentives, or decrease perceived costs.
Dean
3d ago
This is a phenomenon I’ve been meaning to write about for some time. I don’t have anything against Cathy young, but when I read the article, the pattern really just jumped out at me, and it seemed like a good anchor point for this article. It’s an even more interesting case due to the fact that it’s an article that I essentially agree with, which means my aversion to it was pure sensitivity to the pattern, and not bias against the content itself.
I applaud this writeup, and just want to share something on Cathy Young herself. I have a... fond?... opinion of her, as she was someone I used to read more of last decade.
Cathy Young, not to be confused with the Demcratic senatory Catherine Young who often goes by Cathy in media, is as an older-school republican, the sort most concerned with government proceduralism and how rule of law is handled (treating all people equally). She was an earlier opponent of progressive excess, and as a female journalist of clearly conservative leanings, she was able to carve a niche by being the contrarian to the expected demographic alignment (i.e. a jewish woman who was not a progressive democratic partisan for social justice).
Back then, and in the early Trump, she was something of a 'sane moderate' writer, who was sympathetic enough to give a fair hearing (and presentation) to rightwing people she personally clearly did not fully agree with, while resisting / calling out the excesses of leftwing actors who would be undoubtable in progressive media. She took some public stances that won her no friends, and contributed to her exile to the substack realm, where the sort of quippy/zippy/unprofessional judgments you speak of is more or a survival strategy since that's what the subscribers pay for. If you ever look at the venues she wrote for, you can see shifts by the presidential administration.
Two examples of the classic Cathy that stood out was that she was a relatively clear opponent of the Obama administration's zeitgast rape culture- with articles such as The Injustice of the 'Rape Culture' Theory- and in another she took a large stab at a major progressive media pinata, with the article (Almost) Everything You Know About GamerGate Is Wrong.
Cathy made some harsh critics with those articles, but they were also very much progressive cows she gored, so when I was reading OP's initial post I was surprised when I thought he was perceiving a left-wing bias. Looking back at those articles, though, it's also clear that she has always been rather... opinionated? Or at least very clear on her opinions on matter. The subtitle of the Rape-Culture article, after all, is "For those in the grips of hysteria, proof is the enemy," and her opinion on the Colombia University matress girl saga is similarly unsubtle.
Of course, she also gores in other directions. Cathy is an older-style Republican at heart, and while she rose in conservative media circles for her willingness (eagerness?) to oppose progressivism, her star fell with her opposition to Trump, proof that going sacred cows comes with drawbacks if you gore 'your' side. I don't recall her being an example of Trump Derangement Syndrome in the extreme, but she could reasonably be considered a Never Trump republican, or at least one who is far more down than up. You can read her thoughts on the initial Trump cabinet, and while it's clear she has some strong opinions, and doesn't intent to recant them, it's also notable that she at least tries to note counter-balancing points and doesn't go full doomer. (I believe her general position is 'Trump is bad and high-risk, but checks and balances can constrain the worst.')
In that respect, I'd chalk her up to the same category as the comments on Marina Hyde and Glenn Greenwald- being opinionated is part of her brand. You're not 'wrong' if it sets off your manipulation allergies, but it's less an attempt at subtle manipulation and more a result of her brand being one built on long repetition / expectation of similar tracks.
OK, so the main disagreement is that I think trade balance is irrelevant .
And yet, trade balance is incredibly relevant to a supermarket metaphor. The supermarket is in the business iof maintaining a positive trade balance with its customers, because if the supermarket does not then then supermarket goes out of business. This is, in fact, the basis of the threat to go to another (China) supermarket- it is a threat to reduce the trade income with MuricaMart, on the assumption that MuricaMart makes a profit off of trading with you.
If you think a supermarket's profitability is irrelevant to the interest of a supermarket staying in business, you are not talking about a supermarket.
Trade isn’t a zero sum game where the US sells ‘at loss’ because they have a trade deficit.
Because the trade balance was itself a trade- a systemic trade bias in European favor (thanks to higher tariffs against American goods than for European goods) in exchange for European military cooperation against the American geopolitical rival. That prioritization of shared security over money was the positive sum dynamic that motivated the initial alliance beyond the monetary cost.
When the Europeans are not interested (as you are not) or able (as the continent is not) in upholding that positive-sum game, then the negative-sum game of trade flows absent other interests reasserts itself.
