May 28, 2017

"Brown and black skin and indicators of non-whiteness have been newly weaponized since the Trump regime was installed..."

"... and many of us are managing our Otherness more than ever as a matter of survival. And along comes a white woman by the name of Stacy Jacobs, whose gimmick is wearing saris in protest of Trump’s reign. She hashtags her fashion activism #BordersAreForSarees and #ProtestSarees. Her Instagram feed is filled with pictures of her in a sari every time Trump does something awful.... [T]here is a growing and disturbing trend of supposedly progressive and liberal feminists who seem to think that their political wokeness gives them free license to appropriate other people’s cultures. Under the guise of globalistic rhetoric, these so-called progressives justify and defend their cultural appropriation as the natural course of our globalized society — a post-racial society in which differences can be erased because they have decided so — veritably denying that cultural appropriation exists at all. To these fauxgressives, everything belongs to everybody and they have the right to transform these cultural and spiritual practices as they see fit. Like metal yoga, 'fuck you' yoga and beer yoga, not only has an ancient Indian spiritual practice been culturally appropriated, it has been mutilated and Frankensteined together into a monstrous shadow of itself."

From "This White Woman's 'Protest Saris' Are Peak Appropriation," by Sezin Koehler in Wear Your Voice/Intersectional Feminist Media.

109 comments:

MisterBuddwing said...

The website bills itself as "intersectional feminist media."

Can't argue there.

mockturtle said...

Little girls just like to play 'dress-up'.

tcrosse said...

Wouldn't the pantsuit be a more appropriate garment to protest Trump, especially the Oven Mitt ? The sari, besides being a cultural appropriation, is too attractive to the icky Male Gaze.

Paco Wové said...

Modern leftism is just a big bucket of crabs.

Paco Wové said...

"It's on behalf of the oppressed brown peoples of the earth that I'm just telling you your butt looks enormous in that áo dài."

rhhardin said...

It's bitch culture.

The Godfather said...

Which is more important: The American Government being taken over by a new Hitler, or "White" women wearing Indian outfits? Guess we know the author's priorities.

Fernandinande said...

"There is nothing as feeble as the human mind when it is in the grip of the desire to be fashionable."

rhhardin said...

I can remember when cultural appropriation was just a microaggression.

rhhardin said...

She should learn to Irish step dance with the sari.

Fernandinande said...

free license to appropriate other people’s cultures.

"Other people's cultures" generally suck, which is why only trivia like food and clothes are "appropriated".

robother said...

Whose Sari now?

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Intersectional = Perfect paranoid religion for the victim-mongering left.

I was channel flipping a few months back and some show had a black actor who said "Now I know what it feels like to be black." The context was Trump's win.
WTF does that mean?

Is Trump hurting black people? If so, how? This actor's skin color aches because his candidate did not win... is that it? Poor democrats are victimized, & they get to chose how they are victimized, even if it's fiction.

khesanh0802 said...

Ann, I think you should create a new tag "self-absorption reaches new heights" or some such. This nonsense is going to get a lot worse before it gets better.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Meanwhile, in the real world, Germany and europe's drift away from the western alliance continues apace, satisfactorily advancing Russia's primary global strategic goal.

Angela Merkel said...
We can't rely on the US anymore. I have experienced this in the last days. We Europeans should take destiny in our own hands.

tcrosse said...

Angela Merkel said...
We can't rely on the US anymore. I have experienced this in the last days. We Europeans should take destiny in our own hands.


Tomorrow the World.

Kevin said...

Don't these white women know not everyone can have victim status? It was nice of them to get the victim ball rolling while other groups milled about, but everyone knows white people are all going to be on the same side of it after it gets up to speed.

Bad Lieutenant said...

Angela Merkel said...
We can't rely on the US anymore. I have experienced this in the last days. We Europeans should take destiny in our own hands.

I wish.

Good luck with that, sugar tits. Let us know how much money you save going it alone.

khesanh0802 said...

@ARM If you are quoting Merkel, which you seem to be, it would be nice if you gave a link to the entire piece rather than an out of context fragment.

As far as Germany is concerned they have been sliding along on our armed forces and tax payers' back since 1945. 71 years is long enough to wallow in guilt over Hitler and begin to take responsibility for their own defense. "We can't rely on the US" for what? I have no opinion whether your reference is on target or not, but without some kind of context, my response is " about time" first, and I'd like to see the whole piece second.

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

Once again, ARM tries to change the subject.

Anonymous said...

