Miscellaneous News

MarKoz81 said:

The less retarded part of American conservatives.




To understand it, here's a quick explanation:

The "west" is split into two - Europe and America - and both are in terms of political ideology a mirror opposite of each other. That is the result of 19th century political evolution.

"Conservative" ideologies traditionally always preserve existing power hierarchies and structures of wealth concentration. "Progressive" ideologies traditionally always strive to flatten those hierarchies and fragment the wealth structure. In Europe in terms of materialistic ideology you have conservative landed elites later augmented by conservative merchant class and progressive peasantry and progressive small merchants.

Initially the same was done in America. The "progressives" were concentrated in the north where the fledgling industry, banking and small farm owners supported independence from the British on those grounds. The "conservatives" were overwhelmingly from the south where slave-owning landed gentry with large properties wanted to preserve their capital including the slaves.

The southern elites were in charge of the federal government until the antebellum (the period immediately before the American Secession War).

A necessary digression: the secession was not caused by "slavery" but by the inevitable shift in power base from the south to the north and the resulting shift from general policy from one favorable to southern landowners to one favorable to northern industrialists and bankers. The threats to slavery came primarily not on ethical grounds but as a tool of removing political power granted by the "three fifths clause" of the US constitution which for the purpose of assigning seats in the House of Representatives and the Electoral College counted slave population at 3/5 of free population. This ensured that southern elites would have greater representation that they otherwise would have. Abolition of slavery aimed at eliminating this asymmetry which then would lead to establishing of tariffs that would redirect capital from the richer south to industrializing north. End of digression.

As you can see the political arrangement in pre-war America was of fundamental importance to protection of southern elite's interest. They supported the war for independence to protect their wealth and expand their power and they established a government for the express purpose of protecting their wealth and their new power. But to do so they had to convince the majority and so they framed their interest as "rights of the free land-owning American".

This led to a revolution of sorts which can be compared to the edicts of Roman dictators who gathered support from the veterans by granting them land in exchange for service in the legions. Something that was of crucial importance considering the concentration of wealth in Rome and the failed land reforms (see: Gracchi brothers).

What the southern elites did was use a progressive idea of linking political rights to land ownership regarding of status to protect their own power and status i.e. a conservative agenda.

This led to the establishment of an ideological base in the working class that would be the inverse of that in Europe. The working class in America which could acquire land easily due to abundance and policies of settlement (see: Homestead Act) became a land-owning class in terms of legal rights and that created a culture that persists to this very day.

This is why the politics of America are so strange because what you have is a strong peasantry that aligns with the interests of the landed elites because they consider themselves to be part of the class due to how the traditions of political thought in America were shaped.

And that leads to something very unique in the west: an anti-war / isolationist or war-reluctant / non-interventionist conservative position. These people are technically left-leaning in terms of foreign policy but are right-leaning in terms of their political preference.

They are called "paleoconservatives" or "Old Right" as opposed to "neoconservatives" who are pro-war and pro-intervention and pro-imperialism but in all other areas superficially hold with the general right-wing agenda. In fact the neoconservatives tend to be more culturally progressive than the general right because they are in reality refugees from the Democratic Party after it began to shift toward the left in the aftermath of New Deal era - and as a result it began to be less inclined toward war.

The "neoconservative" right are the retarded conservatives. The "paleoconservative" right are the less-retarded conservatives. Both are somewhat retarded due to their positions on many other issues but the fundamental difference between the neoconservatives and paleoconservatives is that the paleos are overwhelmingly rural working-class while neocons are rebranded city elites who were frustrated in their imperial ambitions by the leftward shift of the urban working-class.

Click to expand...

Academic Collaboration with China is Important. But What’s the Price?

Click to expand...

windsclouds2030 said:

The US is turning the heat up in tech war with China by trying to control the entire global supply of computer chips

By Tom Fowdy - 25 OCT 2021

America’s latest move to try to contain Beijing is to weaponise an entire industry. By leveraging its patents and licences for semiconductor manufacture, it is attempting to deny China access to crucial technology.

The Biden administration is demanding that TSMC hand over sensitive data on all of its customers to the US government, for the unstated yet obvious reason that it wants to see who in China the firm is selling to.

