#yes he’s talking about the consequences of isolationism but he’s ALSO talking about the consequences of globalism

[rabbits-of-negative-euphoria]

the hardest part abt writing SNK fic is that every character is more interesting than all the other characters

[checkoutmybookshelf]

Naomi Novik Has Never Written a Bad Book in Her Life. Let's Talk Temeraire.

*THIS POST HAS SPOILERS. BE WARNED*

I think at this point, it's very, very clear that in this blog, we stan Naomi Novik--and the personal and professional levels of jealousy that she has never written a bad book in her life are real, but do not stop us from celebrating the absolute majesty that is the Temeraire books. If you love a good ensemble cast, then I promise you that the ensemble that Novik builds in these nine books exceeds any other. Yes, even that one. *ducks literally every ensemble fandom yeeting things at my head*

For anyone who hasn't encountered these books before, the tagline is basically "A Napoleonic Wars Travelogue With Dragons," but that does not do justice to the geopolitical, interpersonal, and institutional tour de force that are the different threads of this series. I'll try to avoid mega spoilers, but I'm talking about an entire series, so tread with caution. There MAY BE SPOILERS here.

I belive I was an undergrad when I first discovered this series--as you can perhaps tell from the very, very loved trade paperback copy of His Majesty's Dragon. This first book opens with Captain William Laurence, rising star in his majesty's navy, beating the tar out of a French man-of-war. Except whoops, there is a dragon egg on board, and most inopportunely, it's about to hatch. The aerial corp is...looked down on at best at this point in Novik's alternate fantasy history, and having to harness a dragon means the complete and utter destruction of a naval officer's career. When Temeraire hatches, Laurence ends up harnessing him while trying extremely hard not to think about what he's doing and what the implications for his personal and professional life will be.

This first book is very much all about Temeraire and Laurence finding their footing in the aerial corps and with each other. Laurence has to learn to let the navy go, and yet is in the unenviable position of being just enough of an outsider int he aerial corps to question things the other aviators take for granted. This is gonna be a theme.

Then there is Temeraire. It's easy, so so easy, to forget how young Temeraire is throughout this series. He's just a baby, really, in this book, but is nevertheless yeeted into the Napoleonic wars, where he is entirely unafraid to demand both fair treatment and answers to questions. This will also become a theme.

We also meet the formation of dragons and captains in this book that we will follow throughout the rest of the series, and the sheer amount of personality Novik packs into them makes this world and ensemble absolutely rich. There are--thankfully--not as many named characters in these books as there are in The Wheel of Time or Game of Thrones, but in many ways, these captains and dragons are more fully human the secondary characters in those worlds. *ducks the WoT and Jordan fans' rage*

His Majesty's Dragon is the smallest scale book of the series, and really spends time immersing you in the covert and the aerial corps. This is the smallest the world ever feels in the series, and it doesn't feel small.

The world and dragon lore expand rapidly in Throne of Jade, which is unequivocally my favorite book in the series, despite my favorite dragon of the series not appearing in it. This book's catalyst is the consequences of Naval Captain William Laurence defeating a French ship and taking a Chinese dragon egg--which turned out to be a Celestial, or Lung Tien--as a prize. Turns out, the Emperor of China and his former heir don't love that Temeraire was not only harnessed but also subjected to the brutalities of war. In China, Celestials are first and foremost scholars. Oh, and China and England have diametrically opposed philosophies on dragons as indidivuals and their rights. So in chapter one of this book, we are already dealing with global politics, philosophies of personhood, civil rights (or lack thereof) for dragons, and themes of nationalism, imperialism, colonialism, and isolationism. And that's just the plot.

Interpersonally, we have Temeraire learning to live with both his love for and partnership with Laurence and the heritage and birthright that would offer him an education, civil rights, rank, and possibly the chance to make real changes to how his friends and colleagues in England are treated. Mix that with Laurence, who has the curse of having an open enough mind to be a realistic match for Temeriare's exuberance and idealism and who is dealing with turning his entire life on its head for the second time in less than two years. Then, just to twist the knife, Novik gives us an entire angsty subplot about Laurence freeling giving Temeraire the choice to stay in China, and having to decide if he will stay or not, in the face of massive personal and political pressures. You guys, I love this book so much.

We also meet Lung Tien Lien in this book, and y'all need to remember that name, because this albino Celestial--considered bad luck in China--defects to Napoleon after her companion is killed and that has ramifications through to the final book in the series. Lien and Temeraire honestly do not get along, although this book sees Laurence collect the first two of what will become a freaking rolodex of international connections. De Guinges, the French ambassador to China, has an absolutely delightful amicable sparring relationship with Laurence, and he pops up throughout the series like that dickhead friend who is fantastic for a night out, but would grate if he stuck around much longer than that. The other connection is Prince Mianning, who becomes Laurence's brother when the Emperor adopts Laurence to sever a political Gordian knot. That's also going to have some ramifications down the road.