Perhaps there ought to be a deplorable outreach program targeted at these dumb white women. They're easy to manipulate, they believe anything they're told by whatever peer group they happen to be traveling in, are submissive to what they perceive as the current authority, and they care deeply about being seen as conforming to group standards. So why shouldn't their emotions and energies be put to better purposes and better standards?

People like that are easy to brainwash, but they're also easy to re-program, so why not jump in and grab 'em at that vulnerable time when they're being ostracized and hated-on by their current peer group? Kind of a waste to just let them stew in their abjectness, contemplating how to debase themselves further to regain acceptance in Clown World.

Kevin said...

"We Europeans should take destiny in our own hands."

The Brits, Jews, and Eastern Europeans have seen this movie before and will stand aside as Merkel leads the rest of them into the clown car.

Achilles said...

Blogger AReasonableMan said...
"Meanwhile, in the real world, Germany and europe's drift away from the western alliance continues apace, satisfactorily advancing Russia's primary global strategic goal.

Angela Merkel said...
We can't rely on the US anymore. I have experienced this in the last days. We Europeans should take destiny in our own hands."

Since Merkel is just a tool and a mouthpiece for the globalists who want to erase the worlds borders I am glad we can't be counted on to commit cultural and social suicide like the Germans are currently doing.

Swede said...

White liberal meat.

It's what's for dinner!

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Angel-Dyne said...
People like that are easy to brainwash, but they're also easy to re-program, so why not jump in and grab 'em


by the pussy?

Gahrie said...

Perhaps there ought to be a deplorable outreach program targeted at these dumb white women. They're easy to manipulate, they believe anything they're told by whatever peer group they happen to be traveling in, are submissive to what they perceive as the current authority, and they care deeply about being seen as conforming to group standards.

Repeal the 19th.

khesanh0802 said...

@ARM Here is another quote from Merkel at the same political rally. Puts a slightly different spin on what she said. ."We Europeans truly have to take our fate into our own hands," she stressed, adding that Germany and other European countries would do their best to stay on good terms with the US and the post-Brexit UK. "We have to fight for our own destiny."

Bay Area Guy said...

Color of skin? Not important

Culture? Very important

Kevin said...

"Meanwhile, in the real world, Germany and europe's drift away from the western alliance continues apace, satisfactorily advancing Russia's primary global strategic goal."

The EU was designed to move Europe away from the influence of the United States. Merkel is afraid her efforts are about to fail.

robinintn said...

Good idea A-D - those women in Portland who had the temerity to make burritos come to mind as well.

Robert Cook said...

ARM said:

"Meanwhile, in the real world, Germany and europe's drift away from the western alliance continues apace, satisfactorily advancing Russia's primary global strategic goal.

"Angela Merkel said...
'We can't rely on the US anymore. I have experienced this in the last days. We Europeans should take destiny in our own hands.'"


ARM, what do you know or believe Russia's primary global strategic goal to be?

The way you phrase your statement, you insinuate that Russia is somehow activiely furthering this unstated goal by...how? Merkel's statement suggests that America is driving Germany (and perhaps other Western countries) away. One could even say this is proof of the Trump/Russia connection: Trump is behaving in a way that undoes the Western alliance, driving the atomized nations toward Russia. Voila! Trump is strengthening Russia!

(Of course, my remark is in jest.)

khesanh0802 said...

One of the things Merkel is concerned with is the phony-baloney climate change treaty. If Trump is a bit subtle he will call this a treaty as everyone, including Wikipedia, does and submit it to the Senate for ratification. It will never pas the Senate and he'll be off the hook.

Spiros said...

Cultural appropriation is so blah, so stupid and so yesterday. I mean who came up with this awful racist garbage? Can't these people think of this stuff as "cultural diffusion" instead? You know the exchange of ideas (and material goods) between cultures? All of this, along with the internet, is wonderful. Greasers in Tokyo and anime obsessed teens in New Jersey. It's a modern day "silk road"! And the losers who insist on it being "cultural appropriation" are just insecure racist bastards. My opinion.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Robert Cook said...
what do you know or believe Russia's primary global strategic goal to be?


Weakening NATO has always been in Russia's interests and getting europe to take a more neutral position in US and Russia conflicts is as well. Seems everyone more or less agrees on this.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Kevin said...
The EU was designed to move Europe away from the influence of the United States.


The EU is primarily a mercantile endeavor, not necessarily a political rival to the US.

David Begley said...

This woman is nuts.

n.n said...

#ProgressiveConfusion

khesanh0802 said...

