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luminary

Senior Member
Registered Member
I found a recent and enlightening psychoanalysis of the US:
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There is nothing surprising about a poor country feeling insecure while under the boot of a richer one. But for a rich country to feel that way about a poor one, or a powerful country about a weak one, is pathological.
I understood that the highly readable Mao icons, posters, and landscape ceramics with scenes of the Red Guards, were supposed to speak to peasants and workers, not a cosmopolitan bourgeois like me; and that the art of the Cultural Revolution was arguably as complex and sophisticated within its context as any other. But I honestly didn’t buy it – most of the art and design looked like kitsch to me.
And then a troubling thought entered my mind: that my aesthetic preferences were in fact an alibi for the hot and cold war violence inflicted by the U.S. upon so many nations in the world, China and Russia included. I too was deeply insecure, unable to accept or even recognize the indictment of democratic (and neo-liberal) capitalism at the heart of (De)constructing Ideology. I too was afraid: Not of any distant military bases or wispy balloons in the stratosphere, but of a superpower that lacks introspection, the capacity to overcome insecurity, or the desire to heal its injured core.
The nation’s basic fault, traceable to its founding, created a profound insecurity, overcompensated by the fantasy of American exceptionalism and the judicious projection of power abroad.
 

Temstar

Brigadier
Registered Member
I found a recent and enlightening psychoanalysis of the US:
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This is spot on. For whatever reason (maybe it's to do with monotheism, I don't know) the west have a burning need to prove that neoliberal capitalism is the "one true way" forward for mankind. They believe they alone hold the secret to modernity.

Rise of China demonstrates that this is patiently false (in China, dunking on Fukuyama is now such a popular pass time that we have a name for people engaging in it: batman). This should not be taken as "there are two ways to achieve modernity - neoliberal capitalism and socialism with Chinese characteristics" but rather "there are N number of ways to achieve modernity, you just have to find the one best suited for your country".

China is not interested in spreading socialism with Chinese characteristics, in fact if a country comes to China asking to copy the system CPC would only reluctantly agree to provide tips as befitting of a confident superpower. CPC would rather no one has any insight into China's secret sauce. For example just look at Vietnam. They don't ask CPC for guidance and CPC is not providing any guidance, but Vietnam's economic reform is very nearly a carbon copy of China's version and that's all from CPV just watching and taking notes themselves.

This ideological freedom means China is free to engage with anyone, from Islamic Theocracy to Jewish ethnostate, from Juche Socialism to Laissez-faire capitalism. China comes to you in the name of common prosperity and that's a language that everyone understands no matter their ideology.

To quote Lao Zi “Nothing in the world is as soft and yielding as water. Yet for dissolving the hard and inflexible, nothing can surpass it. The soft overcomes the hard; the gentle overcomes the rigid.” US has never faced such a flexible and formless enemy before and doesn't know how to properly attack it, that's why they're panicking.
 

BoraTas

Captain
Registered Member
Really? This guy is calling for an invasion of Mexico.
That idea isn't rare at all among Republicans. Just like China, Mexico is blamed for a lot of America's problems. Silent invasion AKA illegal immigrants the greatest military on Earth somehow can't stop (it is tacitly allowed, that's why), drugs, etc... If a Republican candidate said he would invade Mexico to solve immigrant and drug problems he would get the support of a lot of people.
 

Eventine

Junior Member
Registered Member
This is spot on. For whatever reason (maybe it's to do with monotheism, I don't know) the west have a burning need to prove that neoliberal capitalism is the "one true way" forward for mankind. They believe they alone hold the secret to modernity.

Rise of China demonstrates that this is patiently false (in China, dunking on Fukuyama is now such a popular pass time that we have a name for people engaging in it: batman). This should not be taken as "there are two ways to achieve modernity - neoliberal capitalism and socialism with Chinese characteristics" but rather "there are N number of ways to achieve modernity, you just have to find the one best suited for your country".