Black Powder War is essentially the consequences of Laurence's decision to haul ass to Istanbul via a land route to take custody of three dragon eggs England has purchased from the Ottoman Empire. For the geographically savvy of you, yes, this means a desert trek. It also means a guide, who is rapidly but reluctantly added to Laurence's rolodex of connections: Tenzing Tharkey. Tharkey is in and of himself absolutely freaking fascinating--he could be his own post. The son of an English officer and a Nepali woman who was educated but literally always on the margins of every society he interacted with, Tharkey is savvy about basically everything, and SUS AF in this book. I'm going to put a pin in this, however, because Tharkey will absolutely return in the series and literally never fail to be a complete BAMF.

Generally speaking, Black Powder War is my least favorite of the series. It's by no means a bad book, and we meet characters who become crucial and some of my favorites, but the desert trek and brief stay in Istanbul are the bits of the book I tend to forget because with the exception of the introductions of Tharkey, Arkady, and Dragon Queen of the Series Iskierka, it doesn't have the lasting consequences that their time in Austria in the latter sections of the book does.

Prussian dragon treatment is--it's rough, you guys. And the fact that Temeraire and Laurence STILL end up single-handedly evacuating the Prussian royal family and the entire garrison at Danzig as Napoleon's army is literally banging at the fort door and the book ends as a fully-loaded Temeraire is hauling ass into the sky as the defeat turns into a rout means that the last third of the book is the most memorable.

Empire of Ivory picks right up on that frantic flight from Austria, and they make it back to England where Laurence is rightfully furious that their screams for help on their horrifically dangerous aerial channel crossing went entirely unanswered. Poor Temeraire is too exhausted to be anything more than confused as to why his friends didn't come when he called. The heartbreaking truth? There was no one to send.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have ourselves a plague book.

Let me back up for a second. In Throne of Jade, Temeraire briefly runs into his formation, and they're all a bit coldy. Temeraire catches the cold too, but is dosed with a mushroom acquired by the dragon doctor as they passed Africa on the way to China. Temeraire recovers, and literally nobody thinks twice about getting a cold on the long journey to China. It's a ship, people get colds.

It's only once Temeraire and Laurence return home that the trifling cold has turned into a wasting disease that the aerial corps has no way to cure and really no way to treat. Once the dragon surgeons get together and theorize that whatever that mushroom Temeraire ate was a cure, Temeraire and his entire formation are loaded onto a dragon transport with their captains and crews to find the cure. This bit is genuinely heartbreaking guys, because the entire vibe of Maximus getting on the ship is that they either find a cure or they bury him in Africa. Berkeley so desperately needs a hug for like two thirds of this book.

This is quite possibly my favorite book after Throne of Jade, because I am here for a good plague book--and I know that might be a weird take in the year of our lord 2022--but especially a good plague book that shoves English officers' noses in the consequences of colonialism and the slave trade and actually includes the yeeting of slavers and colonizers from their settlements with the help of Kefentse and the other dragons. Seriously, this book is SO GOOD.

The best part of it though, is the last couple of chapters. Laurence, Temeraire, and co. make it back to England with the cure only to find that England has sent a plague carrier into France to infect Napoleon's aerial corps. Laurence--and the crucial thing is that this is Laurence's idea, from start to finish, he wasn't prompted by Temeraire--commits full-on bald-faced treason by taking a tub of cultivated mushrooms to Napoleon himself. An entirely floored but immensely grateful Napoleon offers Laurence and Temeraire asylum in France, but the final chapter of the book is Laurence and Temeraire taking a quiet moment before they cross the channel back to England to face the music. Y'all, I cried so hard finishing this book. I was just grateful that I caught the series at a point where I didn't have to wait a year or more to read the next book.

Victory of Eagles, of all the books in this series, is for the dragons. Laurence is so deep in self-loathing and probably actual depression that he briefly ends up as Wellington's personal dirty job doer, which just exacerbates the problem, because what Laurence is truly deeply wrestling with is the clash between his honor and the whole "I would do treason again because it was the right thing to do" thing.

We spend most of this book with Temeraire though, as he single-handedly empties the breeding grounds of dragons and wrangles them into a massively effective army. He then proceeds to strong arm Wellington into paying the dragons, feeding them, and granting them civil rights. It's not a perfect system by any means, and it's deeply influenced by the Chinese perspective on dragons, so it's a hard sell for Temeraire, but he pulls it off. The other thing Temeraire pulls off is showing Laurence that he can reconcile seeming oppositional worldviews and come to an equilibrium with himself. It's messy as hell, and you bet your ass it has consequences, but this is a real turning point in Laurence and Temeraire's relationship, and their own personal journeys. This book is absurdly well executed.