Does anyone really think that a Europe that is finally concerned with its own well-being/defense and no longer comfortable depending on the US and Britain for backbone is really what the Russians wish for? The Russians want Europe lazy and dependent on Russia for energy. Introducing a little reality into European ( France and Germany, primarily) is not going to help the Russians. A Germany feeling responsible for its own defense is going to want to push Russia's borders as far east as it can and it is going to want to have some seriously capable states between its eastern border and Russia. German GDP alone is about $3.5 trillion, Russia's is about $1.75 trillion. Waking the Germans up is not in Russia's best interest.

This may be a case where the Poles will actually be happy to see the Germans build their military capacity.

Gahrie said...

The EU is primarily a mercantile endeavor, not necessarily a political rival to the US.

Absolutely, completely wrong. The European Common Market was a mercantile endeavor. It was deliberately changed to become a government and "solution" to the US long ago.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Gahrie said...
It was deliberately changed to become a government and "solution" to the US long ago


I said 'not necessarily' a rival and think this is fair. Projecting forward, one possible or even likely outcome is that the US and the EU will be forced into a closer mercantile and political alliance by the rise of China, depending on how high China actually rises.

khesanh0802 said...

@ARM I guess my question is "How does getting all the NATO member countries to adhere to their agreement to spend 2% of GDP on defense weaken Nato?"

And before you give me the party line about Trump not supporting NATO article 5 here's what the WSJ had to say about that:

"But is that really what happened? Mr. Trump was speaking, briefly, at an event at NATO headquarters in Brussels unveiling the Article 5 and Berlin Wall Memorials. The Article 5 Memorial commemorates the only time that NATO has triggered Article 5, which came after al Qaeda’s attack on the U.S. on 9/11. The Memorial includes a remnant of the World Trade Center’s North Tower.

Here is what Mr. Trump said in the third paragraph of his speech: “This ceremony is a day for both remembrance and resolve. We remember and mourn those nearly 3,000 innocent people who were brutally murdered by terrorists on September 11, 2001. Our NATO allies responded swiftly and decisively, invoking for the first time in its history the Article 5 collective defensive commitments.”

So let’s see: By speaking at an event commemorating Article 5, and explicitly citing and praising Article 5’s invocation on 9/11, Mr. Trump was really trying to send a message that he doesn’t believe in Article 5? Who knew Mr. Trump was capable of such messaging subtlety?"

Matt Sablan said...

The European Idea.

Kevin said...

"This may be a case where the Poles will actually be happy to see the Germans build their military capacity."

If Merkel was interested in building Germany's military she's free to do that and would be acting in concert with Trump's vision. She wants to go her own way precisely because she's not interested in doing so.

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

AReasonableMan said...
Angel-Dyne said...
People like that are easy to brainwash, but they're also easy to re-program, so why not jump in and grab 'em

by the pussy?

5/28/17, 10:15 AM

By their pussy hats.

JAORE said...

Yeah cultural appropriation is bad. Just no doubt about it.

But wearing that Sari was SUCH an effective weapon in the Resistance!!!!!

Such a shame.

tcrosse said...

Would not Peak Appropriation be a white woman wearing a black strap-on ?

Jupiter said...

David Begley said...

"This woman is nuts."

Yeah. If you check out the other articles on that site, about a third of them have to do with mental illness. I especially like "Crazy Talk; Do I Disclose My Mental Illness To My Boss?"

Kevin said...

The EU idea is that putting together many weak things creates one strong one. They wish not to engage Russia, let alone China, other than by acting with one EU "voice" in international affairs.

The idea is to speak for enough people that the resulting moral authority outweighs the need for a strong military.

Trump has come into office calling their bluff. They can meet their NATO commitments, or they can lose Article 5 and stand alone on moral authority, but they can no longer pretend to do one while doing the other.

Merkel knows the cost of meeting NATO commitments and is willing to bet Germany's future on moral authority.

Bad Lieutenant said...

This may be a case where the Poles will actually be happy to see the Germans build their military capacity.
5/28/17, 10:35 AM



All you have to do to ensure peace in Europe is one thing. Sell 200 sophisticated medium-range nuclear missiles to Poland. Pershing or Iskander class performance. Put a hundred missiles in the east aimed west, and put hundred missiles in the west aimed east. I guess you could have another hundred in central Poland in case things slip and you need a little time, like if Russia and Germany go in on it together. Again.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

exiledonmainstreet said...
By their pussy hats.


This seems a less certain handhold, given the tendency of hats and their owners to be parted.

Seeing Red said...

Arm didn't think Europe was a political rival?

Bwaaaaaaaaaaaa

He must be either a history major, very young or went thru life stoned. Or just very incurious about the world around him.

Don't start being curious now.

Treaties are still in place. Tho it looks like the ovenmakers are finding ways around them.

Seeing Red said...

