Morning Ed: World {2017.11.13.M}

Will Truman

Will Truman is the Editor-in-Chief of Ordinary Times. He is also on Twitter.

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51 Responses

  1. LeeEsq says:

    Wo1: A big drive in the growth of rightist populism in the developed world is peripheral regions believing that they are being abandoned and dominated at the same time from metropolitan centers. They believe that the the Center Left pays more attention to the needs of people from outside their borders than to their own suffering citizens.

    Wo2: Nationalities might be imagined communities but they are very persistent imagined communities even though libertarians and liberals are growing dissatisfied with them. One reason why the nation-state persists is that its opponents have no idea on what to replace it with. The Left wants big supra-national federations like the European Union. Many even still dream of one world government. My side tends to want to de-emphasize national identity but increase the communal power of other group identities like sexual identity. The libertarian right wants to go smaller and replace nation-states with city-states and atomized individuals unconnected to any group but by voluntary choice of the individual.

    Most people don’t want this though. People tend towards patriotism of some sorts and most people want to belong to a community that is bigger than their neighborhood but smaller than the entire world. For most people some sort of national, ethnic, or racial group works just fine for this. The nation-state also seems to be the political unity that people grasp.

    Wo3: British royalists intent on imposing monarchy through out the world by any means necessary would name a ship HMS Terror.

    Wo4: Jacobin needs a better grasp on Japanese politics and post-war history. Most Japanese aren’t entirely in favor of Article 9 but they aren’t dramatically opposed to it either. Japan is pretty naturally apolitical place. Its possibly the most apolitical country in the world. Very few people think about politics at all. Its why when you get depictions of government in Japanese media it tends not to be of the elected branch but of civil servants the JSDF, or some top secret fictional organization. The LDP have been able to dominate Japanese politics for decades because of Japan’s apolitical nature.

    The Japanese also under went the least amount of de-axiszation than any other Axis power. The American Occupation gave the Japanese the first opportunity to re-write their constitution. The Japanese draft was more or less the Meiji Constitution but slightly more democratic. Americans just took over at this point. Many of the reforms the Occupation were reversed as soon as it ended.

    Wo6: China’s Family Planning Policy, and its a bit more complicated than one child, was one of the biggest examples of social engineering in modern history.Report

    • Kolohe in reply to LeeEsq says:

      LeeEsq: Wo3: British royalists intent on imposing monarchy through out the world by any means necessary would name a ship HMS Terror.

      Also people who are smashing the international slave trade.Report

      • Kolohe in reply to Kolohe says:

        HMS Venomous is another cool name.Report

        • Marchmaine in reply to Kolohe says:

          You guys are totally burying the lede: HMS Erebus

          For more than a century and a half, the resting place of the two vessels remained a mystery — until a team of archaeologists finally found and identified the HMS Erebus in 2014. Just two years later, researchers acted on a tip from an Inuit man to find the HMS Terror

          Report

      • PD Shaw in reply to Kolohe says:

        There appear to be several ships named HMS Terror, this one participated in the bombing of Fort McHenry during the War of 1812, possibly the most important musical moment in U.S. history. And yet the British give it to their Canadian lackeys . . .Report

        • Kolohe in reply to PD Shaw says:

          Eh, that’s not even the most important musical moment in US history involving the British. Plus, the War of 1812 is a big big deal in Canada, while in the UK, it’s buried in all the malarkey going on with Napoleon.

          And obviously, the HMS Terror wasn’t actually able to do the job assigned to it. A pattern of Royal Navy ‘gifts’ to the Canadians that would be repeatedReport

  2. LeeEsq says:

    The Intersectional Left continues to demonstrate antipathy bordering on Jew hatred by having a panel on anti-Semitism without any Jewish scholars of anti-Semitism or Jews with opinions on Israel and Zionism more representative of the Jewish majority. This is going to be nothing more than a Kangaroo debate where the conclusion was formed before the argument began. When the Republicans had a panel on women’s health without any women, it was met with widespread mockery. This panel deserves similar mockery and hostility.Report

    • Kim in reply to LeeEsq says:

      Lee,
      I do have to wonder what they could possibly be taking about.

      There is the shred of a possibility that you could have something interesting to talk about without having mainstream Jews on the panel. [Aka: Why I Believed Anti-Semetic Claptrap and Why it is so Prevalent in Saudi Arabia. You know, things that you MIGHT not want to discuss if the person beside you was going to sneer.]