The consequences of Laurence reconciling his honor and personal philosophy are explored in Tongues of Serpents or Laurence and Temeraire Take Australia or Iskierka Wants an Egg From Temeraire and Really Can't Believe Everyone Isn't Automatically on Board. This is another book for the dragons, really. We get to meet Caesar and Kulingile, and if y'all thought Maximus was the ultimate dragon himbo, my big regal copper baby is about to get dethroned by our Cheequered Nettle/Parnassian hybrid. Regal Coppers in general have himbo vibes, but they're also adorably grouchy old men. Kulingile is basically Kronk in dragon form, with none of the grumpy old man that Regal Coppers have.

What kills me about this book is that Laurence was *THAT CLOSE* to successfully breaking up a smuggling ring and disappearing into the outback for a quiet retirement with Temeraire on their own land in Australia, where they could be left alone and happy.

Then Crucible of Gold starts. Arthur Hammond, who Laurence added to his rolodex way back in Throne of Jade, shows up to Laurence's half-built dragon pavilion and house in the Australian outback to drag him back into global politics. Laurence was *SO CLOSE* to being left alone. He had a BEARD, for crying out loud. He was HAPPY. He and Temeraire were building something. But Hammond manages to talk them into running off to Brazil--by way of a shipwreck and psuedo rescue by the French and a subsequent marooning--to stop them from allying with Napoleon. That mission ends up being a hideous failure because of a combination of the consequences of colonialism, Iskierka being an objectively terrible matchmaker, and Napoleon showing up to put a ring on it.

And to top off the whole ill-fated mission, Gong Su, Laurence's trusted cook, turns out to be working for Prince Mianning, which Hammond wastes zero time leveraging to drag Laurence and Temeraire back to China.

Before we manage to get back to China, however, Blood of Tyrants opens with another shipwreck and Laurence waking up in Japan missing about eight years of memory. And guys, let me tell you, watching Naval Captain William Laurence get suuuuuuuuuper traumatized by everything aerial corps Captain Laurence has done is both hilarious and heartwrenching. The other captains in the formation literally have a "do we tell him about the treason?" conversation that is just on point. And in the background of all of this, Iskierka finally gets the egg she has been frankly harassing Temeraire for for the last like three books. So they're dealing with Laurence/Temeraire drama, geopolitical drama, and Iskierka egg drama.

At that point, finally getting to China and uncovering a false-flag rebellion orchestrated by the conservative party to smuggle just *so much* opium and discredit Mianning felt pretty darn straightforward. Then it all got complicated again, because somewhere along the line, 300 Chinese dragons were promised to support the Russians against Napoleon, and Laurence and Temeraire end this book literally trying to stop Napoleon from conquering Russia in winter. None of this is actually *good* for the character, but I was hanging on each setback and just going "WHAT HAPPENS THEN?"

Well, what happens next in League of Dragons is that Laurence does the most emotionally constipated British Officer thing I have EVER seen and challenges a Russian officer who had a little too much to drink because both his adopted and biological fathers died in the span of like a month or two, and Laurence cannot deal with feelings that big. That duel goes exactly as well as you'd expect, and both men end up very shot, but they also manage to survive, barely. Then we spend the rest of the book wrapping up the plot threads from the preceding eight books, and watching Iskierka and Temeraire realize why the two of them making an egg was both the best and worst possible idea.

This series is just supremely well plotted and well executed, and there will never be any other dragons in the world with this much personality.

[normal-thoughts-official]

I would have loved to see more interactions with the seelies- people who can’t lie but are crafty and secretive sounds fascinating. Think of the dialog! Alec going to magnus for advice since he has centuries of experience talking to them, Alec playing mental chess while trying to maintain peace. Would have loved getting more- but let’s be real, Cassaundra and the show writers weren’t clever enough to actually make any conversations like that of value.