An East Getnan leads them to Russia. Maybe, maybe not. Russia has the gas, and eco-Germany fails.

Seeing Red said...

How stupid does one have to be to wear a sari in protest?

Just wear yoga pants.

Anonymous said...

Just wear a tee shirt.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

The EU was designed to move Europe away from the influence of the United States.

It was designed to keep it from dividing itself into another global conflict. But I can see why you think such a project would be a bad thing.

Wince said...

To these fauxgressives, everything belongs to everybody and they have the right to transform these cultural and spiritual practices as they see fit.

So, I take it she's all done listening to that white woman's sari excuses.

Dude1394 said...

Liberals should be force to live by their own rules.

Anonymous said...

I've stopped even paying attention to this sort of thing. Any movement that punishes people for allying with it is not long for this world.

Bad Lieutenant said...

The Toothless Revolutionary said...
The EU was designed to move Europe away from the influence of the United States.

It was designed to keep it from dividing itself into another global conflict.
5/28/17, 12:18 PM

Allow me to invite you to abandon personal unpleasantness for a bit and flesh out in detail what you mean here.

Bill Peschel said...

This made me laugh: In the caption of Stacy Jacobs' sari photo, she writes: "Today I drape my #whiteprivilege in six magnificent yards of handloomed hand-block-printed kalamkari-inspired saree from @designerayushkejriwal."

For those keeping score, we have the spectacle of wealthy white woman Jacobs commodifying #resistance by marketing saris by Ayush Kejriwal, being shot down by Sri Lankan novelist Sezín (rhymes with Celine) Koehler (appropriating a Western name to market herself: shame!), who in turn is attacking an Indian fashion designer for attempting to market her fabrics to wealthy white Western women.

It's a circular firing squad on the left.

YoungHegelian said...

[T]here is a growing and disturbing trend of supposedly progressive and liberal feminists who seem to think that their political wokeness gives them free license to appropriate other people’s cultures.

During the time they were run by the Soviet Union, the Communist Parties of the world were relentless & ruthless in crushing any deviation from the Party Line that emerged in their midst.

As much as it pains me to admit it, they may have had a point. The Left tends to collapse into bands formed around tighter & more esoteric doctrinal distinctions that allow the believers to turn their most likely allies into heretics at the drop of a hat. The search for heresy under "Identity" Leftism will no doubt will make us nostalgic for the past unity of the Marxist Left.

Unfortunately for the rest of us, there is an ideology that believes in state control of the means of production & provides an ideology that allows disparate groups to join in a common political goal. It's called Italian Fascism.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Allow me to invite you to abandon personal unpleasantness for a bit and flesh out in detail what you mean here.

Pardon me but it's no secret, let alone any "anti-alternative fact." It's common knowledge. The EU grew out of the EEC, the European Economic Community, formed in 1951 with the Treaty of Paris and creating the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC). This was a deliberate attempt to prevent nationalization of the principal industries of war, coal and steel, by instead creating a supranational regulatory mechanism that combined Germany's and France's steel and coal markets into one - as part of an effort to prevent another war between them.

I'd offer links but I can never be sure these days which uncontroversial resources American conservatives will reject. But the acronyms are there and can be looked up.

Bad Lieutenant said...

Thanks, TTR, I'm familiar with your base facts, but am more interested in-what's the cant phrase? Unpacking?-the consequent interpretation: "[The EU] was designed to keep it from dividing itself into another global conflict."

Note that the two opinions are not mutually exclusive.

Fen said...

Cultural Appropriation? You've obviously never played Six Degrees of Anglo-Saxon.

Ambrose said...

I love the language here. Weaponized; otherness; Trump regime was installed. It's a wonderful example of progressive speak.

Temujin said...

There's going to be a LOT of unemployable people in the next decade or so. They will all be demanding that the productive pay for the things they want, which they will refer to as 'rights'. They have a big surprise coming.

ccscientist said...

These idiots don't understand that as people become less hostile to other races, they begin to feel comfortable with their customs/food/clothes. Do they really want white kids to stop liking Beyonce or Drake, stop going to their concerts? They go to the concerts because they love the music and even the performer, they sing along--no more singing along? That is, they ADMIRE a black person, the LOVE a black person. We should stop this? Why do inter-racial couples date? Because they stopped caring about race and fell in love with an individual. Now there is screeching that this is a plot by white people to drown out the black gene pool. Please. These are individuals making individual choices. But I guess we can't have that.
Oh, and yoga is not an "ancient Indian practice". Look it up. It was invented to help spread Indian culture in the west.

Kevin said...

How many white women are culturally appropriating their black husbands?

urbane legend said...