It’s kind of the opposite really, given that trade surplus countries are accused of ‘dumping’ manufactured goods like electric cars or planes they supposedly produce at a loss.
Good news! Donald Trump will graciously allow the Europeans to be free of that accusation by magnanimously leveling trade barriers and trade deficits that the Europeans currently have over the United States. He will even support the Europeans in raising their own anti-dumping tariffs on any global overproducers, of which the most notable is China.
The excellent american economic health has gone hand in hand with trade deficits, to the point that many have suspected that americans get free stuff while the rest of the world gets worthless dollars. I’m not saying it’s causal, just that trump’s domestic story of exploited americans might not play as well elsewhere, when he’s negotiating supermarket prices. Non-americans have their own exploitation story, and at least they're, you know, poorer.
If you are poor, what do you think you have to offer for preferential trade access to the American market?
Remember that the approval of European public is not required for the end of the structural basis of the European-American alliance via the end of American economic subsidies to the poorer European public from the American end. (Arguably, European public opinion has already approved of this from the European end, by continuing to vote for decades of demilitarization and increasing strategic autonomy before there was an end to advantageous trade terms.)
The American public, at least, has in the last election indicated it is not convinced that major trade deficits are the cause of American economic health, as opposed to unnecessary costs that lowered them more than they could have otherwise risen. They may be wrong, but being wrong does not change ambivalence for ending subsidies to other continents, despite the near-term economic disruption that could bring.
The question for the European public, as a result, is what does it want to offer- if does and if it can- to keep some manner of American subsidies coming, even if at a reduced rate.
Because I see trade as mutually beneficial, you can understand why trump’s threats look more like ‘blackmail’ to me , and I understand why to you or trump it’s just ‘putting pressure’.
Apparently not, since you misunderstand my position (or seem to believe it is Trump's). Instead, let me try to place your position and the Trumpian position in an inconvenient context.
You see trade as mutually beneficial, but you do not want to deliver what was traded in the original Euro-American alliance- Europe's military-strategic deference against the American geopolitical rival.
The Trumpian perspective is that this is fine! This is your sovereign choice. He just also does not see a point in continuing to provide concessions that were initially provided for such a military-strategic deference deal. He will not blame you for it if you think it's a bad deal. He doesn't think it's a good deal either. That's why he's willing to reduce it.
The inconvenient context is that this is only blackmail if there is an expectation that European market access preferences are an entitlement that should be provided regardless of degree European strategic alignment.
If there is no European entitlement to preferential market access, then what we are observing is not blackmail, but the mutually consenting unraveling of a former trade deal: the Europeans no longer want to offer strategic deference, and the Americans no longer want to subsidize the Europeans.
Dean
3d ago
The relative cost of this goes down the more nakedly transactional the US gets in US-European relations. If your choices are to get bent over a barrel now by the US or maybe get bent over by a barrel later by China, cutting a deal with China is going to start looking a great deal more appealing.
You reversed the incentive structure of cutting a deal.
The issue with this framing is that in the non-hypothetical the EU is already getting bent over a barrel by China. This is most notable in the field of green technology (solar panels, EVs, etc.), where for a lot of notable (and sometimes ethically questionable) reasons the Chinese state owned / backed enterprises have cornered the European markets in fields that the Europeans a decade or so thought they would dominate. Moreover, the expectation of China as a forever growth market has given way to the general recognition of PRC mercantilist strategy of IP theft and domestic protectionism, which limits than reverses chinese market share of industrial production, i.e. the great big German hope.
There are other fields and contexts as well, but the construct of a guaranteed versus uncertain screwing has since been passed by the paradigm that Europe is already getting screwed by the one that is presented as the hypothetical lesser risk.
As such, this framing should be reversed for understanding the actor perspectives. There is no choice about Europe being bent over a barrel now- it's already happening- but it's already happening with the Chinese, whereas the potential US risk may be mitigated by cutting a deal.
A large part of US power is that it doesn't demand very much of its allies (occasional Article 5 moment aside); the more the US tries to treat its allies like vassals or tributaries, the weaker that soft power grows. And if you're stuck dealing with a transactional superpower, you might as well go with the one offering money instead of demanding it.
This confuses money flows between various actors, which undermine the monetary argument.
