Use to discuss topics unrelated to recent posts.
A bill stating that TikTok must divest or sell TikTok or stop operating in the US has passed.
Commenter KT Chong pointed out the stakes for China and the US
This ban is NOT just about protecting America from China. TikTok has global reach OUTSIDE the US. TikTok is a most popular app in over a hundred countries in the world — including in the Global South where China’s influences are steadily rising while US is facing increasing hostility due to the US complicity in Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and ethnic cleansing in West Bank. Once the US gets its hands on TikTok, the US government will definitely use it to spread anti-China and pro-US propaganda. That is the true purpose of forcing Chinese to sell TikTok to the US, so that that US can seize/steal a most popular media tool and then use its global influences against China. I would rather TikTok just gives up its US market (i.e., banned in the US) than to hand over its global influence to the US government.
By laws, the Chinese government can block the forced sale as ByteDance (the parent company of TikTok) has to follow Chinese laws. The CCP should absolutely NOT approve the sales. This is not just business. This is but a battle in the bigger war between the US and China over global influences and the new media. TikTok should NOT be handed over to the US and then be used as tool to expand US influence in the global market. I would rather TikTok just give up on the US market rather than to hand over TikTok influences on all those overseas markets to the US. I hope China is smart enough to realize what is at stake here.
This seems reasonable to me. It would be like China saying “the US must sell or divest Apple because Apple does business in China.”
I will point out that TikTok has been notorious or famous, depending on your view, for contradicting US propaganda on many issues, most recently on Palestine. The videos are often savage, and make politicians look like fools in a way that is much easier to do in video than with writing or audio only, and they are seen by millions. “A Modest Proposal” is famous because it’s so hard to be so savage and because there was no audio recording and transmission during the Irish Potato Famine.
Another issue is that America wants to force the sale of a successful internet/social media company: the most successful in recent years, and the first to make video work on social media.
If you can’t innovate: steal.
If the US was truly just concerned about damage to users, it could simply set up rules the US subsidiary has to follow, in the same way that China has specific rules for US internet companies that apply in China, but not elsewhere.
As for the fears of all user info being turned over to the Chinese government, that’s laughable, not because it might not happen but because governments mass gobbling such data happens all the time, and because some hacker group will inevitably crack every social media company and just sell data to everyone.
Anyway, China should definitely tell the US they don’t get to force a sale of a Chinese company. While they’re too polite to do so, it really should be accompanied with the metaphorical middle finger.
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I was asked this question by a friend today and I found myself uncertain if there would be a great power war or not.
My thoughts were roughly five:
- The US can’t win a war with China or Russia, in my estimation. Russia by itself is outproducing all of NATO by about 7:1 in terms of munitions. China has so much more industrial capacity that it’s insane. China won’t let Russia be taken out, if it has to it will intervene, in my estimation, because if Russia falls, it’s next. Russia provides the feed, fuel and mineral reserve it needs, in a form which can’t be interdicted by naval power.
- If there is going to be a war, the sooner it happens the better America’s chances, but right now, munitions are so depleted by Ukraine and Israel, that a war is essentially impossible. Since NATO can’t restore its munitions at current rates without years of effort, and has shown little ability to ramp up production, that means by the time the US/NATO is read for war, it’ll be even weaker comparatively.
- Western elites are incompetent idiots at anything but keeping power and accumulating wealth in their own nations. They continually blunder into wars they lose, they’ve shipped their industry to China, they’ve spent three generations systematically weakening their nations in pursuit of profit and power.
- Western elites also display breathtaking arrogance and assurance of their power and their ability push other people and nations around. They believe in their superiority and are isolated from any feedback which proves otherwise.
- Historically, great power transitions usually include large wars. Not always, but about two-thirds of the time. (Thucydides Trap, by Graham Allison goes into this in detail.)
Basically, the US is like Japan pre-World War II: powerful military, no way to keep up with losses during a war. Yamamoto famously noted that it was impossible for Japan to win against America, and was ignored. So the tiny island nation went to war with a continental power with far more manpower and industry than it had, and lost. America today is comparatively stronger than Japan was, but by less than people think, especially if China gets involved.
If there is a war, it could explode in any number of areas: Taiwan and the Lithuania/Estonia are possibilities, but if I had to lay a single bet I’d bet on Iran. Russia, China and Iran are currently conducting naval exercises together. Iran came to Russia’s aid in a big way during their war with Ukraine. Israel recently attacked Russia diplomatically, burning the good will there and Russia is hosting meetings between Palestinian factions to help them get over their differences so they are stronger. Iran has substantial industry, since it was blessed by American sanctions and is large enough to develop anyway. America is currently showing that its government is completely controlled by Zionist interests.
Iran is powerful, but it may look like a target America can win against.
Except that Russia and China aren’t likely to let that happen. If Iran looks like it will really lose, Russia might even intervene militarily.
But truthfully I don’t know. Americans would be insane to pick a great power war: the odds against them are way too high, even now.
But American elites are insane: completely out of touch with reality beyond their own inbred elite circle. They’ve been the world’s greatest power for as long as they can remember, feel entitled to the spot, and may not give it up without a fight.
