... you can talk until tomorrow morning.
The photos were taken at 6:28 this morning. The actual sunrise time was 6:17.
April 14, 2020
At the Sunrise Café...
... you can talk until tomorrow morning.
The photos were taken at 6:28 this morning. The actual sunrise time was 6:17.
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219 comments:
1 – 200 of 219 Newer› Newest»Some bad news:
It turns out the Covid-19 virus doesn't just target pneumocytes with ACE2 receptors, it also targets T lymphocytes with CD147 receptors.
Unlike the AIDS virus the Covid-19 virus does not replicate inside these T lymphocytes,
but it does render the lymphocytes non-functional. Or to say it another way, the Wuhan Lab Bat Coronavirus directly attacks, and can deactivate, one part of our immune system.
This no doubt has something to do with the four fragments from the HIV virus that are part of this bat coronavirus.
Coronavirus Pandemic Update 55 has a detailed and clear explanation of what has been discovered.
Need MORE EVIDENCE, that michigan 'republicans' are clueless attention seekers?
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/rep-amash-who-left-gop-in-2019-mulling-2020-presidential-run
but wait! it GETS BETTER! Amash apparently thinks that he would draw Trump supporters! That's right michigan 'republicans' are SO FUCKING STUPID, that they think that there are people that are going to say:
"you know, i WAS going to vote for Trump, i mean; there is NO WAY that i would vote for Biden.... But Throwing my vote into the wastebasket with a clueless Cocksucker?
SURE!"
Maybe we need 'expert' testimony? Chuck give us some insight into what passes as intelligence for michigan 'republicans'
The new University of Virginia model is based on a presumption that there are actually seven times as many cases as there are reported positives.
If true, that means that at least 4.3 million people in the U.S. have been infected. It also means that the death rate is actually one-seventh of that the current presumed rate is, that is, about 0.6 percent, with a higher rate for the high-risk groups, but lower rate for the general population.
So they all laughed derisively and contemptuously, dripping with hate, at those crazy conspiracy nuts.
Now the Washington Post is reporting that State Department cables warned of safety issues at the Wuhan lab, which was studying bat coronaviruses, together with the potential for the virus to escape from the lab into the general public.
President Trump and Governor Cuomo are two old pros hondling with each other, but who’s gonna click on that story?
But Mark, I have it from a reliable source that the US Military created and distributed this virus.
Sorry, but I've grown tired and bored with this discussion - too much like a pissing contest.
Have a good night all, I'll check in tomorrow to see if anything new was revealed.
Andrea Bocelli sings 'Amazing Grace" in empty Milan
touching is the moment he sings the verse
"Was blind, but now I see"
"And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience."
"Therefore we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, yet our inner self is being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary affliction is producing for us an eternal glory that is far beyond comparison. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal".
(Romans 8:22-24, 2 Cor 4:16-18)
deja vu, guess what hes also tied to
this episode
Prime Minstrel Scofflaw https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/lilley-trudeaus-cottage-visit-mocks-us-and-the-rules-he-sets
Is this considered "helping"?'
"New York City's total coronavirus death toll saw a major spike on Tuesday, after officials added more than 3,700 fatalities to the count "including people who had never tested positive for the virus but were presumed to have died of it," The New York Times reported."
Is there anybody in our world who is simply honest anymore, or is it all just a battle among liars and cheats?
A select few, bagoh,
i have some advice, if you are angry with fascist governors.
pray for their souls, they do not know what evil they are doing.
be careful, though.
it is hard to be someone who can read the hearts of others and can thereby pray to God in an effective way for the good of others ....
that is a huge responsibility. And not everyone is capable of really feeling compassion for very very foolish people, trust me.
many of our governors are old, foolish people, who are not healthy ....
and here is another reflection, take it or leave it ....
if you are blessed with the capability to effectively pray for those who are sick (That is, if you have wanted to be a faith healer, and have been granted that wish), well, remember, to heal others involves understanding their illness.
Do you really want to understand sad clowns like Cuomo, nasty old women like the witless governor of Michigan>??? of course you don't, but you have to if you want to heal others who are in their thrall .....
I mean, if you have the courage, go for it. remember though, to understand others involves suffering, to effectively understand them in a way that is effectual for them involves even more suffering. it is easy for those of us who are old, but if you are young .....
be careful, maybe you are not as brave as you think
(just kidding of course you are as brave as you think)
be strong, be kind, even if you would rather curl up under a blanket, be strong and kind for the people you care about.
And don't bother caring about me.
That is not what I am saying.
God loves me, we are friends, I don't need your help, thanks anyway.
Be the best that you can be.
Didnt lord acton put it best 'absolut power corrupts absolutely'
Thats the gist of romans 13, that you objected to yesterday.
"presumed to have died of it"
Some may have, sure. But honest officials would at least test a sample. If they do and the percentages are high, fine. If they don't, they are just padding the numbers.
That's how you can manufacture an epidemic.
the rest of the story
Paul was just joking around with the whole give to Ceasar what is Ceasar's thing
cut some slack dude
I met Ceasar once and I told him
I will show you fear in a handful of dust
and he was like
please don't, let's just hang out and smoke some weed
word
That's how you can manufacture an epidemic.
Manufacture an epidemic and excess deaths through conflation of causes, false positives, normalizing phobias, and spreading social contagion.
mandrewa,
How is it bad news? It doesn’t change anything—we are still seeing a downward trend. It doesn’t mean anything except that we know more now, have avenues for future research, and can deploy anti-CD147 mabs against the WuFlu.
narciso,
Lord Acton was referring to what happens to the people around the one who holds absolute power. In their lust for reflected glory, they will do anything. A nuance.
Stephen Cooper
A TS Eliot fan?
That has been the history sadly athens went from draco and pisistratus to pericles and to an oligarchy in less than two hundred years, rome took roughly that long time from the fall of carthage to the reign of caesar. Machiavelli tried to discern wisdom in autocracy.
Who then devised the torment? Love.
Love is the unfamiliar Name
Behind the hands that wove
The intolerable shirt of flame
Which human power cannot remove.
We only live, only suspire
Consumed by either fire or fire.
,..
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
....
Quick now, here, now, always
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire.
And the fire and the rose are one.
Im citing that from memory so if i get it wrong.
China had a flicker of a republic which flared into warlordism then chiangs reign and the conflict with mao.
Anne - yes, very much.
Would not want him to date my daughter, and would not vote for him, but he was someone who knew how to say
WORDS OF TRUTH
Newsom announces that maybe he'll have a plan some time.
Really.
The WHO:
Won't Get Fooled Again???
World Health Organization Spends Twice as Much on Travel as on Medical Supplies
https://www.dailysignal.com/2020/04/01/world-health-organization-spends-twice-as-much-on-travel-as-on-medical-supplies/
stephen cooper--
Everyone focuses on The Wasteland (or maybe Prufrock), but Four Quarters is his masterpiece. His critics just didn't care for his conversion.
The Return of 'Fortuna'
Coronavirus calls for Machiavellian virtue, not technocracy.
https://americanmind.org/features/the-coronacrisis-and-our-future-discontents/the-return-of-fortuna/
Topic: Leopold II of Belgium, world-class mass murderer. Discuss.
The horror. The horror.
the wasteland was like a crystal ball
Yes although his canvas was the congo, which is like the hieronymous bosch painting writ large.
“So they all laughed derisively and contemptuously, dripping with hate, at those crazy conspiracy nuts.
Now the Washington Post is reporting that State Department cables warned of safety issues at the Wuhan lab, which was studying bat coronaviruses, together with the potential for the virus to escape from the lab into the general public”
There are consistent reports that the lab workers were selling test animals from the microbiological lab to the food market to make a quick renminbi. I believe this because it matches culture. Chinese scientists were even stealing virus samples in the US and Canada and carrying them to China in carryon bags to research for papers where they would get sole credit. China has so many people the culture allows this kind of irresponsible action in order to stand out and make money. The preponderance of evidence is that massive corrupt actions led to an accidental but predictable release of infectious agents fro China. I don’t think any serious person doubts this.