The 2022 China-EU trade balance was roughly 390 billion Euros in China's favor. The 2022 US-EU trade balance was about 130 billion in the EU's favor. Europe is already dealing with a transactional power, and paying quite a bit for the privilege.
The issue with your framing is that you neglect a third and more relevant patron-client relationship: the protectorate. In a protectorate relationship, the patron party subsidizes the client rather than extracts the resources. In the US-European context, this subsidy has been through granting the Europeans favorable access to US markets without reciprocity for US firms to access European markets since the early Cold War.
While in economic terms there is no meaningful difference between raising taxes or decreasing subsidies, in diplomatic terms there is a difference between demanding money and offering less of it.
What ratio and why?
Worse dead-to-wounded ratios historically depend more on the impacts of disease than fighting, with ratios getting better (more wounded to killed) the more access to defensive fortifications, stable rear areas, and mechanized evacuation that are available. This is especially true in artillery wars, where the predominance of shrapnel as a primary threat increases wounds relative to direct kills for forces that are better fortified.
Ukraine certainly has its challenges, but a lack of trenches, helmets, and rear areas to withdraw to are not among them.
If the US and China go at it, it would be far better for us to sit on the sidelines than to be stuck in the US supermarket. The manager’s already raising prices in peacetime, we’d better get out before he turns desperate and asks us to pay in blood.
Why is the manager being desperate if he no longer subsidizes your purchases?
Again, bad market metaphors are bad metaphors, but the US economic relationship with Europe- the 'supermarket'- is not a net moneymaker for the US. The trade balance between the US and EU is, and has for decades been, in Europe's favor, in part because of trade barriers such as the European common market wall.
If you want to make a marketplace metaphor, this is the market selling to the consumers at a loss. There can be benefits for the US side of the of the trade (advantage to the specific industries benefiting more), there can be non-monetary gains from providing subdisized services, but if you want to model the relationship as a commercial transaction (shopper and supermarket), the supermarket stops losing money the sooner it gets out of the business of subsidizing goods.
This is a mercantilist perspectives that get involved in arguments of why mercantilism isn't a good strategy for countries even if it makes sense for businesses, and service-vs-good economy differences, but the business case for the US-European relationship is not 'the Europeans bring in more commercial profits than costs.'
But neither I nor the rest of europe appears to believe that is a real threat – what you interpret as an inability to build a large army, I view as unwillingness because of a perceived lack of need: see minimal percent of GDP invested in the military, lack of nukes despite know-how.
You are not in conflict with Donald Trump when you say you do not believe that there is no real threat, you are in agreement. What you consider blackmail is just the natural extension of that consensus.
The American-European economic relationship for the better part of the last century has been an extension of the Cold War American-European strategic alliance. But instead of the classic hegemon relationship of military protection in exchange for preferential market access for the hegemon (hegemon provides client protection in exchange for money), the Cold War alliance was the inverse- the Americans gave the Europeans preferential market access in exchange for strategic deference. This started with the Marshal Plan, continued with things like the trilateral agreements for getting the Japanese and Koreans during their recognistruction phases, and continued in various forms elsewhere.
If the Europeans are uninterested, unable, and/or otherwise unwilling to provide strategic deference- particularly due to a lack of mutual need- there is no strategic basis for continuing to pay for the strategic relationship.
The result of this what you call 'blackmail'- threatening to no longer pay (via ending preferential trade access that were the forms of payment) for services no longer rendered (strategic deference and military partnership).
It’s a supermarket simultaneously raising its prices while rolling out an anti-competitive new policy where you can’t buy there if you also buy from the competitor.
It's not an anti-competitive new policy. It's an old already practiced by the parties which are facing reciprococity, which they themselves justified in the past on the basis of competition. Note, again, the common market trade barrier.
This is one of the issues with the supermarket analogy. Both parties are 'supermarkets', and the trade barriers have already been in play.
It assumes that the supermarket has infinite leverage, that it is so unilaterally indispensable that the customer has no choice. This kind of blackmail works until it doesn’t, like russia banking on europe’s gas dependency.
There is no assumption that there is infinite leverage, only that there is drastically uneven leverage. This uneveness exists- the US and China are not substitute providers for Europe's priorities, and thus Europe cannot credibly claim to go to a different provider for what Europe seek from the US.
