This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
America cannot prevent a German deep state, intelligence community or military intelligence community. They do not have the manpower, the boots on the ground, the ability to influence etc. especially not since the spying debacle which saw Germany revamp their intelligence communications. This is how you get things like the most prestigious special units team in Germany being filled with far right members. In that case, Germany had to change the unit because of publicity, but the fact that such a thing can happen is clear evidence that America doesn’t have such magical ability to completely control Germany’s leadership.
And if they had such control over Germany, they wouldn’t need to blow up the pipeline!
We may differ in our understanding of the term. For me, Deep State is unelected self-governed bureaucracy that steers the state policy in accordance with its own values, insular culture and long-term vision; basically a self-perpetuating fraternity entrenched in the official power structure, and it takes a whole ecology of think tanks, and decades of stability and obscurity for this fraternity to mature. You seem to believe it's some concrete institutional factor, like intelligence services. This is as queer to me as Marxist materialist analysis that explains all political processes in terms of economic relations. Spooks run Russia, maybe Israel to some extent, but in all other countries they're not the decision-making caste.
In the US, one angle of the Deep State is epitomized in Council on Foreign Relations (or rather, an informal network of people many of whom have at some point participated in the CFR). In Germany, that's structures like Konrad Adenauer Foundation, maybe? But no German structure has sovereignty comparable to the CFR; it's just a logistically convenient form to coordinate the Zeitgeist already present in the society. Likewise, the CIA is not sovereign, it's furthering ideas that the Deep State has endorsed, out of those the culture of the nation has produced. In this sense, Germans may have intelligence agencies (of course penetrated by 5eyes agents) but lack the DS; just as their culture lacks independence from the US and capacity to produce ideas.
How could they do what you're talking about? Any bureaucratic German group that attempts to move against the US and towards Russia will be ratted out as Nazis instantly, and in this fails they'll be condemned by the populace as they try to implement any policy of consequence; if they pass the policy, Americans can retaliate so catastrophically it'll deter any German with half a brain from trying in advance. In fact what you're seeing now is the cleanup of one such group, nurtured by Putin and Russian fossil industry – Gerhard Schroder and others. They're discredited and out of power now. That lobbyist club was as close to German Deep State as can be. Putin had his chance, and he blew it by attacking Ukraine.
Remind me how it ended for them.
Germans have economic elites. In matters of war, economic elites have little impact (as evidenced by success of American trade war with China, that has caught the cynical, mercantile Chinese with their pants down, uselessly begging their Wall Street partners to «do something»); but they can make noise and sow division, increasing friction in the war process. Blowing up the pipeline takes care of that.
The Deep State is a social network which has penetrated the permanent government sufficiently deeply that it can manipulate the elected government into doing what it wants. In other words, the Deep State is Georgetown and Manhattan cocktail parties and the CFR matters because it is run by people who are invited to those cocktail parties, not the other way round. Germany is run by industrialists so the German deep state prefer to speak through the IFO (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ifo_Institute_for_Economic_Research).
When I worked at Deutsche Bank, there was an occasional hint of the German Deep State in action. It is real, but it is narrowly mercenary in outlook and doesn't waste time thinking about national security. FWIW, the German Deep State is more closely tied to the Gnomes of Zurich than the US Deep State, but in an age where all Rhodes (scholarships) lead to Davos, this probably doesn't matter.
The French Deep State, incidentally, is also real, and is able to act independently of the US. From a Moldbuggian perspective, this is because Harvard does not control the ENA.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link