Thank ( insert whatever power you wish here ) all other problems have been solved. Now the worst thing in the world is the sari way some women dress.

Yes, robother did that far better.

damikesc said...

Meanwhile, in the real world, Germany and europe's drift away from the western alliance continues apace, satisfactorily advancing Russia's primary global strategic goal.

Ironically, that'd require them to do the only thing Trump has requested of them --- to fulfill their NATO obligations.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Thanks, TTR, I'm familiar with your base facts, but am more interested in-what's the cant phrase? Unpacking?-the consequent interpretation: "[The EU] was designed to keep it from dividing itself into another global conflict."

Note that the two opinions are not mutually exclusive.


I'm not understanding what you mean. WWII was a global conflict that heavily involved Europe. The EEC was designed to prevent another war between the two greatest European powers and ultimately (as planned) expanded to cover nearly the entire continent.

Seems pretty straightforward to me.

Jim at said...

"Trump is strengthening Russia!"

You mean like with a Reset Button?
Or is he simply being more flexible after the election?

Lewis Wetzel said...

I'd offer links but I can never be sure these days which uncontroversial resources American conservatives will reject.
American conservatives are about 50% of the population. If they reject a resource, it is controversial by definition.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

American conservatives are about 50% of the population.

No they aren't. And they get off on rejecting things just for the hell of it. Chances are that if an American retrograde rejects something, it's because he's uncomfortable with its implications. Not because he has the capacity to reason through how right or wrong it is. His emotions - dominated by fears of loss of social control and artificial order - overwhelm and incapacitate him. And that is the tendency to which he's reacting when attempting to evaluate human knowledge.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

damikesc said...
Ironically, that'd require them to do the only thing Trump has requested of them --- to fulfill their NATO obligations.


Not really, they already have Russia over a barrel economically.

Lewis Wetzel said...

You're just blathering at this point, R&B. You are not even trying to make a reasoned argument (as I did).
See, here's how it works:
a) point out your statement "I'd offer links but I can never be sure these days which uncontroversial resources American conservatives will reject" is incorrect.
b) Demonstrate its incorrectness by use of a syllogism ("American conservatives are about 50% of the population. If they reject a resource, it is controversial by definition").

You, on the other hand, seem to belong to the "assertion" school of unreason, i.e., I have asserted that a thing is true, therefore it is true.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

No, you're just an idiot who makes his own unevidenced assertions (conservatives 50% of the population) and gets pissy when others point out that you didn't use evidence to assert that.

Show your evidence that conservatives are 50% of the population. Especially seeing how they lost the popular vote.

DUMB FUCK.

n.n said...

Judging people by the "color of their skin" was principally a leftist practice that was later relabeled by Democratic socialists (e.g. Progressives, Liberals, Greens) under the judicial Pro-Choice quasi-religious doctrine for political, economic, and social leverage to legally deny people their civil and human rights and to exploit protection rackets under the color of social justice.

narciso said...

who invited predominantly African American college heads to the white house, who has as housing chief, someone who survived some of the worst urban projects to make it to yale medical school, who opened up palm beach to blacks and jews, to the considerable
distress of the blue bloods, what kind of fatuous twaddle,

n.n said...

[class] diversity was the rationalization for mass abortion of several native African populations, followed by the world's first constitution that established the Church of twilight fringe and Pro-Choice quasi-religious philosophy as official guidance for the State, including a progressive legal structure that discriminates between individuals by their race, sex, etc., and normalizes the "final solution" (i.e. denying life unworthy/Planned Parenthood) as a legal and moral right.

Lewis Wetzel said...

So much anger, R&B!
"conservatives 50% of the population"
No, I wrote "American conservatives are about 50% of the population."
See the difference there? about" modifies the preposition "50% of the population."
If you don't know what words mean, how language works, or how the US electorate breaks down, conservative vs liberal, maybe you should think twice before you comment? Just a suggestion.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

They're about 30% of the population. Poll the people.

Not everyone is conservative or progressive, even though the wedge-issue peddlers convinced you of that. There are other categories and degrees, but to acknowledge and work with that would mean you'd be back to your 30% clout instead of scaring an extra 20% into thinking that they need to be either "with you or against you."

n.n said...

narciso:

Trump's plan to revitalize urban jungles, rehabilitate people destroyed by perpetual smoothing functions, and end the Demcoratic socialist practice of [class] diversity and redistributive change. With the combined forces of Deep State leakers, liberal judges, civil rights rackets, and journolists of the Fourth Estate array against Americans, as well as resources allocated to mitigating CACC and CAIR forced by Obama's selective wars, he/We may be denied the opportunity.