This another of the reasons the supermarket analogy is a bad analogy. Supermarkets provide analogous goods and services- however, the US and China do not.
Psychologically, people prefer a less competitive supermarket to being coerced in that way. I think you overestimate your leverage, and how “rational” your customers are. I’m way more pro-american than average, and even I think US allies should tell trump to take a walk.
You seem to be conflating characterization with advocacy, as well as psychology for policy position.
Unfortunately, you cannot tell a security provider to 'take a walk' from not fighting on your side, because your consent is not required for them to not fight for you. Similarly, you cannot tell someone to 'take a walk' from no longer providing a service to you- the breakdown of the relationship is the BATNA, not the continuation of the status quo.
This is a third reason why the supermarket is a bad metaphor- it reverses the agency in the relationship. The US is not a supermarket trying to persuade a European customer to come in but which the European has plentiful alternatives- the US is the only viable service provider that the European customer is trying to convince to stay when the new boss believes it's a bad business relationship. If the European consumer believes the new price is not worth paying, that's not a victory over the no-longer-provider, that is the provider leaving an unprofitable relationship.
If you don't understand, it would probably help to work on the metaphor.
A tariff barrier is not a closing of a supermarket, not least because tariff barriers already exist between American allies. That is what the EU common market is- a trade barrier between the European group of allies and their other allies, including the Americans, the Brits, and so on.
Even more relevantly, a threat of tariff barriers is not a closing of a supermarket either, particularly when everyone (should) understand that the threat is conditional on [insert trade / political concession here]. The conditionality is critical because it can be used to create and either-or dilemma of which supermarket the consumer goes to, as opposed to the consumer has no choice.
The rise of deglobalization and the multipolar world order is not a close off of markets entirely, but a process of choosing / forcing choices of which markets to associate with. Globalization may have been a 'choose any supermarket you want' dynamic, but deglobalization is a mutually exclusive membership program, where association with one supermarket will lead to increasing limits with the other.
The issue for some countries, of course, is that the two supermarkets are not anywhere near to competitive in attractiveness. The European Family, for example, is not going to fine any meaningful offers from ChinaMart on in the 'expeditionary armies to fight in your defense' market, particularly when ChinaMart is close business partners with 'WeSwearWeWon'tBlackmailYou' Russian Discount Gas, which is currently in a special hostile takeover operation against the cousin down the street.
Is that the theschism pointedly avoiding discussing, or is there a general lack of discussion at theschism?
Dean
7d ago
Additionally, running with Biden for as long as they did also undermined the competence critiques, while the way they removed him (threatening, but not actually utilizing, the 25th Amendment) undermines process-centric critiques.
Dean
7d ago
I guess if I have a point, it's that the Roman's were correct. Entertainers are all degenerates and you should scorn anyone who chooses to be one.
Just think of the fiction writers. What sort of sick mind seeks to profit over the imagined suffering of others for a voyeuristic reader base that loves to see its characters suffer?
[/kidding]
Dean
7d ago
2016 was a bit of a culture shock, a surprise, and widespready expectation of significant restraining factors (both the still-active Never Trump wing of the Republican party and the Democratic Resistance) that would limit Trump's ability to act.
2024's margin of victory and the nature of the transition to date has made it very, very clear those limiting factors are not in play. The Cheney-Never Trumper wing of the party self-destructed after 2020, the Democratic Party is not what it once was, and not only does Trump have a trifect but it is a far more coherent party base, and one with sharp memories for the obstructors of last time.
As a result, there are far fewer institutional barriers to prevent Trump from acting, and so personal diplomatic mollification has a lot more value.
Do you believe the war dead-to-wounded ratio is lower, or higher?
Sometimes I think back to my own childhood watching G.I. Joe and Transformers, wondering if there were sneaky bit of propaganda snuck into them.
Did you ever recognize what was snuck into Scooby Doo?
TV networks, because they reach so many people, are always being sued and/or protested, often over things you could never imagine would create problems. Most of the time, the network position is defensible and the outrage falls into the "nuisance" category…but even nuisance suits and protests can be a nuisance. And expensive to defend against. In kids' television, the stakes seem higher. A protester yelling, "This show is poisoning our children" will usually get more traction than someone bitching about a show for general audiences. The sponsors of kidvid are especially frail and known to atomize over very little negative feedback.