SAME!!!!! honestly i would have loved to see so much more of the seelies. like bro do you understand that their culture predates the VERY EXISTENCE OF HUMANITY??? they are the ONLY kind of downworlders whose culture is completely detached from any human culture, not only because of predating it, but also because of the relative isolationism - which means human culture barely had any influence on their culture and history AS it developed

so like you can literally go fucking bonkers??????????? you can make ANYTHING. they have a whole ass society that doesn't have to have ANY ties to mundane concepts or history AT ALL. complete creative freedom. you could do ANYTHING! and don't get me started on the potential this has, within storytelling, to contextualize a lot of stuff modern western culture sees as natural or timeless as actually pretty fucking specific - like monogamy, cisheteropatriarchy, the gender binary, racism. all immortals have that potential of course since they can come from an array of different cultural and historical backgrounds but seelies in particular have SO much potential that is NEVER! FUCKING! USED! it all goes to waste and they are just a generic vaguely monarchic society that behaves literally exactly as modern western cultural standards. WHY. i'll never stop being salty, especially within sh where all this potential was there and instead they just villainized the seelies like no tomorrow for nO FUCKING REASON, and included a whole plotline about their ruler being a terrible power-hungry person and then proceeded to act as if that would have no influence on the seelies under her rule? thanks for nothing

like i know the seelie queen was so badly written that her own motivations even as a power-hungry wacko didn't make sense or were consistent (like why give simon the mark of cain for example, and for god's sake what kind of power-hungry crazy bitch gives their main enemy the power to literally kill her and destroy everything she has at the blink of an eye, like??? she literally tried to assist in her own genocide, it makes no fucking sense, i fucking hate it here) but if they are going to make her Terrible the least they could do was show how that impacted the people under her rule, especially if they are going to have meliorn be fucking tortured and either forced to display the marks of said torture or choosing to display them themself, like? please give your plotlines one singular thought

but of course it's easier to villainize seelies and reduce them to their obviously tyrannical ruler so they can go back to focusing on the shadowhunters and their issues. nevermind the fact that seelies are obviously equivalent to native ppls/third world countries resisting colonialism/imperialism in sh's stupid ass racial metaphor, which makes making their ruler a big bad unequivocally evil villain that is ruining everything A Choice. and a particularly choicy Choice considering they cast a middle-eastern man to play the most important seelie character. but if they are going to do that they could at least address how the people under her rule suffer and how that's a direct consequence of shadowhunter colonialism and interference, but why would we fkcnig thdo that!!!! when we can have love triangle drama or whatever

and tHEN there is the whole aspect of being unable to lie which is bound to have such an impact on their culture and history since they have to rely on other forms of communication to protect themselves - and considering the whole "tyrannical rule" plotline, to further the queen's agenda in the first place. and how telling the truth without preamble would probably be considered a huge display of trust in a society that has culturally developed so many ways of talking around things. like again the potential of the cultural and historic background for that society! it makes me go insane!!!

anyway all of that to say #JusticeForSeelies and #SeeliePlotlinesNow 2021 and forever. and YES i would have loved to see more interactions between them and other characters, particularly magnus because 1- admittedly i'm a hoe; and 2- magnus was clearly the one that had the most experience talking to seelies and that others relied on for that communication. he also seemed to be the most comfortable with them, which indicates there is either some sort of history there, or magnus just happens to feel relatively at home with the workings of their culture. which makes sense, because magnus also had to develop pretty similar defense mechanisms due to his, A- work as a warlock representative who has to interact with shadowhunters on the regular; B- history with having to deal with asmodeus, which required him to be very smart about what he disclosed and how, especially considering that he had to have been planning banishing asmodeus for a long time before he got to do it; and C- just history with abuse in general. we've seen the way he closed his heart off to new people; but at the same time, magnus is obviously an extrovert and likes to be around people in general. this meant that, in order to be able to both be in the kind of environment where he thrives and protect himself/his heart/his feelings, he had to learn how to interact with people while putting on a convincing façade, which requires pretty much the same sorts of wordplay and defense mechanisms that seelies use

magnus is good at wordplay, he's good at using talking to his benefit; we've seen that. he is also good at hiding and deflecting. he is notably not good at directly lying - every time he directly said A Lie such as "i am perfectly fine and not bothered by this at all :)" it was way less convincing than it was a clear display that he wouldn't budge. even alec, who has difficulty with social cues, noticed the lying and seemed concerned about it. so like. clearly his defense mechanisms were less lying and more dancing around subjects, directing conversation to safe topics, and guiding people to making certain assumptions and seeing sides of his that were safer and he preferred

so in that way it makes sense that magnus is somewhat in his element when dealing with seelies. i think "comfortable" is a strong word because this whole song and dance takes a huge toll on anyone's mental health and energy (which i think is something that could be very interestingly explored in seelies, their collective psyche, and their culture, the way they build relationships, etc. let meliorn have partners they feel 100% comfortable talking without preamble with 2k21), but it's something he is used to and a dynamic he can fall into without as much effort as others who would be second guessing themselves more and going slower, which clearly gives the seelies, who are used to it, an advantage

and like i know that i'm implying a confrontation or sort of situation where they are on opposing sides to seelies here, which i kind of am because i am thinking mostly about magnus' interactions with the seelie queen specifically, since she was the seelie he had the most meaningful interactions with. his interactions with meliorn were very few and almost never relevant, i barely remember them happening outside of generic downworld cabinet interactions tbh. but i don't just mean that because again, stop villainizing seelies 2k21