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My hosting service is having some issues with the shared server I’m on. I’m not sure when it will be fixed (heck, as I write the site is loading fine, so it may be fixed now or it might not), but if you’ve been having trouble getting here that’s what’s going on. I’ve talked to them twice with no luck, if issues continue I’ll have another more forcible chat and may wind up moving to another hosting company, though I’d prefer to avoid that as I’ve been with the current one for 15 years and this is the first time I’ve had a problem which couldn’t be solved with one or two calls.
Use to discuss topics unrelated to recent posts.
by Tony Wikrent
Global power shift
[X-Twitter, via Naked Capitalism 03-06-2024]
Very interesting interview with Russo-Ukrainian political scientist Rostislav Ishchenko on why the collapse of the West is a big problem for Russia as well:
“Our enemies’ problems are growing. The Western system is no longer able to stabilise itself. It is self-destructing… pic.twitter.com/faWTWELe4G
— Thomas Fazi (@battleforeurope) March 6, 2024
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Ukraine war and Western system’s fatal flaw
Alex Krainer, Marck 6, 2024 [substack]
One of the talking points that has been making rounds among the West’s true believers, is that we can outspend Russia by a factor of 10 in military expenditures….
As the New York Times reported last September, Russia is producing at least seven times more ammunition than the US and its Western allies combined, and she is producing it at about 1/10th of the cost of western manufacturers. For example, while the cost per round for a Russian 152 mm round is about $600, NATO must budget between $6,000 and $8,000 per each 155 mm round.
Not only is Russia vastly ahead in terms of sheer production volumes but also in terms of innovation, quality and overall effectiveness. Her arsenal spans a very large array of weaponry from ultra-sophisticated hypersonic precision-guided missiles, world’s most effective air-defense complexes and cheap but deadly drones, to the basic stuff like field artillery and ample ammunition to keep it firing 24/7 for months on end. At the same time, the United States and NATO still rely on legacy weapons systems that were state-of-the art in the 1990s, but are in large part obsolete today.
Purpose-driven vs. profit-driven systems: it’s no match
In a superb and important piece of analysis referencing the recent US Department of Defense National Defense Industrial Strategy (NDIS), former Marine and military affairs analyst Brian Berletic dissected many of the reasons why the combined West is now clearly losing the arms race, not only against Russia but also against China. He points out the key differentiator: while Russia’s defense industry is purpose-driven, that of the West is profit-driven….
The undiagnosed malignancy
… Even as it endeavors to maintain a dominant geostrategic position in the world, Western powers have cannibalized their own capability to enforce and defend that position. The inescapable conclusion is that there is a deep, systemic flaw in the Western model of governance.
For generations, we’d all been educated to worship at the altar of private capital’s unrestrained pursuit of profit for the greatest benefit of its shareholders, as Milton Friedman argued in his 1970 essay entitled “The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits” (PDF). No other considerations can shape the development of production and distribution of goods and services in our economies, else someone will shriek, SOCIALISM! Worse, we’ve even allowed ourselves to become convinced that individuals’ unrestrained pursuit of their own interests can somehow automagically lead to the best possible outcome for the whole society.
As it turns out, those ideas were the owner class’s self-serving delusions that incubated the fatal flaw within their system, rendering it fragile and weak. The flaw has festered as an undiagnosed malignancy because it enabled the interests who own our Military Industrial Complex and other key industries (the big banks, big tech, big ag, and big pharma) to become extremely wealthy. They also became deeply entrenched in society’s power networks. As such they’ve grown and wholly resistant to any curtailment of their extraordinary privileges, even when it becomes clear that they are driving their nations to destruction….
China and Russia, the industrial production superpowers that could win a war
[bne Intellinews, via Naked Capitalism 03-03-2024]
This post is by Eric Anderson
What’s the first thing you think about when you hear the word club? Does it bring to mind a night out dancing with your friends? A day behind a fancy gate wining and dining between rounds of golf? Perhaps getting together with friends to play chess, or cards, watching birds, or exploring nature? Or, does it bring to mind something entirely different — such as bashing your enemy over the head?
The comedian George Carlin wryly observed that the elite are “… one big club, and you’re not in it.” Were Carlin to better understand the nature of clubs he might have more accurately stated “it’s one big club, and you’re not swinging it.” Carlin’s predecessor Groucho Marx understood, once stating “I got a good mind to join a club and beat you over the head with it.” What the elite have always known, and the left tragically fails to understand, is that “club” means power.
Originally used in the violent sense, the word club originated c. 1200 from the old Norse klubbe, as in cudgel. The word’s transition from connotations of violence, to ease, is fascinating. As any wildlife biologist knows, humans are by far the most violent species. Most animals displace aggression by use of elaborate dominance rituals, that while serving to measure the species’ fitness to reproduce, or defend territory, rarely result in death.
And while humans are the least skilled at this adaptive ritual capacity, forms of it have evolved. Sports are one such outlet. And so it appears that the paradoxical use of the word as both a means of violence, and ease, evolved from this same capacity. The club, as cudgel, was used in early gatherings of individuals to play games and sports. See: the golf club. From there, it’s easy to see how the differentiation to such wildly different connotations evolved. The modern usage of the word club seems to have emerged as a means to symbolize displaced social aggression.