China is not interested in spreading socialism with Chinese characteristics, in fact if a country comes to China asking to copy the system CPC would only reluctantly agree to provide tips as befitting of a confident superpower. CPC would rather no one has any insight into China's secret sauce. For example just look at Vietnam. They don't ask CPC for guidance and CPC is not providing any guidance, but Vietnam's economic reform is very nearly a carbon copy of China's version and that's all from CPV just watching and taking notes themselves.

This ideological freedom means China is free to engage with anyone, from Islamic Theocracy to Jewish ethnostate, from Juche Socialism to Laissez-faire capitalism. China comes to you in the name of common prosperity and that's a language that everyone understands no matter their ideology.

To quote Lao Zi “Nothing in the world is as soft and yielding as water. Yet for dissolving the hard and inflexible, nothing can surpass it. The soft overcomes the hard; the gentle overcomes the rigid.” US has never faced such a flexible and formless enemy before and doesn't know how to properly attack it, that's why they're panicking.
As always, policy is driven by a combination of believers and opportunists.

The believers - the political philosophers, the ideologues, the liberal activists - are the minority, but they are influential within academic and policy circles. Not because their thoughts are profound, but because they have passion and conviction, the two qualities that make them useful idiots for the opportunists, because they can be counted on to preach to the public in a way that is genuine. In that sense, they are the priests of the modern Western system.

But ultimate power does not rest with them; it rests with the opportunists - the political, economic, and military elites for whom the only pursuit is the Great Game. These people just want what got them to where they are, in the first place - they just want to dominate. Whatever ideology allows them to justify their continued domination, they will put their support behind. These are the dukes, barons, and kings of the modern Western system. Its nobility, or those with the ambition to rise to noble status.

The reason the West supports neoliberal capitalism, then, is not because the believers control Western policy, but because the opportunists do, and to understand why the opportunists would support neoliberal capitalism, we'd have to look at how it functions. Fortunately, Marx already did the analysis for us, and the conclusion is simple - neoliberal capitalism is a system by which the rich gets richer, and the poor gets poorer. In other words, it is a system for preserving and perpetuating the class hierarchy.

That's how capitalism has always worked, you see. The wealthy do nothing, and get everything through ownership - of property, of companies, of institutions. All the while, the poor do all the work, and get nothing because they own nothing. They pay rent, they pay taxes, they pay to survive just to generate profits for those who own them. Capitalist exploitation, it's the oldest trick in the book, a straight road back into feudalism - that old European favorite - and the US, the West, has done everything in its power to defend it.

This is why they hated Marx so much. Why they wanted so badly to destroy Communism. Why they hate China and Russia today. Because they don't play by the rules of neoliberal capitalism, and as such, the West can't dominate them through those rules. This is the international order that the West speaks so often about, and what it fights so hard to preserve. The order in which they are at the top, and no one can threaten them.
 

FriedButter

Colonel
Registered Member
The French are suing the Russians for not supplying them gas… after they stopped paying for it last summer. Lmao.

French energy giant sues Gazprom​

French utilities company Engie announced on Tuesday it has initiated an arbitration procedure against Russia’s Gazprom over its non-compliance with gas delivery obligations. The Paris-based firm said it wanted payment of contractual penalties as well as compensation for damages resulting from the supply halt.

Gazprom said it stopped natural gas deliveries in August after the French side failed to pay for July deliveries in full.

“This arbitration procedure is due to the significant delivery shortages by Gazprom Export LLC to Engie as of mid-June 2022, followed by Gazprom Export LLC’s unilateral decision at the end of summer 2022 to reduce its deliveries to Engie due to a disagreement between the parties…” the company stated in its annual report.

In August, Gazprom announced that it had cut off gas supplies to the French firm, which had failed to pay for July gas deliveries in full. Gazprom informed Engie that it would cease the gas deliveries starting September 1 until the moment it gets the payment for the already supplied gas. Making any further gas deliveries without receiving a full payment for the previous supply is impossible under Russian law.
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