Four quartets is life affirming like the way forward from the chaos of the wasteland.
from
Preliminary investigation
Although Leopold was a piker compared to Mao. They all were.
Forget it, Jake. It's China.
Oh thats without a doubt, like honqquing and the rebellion he headed.
Come on people i put in the effort,
How does one rid oneself of the meddlesome curly quotes?
Anne-am-I: Presuming you may have missed my reply on last night's thread, here it is again.
Concerning specifically iPhones/iPads, one can either override the default curly quotes = on in a specific instance (for example: when producing an html link, where curly quotes bracketing the url aren't allowed), or one can turn off curly quotes altogether (unless specifically invoked).
To do the former (override in a particular case): at the exact point where you wish to insert an instance of (non-curly) double quotes — rather than just quickly typing (tapping) the double-quotes key (on the iPad/iPhone's crappy on-screen keyboard) — instead hold down the double-quotes key for a few seconds, until the subsidiary menu (showing a variety of available quote types) comes up, then select the straight double-quotes (far right in the list).
On the other hand, to disable the curly-quote default altogether (one can still produce individual curly quotes using the foregoing method), go into
Settings -> General -> Keyboard
and turn “Smart Punctuation” off.
Finally, if you're using an (Apple-type) bluetooth keyboard with your iPad/iPhone (as I typically do, when at home — such as this one) — or an Apple keyboard on your Mac — one can invoke curly quotes whenever desired by simply typing Alt-[ (for the open double-quotes) and Alt-Shift-[ (for the close double-quotes). (Use Alt-] and Alt-Shift-] for the two single-quotes. Also, Alt = Option, Win = Command, on multiple-OS keyboards like these.)
From narciso's link: No one in our intelligence system appears to have systematically studied what China was doing.
What's to study? The Chinese were/are working on bioweapons. They were about creating a biological weapon of mass destruction and they lost control of the process. The Chinese view such biological agents as a sort of organic neutron bomb. An effective efficient way to kill entire populations without damaging infrastructure. It's a very Chinese thing to do, a very Chinese conceptualization of waging war.
Did fatalism and nihilism follow from the mind-bending destruction man visited upon man in the last half of the 19th and first half of the 20th century?
Is the technocrat actually a gnostic, grasping at any way to reclaim control from the awful contingency revealed by trench warfare, mustard gas, and death from the sky on a scale never before experience?
Do many of willingly bow before the expert, because the siren song of Secret Knowledge that will make life ordered again is too much for us to resist, not having the foresight of Odysseus?
One thing the covid-19 crisis should demonstrate to people is just how far down the rabbit hole we've gone with China. From Clinton to Bush to Obama, the US has operated under a very faulty assumption: that as China became wealthier and more dependent on the "rules-based" international order, there would be political liberalization and an opening to markets-based principles. So committed to this principle, the US sacrificed millions of American blue collar jobs. It isn't the first time the US has seriously misjudged the nature of a regime, but it is the most consequential.
We are facing a very intractable problem that the American political system is not well equipped to handle. The problem is that there is probably no way to successfully decouple the US from China without a period of pain and upheaval. Trump's "phase one" deal actually increases interdependence and kicked the can down the road on all the thornier issues.
Michael McNeil,
Thank you! I saw that last night. I turned Stoopid Punctuation off. "Let's see if it worked." Aha! Success!
Yes, Hong Xiuquan. 40-60 million Chinese killed. History's bloodiest war after the Mongol conquest of ... you guessed it, China.
The Chinese have a knack for death and murder on galactic scales.
The Chinese are different from you and me.
J. Farmer,
I fear you are correct.
I think the fatal flaw in the American character is the asinine assumption that other people think the way we do, share our values, desire the good that we do.
You dismissed Haidt, but I think he pokes at this concept with his schema of six values. Liberal America (liberal in the old sense) over-values individuality and "do no harm." Many, many people cannot fathom that other people value authority, order, tradition, and discipline--and will act in ways we cannot imagine in pursuit of those values.
This is something the focus on the Chinese regime misses. The Chinese people are by and large on board with what their government does. They aren't mass demonstrating about the Uighurs or the Falun Gong. They want China to be the hegemon. I doubt that a majority of them would be horrified at the idea of an "organic neutron bomb," ie, a virus that wipes out entire populations, but leaves the buildings standing.
This will be our ruin, if we do not address it.
Hong Xiuquan was not solely responsible for the Taiping catastrophe. Many Chinese on both sides of the struggle contributed to the astronomic death toll. It was not the work of one man, but the work of many -- and the failure of an entire civilization and culture.
As was the Chinese Civil War / Great Leap Forward / Cultural Revolution.
Man gets a glimpse of the forces of nature, it thinks it has insight into the masses of man through marx freud and darwin but it doesnt really because the first finds freedom superflous the second only sees license and restraint as repression, the last sees man as predatory animal without a soul,
Today the IHME model broke on the total deaths as today a new record was set, sadly. That’s without adding the addl 3.7k that N.Y. says it may add( from the last month)
New cases continued
Tucker had an interesting analysis on 215 NY women who give birth over a week or so in late March. All were tested for Covid and 15% tested positive. 88% of those who tested positive were entirely asymptomatic. If this small sample is representative of the city at large it would confer a death rate of just 0.2%. Something to ponder.
Pretty much agree with Cliff on that one.
It takes to tango, but the resulting cataclysm along with the opium wars fatally weakened the manchus they just didnt know it yet.
I talked a week and a half ago about my RN wife's coworker who had tested positive for the Wuhan virus. They had worked together four days before she was hospitalized in ICU on a ventilator. Wife and all of the others on that shift turned out fine with a couple testing negative and they are now 17 days past the exposure date. Her friend spent about 12 days intubated, and I am happy to report that she was extubated yesterday. A remarkable recovery because she is a 64 year old asthmatic diabetic.
When we see her, we are going to give her a big hug. Social distancing be damned!
"All of the projections, by the way, all those statisticians have been 100 percent wrong at this point… And we’ve been following the models because that was the only blueprint, but they haven’t turned out to be correct."
Cuomo
Like wise we think we can control nature because we can split the atom, thats incredible arrogance, the kind that is manifest trying to handled pathogenic pangolins and here we find ourselves
narciso,
You left out Roussea, who was probably more damaging than Darwin or Freud. I think you can draw a straight from him to the environmental fascists AND the sexual libertines of today.
Yes he preceded those three, was the core of the totalitarian mindset, that is our sophisticated world.
heyboom,
Indeed!
Roughcoat: correctamundo. The Belgian colonial regime was as savage and heartless as any.
It was largely their mis- and mal-administration of the Congo, Rwanda, Burundi etc that set up the disaster that much of the area is today--or so one can argue, and you probably know already.
narciso mentions China, warlordism, etc. In reality Jiang was only the most powerful and presentable warlord among a handful of regional power centers; and contra most of 20th C Western coverage, the Reds were of almost no military value against the Japanese; IIRC also ironically, some of the best Red units eventually turned out to be Uighur.
Narr
Absolut power is a different thing
Which is ironic in light of recent events, but the mao cult was nearly as thick as for uncle koba.
I put chiang in the spectrum from sun yatsen to the warlords (the center cannot hold) to mao
We are facing a very intractable problem that the American political system is not well equipped to handle. The problem is that there is probably no way to successfully decouple the US from China without a period of pain and upheaval.
1940 America could have handled it. Maybe 1968 America, or at least the non -Democrat half.
Now, I don't know.