Clubs — in the groups of people wielding power sense of the word — serve another important function. They diffuse responsibility. As stated by Frederick Douglas, “Power concedes nothing without a demand.” And, in the same speech “Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow.” Douglas is saying, in no uncertain terms, that when demands go unmet the only recourse is to clubs. But, using clubs is messy business. A demand, made by one moral human alone, is no demand at all.
This is because most humans are moral, and it viscerally pains us to hurt another human being. Not so with the sociopathic elite, who employ their clubs of attack dogs to beat justice bloody, while standing one-thousand feet removed from violence in their towers. Clubs allow diffusion of the pain it causes a moral human to hurt another. But, unlike the elite who can afford to pay attack dogs, among the poor “Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow.”
Today the elite — and their traditionally conservative constituents — appear to understand this relationship far better than their traditional leftist enemies. For example, try strolling into Davos and see if you’re not met by a human attack dog with a badge who will revel in taking a club to your head. “Good dog! Here’s your promotion. Now, heel. Sit. Good dog.” So too, the elite’s conservative constituency understand that “club” means the power to smash your enemy over the head. Witness a sample of right-wing clubs having no qualms about using the club to achieve power: the Ku Klux Clan, NRA, Oath Keepers, Proud Boys, Stormfront, Constitutional Sheriff’s Association, Three Percent, Redoubt Movement, Patriot Front, Family Research Council, Atomwaffen Division, and virtually every fundamentalist religious organization one chooses to identify.
The list on the left is not nearly so extensive. Witness: Antifa. Wait, WHAT? How is this working out for leftists? Not so well.
There was a time in the U.S. when the left did understand the relationship between clubs and power. We called those clubs Unions. The reasons behind the erosion of Union power are numerous, but this discussion must include the fact that their vision was not large enough. Union vision was limited to jobs. Those clubs failed to threaten to use the club on those elite who sold America’s soul to the foreign bidder offering the lowest wages. They failed to use their power on politicians and capitalists. Then, when the jobs were gone, so too were the clubs. The left was left powerless, and remains so. In America, the left go clubbing to dance. The right goes clubbing for dominance.
One billion theoretical leftists using the tools of their elite internet masters, remain alone in practice – myself included. As it stands, we remain like those described by Thoreau, as “a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.” Leftists desperately need new clubs, on the ground, that are willing to use clubs to effectively strike at the roots of power, or the perpetual slide down the slope of fascism will continue. It’s past time all those identifying as leftists join clubs, and courageously set about beating the elite over the head with them.
My next installment will discuss a model to begin rebuilding the grassroots clubs necessary to take power.
Do as thou will, so long as you increase biodiversity and biomass, reduce pollution and heat, and replace any resources used.
Want to live in the howling wilderness? OK. But only if you can increase the number and amount of lifeforms, and reduce pollution by being there. If you can’t do all three, you don’t get to live in the wilderness.
Freedom today is based on money. If you have enough money, you can do what you want, if you obey the law. The more money you have, the fewer laws apply to you: either they are laws which if violated are punished with fines, which you don’t care about, or they are laws which are effectively not enforced against the rich.
The Green Age, instead of having a zero tolerance policy for minor infractions, will have no tolerance for people who damage the ecosphere or the climate.
Likewise, you will need to replace the resources you’re using if you’re using them beyond any natural replacement rate. If you’re taking water from a river or an aquifer, you’ll have an amount you can use that is equal to natural replenishment. If you use any more, you’ll need to replace it. Chop trees, plant them, and since you also need to maintain biomass and biodiversity, that won’t mean tree farms and will require you to keep doing it and, most likely, to have done it in the past. (This will make clear-cutting very rare.)
This also means that you don’t get to do what you want if you use non-renewable resources. Mining and other forms of permanent extraction will be something that society has a strict limit on. Much will be assigned by government, and much will likely be divided and given to each member of society and when they buy something which uses a non-renewable resource, that account will be debited, with no credit except in life-saving emergencies.
The principle is simple: replace what you use if it can be replaced, make the ecology and the environment better because of your existence and use limited amounts of non-renewable resources. This is how we fix the environment and make an environment is healthier and far more enjoyable to live in. (Just as almost everyone wants to live on a street with lots of trees.)
Long term, if you want to use a lot of non-renewable resources, we will have to go into space, but taking masses from Earth will be verboeten.
These rules will apply to individuals and groups, including whatever replaces corporations as our primary private economic vehicle and to households. This will lead to the end of suburbs and exurbs as we know them. Most people will either be rural (working on food production and environmental projects) or will live in dense cities. If we want the privilege of living in low population density areas, we will have to earn it by figuring out how to do so in a way that doesn’t decrease biodiversity, biomass or renewable resources, and instead of those who make more money being allowed to do more, those who will be allowed to do more will be those who increase those environmental variables the most.
This is only the first of the Green Age articles, we’ll dive into the rest of the principles and some of the details of how such a society must be run as the series continues.
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