Lewis Wetzel said...

R&B, you live in a democracy where the presidency, both houses of congress, the majority of state houses and governorships are controlled by the nominally conservative party.
What's more, even if just 30% of the people rejected some source of information, it would still be a controversial source.
Jeez. You're not even close to making a case, here.
But carry on your trolling, by all means. Whatever floats your boat, dude.

narciso said...

like I say, the new class had their icon in Obama, who enriched the banking guild to the tune of trillions of dollars, lets the countryside become fallow, who made a gleaming capitol like arcadia, out of the iron heel

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

They're reactionary - and slaves to bribery, not conservative.

Hillary Clinton was a former Republican who was not a progressive. Trump even pretended to be more progressive than her by taking protectionist positions on trade and wacko views against the pharmaceutical industry - including anti-vax. He said he was the only Republican who would protect Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid. All progressive positions.

And still he did not even win the popular vote - losing that by a few million. And that's not counting Hillary's lack of popularity and the number of progressive Democrats who stayed home. She could not rally that base.

Nevertheless, downticket races (states, whatever) benefited by the party of the ticket leader in the presidential (Trump).

Basic facts that you can expect a retrograde to rebel against, be ignorant of, and refuse to accept. Ever take a civics class? You are woefully ignorant of how U.S. government works. Kind of pathetic.

Poll the people on the issues. They don't want your agenda. End of story.

Now go lecture the hobos on the park benches, since I'm sure you at least know more than they do.

Run along.

narciso said...

Yes article 3, is prologue to article 5, I suppose this is a familiar tale going back to the Delian league precursor to the pelopenessian conflict,

Bad Lieutenant said...

I don't want to dig way in, TTR, but let me just say that you can't assume that everybody over there is doing what they say and say what they do. Don't take the nice noises at face value.

All these European super-States have basically been an attempt to restrain Germany. Even NATO was one-third that (keep the Russians out, the Germans down and the Americans in), because whereas France was the natural hegemon of Western Europe, a united Germany now is.

Bugger-long sagacious post eaten. Let me just close with a long Wiki quote on French demographics:



The French population only grew by 8.6% between 1871 and 1911, while Germany's grew by 60% and Britain's by 54%.[11] Ferdinand Foch joked that the only way for France to permanently improve its relationship with Germany was to castrate 20 million Germans.[12] If the population of France had grown between 1815 and 2000 at the same rate as that of Germany during the same time period, France's population would have been 110 million in 2000; Germany grew at a much faster rate despite its very substantial emigration to the Americas, and its larger military and civilian losses during the World Wars than France. If France's population had grown at the same rate as that of England and Wales (which was also siphoned off by emigration to the Americas, Australia and New Zealand), France's population could have been as much as 150 million in 2000. Should one start the comparison at the time of King Louis XIV, then France would now have approximately the same population as the United States. While France was Europe's leading military power at the time of Louis XIV and then Napoleon, the country lost this advantage due to its relative demographic decline after 1800.

Oh and as for the Russians, yes or no, they still have cards to play. Keep in mind that Merkel just said that neither the US nor UK can be depended on. That leaves France the only nuclear power in Western Europe.

Lewis Wetzel said...

Poll the people on the issues. They don't want your agenda. End of story.
I am neither a Trump voter nor a Republican, R&B.
My agenda is anti-totalitarian. I think it's a wonder, for example, that the people who originated the politics of racial and ideological hatred are afraid that Trump is a totalitarian. I imagine them furiously paging through Nineteen Eighty-Four, looking for the Trump bits, and thinking "Hey! That O'Brien guy is right! The Truth is a social construct the government can define! This is us! We're the bad guys!"

Lewis Wetzel said...

Hey, Bad Looey, I read an essay the other day that claimed that the EU was just the Hohenzollern dynasty in disguise. I thought it was Peter Hitchens, but now I can't find it :( Anyway, the guy compared the goals of Bismarck and the Kaiser, and how close the EU (Germany by proxy) had come to achieving them. Primarily, the EU has pushed Russia back east and opened up European markets to EU (German) goods and political influence.

Gretchen said...

Crazy.

It must take a lot of effort to run around and find stuff to be offended by. I love when the left eats its own, which is increasingly common, yet these people must be exhausted by the constant outrage and anger.

narciso said...

Was this it:

https://spectator.org/59563_foul-tornado/

narciso said...

1984 concerned three identical hyperstates, Oceania, the U.S. and UK, Eurasia, western Europe and russia, and east Asia, China and communized Japan and India, but it was the same philosophy undergirxing al tbree.

Bad Lieutenant said...