It's time to check in on the experiment:
Michigan: Cases = 27,001 Deaths = 1,768 Deaths/M = 178
Sweden:...Cases = 11,445 Deaths = 1,033 Deaths/M = 102
I notice that virtually all the coverage of Sweden is negative. Every story I saw compares them to Denmark and Norway who have lower numbers, but who also started out with lower numbers. None mention the 11 other nearby nations with worse numbers, some far worse, who imposed tough mitigation measures, while Sweden still has not closed primary schools or businesses, and allows gatherings up to 50 people.
I have come to the conclusion over the last year that journalists are the least reliable source for information. Is the big market for readers really those who want just half the story? Probably.
narciso,
What does this tell us but that the America is a sport, a crazy outlier on an amazingly, otherwise cohesive scatter plot of how humans choose to govern themselves? Sadly, I fear we are regressing to the mean.
bagoh20,
No Panic! tonight. Let us stay out of the circle jerk tonight.
Michael K,
I don't think it is "can't handle" it. I think it is, "doesn't really want to handle it," because it makes us rich...and fuck everybody else.
I think the fatal flaw in the American character is the asinine assumption that other people think the way we do, share our values, desire the good that we do.
Popular culture, and I'm thinking movies and books although there are other examples, have portrayed the Chinese as our benevolent friends over the past 2 or three decades. Helpmates in crisis. I'm guessing that's about to change.
There's so much link spam on this site, it's getting too hard to want to pay attention to it.
Indeed bagoh sweden per million is doing better than the uk which is more locked down, than the daleks could ever have mamaged.
Amash left the R party. So, I assume he will run as a losertarian. Maybe he can get Weld to run as VP once again.
pacwest,
The Chinese have done an excellent job of infiltrating our universities, corporations and medical system. They benefit from the perception that Orientals are smarter than whites (I wonder about that--no one ever tests the billion Chinese who live in the sticks). And of course, no one really learns about Chinese behavior in the 20th century.
I hope that it does change. I just saw the Miami of Ohio is terminating their Confucius Institute. About time. And let's root out all of those STEM researchers who are basically on the ChiCom payroll.
But popular culture (influenced heavily by its financial investment in China, of course) just leverages the American tendency to think that everybody just wants to get along, be the best that they can be, embrace individual expression, and live and let live.
Dr. K, since you're on here let me take the opportunity to give you kudos for being the very first person I heard reference remdesivir as a potential treatment for Wuhan virus. I believe that was very early on last month.
if there were comics worthy of the name
Trump has no gotten everyone on the record:
No openings of states without the Governors approval. They are the "deciders". And of course, the ones responsible if the reopening goes wrong and we get more CV deaths. And if their state has an economic downturn while everyone else is booming.
Hilariously, NPR now has a "fact check" stating Trump doesn't have the power to reopen states. I wonder what "fact" that is based on. Its certainly not based on any "fact" in the law governing emergencies.
Epic slaughter the Taipeng and aftershocks may have been, but of course the main killers were famine and disease, as they usually are, and the main sufferers civilians, as they usually are.
And Jiang, who passes for a good guy in the context, was willing to use drowned earth tactics in 1938 by breaching the Yellow River dykes--at the KMT's own estimate of 800k drowned.
Narr
Spence's "God's Chinese Son" was eye-opening.
There's also an NPR story which deliberately conflates HCQ with CQ. The story is about CQ and its history. But it gives the impression that its the drug that all the fuss is about, and being talked about by Trump.
I don't think it is "can't handle" it. I think it is, "doesn't really want to handle it," because it makes us rich...and fuck everybody else.
I don't think so. The vast majority of people get up, get their kids off to school, go to work, come home, have dinner, check in with the kids... and repeat until the kids grow up and move up. Or at least, that's what they want to do. Literally NO ONE thinks, "Yeah, let's move production to China so I can spend less $$$ on this thing I buy!"
OTOH, EVERYONE sees that thing they buy for less $$$ than another version and so, being at least somewhat "smart" about money, they buy the less-expensive one and continue to do so as long as the less expensive thing does what they need or want it to do.
The people who make the decisions to move plants to China, etc, are way up in the food chain and normal people have literally ZERO interactions with them.
It's true, we like our stuff, but all humans do (except those vow-of-poverty people, how I admire them!) People who talk about "poverty" in the US have no idea what poverty actually looks like in the rest of the world -- poor people in the US are much more likely to be obese, which is not a hallmark of, you know, actually being poor.
Anyway. Decoupling from China will not be an overnight, instantly the price on everything doubles, kind of thing. It will take some time and probably some incentives from the all levels of government but it's all to the good, even if we do end up having to spend more money of those things we like. Perhaps we'll become slightly less materialistic.
"i think the fatal flaw in the American character is the asinine assumption that other people think the way we do, share our values, desire the good that we do."
Or as Full Metal Jacket put it: "Inside every Gook, there's an American waiting to get out."
Personally, i'd be happy if Americans could just remember that a Foreign Government is not its people. And that China is a Communist Dictatorship. Communism has killed 100 million people, but for some reason 'muricans just can't get upset about it. Unlike Nazism which died 75 years ago.
Joan,
I wasn't referring to the average Joe. I was referring to the people who will really have to do the decoupling. The politicians who make policy that benefits China (and themselves). The corporate suits who decided to go for cheap labor uber alles (which benefits them). The universities that grabbed Chinese money in the form of full tuition and grants for research (again, cui bono?). And so on.
This is not about you or me being willing to pay an extra $100 for a freaking iPhone.
@Anne:
This will be our ruin, if we do not address it.
Just a sidenote: I didn't dismiss Haidt. I liked his book; I just said that I am not a particular fan of social psychology, the position from which he writes. Social psychology has been one of the worst offenders in the so called "replication crisis."
Since the end of the Second World War, the US has been committed to leading a so called "liberal international order." This is driven by notions of American exceptionalism and that we are "#1" Anytime the US has failed to achieve its objectives in the international realm, it is often blamed on a lack of will or being sold out by duplicitous politicians.
In order for the US to successfully decouple from China, it will need to jettison its desire to be a global hegemon and accept its relative decline in terms of global power. There is very little will for any politician to acknowledge this. Much of our middle east policy is driven by Israeli security interests, and there is no sign of this abating anytime soon. Despite all the screaming about Trump's "isolationism," he has differed very little from the post-WWII norm. Trump's so called "maximum pressure" campaign are almost wholly dependent on sanctions, which themselves rely on America's role in the global economy.
I applaud Anne-I-Am’s brave verse and would welcome reading more. Some worthy lines there. I offer one of my own.
Corona 2
Can’t dance in this place
Need to cut to the chase
And it’s too damned shaky
But I’ll give it a try
You could see it coming
From at least a mile away
Ain’t what they all say
Let’s dance, people, it's good if you try
Makes me want to cuss
It’s too near to all of us
Our way too friendly
Too sly enemy
Fix your blue handkerchief
Pull on your rubber gloves
And during the quiet night
Yearn for those old loves
No need to hide the stash
Going down for the mail
Will get rid of the trash
To crash somewhere in hell
I’m a bit old for a draftee
A few dents in this car
I hear tell in 43
They fought the last just war
One of many and big too
It always comes with a cost
Every kid and neighbor knew
Just how many had got lost
Eastern hot or eastern cold
Don’t get sick but take your pick
Never mind poor arithmetic
Instead dig a grave for the bold
But rocean, we don't have Mao shoved down our throats the way Hitler is. He is so much easier to explain, after all. And he so nicely implicates White people in his malevolence, doesn't he? A nice springboard to condemn any white person in America who doesn't reflexively bow before the God of Minority Superiority.
And shoving people in ovens is such a concrete image. So easy to picture. Harder to imagine millions dying, skeletons, out in the hinterlands of some country we can't even picture.
And is there ANY way to get rid of fucking CAPTCHA?
J Farmer,
I am not sure we should dart off-stage too quickly. We seem to be stuck in a world that necessitates a hegemon--and I would rather it be us.