i also mean just generally that magnus would be in a more comfortable position talking to seelie strangers and slowly working into building a relationship and mutual trust. and just generally understanding them and the workings of their culture because he can empathize with the way they have built their social defense mechanisms. no one is 100% truthful to strangers, but seelies always seem kind of- analytical. and the cultural difference + anti-seelie racism makes them seem untrustworthy to most people, but magnus Gets It, so the potential for friendships! and the mutual understanding and the relative comfort around each other! and both parts understanding the enormity that is letting their walls down gradually and being more direct as time goes by. like.... aaaaaa

and yes magnus becomes a sort of reference on talking to seelies, mostly because he is good at "playing their game", but also making it a point to humanize seelies and making the other parts understand where they are coming from and how they feel :) and just improving their relations, particularly with other downworlders

im not going to get into alec because 1- the relationship between shadowhunters and seelies is already filled with oppression and a lot of complications, and particularly now that the seelie realm is politically fragile due to the loss of their ruler (however terrible she might have been), it would play into either white savior narratives or just straight up colonialism, especially given how alec as a leader already has a history of trying to build tutelage over downworlders (i don't care what his intentions were, it's still true, and although he's learning... well. he's learning, continuous action); 2- that would be more a relationship of opposition and i'm not that interested in that. but i would love to see seelies rebuilding themselves and their relationships and alliances with other downworlders particularly, and all the better if magnus is playing a part in that :)

in short:

more seelies

more magnus with seelies, especially friendships

more focus on the politics of seelies now that the seelie queen is gone

more seelies

more seelies

more seelies

[qqueenofhades]

the reason people prefer bernie over warren isn't that she used to be a republican, most people genuinely believe the positions she holds now. it's just that those positions A) aren't going to get her elected in a general election, because she comes across as wishywashy on medicare for all, which is much more popular among most americans than centrists think, and republican are GREAT at exploiting the wishy-washy B) isn't gonna cut it with us lefty dems either. bernie polls better against trump.

Hello there! Thank you for your contribution! *

As most people who follow me know, I am not a Political Discourse ™ blog in the usual course of things, and despise Discourse in general. Time is short, lives are precious, and usually arguing with people about politics on the internet is about the most unproductive use of such ever devised. But because you did arrive in my inbox with this opinion, which perfectly exemplifies the dangerous thinking that I was referring to in this post, which I presume is the reason for the pleasure of your company, we’re going to have a chat. I’m going to keep the snark to a minimum, because I am really not a fan of stoking Democratic tribalism or “my candidate is better than your candidate and I can’t vote for anyone else” pissing contests. That being indeed precisely what I was arguing in the above post, and the point of which, alas, you seem to have grasped but dimly. I am therefore going to go through this, because it needs to be deconstructed, and while I may make no impact on you, because I suspect your mind is made up, I am fortunate enough to have a decent following on this blog and maybe someone else will benefit from it. Who knows. The other option is Trump.

So.

Let’s take this one at a time. See for example your first claim, “Elizabeth Warren comes across as wishy-washy on Medicare for All.”

Well….

Have you tried going to her website (elizabethwarren.com) typing in “Medicare for All” and being redirected to the following document? It took me approximately eight seconds to find. It is also not just an attention-grabbing header. The full strategic plan below, when pasted into Microsoft Word, runs to an impressive goddamn 19 pages and almost 8,000 words. It outlines exactly what she will do to achieve this and concludes:

Medicare for All is the best way to guarantee health care to all Americans at the lowest cost. I have a plan to pay for it without raising taxes on middle class families, and the transition I’ve outlined here will get us there within my first term as president. Together, along with additional reforms like my plans to reduce black maternal mortality rates, ensure rural health care, protect reproductive rights, support the Indian Health Service, take care of our veterans, and secure LGBTQ+ equality, we will ensure that no family will ever go broke again from a medical diagnosis – and that every American gets the excellent health care they deserve.

Hmm. Focusing specifically on African-American maternal mortality rates, rural health care, protecting reproductive rights, support for Native Americans, vets, and LGBTQ people? I understand, however, that this can’t cut it with “us lefty Dems,” which you proclaim with the proud assurance that you and the Twitter circles of your acquaintance are in fact the only ones. I’m also… not entirely sure which candidate you’re confusing Warren with, since there are two (2) progressive candidates in this nightmare of white no-name and/or billionaire milquetoast male moderates. Their names are Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. And every single Warren fan I know is willing to vote for Sanders if he gets the nomination, including me. I made a public pledge to vote for the Democratic candidate even if it’s Goddamn Joe Biden. You can see it here. If you are going to demand miles of receipts for Warren before you consider voting for her (and when her positions are similar to or in several cases, particularly for women, MUCH BETTER than Sanders, yes I said it), then you’re really not going to like what it looks like for the other candidates in this race. Also, are you asking these questions for Sanders, your own preferred nominee?