Nice one, Lew. Europe is a shark tank. if they keep this s*** up I'll start feeling bad for Russia. (And let me tell you that takes some doing.)

See, France and Germany are dating, but each one thinks the other one will be the girl.

Just as it was I think Aristotle who said there are really only six or seven plots and everything you've ever read or seen is just a variation - Great Game, Silk Road, Continental System, EU - these are all the old geopolitical plots. Dreams of Empire.

The trouble for America is that we could just stay out of it, but the best hope for a good outcome for all is for us to be in and manage things for the best. It's hard to go to sleep at night listening to your neighbors screaming through the paper thin walls.

On the other hand, as Jerry Pournelle once said to me, every time that happens are you going to jump in your car and race across town in the middle of the night, pistol in hand?

I dunno. I think maybe if they want a Pax Americana they should pay for it. They're certainly never going to be grateful or worthy of our friendship. They'll always be there when they need us.

Lewis Wetzel said...

No Narcisso, though that is close.
I think it was in a long intro by a grad student to an interview he did with P. Hitchens.
Okay, found it:
http://quillette.com/2017/05/19/eu-essentially-german-empire-peter-hitchens-geopolitics-future-europe/

narciso said...

Well that the earlier piece is there have been several attempts to unify along roman limes, charlemagne napoleon and hitler, it rarely works out.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

I think it's a wonder, for example, that the people who originated the politics of racial and ideological hatred are afraid that Trump is a totalitarian.

Things you don't know will provide you wonder now, won't they. I don't know who you think "originated" racial etc. hatred but ethnic tribalism has been around since different monkey troupes battled it out and the rest of what you throw in there sounds like just so much more stilly stuff. However, it sure wasn't the conservative right that came up with doctrines for separation of powers and other anti-totalitarian measures that Trump hates and has actively attempted to throw overboard - so I'm not surprised that you seem to have either not noticed or just determined that you're A-OK with it.

narciso said...

Slavo zizek the iconoclast Yugoslav philosopher says trump is a tradition small l liberal, but politics have gotten so rancid that he looks far right.

narciso said...

Philosophies about power without consent of the people go back a long ways. It's essentially feudal, which is what the great power blocs are attempting to do today.

narciso said...

What is agw climate schemes but a guise to reduce the liberty technology has afforded us to be citizens not subjects

narciso said...

Now there is an old 70s novel the wanting of Levine that was very prophetic.

Lewis Wetzel said...

I don't know who you think "originated" racial etc. hatred but ethnic tribalism has been around since different monkey troupes battled it out and the rest of what you throw in there sounds like just so much more silly stuff
The Democrat Party was founded to protect the interests of white supremacists and the institutions of slavery and racial privilege. Apparently you disagree.
The Republican Party (and I am not a Republican) was founded to oppose the institutions of slavery and bigamy.
Wouldn't hurt you to crack a book open now and then, R&B.

Lewis Wetzel said...

Blogger narciso said...
Well that the earlier piece is there have been several attempts to unify along roman limes, charlemagne napoleon and hitler, it rarely works out.
5/28/17, 11:00 PM

Some say the Austro-Hungarian Empire was a model for a unified Europe. I have come to disagree. The backbone of the A-H Empire was a multi-national aristocracy, not a multi-national polity. Without the aristocracy and its armies to keep the lid on, it would have exploded (and it did, of course). It's possible that a reforming emperor could have saved it, I suppose. But the tide of nationalism was running high, if you can call the Serbs of 1914 nationalists. They wanted to be part of the Russian Empire, not the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
The Europeans tend to form empires and aristocracies. Republics don't do well there. Even the Swedes are ruled by a King. Thank God I'm an American.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

The Democrat Party was founded to protect the interests of white supremacists and the institutions of slavery and racial privilege. Apparently you disagree.

Not only me, but reality disagrees. The Democratic Party (say it right, not the way Newt Gingrich taught you to say it) started with Andrew Jackson, and was a continuation of the Democratic-Republican party founded by Thomas Jefferson to oppose the centralizing policies of Hamilton's Federalist Party. Read your fucking history.

Jacksonian's iteration (which makes it the oldest American political party) was all about devolving power back to the common man, expanding voting rights, opposing a national bank - and tons of other shit that Don TinyHands Trump feels are what cause him to identify with Jackson.

You need to stop being a partisan asshole (even if you're not a registered Republican, you've wholly swallowed all their misinformation) and start being a real American who understands the intersections between all these historical movements and developments - rather than the fault lines that the Republicans of 1990 onward have created to divide the country and take power for themselves and the ossified business elites that own them.

Lewis Wetzel said...

