Pointed and thoughtful as always good sir. I’m curious what might be the subsequent process of thought for average citizens like me and you if the strategy weren’t, in fact, defensible. There’s a lot of talk about what SHOULD be done in response to one of the most complex civilian, military, and ethical quandaries in modern history, but what really happens once we decide the American (i.e Israeli) policy is no longer defensible? What does that even mean for people like you and me? Does it mean writing essays extolling the virtues of a better way? Such is the conundrum of the liberal mindset: we have plenty of well-intentioned ideas about what or what not to do, but such a moralistic stance, paradoxically, becomes as much of an ethical straight jacket as many of the politics of power you mentioned.
Hope you enjoyed the whisky! That's definitely a really hard question. The US went through it during Vietnam and it really did tear the society apart - a war that was proven to be indefensible and that in deep ways (for many Americans) delegitimized the American project altogether. The scale isn't really comparable, but Israel does seem to be pushing up against that.
The truth is that I don't think there's a good answer. During Vietnam, Americans protested or became conscientious objectors or left the country. All of these kinds of things end up on the conscience of individuals. This is one of the hardest questions there is - what is the moral responsibility of an individual citizen when they disagree profoundly with the conduct of their society.
Again, I don't actually think we're quite here, but getting there.
Let's anticipate the future, liable to be, I wish it could be more local, but expect t to be international. Women in the last ten and more years of the soviet union fed their drunken men until the present that we have bore out. Why #2 did France not be carved into fiefdoms 1812? Because the nation had that one half subset adherent to national politics, am I right? The united states is always an outlier, because is an entire continent conquered by guns germs and iron, no matter what the university's say. In sum , the efforts that the major world powers make to sew confusion in cental america and elsewhere are sheer destruction for destruction's sake. I point to Nicaraugua, and every living In-country cubano all who I would like to meet....the big two studs of USA and UsSR as it is now will reasonably persist until t final accidental nuclear conflagration, but 1 women and I know about Jaspers and who else? Arendt cetainly, believe that the motherland as expressed in every citizen's available past overpowers any newer available loyalty. I am saying that women have prtcptd in the re'alle politick you are talking abt, but that if we turned over every news source to more of a kind of Romeo and Giuletta delivery mechanism, world might look more like an adversarial Not Chess Board/ of idiotic religions only threatening each other with destruction, not en arming each othet with potent bullets. I have hear d that in a conflict zone ammunirion gets spent. Did you hear that pltttde? Bringing us back to the present future in which Israel has abt a week to see t light loft of conscience or else we all world wide will boycot them into Spartan poverty. W by the way did not serve blesse'd Sparta, since she was over run and burnt despite.all her aristocratic metaphysics. ERASED.
If there was anything useful in what I said. It was that Cuba has persisted IN DIRECT contradiction to our lifetime' s acceptance of th Monroe doctrine. Was there a prez Monroe? D a mn, a lright Mon r oe, ....but Cuba i s exactly the picturer r of the contra to the continuation of Eu r opean modetn politics as usual, i am babelous, but if you donot have the veto, or the vote, of the women , in modern terms how are you cohesive? Why Trump is t next executive officer....
Is because he has t female vote. You tell me, i alteady know july 4th is a beautfl clbrtn of Htrsxlty, fiiiireworks! But , we are such animals as nationstates are composed of, as witness the disgusting ignorance by Am'cans of the rest of the world. If the unconscious reality were different, w our diet and sentimental eductns, we should be all diplomats, instead: we are real. Magic!
Thanks Nathan. Btw have you read Ezra Pound's prose? Your writing kind of reminds me of that. It's a very interesting reading experience.
Yeah, that's probably right. If Israel moves into Rafah, it really does cross an irrevocable bridge in terms of international perception. Amazing that a decision of that magnitude is happening right now.
Yeah that is apt to be true. You too write with some grains of salt peppered in allowing that in time 80 percent that we write might be wrong one hesitancy is how strong should any body feel if they grasp all the best coinages, maybe they should proceed shyly. For me the posts have a dryness that is self limiting, mannered in a way that irritates. Like my posts that take 3 hours feel like slowed down 3 hours. Taking a break to see later if I changed, the way I usually change by passage of time. Begging the world to come closer prayerfully naturally little abjectly.
You are in an unknown place where how are you going to feel effervescent if IDK some generous PEN award does not give you one advance in your life the size of what who knows Sam Kris makes for rent? Potentially you own pieces of what this moment's newspaperspeak sounds, earning you rent, stage of your life. Next time I think about what my 6 damn dollars can do I w remember you spotlighted Colin Woodard. I sent his .org a few words recommending you to arbitrate a debate but i should have said what part o t country you live...if he is there.