Censorship of broadcast television has declined greatly in the era of HBO, Showtime and DVDs…but in the early eighties, if you were creating a show for CBS, NBC or ABC you usually found yourself in the following dilemma. You had to please the Programming People who bought the show and prayed for ratings. They wanted your program to be edgy and sexy and full of action and excitement. And then you had to please the Standards and Practices People. They wanted your show to be nice and quiet and non-controversial. The two divisions rarely spoke with one another. In fact, in some cases, they hated each other too much to converse. Either way, they fought their battles by playing tug-o'-war with you and your show.
We quarrelled often and usually unproductively with these folks over what we called "action" and they called "violence." Sometimes, their definitions were insane. You'd write a scene where the good guy grabbed the fleeing bad guy and held onto him until the police could arrive and the Broadcast Standards people would react like your hero had chopped off someone's head. Criminals could rob banks and cops could stop them but neither could brandish weapons. One time, a writer friend did a script (a pretty good script, I thought) where the climax depended on the hero cutting a rope at a precise moment. The hero, it had been established, was a former Boy Scout…so my friend had the hero whip out his Boy Scout pocket knife and use it to cut the rope.
Well, that couldn't be allowed. Encouraging children to carry knives, even though the Boy Scouts do? You might as well have them packing howitzers and blowing bodies away on the playgrounds of America. There was much arguing and the scene ended up being staged with the rope being cut by the edge of a sharp rock, which was just silly. The rope was being used to lower a car. Given how sturdy it would have to be to do that, it was already stretching reality for it to be cuttable with a pocket knife. A sharp rock was ridiculous.
At times though, the bickering went beyond Broadcast Standards trying to prevent the network from being sued or having its advertisers shrink from advertising. Every so often, someone there got it into their heads that childrens' television could mold the youth of today into the good citizens of tomorrow. That's a questionable premise but let's say it's so. The question then becomes what you teach, how you mold. I found that those who approached the arena with that in mind had some odd ideas of what we should be trying to impart to impressionable viewers. Acts of extreme violence — like carrying a pocket knife — weren't as big a problem as what they called "anti-social behavior" and what I called "having a mind of your own."
Broadcast Standards — at all three networks at various times — frowned on characters not operating in lockstep with everyone thinking and doing as their peers did. The group is always right. The one kid who doesn't want to do what everyone else does is always wrong. (I rant more on this topic, and show you a cartoon I wrote years later for another show just to vent, in this posting.)
Scrappy Doo was intended, as per his name, to be scrappy — scrappy and feisty and in many ways, the opposite of his Uncle Scooby. Faced with an alleged ghost, Scooby Doo would dive under an area rug and you'd see the contours of his doggie ass shivering with fear beneath it. Scrappy, as I wrote him in his first script, would go the other route: He'd say, "Lemme at him" and go charging after the bogus spirit of the week.
Shortly after the last of many recordings of "The Mark of the Scarab" (that first script), it dawned on ABC Broadcast Standards that maybe Scrappy was a bad role model for the kiddos. He was — and one person in that department actually used this term to me — "too independent."
Transition to break quote blocks...
That said, I'm not exactly against a cartoon talking up our national values... or at least our national values circa the 80's and 90's. I guess now that our "national values" are that children should choose their own gender, and if you disagree the government should take them from you and facilitate them sterilizing and mutilating themselves I feel significantly differently about it. But then again, that takes for granted the illusion of consensus control of the institutions granted trans activist. All the same...
This strikes me as a possible rationalization for retro-future genre IPs, like the Fallout Series.
In the Fallout universe, why might the 2077 USA have embraced the cultural aesthetics and appearances of the 1960s? Well, the story is very vague about what happened in the century between WW2 and the Great War that led to the nuclear apocalypse...
Dean
12d ago
This is a fair enough point. Erdogan himself hardly inherited, but there was substantial government composition evolution (including his own viewpoints, informed by the previous eras) that I agree he probably wouldn't make the same policy decisions as awhile ago.
Dean
12d ago
No problem.