Next, you…. you do realize the privilege that is dripping off this ask, right? The exact thing of which I also addressed in the previous discussion:

The modern American Republican party has become a vehicle for no-holds-barred power for rich white men at the expense of absolutely everything and everyone else, and if your rationale is that you can’t vote for the person opposing Donald Goddamn Trump is that you’re just not vibing with them on the language of that one policy proposal… well, I’m glad that you, White Middle Class Liberal, feel relatively safe that the consequences of that decision won’t affect you personally.

That is…. at least as presented in this ask, exactly what’s happening here. You’re saying that you (and this mythic America/Lefty Dems ™ of which you grandly extrapolate) can’t vote for Elizabeth Warren because you’re just not vibing with her on the language of a policy proposal which she enthusiastically supports and has written a detailed 20-page manifesto on how to achieve? You really, really believe, deep down in your Bernie Bro Internet Politics bones, that you cannot vote for the smart, fearless, extra-qualified Democratic woman opposing the bankrupt reality star rapist who is literally a Neo-Nazi white supremacist whose administration is wrecking the planet and putting children in cages at the border? To name just one of the Scandal-A-Days that this nightmare administration churns out? Because the Lefty Dems (and please do not lump me and the other active leftist Democrats I know into whatever you’ve got going on here) just won’t stand for that?

Do you even hear yourself?

Did we learn nothing at all from 2016???

I’m going to guess that I’m older than you. I’m not sure whether that matters, but there’s that. It means I remember 9/11, the Bush years, the financial crash of 2008, and how this already went once before. I have also just moved back to the United States after almost half a decade in the United Kingdom, which is currently experiencing its same slow-motion disintegration into hard-right economic isolationism, xenophobia, and late-stage capitalist oligarchy. I’m also a professional historian. So it means that I, for better or worse, have a certain perspective on this, the overall patterns, the way the world has stumbled into this destructive consumerist capitalist 21st century, and what it’s doing to us.

We do not have much time left to fix any of this. I don’t care if it sounds alarmist, it’s true. If you are younger than me, this is also going to become disproportionately your generation’s problem. Rigid intellectual purity tests are exactly the thing that is preventing the left from mobilizing behind one candidate to get Donald Fucking Trump and his cabal of shameless criminals out of there before they kill the lot of us. And I’m not going to back down from saying that mindsets like the one perfectly exemplified in your ask are far more helpful to the Republicans than they are to any of us.

I have said it before, I’ll say it again: I will vote for, donate money to, and raise awareness about whoever the Democratic nominee is. If it’s Sanders, I’m going to friggin’ become a Bernie or Buster. Because at that point, his opponent would be Trump!!! If I am living in a state where it would remotely make a difference in November 2020, since at the moment I’m in Bumfuck Red State Nowhere, I would consider canvassing or volunteering for the campaign, and I am a severe introvert with social anxiety who hates talking to people when I don’t have to. And if I am willing to do this, and you and Lefty Dems ™ of your hallowed intellectual proclivities are sitting on your backsides and bitching about how Warren seems wishy-washy on Medicare for All, well then. One of us is more the problem than the other one, and it isn’t me.

(Also. once again, Bernie Sanders is eighty years old and just had a heart attack. Sorry. That remains an issue for me. There’s a year to go of grueling non-stop campaigning before the general, if he wins the primary. I’m not convinced.)

In conclusion, I have recently adopted a policy of donating a few dollars to Elizabeth Warren every time someone appears in my inbox or notifications with a comment like this. So when I thanked you for your contribution at the start of this post, I was in fact thanking you for your extra-generous donation today, December 10, 2019, to Elizabeth Warren for President:

Peace.

[emilyredekerart]

Reylo and Ancient Spartan Society + Marriage

Okay y’all I’ve never done a meta before but I’m taking a Women in the Classical world class at university and I need to make this word vomit already. So buckle up buttercup and enjoy this trainwreck.

Note: I am not a history major. I might get small details wrong, so feel free to correct me on anything.

Another note: I highly doubt that any of my claims have any merit. I just wanted to put this comparison out there.

(image source)

We’ve all seen the comparisons between Reylo and the Greek myth of Hades and Persephone. But what about the societies in Greece itself?

(image source)

Spartan Society: A Brief Synopsis

Sparta was a province in Ancient Greece belonging to the city state of Laconia. What made Sparta special was its size; rivalling Athens of Attica with its population of approximately 100,000-300,000 people. In the ancient world, that’s huge.