China would sorely like the job, but I think they just screwed the pooch. Russia .... Russia. Russia will never quite make it, will she?
And Europe? The EU is falling apart as we speak.
We don't live in a reality that can contemplate the lack of superpower.
Pssst, Don't tick 'I'm not a robot'.
grackle,
That wasn't mine--that was T.S. Eliot.
Really hasnt the 'rich bubbling crude' been the main issue in the middle east since 1932, thats why weve tolerated the sauds after the dual oil shocks 9/11 et al.
Don't tick I'm Not a Robot? But what if I am?
Oh, well. That was certainly easy enough. Then why is it there?
This is not about you or me being willing to pay an extra $100 for a freaking iPhone.
Well then, you and I agree, but when you're posting about Americans and use "us" it's not so easy to see that your "us" wasn't intended to be all-inclusive.
I have a friend, naturalized immigrant from France, been here for decades, two beautiful sons with her American husband. She has been all over the map politically, but since she started working as a translator and hanging out with a lot foreign nationals, especially Syrian ex-pats, she has become practically anti-American and always harangues me for not caring more about the effects of our foreign policy... or more precisely, foreign interference. Especially in the Middle East.
I barely ever have any idea what she's talking about, and I resent being made to feel guilty for the fact that I don't. Should I feel bad because some corporate shitheels got rich moving their businesses to China? Should I feel bad now because they'll probably move them out? Perhaps I am too stupid for all this, but one thing I know is, I am not in any way a part of the decision chain that determines these things, and I never will be.
Like most people, I just want to live my life in peace, and I don't want to be guilted about it by the left or the right.
/taking off the cranky pants now
Farmer
I forget. Did you say you would have opposed fighting Japan in WWII?
If we could start our decoupling with China with all that spammy shit on Amazon, that would be awesome. You know what I mean: you search for, I dunno, fine rasp cheese grater, and have to wade through six hundred listings titled KITCHEN FUN EXPERIMENT TOOL CONVENIENT TIME SAVE FINE NUTS SPICES CHEESE LADLE SPOON with a bunch of fake reviews written by bots.
One last thing. American Chinaphilia (as opposed to Sinophilia, which is a matter of taste or culture) is not at all recent. China was the great frontier of American missionary work, and in popular culture has represented endearing and long-suffering wannabe Americans (as long as they STF over there).
The Confucius Institute where I was (recently institutionally-distanced) was a pain in the butt for everyone, and basically an outpost for PRC PR. They supplied enormous amounts of printed material--workbooks, drillbooks, lexicons, coloring books, readers you name it for elementary school kids (there's a school on campus). We stored most of it in a library storage area for years, with almost no movement, just periodic visits to talk about the bright future when American public schoolkids would start learning to read and write Chinese . . .
Now why, I thought, would American parents want to invest time and money in having their kids learn to wield a tool as cumbersome as even dumb-downed Chinese literacy?
Narr
It was there when I left in mid 2015 and as I understand it has mostly been tossed by now.
Cuts down on spambots that expect reCaptcha, I guess.
We are facing a very intractable problem that the American political system is not well equipped to handle. The problem is that there is probably no way to successfully decouple the US from China without a period of pain and upheaval. Trump's "phase one" deal actually increases interdependence and kicked the can down the road on all the thornier issues.
The Chinese are "ahead of the curve" wrt the COVID virus. They will likely come out of this before US. I mentioned a couple weeks ago some privy information: ships in Long Beach harbor have ceased arriving from China as of a couple few weeks. You probably haven't noticed, but stocks of sundry stuff "Made In China" are not being replenished. Retailers order things, but they are not delivered. So, we're living on existing inventory.
I'd expect that the Chinese come around in a few weeks (or whenever the rice hits the fan) and offer us shit tons of "stuff" we need in order to ameliorate what we perceive as "shortages." On the other hand, it's never been a better time to invest in American shares.
Assad is evil, but the people who would replace would be wonderful or maybe not, thats also our fault.
The shape-shifting alien Bounty Hunter is back on this Enterprise two-parter.
With a blue-skinned Weyoun too.
Joan,
No one can make you feel anything. Your feelings are your choice.
The point about decoupling from China is that the result of our desire for their cheap labor has been a loss of redundancy in the supply chain and a fatal dependence on them for much more than just our phones. It is more than pharmaceutical basic ingredients and cheap appliances. It is technology. It is allowing them to steal our intellectual property to improve their military. It is about our so-called elites being beholden to Chinese masters.
You should care. We all should care. So that we can keep the pressure on after this cluster-fuck ends to endure the pain that will come from kicking the Chinese in the ass on their way out the door.
In part both the korean and vietnamese wars were the proxy battle with the us, korea directly vietnam indirectly through the supply network.
The Chinese are "ahead of the curve" wrt the COVID virus.
No one can know that. More reliable sources believe they have more than 10 times the number cases they are admitting to.
It’s going to take a long time and a lot of money to seriously disengage with China, because you have to rebuild the whole supply chain. It might take government action to facilitate the stuff we want done fast. First priority is drugs. It was already going south with contamination and quality issues, but now it’s urgent to get that capacity away from China. I saw a proposal to pay the moving costs of equipment. That’s an interesting idea. Normally I would say hell no, but this is a security issue really.
And I can't see how voting for Joe Biden (or any other Democrat on the radar) is going to help decouple US from the worst aspects of co-dependence any better that Trump. Trump at least can talk the talk. Democrats -- all Democrats -- act like speaking ill of the CCP is like using the words "radical Islam." I suspect that they are more financially dependent on the CCP that Trump is. Oh and, the RNC is also guilty of sucking up to China.
Well, he understood this:
the end of the story is the memory we have of those days when we were good people not because we were guaranteed to be good people ---- maybe we were maybe we were not ---- but because God liked to hear what we had to say, about the sky, the trees, the apple orchards in bloom, the way the crows would fly from one branch to another, just to sit on the same branch as crows who are friends with other crows do, because they cared about each other, because they understood friendship, and because they knew what so few of us know : here are two examples
(1) YOU CAN EASILY BE A FAITH HEALER BUT IT IS NOT SIMPLE it means caring enough about someone else to offer up suffering for them, if you have never done that before (well if you have it is not that big of a deal TIME IS A BIG THING but not that big of a thing - who is in charge here, us or time ---- WE ARE IN CHARGE) --- if you have never done that before, I do not want to frighten you, but it is possible you have no idea what it means to really care about a fellow creature ----- don't let that scare you off, it is kind of cool to heal a fellow creature, but I want to say, it is NO SMALL THING to really care for a fellow creature, trust me (or don't, trust me, it is up to you and not up to me, God made you free) and
(2) YOU CAN EASILY READ THE HEARTS OF OTHERS but remember if you do, the person who knows that you know what they feel in their heart HAS EVERY RIGHT TO EXPECT YOU TO BE THE SORT OF PERSON WHO UNDERSTANDS, with all that entails .....
my friends, I respect you all, but I have not met many people who can do what they have to do for those they care about without a little bit of fear --- but ----
let not your heart be troubled, though, God loves us ALL
God is not frightened by anything
BE BRAVE MY FRIENDS
Trust me God will never forget you, will never forget your name, will never abandon you, GOD WILL ALWAYS BE BY YOUR SIDE
please if you have it in your heart to be a faith healer DO IT
if you have it in your heart to read the heart of a fellow human creature DO IT
don't bother about me though God is my friend despite all my faults
that's enough and more
this is my world
BUT IT IS YOUR WORLD TOO
much more than it is mine
but I remember so so much
and nothing ever frightened me
God has always been my friend
Mark said...No one can know that [now].
FTFY
But we shall know in time [double entendre intended].