For elaboration- most weapon shipments go by sea due to the bulk shipping costs, and Syria was a preferable point unloading to Lebanon for a variety of reasons. In addition to the increased difficulty of smuggling through Lebanese ports where non-Hezbollah factions (such as Israel) would increase the risk of exposure compared to the more supportive Assad, the 2020 Beirut port explosion (where a warehouse of amonium nitrate created a city-shaking explosion) made arms shipments through such ports politically risky as well. One of the theories of the amonium nitrate explosion is that it was part of a Hezbollah stockpile, and while Hezbollah has denied that, being caught with major weapon shipments through ports would have been a significant risk.
As a result, post-2020, Iran relied more on the Syrian route.
It's "blinker thinking" to think that a country has responsibility to limit damage it causes abroad?
It is when you project damage it didn't cause onto the tab out of American ethnocentricism and a dismissal of the agency and ability of other actors.
It may be self-validating in a way to believe American power is central to the cause and outcomes in other conflicts, but the Americans were never the biggest player in the Syrian civil war, or the most decisive, or the most responsible. Americans are not the hyperagent of the Syrian Civil War. Americans were never the hyperagent of the Syrian Civil War.
'You broke it, you bought it' depends on 'you' actually being the agent to break it. 'You' did not.
Dean
12d ago
The more relevant migrant flows wouldn't be from Europe to Syria, but Turkey to Syria, in turn enabling Europe to Turkey (which already occurs in substantial amounts).
Turkey not only has the far greater number of Syrian refugees, but those who did just go to the first safe country. These are a electoral burden, and facilitating their return was a policy goal of Turkish-Syrian relations for a good part of the last year, and Assad's refusal to engage on that was part of the Turkish support for the coalition that just took most of the major cities in Syria.
If/when Turkey pressures its recent partners to accept back Turkish-based refugees in exchange for continued reconstruction / reconsolidation / resist-other-rivals aid, that will create two opportunities for the Europeans. One is leverage the opening for their own aid-for-reacceptance bargains (as countries being willing to accept deportees is one of the big obstacles Europe has to deportation), and another is to make renewed deals with the Turks to accept the European-reached migrants, a deal more possible when Turkey has reduced its own refugee burden.
Dean
12d ago
Yes.
Conditional on there being relative stability in any of the major cities (Aleppo down through Damascus), there is a non-trivial chance that an aid-for-acceptance swap will occur, in which external backers (Turkey / the EU) offer much needed financial / civil governance assistance in exchange for whoever is holding the area to accept returnees. The benefit to the local authorities is not only the assistance in rebuilding what they'd want to rebuild anyway (including housing to absorb more than just the returnees), but the 'import' of a tax and recruit base.
This will be less viable in the areas where there is significant fighting, but with the collapse of the Assad government it's uncertain how much Iran can, or will try, to force a fight. Beyond that, the actual ability of internecine militant conflict is unclear.
The factors that enabled internecine fighting between militant groups in the civil war phase were the presence of a unifying opponent to justify mobilization in general and tactical alliances in particular (Assad as the unifying enemy), the inflow of resources to fight and compete over (foreign aid to groups opposing Assad), and the lack of clear leading groups (mutual relative weakness supporting existential struggles). The later in particular was a goal / function of Russian airpower, which prioritized consolidating / less radical power groups in order to keep the rest fragmented and present Assad as the only alternative to ISIS.
With Assad's fall, those factors have substantially changed. There isn't a single unifying interest to drive mass mobilization, the interest external states have for flooding the anti-Assad movement with weapons has changed now that there is no Assad, there are indeed dominant groups whose clear strength facilitates detente rather than existential struggle, and there isn't likely to be a Russian (or American) air campaign deliberately trying to crack coalitions.
Dean
13d ago
Alternatively, that's an even worse feudal metaphor because that wasn't how feudalism worked, nor does or did the US rule over a world-system.
There are substantial differences between 'a complicated mess of formal hierarchical relationships' and 'not in a formal hierarchical relationship at all.'
Your question had the premise that jews don't exist,
No it didn't, lol. You were making a categorical error of a premise you either didn't know was impossible, or did know but choose to dishonestly advance.
And I'm no good at history, I don't know of many of the instances in which jews were "kicked out", but you can't kick out what isn't there, and if a country has built resentment towards a certain group of people, then it would be weird if said group hadn't been involved in something controversial in the country at the time. It would be even weirder if this had happened over 100 times, in many countries, across more than 1000 years of history.