Jacksonian's iteration (which makes it the oldest American political party) was all about devolving power back to the common man, expanding voting rights, opposing a national bank - and tons of other shit that Don TinyHands Trump feels are what cause him to identify with Jackson.
Does the KKK have membership cards, R&B? A secret handshake? What rank are you?
The difference between the Southern Democrats (like Jackson) and the Northern Democrats (AKA "copperheads") was that the Northern Dems thought that the voters of a new state should be able to choose to be free or slave, rather than have free/slave dictated to them by the Feds.
I don't suppose Black people were asked for their opinion.
Like a lot of people, I had ancestors who fought on the side of the North and ancestors who fought on the side of the South (no, not the same ancestors, silly).
You can't separate Democrats from slavery and Jim Crow, R&B. You are starting to sound like John Calhoun, here. The Democrat populist effort to attract the votes of the "(white) common man" were inseparable from their effort to divide people by race and privilege them by race. Same Democrat tricks they are doing today.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

That was only relevant during and just prior to the Civil War, as well as through Jim Crow. It did not apply to Thomas Jefferson or Andrew Jackson or any time after a Democratic president (Lyndon Johnson) passed the CRA or even once Pat Buchanan told his successor Nixon that MLK was a dangerous demagogue and that his fight was not their fight.

So I guess if you're into re-enacting Civil War battles and confusing the time in which we live now with that time, then I could see your concern. But I'm going to continue judging politics based on the 2017 context in which we live today.

I can see why that bothers you though, because Republicans today suck at getting shit done - other than for dividing people and perpetuating a class-based economic system.

Bad Lieutenant said...


Not only me, but reality disagrees. The Democratic Party (say it right, not the way Newt Gingrich taught you to say it) started with Andrew Jackson,... Thomas Jefferson ...Hamilton's ... Don TinyHands Trump ...

Dear R&B,

Do I have to name the inconsistency, not to say hypocrisy, here, or can you see it for yourself now that I have pointed it out for you?

Or shall I just say sauce for the Democratic Party, sauce for President Donald J. Trump?

Gahrie said...

The Democratic Party (say it right, not the way Newt Gingrich taught you to say it) started with Andrew Jackson, and was a continuation of the Democratic-Republican party founded by Thomas Jefferson to oppose the centralizing policies of Hamilton's Federalist Party

This is 100%, completely wrong. Jackson formed the Democratic Party specifically to oppose the Democratic-Republican Party who he believed had stolen the election of 1824 from him.

The two consistent traits of the Democratic Party are its racism and refusal to accept electoral outcomes in which they lost.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

It is not completely wrong, numbnuts. The Democratic Party of 1828 was a splinter from the Democratic-Republican party, but that's still where it originated. It wasn't the Federalists who spawned the Democratic Party. It's as stupid to say what you said as it would be to deny that the Republicans originated with the Whigs.

The two consistent traits of the post-CRA Republican party are to refuse to believe in the importance of popular legitimacy and to talk down to blacks who refuse to support them after the Democratic president LBJ's crucial leadership rallied the votes needed to pass the CRA.

There is also another consistent trait they have, however: They are too stupid to understand that parties change over time to take in voting blocs and ideologies that they need to make them more competitive. The Republics were not consistently conservative until Buckley made that the party's ideological focus, and to do that, he had to put the Birchers who were always a part of it on the down-low. He also had to be hush-hush about the secret sauce that made the party competitive: taking the south by the defection of large numbers of racist southern Democrats, resentful of LBJ's passage of the CRA, into the Republican party. Two RNC chairs (Ken Mehlman and Michael Steele) and one of its most notorious strategists - Lee Atwater - have all attested to and confirmed this.

But instead of accepting all those facts, the Republics remain the party of denialism in all things and insist on believing (all evidence to the contrary) that blacks just vote against their own economic interests as naturally as the poor whites do in their own party. Ironically, they seem ignorant of how demeaning to blacks (and therefore, racist) it is to believe such a thing. But Republics just assume black voters to be as stupid as their own poor, white voters. They also have the moronic idea that black-on-white racism is as big as or a bigger problem than white-on-black racism and the legacy in society that it left.

The Republic party remains the party of liars. It is composed of rich elites who want their business interests to be unaccountable to the people, poor whites to whom they appeal on the basis of ethnic resentment and class pride, xenophobes, and ideological bubble dwellers who peddle the self-obviously self-defeating nonsense that the same government for whom they propose to work and invest all their political efforts in is evil. They are a party of fear, hatred, anti-progress, ideology and economic and national decline. They are hypocrites who hate the American people, preferring instead to use the people to achieve power.