“ The point about decoupling from China is that the result of our desire for their cheap labor has been a loss of redundancy in the supply chain and a fatal dependence on them for much more than just our phones”
Exactly. We need far more redundancy in a lot of industries, and that will mean higher costs and investment in facilities and inventory.
Just in time inventory is fragile, and looks pretty dumb right now.
Narr,
Interesting, your comments on the Chinese language and fluency. Why the fuck would anyone want to learn to read or write Chinese? All those moronic pictograms. Is there any more perfect an example of how China never quite makes it to full potential? Let's have a written language a billion people can't master. That will lead to cultural excellence.
I got tired of the Chinese after I moved here to NoCal and encountered physicians who haven't mastered English. How the hell do they treat their patients? Not all of them are Chinese, even in Santa Clara county. And how do they read scientific literature? How do they communicate with their staff? If one of my products has an important safety update, how the shit am I supposed to communicate with them?
An important moral of the story. If you want to know which MD to see for anything, ask a drug rep. We can tell you shit that will turn you white, to coin a phrase.
Since Syria was mentioned: Assad's the only thing standing between the remaining Christians and Jews of Damascus and extinction, and they know it.
Narr
It may come as a shock to a lot of Western Christians and Jews some day
don't get mad this is not about me
this is about you and someone you care about
AND THE BEAUTIFUL WORLD YOU WILL LIVE IN
Narr,
Not I. I attend an Antiochian Orthodox church. All Syrians.
@Anne:
I am not sure we should dart off-stage too quickly. We seem to be stuck in a world that necessitates a hegemon--and I would rather it be us.
China would sorely like the job, but I think they just screwed the pooch. Russia .... Russia. Russia will never quite make it, will she
I am not really sure why t he world needs a hegemon or what this hegemon is supposed to accomplish. A lot of Cold War triumphalism and talk of a "unipolar moment" or the US being an "indispensable" nation has led the US to adopt an unsustainable global role for itself.
I also think it is wrong to assume that there will always be a hegemon. I doubt China has either the interest or the ability to do so.
Assad's the only thing standing between the remaining Christians and Jews of Damascus and extinction
And in the context of Obama's greater Middle East wars, Egypt, Libya, Kiev, etc., another Western-backed civil war, perhaps coup, without borders.
@Anne-I-Am: As an English speaker with an interest in learning foreign languages, I fast track three: Spanish, German, and Greek. Spanish will lead you back to Latin, which is like a drug; German gets at the heart and soul metaphors of English; and Greek gets you back to technical roots and ultimately, back to Jesus.
J Farmer,
I doubt China has either the interest or the ability to do so.
First time you have said something I found naive.
we need to be jealous and vigilant re the safety of our country
by identifying/blocking/rooting out pernicious, invasive pathogens,
be they biological, tech, political, etc.
do we have a compromised national immune system?
chickelit,
Latin is like a drug. Greek just explains so much (and makes exegesis of Paul so much easier). I don't like Spanish--I speak Italian and French, so Spanish is not a puzzle for me...any Romance language, really...
and Greek gets you back to technical roots and ultimately, back to Jesus.
Or any of the Greek thinkers -- take your pick.
Ingachucketal
Shorter name, dude. Nice metaphor. Yes. Our immune system is debilitated. Sadly, much of our problem is not external pathogens, but our own cells running amok.
I don't like Spanish--I speak Italian and French, so Spanish is not a puzzle for me...any Romance language, really...
True, any Romance language will do. I learned Italian as my first second language. But I put Spanish there in its place because it so accessible and teaches you much the same.
Italian is akin to spanish, i thought poruguese was, but not as much as you think
@Anne I A
it is shortened
they didnt forget to steal
Two things, Miss Anne:
First: No one can make you feel anything. Your feelings are your choice.
I think you are confused. Feelings come from your lizard-brain and are emphatically NOT a choice. What you do with your feelings, that's a choice. There's WAY too much emphasis on feelings these days. Just about everyone needs 1) a large dose of suck-it-up and 2) to understand that no one person -- not even you! -- is the center of the universe. (Except Jesus. He actually is the center of the universe)
2) You should care. We all should care. So that we can keep the pressure on after this cluster-fuck ends to endure the pain that will come from kicking the Chinese in the ass on their way out the door.
I care enough to vote for people who say they'll put policies in place to support this. And then they go to Washington and get spinectomies and start catering to Deep State interests and completely sell their souls. I live in AZ for heaven's sake and have had to endure the ignominy of both John McCain and Jeff Flake. My point is, there is VERY LITTLE I can do about this, and again, I'd like to live my life in peace. At some point.
I do my best to indoctrinate my students against the leftist agenda, though. So I am contributing in ways that I can.
Last... I daresay there's a big difference between Syrian Orthodox Christians and Syrian Muslims?
Anne-I-Am, perzackly!
It's a complete waste of human energy for anyone but specialists (and Chinese) to be literate in Chinese. I really believe that underneath all the PR the CCP leaders imagine that somehow, someday, they can edge English out as the global language, and in the process it would be nice for inferior peoples to study up on the master race's lingo.
As if, after a 500-year process during which a simple alphabetic pidgin has established a cultural and technical depth and scope unparalleled in the record, the world should learn to read and write all over again.
Narr
That makes sense in very few scenarios
@Ken B:
I forget. Did you say you would have opposed fighting Japan in WWII?
I probably would have supported war with Japan in response to Pearl Harbor. However, I probably would have opposed the economic warfare that significantly increased the likelihood that Japan would resort to armed conflict.
I also would have opposed Japan's forced opening through Perry's gunboat diplomacy. Between this and witnessing China's fate, Japan rapidly industrialized and understood quickly that the only way to get respect on the international stage was to become a global power. This belief also influenced America's decision to become an overseas empire after defeating Spain in the Spanish-America war.
This is why I think it is absurd to blame the two world wars on some kind of excess "nationalism." The problem wasn't too much nationalism, it was too much imperialism.
J. Farmer said . . .
. . .
I am not really sure why the world needs a hegemon or what this hegemon is supposed to accomplish.
. . .
That which is writ small is writ large. The sign of a mature economy is the control of major markets by oligopoly. It is possible that global relations will follow the oligopoly model, with two or three or four nations controlling the world, and competing at a low level of conflict.
Take firefly a series i am a big fan of on, joss whedon imagines a future along that time scale where anglo and chinese culture is fused, thats the alliance in a nutshell, not a nice hegemon.
Narr said... I really believe that underneath all the PR the CCP leaders imagine that somehow, someday, they can edge English out as the global language, and in the process it would be nice for inferior peoples to study up on the master race's lingo.
Really, I think the CCP would rather focus on replacing the dollar with the renminbi (yuan?) first. Language would be second.
Say, is there some historical tome out there which deals with the co-evolution of world languages and world currency, with an emphasis on dominance? Say over a 500 year time period? Which dominates first language or currency? Hard to measure historically, I'd imagine.
Joan,
Emotions come from the amygdala, not feelings. Mostly fight or fight.
And while you are not in charge of your amygdala, you most certainly are in control of your feelings. Not least because many of our feelings actually come from our thoughts. We have a lightning quick thought--and a feeling follows. This is the basis of cognitive behavioral therapy and its cousin, dialectical behavioral therapy.
Furthermore, we can retrain our amygdala. That is what exposure therapy does with problems like agoraphobia.
Our thoughts are amazingly powerful. Master your thought process and watch your feelings fall in line.
Chickelit,
When French was the language of politics/nobility in the 16th and 17th centuries, what was the preferred currency? Was there even one?
When French was the language of politics/nobility in the 16th and 17th centuries, what was the preferred currency? Was there even one?
That's my question stated another way. I don't know the answer. Florins? Guilders?
When French was the language of politics/nobility in the 16th and 17th centuries, what was the preferred currency? Was there even one?
"Currency" may have meant weighed amounts of precious metals. Surely there was world trade then, and surely even the coins were denominated in some language.
wholelottasplainin' said...
Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...
Andrea Bocelli sings 'Amazing Grace" in empty Milan
**********
The line "a wretch like me" spoils that song for me.
I am not a wretch.
Quite the opposite.
I am the Crown of Creation.
Going back to matthew perry, what do you have against friends, sarc, it was about favorable trade terms the admiral a little like kirk exceeded the authority fillmore had given him.
Anne-I-Am said...
Chickelit,
When French was the language of politics/nobility in the 16th and 17th centuries, what was the preferred currency? Was there even one?
4/14/20, 11:43 PM
I am not Chickelit, but I do know that in the 18th century, at least, British pounds were popular because the Brits charged nothing for minting. If you gave them an ounce of gold, they would give you back a golden sovereign, weight 1 ounce. The French would charge you a minting fee of 10%. So if you had gold bullion, you would have it minted by the English rather than the French. Adam Smith spent a chapter or so in _Wealth of Nations_ explaining this & its economic conequences.
Gold, right? It didn't really matter whose picture was stamped on it. The question only arises with fiat money.
LOL, OK. Feelings =\= emotions. Check.
I really am too stupid for this. Catch you on the flip side!
Speaking of ethnicities and cultures, other than Christmas trees and some foods, what, if anything, is reflective of German culture in American life and culture today?
Even though it's late (and because being tired is a good excuse) I'll throw out the sort of thing I'm hoping for--
A streak of technical perfectionism, arguably manifest in the development of such things as the Kentucky rifle in the early days.
Narr
Just for fun
Lewis Wetzel and chikelit,
I was just thinking, duh, since everything was really on the gold standard, it didn't matter what the currency was. A certain weight of gold was a certain weight of gold, no?
Farmer
Danke.
NYT has a bold headline: N.Y.C. Death Toll Soars Past 10,000 in Revised Virus Count
Sounds terrible, right? Designed to sound terrible, though.
But wait: "New York City, already a world epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak, sharply increased its death toll by more than 3,700 victims on Tuesday, after officials said they were now including people who had never tested positive for the virus but were presumed to have died of it.
When doctors and scientists are telling you they "PRESUME" something, what that means is they are lying to you (the scientific bluff).
So why would they "PRESUME" these dead folks were Covid-19 victims? It's called juicing the numbers, they do it all the time, and are rarely called on it. They may get paid for each Covid-19 patient from that $2 Trillion stimulus package, they may have nefarious purposes to make the epidemic look bigger than it is. But no autopsy, no test and several co-morbidities are big red flags of medical bullshitology.
When French was the language of politics/nobility in the 16th and 17th centuries, what was the preferred currency? Was there even one?
I don't know what the preferred currency was, but the most prevalent was the Spanish Real.
Joan,
Don't sell yourself short. I am offering a way to short-circuit reactivity. Might want to think about it.
Narr,
Game on. Well, in Jasper, IN, the German influence results in a very tidy town and prosperity.
Must it be strictly German, or can it be the Germanic ethnicities vs the Romantic ethnicities?
Berenson already took a look at this, if it looks like a duck and acts like a duck...its not chicken.
Speaking of ethnicities and cultures, other than Christmas trees and some foods, what, if anything, is reflective of German culture in American life and culture today?
Kindergarten.
Nudism.
The fat lady singing.
@Anne:
First time you have said something I found naive.
Well, I think the period of time in which the US was hegemonic was mostly an aberration of history and is not something that can be duplicated through a series of policy choices. America's desire to hold onto the illusion that it is a global hegemon has led us down one destructive path after another. America has also insisted on making foolish universalist principles like "democracy" or "human rights" a part of its foreign policy goals.
China's primary interest is in getting richer and continuing its development model. It does not appear to have much interest in exporting its development model to other nations. It also doesn't have any of the soft power that the US has, thanks in large part to English being a lingua franca.
While we will likely have to cede the Indo-Pacific region to China's sphere of influence, we have more than enough resources to carve out our own sphere of influence that will keep China's influence at bay. The power disparity the US enjoyed in terms of its hegemony will not be reproduced in China. It is not that significant that China's total economy is larger than America's, given that it has quadrupled the population. In terms of GDP per capita, China is far behind the US. China also has significant internal problems that will need to be addressed sooner rather than later.
China will most certainly be a competitor of the US, and we need to resolve ourselves to that fact. We can neither prevent their rise nor steer it in a direction of our choosing. Attempts to contain it through security alliances and strategic partnerships with countries on its border will only signal to China that confrontation with the US is inevitable. Great Britain refused to accept that its power and influence would be checked by Germany, and that refusal led it down a self-destructive path. The end result was that Britain became subjugated first by the US and later by Germany through the EU.
I also think it is wrong to assume that there will always be a hegemon. I doubt China has either the interest or the ability to do so.
Why? Their actions seem to point to the opposite.
J Farmer,
I understand your analysis. Where I think you are mistaken--perhaps--is in judging China's interest. Having lived in the shadows of two superpowers throughout the last century, I think they believe it is their turn.
I could be wrong--I am in no way an expert. Not even a gifted amateur, really. I HOPE I am wrong.
You are right about China's internal problems. Demographics is going to bite them in the ass. They are old, getting older, have crippled themselves with the One Child policy, and have way too many males.
Weve been denying that is a competitor, unlike with germany and the uk, there are less cultural affinities, now is it paying us and european powers with the same coin, fentanyl for the opium war, stripping intellectual property through joint ventures you can add more parallels.
Blogger Anne-I-Am said...
Lewis Wetzel and chikelit,
I was just thinking, duh, since everything was really on the gold standard, it didn't matter what the currency was. A certain weight of gold was a certain weight of gold, no?
4/14/20, 11:52 PM
You might have to pay taxes in coin of the realm. Legal documents specified value in local currency, not a measure of gold.
One of the reasons I am not a "gold bug" is because in the days when all currencies were based on a measure of gold, there were still panics, and inflation.
There is an interesting idea in economics that the lack of economic growth in the Middle Ages was due to a shortage of coined money. If only one thousand English pounds, in gold, were available for lending, in England, that was it.
Interest rates in Medieval times were very high. There was a lot of local variation, but annual rates of ten to twenty-five percent per annum were common. Again, see Adam Smith's _Wealth of nations_ for more info on this.
Lewis Wetzel wrote:...but I do know that in the 18th century, at least, British pounds were popular because the Brits charged nothing for minting.
I did not know that -- thanks for sharing. Is it related to Greshem's Law?
Lewis,
Does that tie into mercantilism?
Why do you people get most interesting so late at night?
One thing often forgotten is that the Chinese economy was the engine of global trade for many many centuries; there's no reason in Chinese minds it shouldn't be so again.
The most common coin in the early modern period would have been the Spanish piece of eight or dollar, probably followed by the Austrian thaler, both silver. (From memory and I am not an economic historian.)
One reason silver was liked is because the Chinese always valued it more highly than gold in comparison to Westerners. You could get more Chinese luxury goods for your silver buck than the gold one, for whatever reason.
On language, the aristocrats of Europe spoke French not because French is so classy, but rather French was considered classy because the French could and did bigfoot anybody they wanted for a long time. But French wealth got diverted to the aristos and wars, with well-known consequences.
Narr
That's it I mean it this time
Anne: "I understand your analysis. Where I think you are mistaken--perhaps--is in judging China's interest. Having lived in the shadows of two superpowers throughout the last century, I think they believe it is their turn.
I could be wrong--I am in no way an expert. Not even a gifted amateur, really. I HOPE I am wrong."
You are not wrong.
I think that the global age of mercantilism was the 19th century, not the 18th century.
But the British practice of free minting was intended to bring gold into Britain (which had no gold mines of its own).