You assert "...The last three quarters of a century of international relations has basically, unequivocally, been a failure...", I see them as a time where the U.S. did much more good than harm, and many problems solved. The Soviet, French and British empires largely disappeared; the standard of living in the developing world has improved in ways unimaginable at the start of the period (for instance, no one would have predicted that India would largely be free of periodic starvation years) and problems unforeseen that seemed insoluble (like AIDS in Africa) were addressed by a concerted international effort led by the U.S. Much of this was not inevitable or simply luck but due to the policies adopted by the strong.
And some problems that now are convulsing us are products of the successes over the past decades. China is example number one. Right now as best I can tell we are tied in knots because China is building very cheap electric cars that they want to export. I am trying to see the problem with this in a world that is frying.
Now the problems the world faces are long and daunting. But I think the past decades can easily be seen as a time when more times than not the U.S. acted for the good of the world, rather than in our narrow self-interest. That does not mean we did not do plenty of "bad" or self-serving actions. But on a net basis, I think the scales can be seen as favoring the U.S. as a actor looking for the common good, rather than completely self-serving; and even if one sees the balance tilted the other way, there are actions by the U.S. that should be placed in "acting for the greater good" side of the ledger.
I kind of misspoke here. When I wrote "international relations," what I meant was multi-lateral, internationalist relations of the UN's sort. (I just couldn't find an elegant shorthand for that.) Roosevelt really was hoping that that was what the post-war order would look like - a wise internationalist body. And that vision crumbled very quickly - just like the League of Nations did before it.
What DID work in terms of international relations was the Morgenthau vision and realpolitik. The US carrying out its national self-interest, accompanied by a very aggressive foreign policy, and in so doing containing Soviet imperialism and reaching some kind of a balance where either a nuclear exchange or World War III was in no one's interest. Obviously, there's a strong leftist critique of that, but I think it's harder to argue with the basic premise.
So, realpolitik does prevail - and for somebody like Morgenthau there's a clear line between realpolitik in the Cold War era and realpolitik as espoused by people like Thucydides. Nothing much changes - and states are required to flex their strength.
Political scientists (Morgenthau included) are forever trying to imagine a gentler way of constructing harmony internationally. Unfortunately, I don't think we've made any progress on that front.
Pointed and thoughtful as always good sir. I’m curious what might be the subsequent process of thought for average citizens like me and you if the strategy weren’t, in fact, defensible. There’s a lot of talk about what SHOULD be done in response to one of the most complex civilian, military, and ethical quandaries in modern history, but what really happens once we decide the American (i.e Israeli) policy is no longer defensible? What does that even mean for people like you and me? Does it mean writing essays extolling the virtues of a better way? Such is the conundrum of the liberal mindset: we have plenty of well-intentioned ideas about what or what not to do, but such a moralistic stance, paradoxically, becomes as much of an ethical straight jacket as many of the politics of power you mentioned.
I need a whiskey.
Hey Samuel,
Hope you enjoyed the whisky! That's definitely a really hard question. The US went through it during Vietnam and it really did tear the society apart - a war that was proven to be indefensible and that in deep ways (for many Americans) delegitimized the American project altogether. The scale isn't really comparable, but Israel does seem to be pushing up against that.
The truth is that I don't think there's a good answer. During Vietnam, Americans protested or became conscientious objectors or left the country. All of these kinds of things end up on the conscience of individuals. This is one of the hardest questions there is - what is the moral responsibility of an individual citizen when they disagree profoundly with the conduct of their society.
Again, I don't actually think we're quite here, but getting there.
-Sam
Let's anticipate the future, liable to be, I wish it could be more local, but expect t to be international. Women in the last ten and more years of the soviet union fed their drunken men until the present that we have bore out. Why #2 did France not be carved into fiefdoms 1812? Because the nation had that one half subset adherent to national politics, am I right? The united states is always an outlier, because is an entire continent conquered by guns germs and iron, no matter what the university's say. In sum , the efforts that the major world powers make to sew confusion in cental america and elsewhere are sheer destruction for destruction's sake. I point to Nicaraugua, and every living In-country cubano all who I would like to meet....the big two studs of USA and UsSR as it is now will reasonably persist until t final accidental nuclear conflagration, but 1 women and I know about Jaspers and who else? Arendt cetainly, believe that the motherland as expressed in every citizen's available past overpowers any newer available loyalty. I am saying that women have prtcptd in the re'alle politick you are talking abt, but that if we turned over every news source to more of a kind of Romeo and Giuletta delivery mechanism, world might look more like an adversarial Not Chess Board/ of idiotic religions only threatening each other with destruction, not en arming each othet with potent bullets. I have hear d that in a conflict zone ammunirion gets spent. Did you hear that pltttde? Bringing us back to the present future in which Israel has abt a week to see t light loft of conscience or else we all world wide will boycot them into Spartan poverty. W by the way did not serve blesse'd Sparta, since she was over run and burnt despite.all her aristocratic metaphysics. ERASED.