      This is most certainly not that panel.Report

    • Kazzy in reply to LeeEsq says:

      The lack of ideological diversity is problematic but it is not the same as excluding all women. Jews are leading the conversation; they just adhere to specific ideas you disagree with.Report

      • Kim in reply to Kazzy says:

        Kazzy,
        … this seems a little more than that. There’s got to be a REASON to leave people out, you realize? Particularly when you’re holding a scholarly panel on someone’s Research Subject.
        As stated above, I can see that someone might leave out “Jewish scholars of Anti-Semitism” if they wanted to encourage a more lively … confessional? atmosphere? After all, if you’re going to be sneered at, why admit to things you don’t like?

        But this is more like … “and we don’t like you, so we’re not inviting you.”Report

      • Jaybird in reply to Kazzy says:

        While it’s true that it’s anti-Semitic, they went out of their way to have women and minorities on the panel.Report

        • Kazzy in reply to Jaybird says:

          Not what I said. Or even close.

          There’s a strain of, “Real Jews feel this way,” in the criticisms being levied. Comparing a panel that has anti-Israel Jews on it to one that doesn’t have women on it is implying those Jews aren’t Jews.

          You can disagree with them. You can call their views anti-Semetic. You can dismiss the panel. But I’m weary of any attempt to describe them as non-Jews because you disagree with them.Report

    • dragonfrog in reply to LeeEsq says:

      Kind of like all the academic panels ever being a bunch of white men, regardless of the topic?Report

      • Kim in reply to dragonfrog says:

        df,
        When I go to the Center for Race and Social Problems, they have people of color generally speaking. (And they’re doing real research, not that “melanin makes you smarter kakamamie idiocy”)Report

      • dragonfrog in reply to dragonfrog says:

        Oh never mind, I understand – there are Jewish people on the panel, just ones you disagree with.Report

        • Stillwater in reply to dragonfrog says:

          I think it’s appropriate to challenge arguments which move seamlessly from an anti-Zionist critique to fully a general anti-Semitism, myself. So if the panel discussion centered around challenging the validity of Sarsour’s own arguments and views, it could be quite useful.Report

          • PD Shaw in reply to Stillwater says:

            The description suggests this is an anti-Zionist forum holding itself out to be an antisemetic forum:

            Antisemitism is harmful and real. But when antisemitism is redefined as criticism of Israel, critics of Israeli policy become accused and targeted more than the growing far-right.

            Join us for a discussion on how to combat antisemitism today.

            And the price of admission gets you five dollars off of a Sarsour book sold at the event.Report

            • dragonfrog in reply to PD Shaw says:

              anti-Zionist forum holding itself out to be an antisemetic forum:

              You mean an “antisemitism” forum, rather than an “antisemitic” forum, right?Report

              • PD Shaw in reply to dragonfrog says:

                Yeah, that’s what I must have meant.Report

              • Kazzy in reply to PD Shaw says:

                All the guys with their tiki torches want their money back.Report

              • dragonfrog in reply to PD Shaw says:

                @pd-shaw I’m really trying to understand you – and now I don’t know if you’re being sarcastic in your response to my attempt to understand.

                If they start their description with “Antisemitism is harmful and real (…) Join us for a discussion on how to combat antisemitism today.” then presumably they’re not holding themselves out to be antisemitic right?

                I mean, they may in fact be antisemitic, but they’re not holding themselves out as being so. They’re holding themselves out to be discussing antisemitism in order to counter it.

                Or are you in fact saying that in spite of the description they’re actually anti-Zionists trying to present themselves as antisemites? Or something else that I didn’t grasp?Report

  3. Damon says:

    [Wo7] Yeah, I think their story is starting to unravel. Really, you’re in fear for your life and don’t think / want to activate your beacon?

    [Wo8] That really wasn’t a mutiny. That was just some guy who didn’t bother to read his contract.Report

    • Richard Hershberger in reply to Damon says:

      [Wo7] I wondered about it when the story first broke. An engine malfunction on a well-provisioned fifty foot sailboat is an inconvenience, not a disaster. I figured there must have been damage to the rigging that didn’t make it into the initial report. With the additional information we have, this was likely a poorly-conceived publicity stunt all along. My guess is that they were aiming for a basic cable documentary about their supposed ordeal. If they play their cards right, they could probably still monetize this. But can the Navy bill them for services? Under the circumstances, quite likely.Report

      • Damon in reply to Richard Hershberger says:

        30 Foot Tiger Sharks!!!!

        Where was Megladon?Report

      • Oscar Gordon in reply to Richard Hershberger says:

        I was a bit suspicious when they claimed they were afraid they would be dead in 24 hours (from thirst or starvation, IIRC), yet they looked quite healthy in the rescue photos, and one pic had one of them perched up on a mast.

        Also, who the hell tries an open water sailing without the means and know how to repair a sail and the rigging, or a mast, or the motor. So yeah, a dead motor should have been a mild inconvenience, not a crisis. I mean, at worst they would have gotten caught in the doldrums with a dead motor, but that is why you keep a beacon on hand, just in case.