People were much more ignorant of economics then, than they are now. Smith began by trying to calculate what determined the value of a tin mine, and he was quite surprised to discover that it was not not the purity of the tin, but the cost to bring the tin to the surface, and to refine the tin and transport it to tin consumers.
@Anne:
I understand your analysis. Where I think you are mistaken--perhaps--is in judging China's interest. Having lived in the shadows of two superpowers throughout the last century, I think they believe it is their turn.
Undoubtedly China is becoming a major power on the global stage. We can't stop that. But even if China wanted to be a global hegemon, it cannot achieved it. For the same reasons that the US cannot achieve it.
Also, because of the nature of our system, there is the capacity for a number of different interests groups to put pressure on the government to pursue certain foreign policy goals. There are ethnic lobbies, foreign power lobbies, business lobbies, etc. There is also a network of think tanks and "foreign policy experts" who push certain foreign policy visions. There is nothing comparable in China, for example, to the US-Israel relationship.
Narr said...Why do you people get most interesting so late at night?.
Because daytime Althouse is dominated by retirees and the well-to-do who don't work (not allowing for wankers who comment on Althouse on their employers dime).
When I was in grad school, there was popular bar which completely shifted gears between night and day: the daytime crowds were lifers who had no other life; the nighttime crowd was people who had a day life but came to the same bar at night.
Narr,
We get interesting late at night because it is the only open thread. I am not interested in a lot of what Ann posts. And I am busy during the day.
And I am on PDT, so it isn't quite so late for me.
I am just happy that we are avoiding the Chinese Lung AIDS masturbation. We have flogged that horse to death. Or spanked that monkey. Or whatever.
J Farmer,
I am going to have to think about all of this. Of course, so much is unknowable. And I won't be around for the bulk of it.
Yes indeed, churchill said the soviet union was a riddle wrapped inside a myatery inside an enigma, chinas is even more so. Who is true face is it xi ximping is it zhu ronghi is it chi haotian, what is there real objective and how do we figure into it?
One significant China has over the US is that it is not infected with absurd notions of egalitarianism or obsessions with diversity. The US, by contrast, has convinced itself that importing third world hordes are necessary for our success. We're in the process of tearing down our civilization and cheering on the demographic demise of our founding stock.
They preside over an internal empire tibet xinjiang, the two that come to mind. They arent very understanding of other peoples;
And now they are opening back up economically while everyone else cowers in fear. If the rest of the world doesn't grow a pair and get the economy going, China is going to default its way into economic domination. Fuck them and the horse they rode in on.
There is nothing comparable in China, for example, to the US-Israel relationship.
What about the CCP-NOK special relationship? Surely the Chinese could shut down/depose ill Kim in a heartbeat if they so wished.
Yes indeed, churchill said the soviet union was a riddle wrapped inside a myatery inside an enigma, chinas is even more so.
Churchill was a pretty inspiring war time leader, but overall I think his status is vastly overrated. His single-minded focus on destroying Germany, which preceded the Nazi era, removed the most significant counterbalance to Russia.
J. Farmer wrote:
. . .
This is why I think it is absurd to blame the two world wars on some kind of excess "nationalism." The problem wasn't too much nationalism, it was too much imperialism.
. . .
And here we have to disagree. World War One was caused by as plainly an example of nationalism as could be wished for. The Serb Nationalists wanted to be a nation joined to the Russian Empire rather than the Austrians. Blaming WW2 on Imperialists is just silly. It began when Hitler invaded Poland to unite the German-speaking Poles within the German nation.
Well, off to bed for me. Weird, weird day.
Once again, an evening of interesting conversation.
May flights of angels sing you all to sleep.
Thats not the point, the soviet union trained the wehrmacht on their territory the officials responsible were the ones stalin had purged for reasons.
Is china as open as it pretends, what does it intend?
@chickelit:
What about the CCP-NOK special relationship? Surely the Chinese could shut down/depose ill Kim in a heartbeat if they so wished.
China's relationship with North Korea keeps a western-backed and allied country from being right on its border. While China certainly has the ability to bring down North Korea, it's hard to see what they would gain from such a move. This is also one of the reasons that North Korea is able to act with some degree of independence from China.
That is nothing like the US-Israel relationship, which is driven primarily by cultural attitudes towards Israel, particularly among evangelicals, as the "holy land" and by Jewish influence.
@Lewis Wetzel:
And here we have to disagree. World War One was caused by as plainly an example of nationalism as could be wished for. The Serb Nationalists wanted to be a nation joined to the Russian Empire rather than the Austrians. Blaming WW2 on Imperialists is just silly. It began when Hitler invaded Poland to unite the German-speaking Poles within the German nation.
The cause of WWI was Austria-Hungary's desire to hold on to its crumbling empire in the Balkans. It was Austria's attempt to defeat a nationalist movement. As for WWII, the German concept of Lebensraum is as clear an example of naked imperialism as one is to find. They did not wish to merely united Germany-speaking people with Germany but to expand Germany's territory for settler colonialism.
That is nothing like the US-Israel relationship, which is driven primarily by cultural attitudes towards Israel, particularly among evangelicals, as the "holy land" and by Jewish influence.
Eventually, the Chinese chicken will want its wattle back. And its legs too. And maybe the egg laid off its shores. The Chinese care only about the NORKs insofar as they can use them against US.
As for Israel and the Holy Land -- that's a non-negotiable historical/geographical fact. And as for "Jewish influence" -- we received an goodly chunk of the Jewish diaspora until we didn't. So you're right, nothing to compare. But, China's reasons for protecting the NORKs are all bad; while our reasons for protecting Israel are grounded in history and geography and are not self-centered.
Anne-I-Am said...Well, off to bed for me. Weird, weird day.
G'night Anne-I-Am: I enjoyed interacting with a newish Althouse commenter.
@chickelit:
But, China's reasons for protecting the NORKs are all bad; while our reasons for protecting Israel are grounded in history and geography and are not self-centered.
Precisely why we are at a disadvantage. A smarter, more self-confident American policy would recognize that the Israelis needs us much more than we need them, and we should basically tell them to get in line or get lost. Instead, sucking up to Israel is practically a requirement in national politics, and we make absurd statements like there should be "no daylight" between US and Israel. From Iraq to Syria to Iran, the US-Israel relationship has led us down one calamitous path after another. Defending the Israeli occupation is a cornerstone of our middle east strategy even though it adds nothing to our security and actually costs us a great deal.
Lewis Wetzel wrote: World War One was caused by as plainly an example of nationalism as could be wished for. The Serb Nationalists wanted to be a nation joined to the Russian Empire rather than the Austrians. Blaming WW2 on Imperialists is just silly. It began when Hitler invaded Poland to unite the German-speaking Poles within the German nation.
Maybe the Serbs wanted to use the Cyrillic alphabet instead of the Latin one. Or perhaps they saw a real future in the nascent Russian Revolution, then only 3 years away. In any case, the Serbs were historical losers -- as echoed several decades later by them in those obscene Balkan Wars.
Regarding money in 1632:
Science fiction writer Eric Flint created an alternative history, where an American small town for West Virginia ends up in "Germany" in 1632. The first book is titled 1632. He invited others to play in his world. They developed substantial research on-line about the world in 1632, for people writing in the alternative history.
The following url goes to an article about currency in 1632. :https://1632.org/1632-tech/faqs/money-exchange-rates-1632/. The article is interesting, and offers much useful info.
The series about this alternative history is very entertaining. There are now many books written both by Flint, and others playing in his pool. Thousands of pages available to be read.
She doesn't look newish.
Anne wrote: Where I think you are mistaken--perhaps--is in judging China's interest. Having lived in the shadows of two superpowers throughout the last century, I think they believe it is their turn.
That rhymes with Hillary and "her turn." Hmmm.
In any case, the Serbs were historical losers -- as echoed several decades later by them in those obscene Balkan Wars.
They did succeed in drawing the Austro-Hungary Empire into a conflict that ended with their demise.