Another interesting part of Sparta’s history is that an indigenous population of peoples, called helots, were conquered and integrated into Spartan society. The helots, however, maintained their distance in society thanks to intense discrimination. Because of this, uprisings were very common, so Sparta developed a policy of isolationism, so that they could save resources to fight revolutions in their own community instead of military conquest elsewhere.

The governmental structure of Sparta was very interesting. It combines a hereditary kingship, an oligarchy, and a democracy all at once. The most important lawmakers were the hereditary kings. Yes, kings. There were always two kings, who served more like generals, and one would be sent to battle and the other would stay behind to rule.

As many of us know, Sparta was well known for its militaristic society. Both men and women received public education, with the men’s being military-oriented. Some male babies were abandoned if seen as weak or unable to be a Spartan warrior, and would be raised by others without participating in the military. From ages 7-14, boys attend military school, where they learn to read, write, play music, and do arithmetic. While attending, they received brutal and almost cruel survival training. They were intentionally starved in order to make them steal food, and become sneaky thieves, which is an excellent skill to have in a battle situation.

At age 14, the boys are sent into the wilderness with nothing but a cloak and a knife, and told to kill as many helots as they could while there, and to survive on their own. Spartan men were required to serve in the army until age 35, and most continued their service into their 60’s.

Women’s education was different, but just as important. They studied the same subjects as the men, but also got to participate in athletics, which was unheard of in the Ancient Greek world. Women in general were treated more equally in Spartan society, even receiving the same amount of food and drink as the men, which they did not have in Athens. Women were also able to inherit land and money, which was very rare in the Classical world.

(source is from a class I took)

(image source)

Sparta and Star Wars

Now let’s get to the goodies, comparing!

Now not all of these comparisons are perfect, but I just couldn’t help but see them.

Sparta can be compared to the galaxy. It’s just the setting.

The helots could be seen as the Resistance. A group of conquered people. They keep rising up and leading revolutions against the First Order, or in this case, the Spartan government. The First Order, however, is focused on conquering, the direct opposite of Sparta’s isolationism.

The two kings could be compared to Kylo Ren and Snoke. Snoke is the king who stays behind to rule while Ren goes out to fight. With Snoke gone, General Hux becomes the other king. The kings serve more like generals as well. Both Star Wars and Spartan society are military-oriented. There hasn’t been a Star Wars movie without some military involvement.

Let’s get to the really good stuff...Reylo!

Kylo/Ben

Kylo Ren/Ben Solo is the male side of Sparta.

Kylo/Ben felt abandoned by his family, much like some male babies were.

He was sent away to learn at Luke’s academy at age 15, while Spartan boys completed the final test before military service at 14. Ben Solo began training as the Spartan’s ended.

One of his titles is Jedi Killer, which could be linked to the final test in Sparta, where the young boys go on a helot-killing spree.

Both were raised and developed in a military setting, in Kylo/Ben’s case, the First Order.

In The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi, he is 29. Only 6 years away from the possible end of his military career, or time with the First Order.

(source) I also just know this stuff because I’m obsessed.

Rey

Rey is a mix of the female and male experiences in Spartan society. Rey is part of the helot population, or those conquered by Sparta/the First Order.

Growing up as an orphan on Jakku, abandoned by her parents, she was intentionally starved by Unkar Plutt. Although the Spartans did this to encourage survival skills, Plutt did this out of greed and wanting to control the scavengers that worked for him. Rey still learned survival skills, though.

Rey is athletic, thanks to her struggles on Jakku. Surviving acted as athletic training, much like Spartan women recieved.

Rey has been described multiple times as Kylo Ren/Ben Solo’s equal. This can be linked to Spartan women achieving more equality and freedom in society.

Now that we’ve seen how the characters are linked to Sparta, let’s talk about…

(image source)

Spartan Marriage

Spartan marriage was unusual to say the least, especially for ancient times.

There are two types or methods of marriage: marriage by capture and bridesmaid marriage. Both of these marriages have the same end result, but the ceremonies involved are different.

For this comparison, we will be focusing on marriage by capture.

In marriage by capture, several things happen.

Equal groups of 18 year old men and women are led into a dark room.

The women are cloaked.

The men are instructed that the first woman they grab will be their wife.

This is intended to be random, although some couples will give each other a sign to the other, such as meeting in a certain part of the room or tapping on one’s shoulder.

The couple is considered married after sneaking out and consummating.

The marriage itself:

After marriage, the men return to their military barracks.

The married couples are encouraged to meet in secret, but if discovered, can be severely physically punished.

This was believed to bring excitement and bring motivation for having children.