It’s a blatant coercive violation of national sovereignty and corporate privacy, but Taiwan has absolutely no leverage over the US, because politically it has aligned itself completely with Washington. America has effectively learned it can leverage the entire semiconductor supply chain to do what it wants, with an eye to global domination of it.

And so it was no surprise when it was widely reported in late October that TSMC is prepared to capitulate and agree to the move, which speaks volumes about the environment we are now in.

The US does not currently dominate the production of semiconductors, but is abundant in knowledge and patents, linking together a global supply chain in which the most renowned producers are South Korea, Japan and Taiwan.

In a way, the US’ role constitutes the bottom layer of a pyramid, which props up the increasingly smaller and sophisticated layers building upwards. It’s an industry that ultimately derived from American technological breakthroughs; licenses were then issued to friendly countries to build their own industries, and they have subsequently built products which are exported globally and used in devices such as laptops, tablets, smartphones and more.

However, in recent years the US has started to fear change in this sector, and become more anxious that China may emerge as a global producer of high-end semiconductors, overturning the established market order America has built and, in the process, developing tech with the potential to gut its leading industries.

It now appears that globalisation is being actively rolled back in this new environment of geopolitical competition, with US foreign policy weaponising the semiconductor industry and supply chain, in a way that has never been done before, in order to effectively assert political sovereignty over foreign magnates it does not own and to make them do its bidding. This is all aimed at containing China.

The goal is to effectively EMBARGO the export of HIGH-END SEMICONDUCTOR PARTS to China’s strategic industries in order hold back its technological development, forcing Beijing to pursue a breakneck race to self-sufficiency.

This technological war is being pursued by a number of means. First and most frequently, hundreds of Chinese companies have been added to the ENTITY LIST maintained by the US Department of Commerce, which bans US companies from exporting sensitive components to them without a government licence. While compromises can be made – as was reported last week – these tend to be for LOWER-END NON-CRITICAL TECHNOLOGIES, such as automobile chips, or 4G ones instead of 5G.

Huawei has been subjected to a more rigorous interpretation of this in the form of the ‘Direct Foreign Product Rule.’ This means that foreign semiconductor companies are not allowed to use direct US patents in exporting to the company – it doesn’t matter where or who they are.

This is a long-arm act of jurisdiction which has seen the company cut off completely from the supply of foreign semiconductors, illustrating America’s power in this field. But the US has gone even further than this, WEAPONISING PATENTS it owns in various semiconductor and lithography companies to block sales to China when it has no business doing so.

When a South Korean chip company called Magnachip was sold to a Chinese firm earlier this year, the US committee on foreign investment blocked the deal. The same happened when Dutch firm ASML sold an ultraviolet lithography machine to China – the US government prevented it. Even if only 10% of a product uses US origin tools, then Washington claims for itself the legal right to kill it, and this is why foreign semiconductor firms, including TSMC and Samsung, have had to invest in chip plants in the US, or in other countries of strategic importance, like Japan.

What we are seeing here is how the state is wielding governmental power over an industry which is NOW MORE POLITICAL THAN IT IS COMMERCIAL. By forcing TSMC and others to hand over data, the US wants to exert even greater control over their business. The irony of this is that the American government has demanded that other countries ban Chinese technology firms on unfounded accusations they do the same thing. TSMC has been hollowed out into a puppet company which answers to Washington and not Taipei, as the US pulls strings over an entire supply chain.

China now faces the mammoth task of investing in an entire semiconductor supply chain of its own. And this isn’t to dominate world markets – it’s necessary for its own economic development. China’s own demand for semiconductors is swelling and it is the largest market in the world, but that alone constitutes an enormous strategic weakness which the US government can use to exert leverage over it.

As a result, Beijing is investing hundreds of billions in research and development, as well as expanding capacity in the race to make chips of its own. Ultimately, America’s weaponization of the supply chain MEANS CHINA HAS TO CREATE A NEW ‘PYRAMID,’ one which is not built on someone else’s foundations, but on its own. It is making some progress building from the bottom in lower nodes, but much more is needed.

In a WORLD OF GEOPOLITICAL COMPETITION, the US is effectively exerting control over an entire industry, with disastrous consequences for everyone involved, breaking up a global market into politicised blocs. And Taiwan has found this out to its cost. Having placed all its bets on America for support, in the end it has found it doesn’t even have sovereignty over its most important economic asset.