I lost patience with 1632. The story started going sideways instead of forward.
Jon Ericson said...She doesn't look newish.
Newdenfrei is very un-Germanic.
J. Farmer said...They did succeed in drawing the Austro-Hungary Empire into a conflict that ended with their demise.
Better still, they made the Ottomans into a footstool of history.
Regarding Americans being ignorant of others. Others are just as ignorant of us. Japan's attack on Pearl was based in part on the idea that the attack would frighten America. That Americans were not true warriors. Also, they did not realize that if they had ignored America, and only attacked the British in Malaya, and the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia) we would not have attacked them. So their misunderstandings led to the worst outcome for them, because they did not understand America.
They did not understand leaving a growing American/Philippine army behind their lines was not a threat. We would never strike the first blow. This is where China may have made a major mistake. There is united anger at China. It is only those who have been bought who try to sell China's propaganda. China has struck the first blow. We live in interesting times.
J. Farmer wrote:
. . .
As for WWII, the German concept of Lebensraum is as clear an example of naked imperialism as one is to find. They did not wish to merely united Germany-speaking people with Germany but to expand Germany's territory for settler colonialism.
The Germans did not want to enslave foreign people to work for them. They wanted to obliterate and then replace foreign people. This is a nationalistic goal, not a goal of imperialists.
Imperialists want to absorb other nations into an empire. Nationalists want to eradicate other nations and take their land.
PresbyPoet said...There is united anger at China. It is only those who have been bought who try to sell China's propaganda.
Ye shall know them by their fruitbat cakes.
@Lewis Wetzel:
The Germans did not want to enslave foreign people to work for them. They wanted to obliterate and then replace foreign people. This is a nationalistic goal, not a goal of imperialists.
Imperialists want to absorb other nations into an empire. Nationalists want to eradicate other nations and take their land.
Imperialism, in its most basic concept, is the extension of a country's rule over foreign lands. It has nothing to do with how you treat the people once conquered. It is true that most empires absorbed conquered people into its empire, but it is not a requirement. Germany was peculiar in this regard. Nationalism is the belief that a nation has a right to sovereignty in its homeland. Conquering another people and taking their land is most certainly not nationalism. It is the opposite of nationalism.
That wasn't mine--that was T.S. Eliot.
Obviously I’m not well read on Eliot. Too far back in my college days. Well … at least I liked it. And it was at least poetry. Too bad, though, I was hoping there would be a living poet who would post something. Oh, well … the night is young.
J. Farmer, what you think is not right.
In the days before nationalism, the idea was to take over a region, and take its excess production. Replacing its people with your people is a goal of nationalists, not colonialists. Wars of conquest are a relatively modern invention.
Even William the Conqueror had a legal claim to England.
Grackle, read the modern poet Howard Nemerov. That guy is a genius.
I Only Am Escaped Alone to Tell Thee
I tell you that I see her still
At the dark entrance of the hall.
One gas lamp burning near her shoulder
Shone also from her other side
Where hung the long inaccurate glass
Whose pictures were as troubled water.
An immense shadow had its hand
Between us on the floor, and seemed
To hump the knuckles nervously,
A giant crab readying to walk,
Or a blanket moving in its sleep.
You will remember, with a smile
Instructed by movies to reminisce,
How strict her corsets must have been,
How the huge arrangements of her hair
Would certainly betray the least
Impassionate displacement there.
It was no rig for dallying,
And maybe only marriage could
Derange that queenly scaffolding—
As when a great ship, coming home,
Coasts in the harbor, dropping sail
And loosing all the tackle that had laced
Her in the long lanes ....
I know
We need not draw this figure out.
But all that whalebone came from whales.
And all the whales lived in the sea,
In calm beneath the troubled glass,
Until the needle drew their blood.
I see her standing in the hall,
Where the mirror’s lashed to blood and foam,
And the black flukes of agony
Beat at the air till the light blows out.
-Howard Nemerov
Wetzel, thanks for that comment. Be inspired by Nemerov’s genius, my friend. Write a poem. Post it. I’ll bet you could come up with something good.
@Lewis Wetzel:
J. Farmer, what you think is not right.
In the days before nationalism, the idea was to take over a region, and take its excess production. Replacing its people with your people is a goal of nationalists, not colonialists.
From Merriam-Webster's definition of imperialism: "the policy, practice, or advocacy of extending the power and dominion of a nation especially by direct territorial acquisitions or by gaining indirect control over the political or economic life of other areas"
Invading another country's territory and putting its land and people under your control is as clear an example of imperialism you are likely to find. See, for example,
Nazi Empire: German Colonialism and Imperialism from Bismarck to Hitler by Shelley Baranowski or Hitler's Empire: How the Nazis Ruled Europe by Mark Mazower.
Wars of conquest are a relatively modern invention.
The Roman Empire didn't practice wars of conquest?
The traditional way of conquest was to replace the old local elite with your own. It was a swap out of at least part of the tip of the social pyramid.
There are examples going back to very ancient times.
Total extermination and population replacement is less common but also happened.
Much of the European colonial enterprise did not "stick" because of a failure to permanently replace local elites and establish a change in the ethnicity of the local upper and middle class, which fixed in place a total cultural replacement.
Spain and Portugal managed this in most of their colonies but Britain, France and the Netherlands failed. Perhaps this was because in those other countries there was a distaste among the elite for the necessary mestizaje (marrying into and interbreeding). The British in India, for a while there, managed to create a substantial half-breed population, but this was a lower class thing.
Virtually no Wu-Flu bickering, well done!
Do we agree that business and the US government are not capable of decoupling from China without the full cooperation and support of the American people? It seems there is a consensus here that moving business out of China, creating redundancy, etc. will lead to higher costs to the consumer, whether an individual or business. Will they reward the desired behavior by patronizing those businesses?
Wars of conquest are a relatively modern invention.
That might come as news to the small kingdoms conquered by the Assyrians and the the Babylonians and the Pharaohs of ancient Eqypt, not to mention the Trojans when 1000 Greek warships showed up in their bay. So, Lewis, is the Bronze Age “comparatively recent”?
You have me agreeing with Farmer. Now I’m pissed off at you.
@Big Mike:
You have me agreeing with Farmer. Now I’m pissed off at you.
Haha. It’s bound to happen sooner or later.
@Farmer, just don’t let it go to your head!
@Big Mike:
@Farmer, just don’t let it go to your head!
Don't worry. I much prefer being disagreed with.
Ann I Am at 12.02
I'm afraid your wrong. And I'mnot happy that you are. Just look at what the CCP is doing. Building Islands in international water to control the S. China Sea. Building an Airforce to compete with ours. Not doing that very well. Building a navy to compete with ours. Not doing that particularly well either. The largest standing army in the world. Their desire is to be the worlds only super power. They've said so. They will have a difficult time of it now.
@stevew:
Do we agree that business and the US government are not capable of decoupling from China without the full cooperation and support of the American people?
Even that probably would not be enough. Decoupling will be a protracted process that would require a strong, united front. I can't imagine the US coming together in such a manner, given the extreme divides that define the polity now. It would also require the US to basically abandon it's "leadership" and accept a more limited role in international affairs. Our middle east policy would need to be more practically driven by strategic interests rather than concern for Israeli security. Any one of these would face serious domestic political opposition. Taken together, they're almost unthinkable. As it stands, the US appears to be making the classic blunders of a declining power that refuses to accept reality.
@Rusty:
Their desire is to be the worlds only super power. They've said so. They will have a difficult time of it now.
They would have a difficult time anyway. Even a diminished America and Europe would still have enough resources to check China's military reach, even if China becomes the dominant power in the Indo-Pacific region. Nuclear weapons will still deter direct confrontation between the great powers.
listen in
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-peter-attia-drive/id1400828889?i=1000471325028
Don't forget Alexander
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