Why do you think a banal practice in history is weird, other than your lack of historical understanding not knowing it's not exceptional?
I don't need to know people personally to know their religion.
Of course you do, otherwise you wouldn't know if they are Jewish as a religion, Jewish as a culture, Jewish as an ethnic identity, or Jewish as a label that others impose onto them but which they have no particular feelings about.
I don't know if regular jews, outside of elite institutions and rich families, fit known stereotypes. I don't know if they support the plans of powerful people who make life worse for me. I don't even know if they tend left-wing. Lets ask Google: "The AJC survey found that 61 percent of American Jews said they would vote for Joe Biden, while 23 percent said they would vote for Donald Trump". Seems that they do. I also don't know what ratio of these people support feminism and its nonsense.
You believe 61% of a demographic voted for Joe Biden because they support making your life miserable, as opposed to having different perceptions of what is good or that voting for Trump might result in bad things? And that this proves that 2% of the population is responsible for about 50% of the terrible things you hear about?
You may not be making a compelling point, but I am glad you are making it publicly.
I don't even know if I've ever met any jews in person. I don't ask people about their religion or race.
This would be a very good indication that you don't know enough to characterize Jews beyond stereotypes you have no ability to recognize the validity or flaws of.
I meant books like 1984. It warned against something that we could see happening in real time.
1984 is not only considerably less than 100 years old, but it was also not a warning about Jews.
It did, however, make significant points on the use of manufactured hate against outgroups as a form of social control of the manipulated masses to direct their hatred at acceptable targets rather than actual issues.
It was published 40 years ago. The idea that American media is left-learning, that it's owned by a few elites, and that modern "liberty" is different from classic liberty (that is, becoming pretty much it's opposite) is not exactly new, but to call it obvious as long as 40 years ago is impressive to me.
Why does something so small impress you, when insights of the political influence of publishers has been a phenomenon for centuries prior? Forget yellow journalism or American founding father gripes on media bias, one of the bloodiest periods in European history kicked off because of the power of the press, the aftereffects shaped fundamental American political traditions.
Conflating all American media as owned by a singular dynamic as opposed to there being a diversity dynamic is also a classic conspiracy theory, but still a conspiracy theory.
I don't think it would be right to dismiss these warnings as conspiracy theories since the consequences they warned about have manifested themselves almost as predicted, and since the idea that these predictions are "mere conspiracy theories" is much newer idea (it seems like the attempt to discredit ideas retroactively and to establish the current consensus as correct in a timeless sense)
There is an amusing parallel to be made to the greek philosophers on timeless issues, but you wouldn't get it.
And we were warned about this, too, in 1883: "‘Formerly the whole world was insane’ – the finest ones say, blinking." This describes how anti-traditionalists speak about the past. They essentially go "Everyone was evil, the past is immoral and wrong, but now we're enlightened by science and know what's good and proper!" and then they try to rewrite history exactly how "1984" said they would.
Your lack of historical understanding would be why you don't understand why 1984 did not say that.
1984 was a critique of ideological totalitarianism, especially the sort associated with the fascist and communist ideologies. It was not a general characterization of anti-traditionalism, nor was it any sort of accurate characterization of state capabilities of 1883 or other pre-industrial eras. It was certainly not advocating for racial stereotyping and grievances of political opponents.
It was, however, extremely critical of historical ignorance.
I don't dislike Jews because of Nietzsche, and while he has written many things about them (including my claims here, that they subverted values and made them more feminine), his overall description of jews seems positive to me. I'm aware that this reply doesn't respond to what you meant by your statement, but I feel like I'd explain my views better.
Your views come off less coherent and reasoned, frankly.
Nietzshe is a particularly bad philosopher to crib from without historical understanding, not least because he was a terrible historian who tried to use history for his narratives, and also because his was a mess made worse by many of his followers who simply cribbed what they liked in isolation for whatever project they wanted.
Finally - is there no group that you think badly about, that you haven't met in person?
Why should I hate entire groups of people I have never been exposed to and have no understanding of?
There's only so much energy to be had, and plenty of more familiar grievances to be upset over and individuals specifically responsible for them. Hating entire groups is a good indicator of a need to get offline, go outside and touch grass, and then learn more about members of the group other than the hated individuals.
And isn't your life influenced by a lot of powerful people who your voice is hopeless to ever reach?