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

Click to expand...

AssassinsMace said:

I like to read comments sections to get an idea how Americans are thinking. Republicans aren't giving Biden anything so it is delusion on the part of the Democrats thinking they somehow believe they'll win them over with romanticism. When it comes to China, Biden thinks he can do what Trump did and he'll be more successful than Trump in getting support from Republicans. No, the Republicans spin how because Biden wanted the US out of Afghanistan and the Taliban wanted the US out of Afghanistan, they're working together. The same logic applies to China. They have a whole bunch of nicknames for Biden to make him a traitor working with China against the US. How do they come up with this? Because of Hunter Biden's business dealings with China? The Republicans are guilty too. Anything positive that happens with China, they blame it on Biden being traitorous to the US because he's suppose to be working against it not just letting it happen.

This is what Beijing doesn't seem to understand because they like to give out their list of grievances that they think are important to others as if like Western countries are going to take them seriously. All Beijing is doing is giving a list for them to work on completely denying them from China. The more importance Beijing puts on it, the more they're going to see China doesn't get it. Because they know these things are important to Beijing, the more they think they have power over China to get concessions. But Beijing still is stubborn like countries have to do it. There's a default answer for Chinese who somehow see this is the correct strategy by Beijing where like there's a Sun Tzusian plan afoot. Sino-US relations are its worse since the darkest days of the Cold War. Whatever plan is going on doesn't seem to be working. China might as well start working against what the US wants as they work against what China wants because it does look like Trump or someone like Trump is going to win the White House in the next Presidential election cycle and is Beijing going to continue on the same strategy that doesn't work as usual? Is Beijing going to throw a bone like they did giving Trump his phase one deal thinking they'll score points with Republicans? Biden has little time to change course with his China policy. If he doesn't, China might as well do what it can against US interests in the world and stop thinking as usual it'll win over them with things they can care less about. China can sign its soul away to them and they'll still won't be treated equally. Look at Japan and South Korea who have signed their soul away to the Devil. The only time they feel like one of them is in the context of how the US hates China more. Every other time they're treated as what place they've accepted which is at bottom of the ladder because Asians in the US still complain about racism and discrimination. They still complain about feeling invisible. Wouldn't Asians in the US feels the rewards first if they were truly treated equally? Instead you have an increase in attacks on Asians in general because of COVID-19 racism where they don't bother to single out just Chinese.

This is a cultural thing because I've noticed Asians, individually or ethnically, somehow think they'll personally be the exception that will win over Westerners and it'll be just them together against the rest of the world. And it's not like these people are the most Westernized or considered handsome or pretty. They're like the most ugliest Asians that are the antitheist of the ideal of model Westerners. Look at Hong Kongers thinking the West will go to war just for them. Or how about charges of genocide of Muslims by the West against China where the US does absolutely nothing but somehow Taiwanese think the US will go to war for them against China. What makes these people think they're so special? Do Taiwanese think they're more important than Uighurs or even Tibetans? I criticize Indians because they're only goal is beating China. China is not number one but they'll be satisfied in life forever when they just beat China not the US or the West. When I see nationalist bickering among Asians like with Japanese and South Koreans, it's all about who the US likes more who is then superior to the other. I see sometimes China is at that level because it seems all that China and the Chinese want from the US and the West is acceptance and respect... more than its neighbors. The West is full of petty hate and division that drives them. Why would anyone want their acceptance and respect? That's what I find what's wrong with Asians who find that important to have. That's what's going to hold back China if they value such petty things.

Click to expand...

windsclouds2030 said:

Look around and read 美国反对美国 （America Against America）by 王沪宁 -- Wang Huning recorded his observations in a memoir that would become his most famous work: the 1991 book "America Against America". Observations from spending six months in the United States as a visiting scholar in 1988. Profoundly curious about America, Wang took full advantage, wandering about the country, visiting more than 30 cities and nearly 20 universities. What he found deeply disturbed him, permanently shifting his view of the West and the consequences of its ideas. In 1988 Wang became Fudan University’s youngest full professor at age 30. This is a book that many read in China to learn about the U.S. They may not be so naive nowadays as the outside world perceive them.

Click to expand...

Bellum_Romanum said:

Any English translation I can find for this book?

Click to expand...