If there was anything useful in what I said. It was that Cuba has persisted IN DIRECT contradiction to our lifetime' s acceptance of th Monroe doctrine. Was there a prez Monroe? D a mn, a lright Mon r oe, ....but Cuba i s exactly the picturer r of the contra to the continuation of Eu r opean modetn politics as usual, i am babelous, but if you donot have the veto, or the vote, of the women , in modern terms how are you cohesive? Why Trump is t next executive officer....
Is because he has t female vote. You tell me, i alteady know july 4th is a beautfl clbrtn of Htrsxlty, fiiiireworks! But , we are such animals as nationstates are composed of, as witness the disgusting ignorance by Am'cans of the rest of the world. If the unconscious reality were different, w our diet and sentimental eductns, we should be all diplomats, instead: we are real. Magic!
Thanks Nathan. Btw have you read Ezra Pound's prose? Your writing kind of reminds me of that. It's a very interesting reading experience.
Yeah, that's probably right. If Israel moves into Rafah, it really does cross an irrevocable bridge in terms of international perception. Amazing that a decision of that magnitude is happening right now.
Yeah that is apt to be true. You too write with some grains of salt peppered in allowing that in time 80 percent that we write might be wrong one hesitancy is how strong should any body feel if they grasp all the best coinages, maybe they should proceed shyly. For me the posts have a dryness that is self limiting, mannered in a way that irritates. Like my posts that take 3 hours feel like slowed down 3 hours. Taking a break to see later if I changed, the way I usually change by passage of time. Begging the world to come closer prayerfully naturally little abjectly.
You are in an unknown place where how are you going to feel effervescent if IDK some generous PEN award does not give you one advance in your life the size of what who knows Sam Kris makes for rent? Potentially you own pieces of what this moment's newspaperspeak sounds, earning you rent, stage of your life. Next time I think about what my 6 damn dollars can do I w remember you spotlighted Colin Woodard. I sent his .org a few words recommending you to arbitrate a debate but i should have said what part o t country you live...if he is there.
You assert "...The last three quarters of a century of international relations has basically, unequivocally, been a failure...", I see them as a time where the U.S. did much more good than harm, and many problems solved. The Soviet, French and British empires largely disappeared; the standard of living in the developing world has improved in ways unimaginable at the start of the period (for instance, no one would have predicted that India would largely be free of periodic starvation years) and problems unforeseen that seemed insoluble (like AIDS in Africa) were addressed by a concerted international effort led by the U.S. Much of this was not inevitable or simply luck but due to the policies adopted by the strong.
And some problems that now are convulsing us are products of the successes over the past decades. China is example number one. Right now as best I can tell we are tied in knots because China is building very cheap electric cars that they want to export. I am trying to see the problem with this in a world that is frying.
Now the problems the world faces are long and daunting. But I think the past decades can easily be seen as a time when more times than not the U.S. acted for the good of the world, rather than in our narrow self-interest. That does not mean we did not do plenty of "bad" or self-serving actions. But on a net basis, I think the scales can be seen as favoring the U.S. as a actor looking for the common good, rather than completely self-serving; and even if one sees the balance tilted the other way, there are actions by the U.S. that should be placed in "acting for the greater good" side of the ledger.
Larry,
I kind of misspoke here. When I wrote "international relations," what I meant was multi-lateral, internationalist relations of the UN's sort. (I just couldn't find an elegant shorthand for that.) Roosevelt really was hoping that that was what the post-war order would look like - a wise internationalist body. And that vision crumbled very quickly - just like the League of Nations did before it.
What DID work in terms of international relations was the Morgenthau vision and realpolitik. The US carrying out its national self-interest, accompanied by a very aggressive foreign policy, and in so doing containing Soviet imperialism and reaching some kind of a balance where either a nuclear exchange or World War III was in no one's interest. Obviously, there's a strong leftist critique of that, but I think it's harder to argue with the basic premise.
So, realpolitik does prevail - and for somebody like Morgenthau there's a clear line between realpolitik in the Cold War era and realpolitik as espoused by people like Thucydides. Nothing much changes - and states are required to flex their strength.
Political scientists (Morgenthau included) are forever trying to imagine a gentler way of constructing harmony internationally. Unfortunately, I don't think we've made any progress on that front.
-Sam