Why should I make judgements of entire groups of ideologically diverse people on the basis that some minute number of them may be powerful elites who influence me?
Am I supposed to be insecure? A seething victim? Jealous?
Dean
13d ago
Deeper.
Part of it is Sunni vs Shia split. The Syrian civil war was mostly a Sunni uprising, because the Assad dynasty survived by brutal suppression of the Sunni majority. This dynamic was made worse by the Iranian intervention, and efforts of the Iranians to proselytize and establish Shia communities in/as regime strongholds.
Part of it is Erdogan's Arab Spring-era desire to be a middle eastern leader of religious-democracy. Erdogan was a rare supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt when it was a thing, and had ambitions of a sort-of raising Turkey as a middle eastern leader through blending Islamic democracy. This didn't really last, but it was active nearer the start.
Part of it is Turkey's Kurdish concerns. Syria's north and east is highly Kurdish, with groups there supporting Kurdish sectarian terrorists who attack into Turkey proper. The lack of Syrian prevention was always something of a sore / a leverage point of Assad against Turkey, but the de facto autonomous states the Kurds secured during the civil war has been a significant Turkish concern.
Part of it is refugee resettlement politics. Many of the refugees who fled Syria stayed in Turkey, where they became substantial burdens far in excess of what the Europeans politically buckled under. The Turkish desire is to return Syrian refugees back to Syria, and this may have been an objective / hope of the Aleppo offensive. Turkey had desired Assad to take them back after the 2020 ceasefire, but Assad basically refused because he wanted them to be Turkey's problem rather than his own.
Part of it is regional power politics. The Turks are one of the regional major powers, but their presence and influence in the middle east has long been limited by Syria. Not because Syria is itself a major power, but because Assad invites in the Iranians (who are a regional power rival) and Russia (who is a different sort of regional power rival) in part to counter Turkey.
Part of it is Russian strategic competition. While Russia helps Assad, Turkey supporting the anti-Assad forces is a way it can indirectly poke the Russians and remind them that their interests need to be taken seriously, and not just the Syrian interests either. Regulating support for the militants is thus a form of leverage vis-a-vis Russia.
There are more, but this should be demonstrative.
Dean
13d ago
That would be incorrect.
Iran has been running supplies to Hezbollah in Lebanon through Syria, with Syrian locations serving as the operational stockpiles and planning centers. This was the key supply route for the Hezbollah rocket campaign that led to the recent Hesbollah-Israel conflict.
Sure, I get that, but I am genuinely curious in what you would consider a non-suspicious ratio.
For example / my frame of reference, in WW1 there were nearly 8 million military killed/missing, and 22 million wounded. The overall war's killed/wounded ratio at that rate is 1:2.75. Call it 1:3 for simplicity's sake. This is a war of major offensives on both fronts in both directions, of which one- the eastern front- was considerably different than the western front's relatively static trench warfare.
On the Western Front in particular, according to wiki the ratio is similar. About 3.5 million killed out of 13 million total casualties (meaning 3.5:9.5 K/W) - roughly 1:2.71- again rounds to 1:3 as a nice round number. This is roughly the same (1:2.7X) ratio on both sides- but maybe this is because both conducted roughly even spreads of offense versus defense, or maybe not.
But of the 13 million casualties (killed and wounded) on the Western Front for the entire war, nearly 1 million of that was in the Battle of the Somme alone. And while the Battle of the Somme was a 4-month campaign on one specific front, on the first day- when the attack was unidirectional- the British suffered about 55.5 thousand casualties, of which about 19.2k were killed.
Which is to say, on the offense in a trench warfare context, the British suffered a 1:2.9 killed/wounded ratio. Or, again, 1:3.
So on our historical 'this is a trench and artillery war' comparison, the attacking power can reasonably into prepared defenses can get a 1:3 military K/W rate.
I think we can fairly reasonably guess that the Ukrainians have not, as a trend, been suffering casualties comparable to the ratios of Battle of the Somme attacks.
So I am curious- and not trying to belittle!- what you would consider a non-suspicious baseline. I can fully agree that 1:9 is eye-brow-raisingly high. But what is your 'gut' of what it 'reasonably' would be? Was it 1:3, before this? Would it be 1:5?
I am sincerely interested in your thoughts, because I want to know.
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