        Also, 50′ of sailboat is a lot of boat for 2 experienced sailors to operate. Someone want to ping Brother Ryan for his opinion?Report

  4. Aaron David says:

    Wo5- Heros! (Seriously, breaking free of a top-down “measuring” system such as the so-called Metric system based on Froggy yards and the made-up-from-whole-cloth “gram” is Democracy in Action!)

    Wo6- My son, my wife and my father are all only children. They all live on what I call “only child time” which is some level of non-comprehension of the time restraints of the people around them. China is showing why, on a grand scale. (Actually, one of the worst aspects of this is the lack of any family members to share the burden of loss. My wife’s parents died about 9 months apart, with the second death being just brutal on her emotions as she had no one but me to talk to about it. And try as I might, I just wasn’t there in her past to share memories and feeling with.Report

    • dragonfrog in reply to Aaron David says:

      True heroes would have honored the pre-standardization hodgepodge of measurement systems, and given the distance to each town in that town’s own idiosyncratic definition of the mile / mil / wegstunde / schainos.Report

    • LeeEsq in reply to Aaron David says:

      Wo6- That’s an interesting thought. Only children in relatively stable homes are used to being the sole focus of parental affection and attention. They don’t have to deal with parents having to pay attention to other siblings and when they become adults might not understand why others can’t focus more or less exclusively on them.Report

      • Aaron David in reply to LeeEsq says:

        I wouldn’t put it as more or less stable, just more or less focused on them as a sole entity. For example, my son is an only child, but his mother and I always made sure that he was… not secondary, but only one aspect of the family. My experience has been that most only children, especially those with older parents like my father, is that they are such an object of focus, coupled with a lack of delegating the responsibilities to/from siblings, that much of the sharing factor is lost.Report

        • LeeEsq in reply to Aaron David says:

          Stability referred to a basically average relationship between the parents and not the parent child relationship. Being a single kid with unstable, neglectful, or abusive parents is bad.Report

    • Oscar Gordon in reply to Aaron David says:

      Bah! I hate SAE units. Metric all the way!Report

  5. PD Shaw says:

    [Wo9] In response to abolition, Brazil turned to mass European immigration to facilitate transition of the economy along European lines. In the few year before abolition was final, Italian immigration alone nearly equaled the number of slaves in places like San Paulo. On the one hand, the availability of cheap labor forestalled slave power reaction against abolition. On the other hand, freed slaves would be economically disadvantaged by immigrants positioning themselves in front of them.Report

  6. Joe Sal says:

    [Wo1] Social Democracy leads to minimum wage which leads to unemployment as the afflicted country no longer is labor competitive on the world stage. No longer being competitive leads to lower tangible base capital formation and for the commoners, and especially the youth to suffer the effects.

    Add the modern liberal scheme of importing (or possibly weaponizing) immigrants as part of ideology, part power politics and for some reason people are choosing national socialism. I don’t even know if the people choosing national socialism realize what change they want, other than not more social democracy. National socialism appears to be the prefered way out.Report

  7. Chip Daniels says:

    Wo5:
    “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities”.

    Thats the thought that pops into my head regularly when I see people become passionately enraged about absurd trifles.
    Because as the Twitter feed shows, its not really about which system is preferable.

    In the minds of these people, behind the metric system looms the threatening shadow of loss of culture, subjugation, and any other evil that the mind can conjure up.

    I used to laugh at these rubes, but not any more. I’ve witnessed how that primal irrational rage can lead to the worst of human nature.Report

    • Oscar Gordon in reply to Saul Degraw says:

      As J.K. Rowling once noted to a guy who posted that he was destroying all his Harry Potter media because of something she said – (paraphrasing here) “Go for it, I already have your money, it won’t hurt me a bit.”Report

      • Saul Degraw in reply to Oscar Gordon says:

        Interestingly Keuring apparently caved from pulling their advertisements from Hannity so this might have worked even if liberals are rolling their eyes.*

        *What didn’t work is that right-wingers believed that liberals would be oh so hurt by the action.Report

        • Burt Likko in reply to Saul Degraw says:

          I don’t think Keurig cared about the coffee makers so much as the drying-up of the demand for the one-use, disposable, super-high-margin cups. Sort of like how Gilette wouldn’t care about you smashing the razors, as long as they could keep selling you the blades.Report

  8. Saul Degraw says:

    So how about those Wikileaks revelationsReport

  9. Kolohe says:

    It doesn’t seem very sporting to hold a coup against a 93 year old guy that’s been President for 30 years. (and a few years after the worst of a financial crisis has passed)Report