These secret meetings continue even if the wife bears children. 

The marriage becomes completely public after the husband retires from military service.

In the case of divorce, which was unheard of elsewhere, the marriage could be nullified privately with no consequences for either party.

There was no concept of adultery, so seeing other people was an option as long as you had a child with your spouse and could support your family.

The ultimate goal is to have a child, preferably a boy, to grow up and be a Spartan warrior.

How does this relate to Reylo?

Age

Rey is 18-19 in The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi

Capture

The start of the relationship between Kylo Ren and Rey is similar to marriage by capture. Rey is the first person that Kylo touches directly, not using the Force. This could signify the beginning of their union.

More literally, Kylo actually captures Rey.

Sneaking Out

ForceTime™ is a good representation of such relationship with secret meetings.

Kylo is obligated to remain with the First Order/the Spartan Military, while Rey is kept with the Resistance/Helots.

Keeping with the Helot theme, it would make the marriage much more unusual or scandalous, since the two parties are meant to be separate and enemies.

The famous Hut Scene could represent the consummation of their marriage, since Rian Johnson said that it’s “the closest we’ll get to a sex scene in Star Wars.”

(image source)

Secrecy

The marriage is kept mostly secret, much like Rey and Kylo/Ben’s meetings.

The marriage would only go public after the husband/Kylo retires from military service/leaves the First Order

Divorce

Since the relationship is fairly open but secretive, there would be no consequences for either party if they choose to separate.

If no one knows it existed, there shouldn’t be a problem if it stops.

What does this mean for Star Wars?

Episode IX will have a timeskip at some point, which means that Kylo/Ben will be closer to the possibility of the end of his time with the First Order

If Rey and Kylo/Ben maintain their secret relationship, it would go public when Kylo/Ben leaved the FO. Finn, Hux, and Poe will have very different reactions, I think.

One of the main goals of marriage is to have offspring, and what better/only way than to have Kylo/Ben continue the line? After Leia inevitably passes, he will be the only Skywalker left.

The relationship between Kylo/ben and Rey will not be easy, since they are supposed to be enemies and both have emotional trauma to deal with. Kylo/Ben’s from Snoke, and Rey’s from her parents and social isolation.

The end of the trilogy will certainly be interesting.

Thank you for reading and have a fantastic day!

If you have any comments, feel free to make them, as long as they are respectful. I don’t have time for any negativity in my life. Respectful critiques are welcomed!

[solatgif]

THANK GOD IT’S FRIDAY: WEEKEND ROUNDUP FOR OCTOBER 18, 2019

We are halfway through October and going strong with our focus on worship, creativity, and art! Don’t forget we are giving away bundles of books recommended in SOLA Book Recommendations for College Students (and Beyond), so follow us on Facebook and Instagram to find out how you can add a few of these to your collection.

Our upcoming SOLA Leaders’ Dialogue seeks to equip pastors and church leaders to thrive and aims to address various aspects of becoming healthy leaders. Tim St. John (Lighthouse Community Church) will speak on cultivating emotional health. Michael Lee (All Nations Community Church) will speak on cultivating organizational health. And Harold Kim (Christ Central Southern California) will speak on cultivating relational health. Mark your calendars for Thursday, October 24th from 9:30AM - 12:00PM at Living Hope Community Church in Brea, California. Register for free and RSVP on our Facebook event page.

Subscribe today to get our next installment of our monthly newsletter, which will be sent out next Friday. We will share our most popular articles and some behind-the-scenes details. If you have any links or recommendations to share, please tweet me @musicgoon or email me at aaron@musicgoon.com.

LINK ROUNDUP

1. Ed Stetzer: Why Minority Churches Matter in the Multiethnic Church Discussion

Writing for Chrisitanity Today, Ed Stetzer openly asks people like himself in majority culture to consider majority/minority dynamics, language churches, and minority culture.

2. Mike Ives and Lam Yik Fei: At Hong Kong Protests, Art That Imitates Life

“Instagram-ready works of art and graphic design — sometimes whimsical, mostly anonymous — are defining features of the city’s antigovernment demonstrations.”

3. Charlene Hao: 5 Prayers for My Best Friend

When different colleges separate high school best friends, FCBC Walnut member Charlene Hao points us to the power of prayer and showing long-distance love.

4. J. Ryan Lister: 5 Myths about Teaching Theology to Youth

As a high school Sunday School teacher, I encourage us all to not look down on our youth because they are young, but exhort them to set an example for all believers.

5. Jonathan Hayashi: How to Evaluate Your Worship Service

A look at how the participation of congregational singing should be a key factor in the success of a Sunday morning worship set.

6. Hannah Chao: God and Gravity

SOLA editor Hannah Chao writes in her newsletter about the glory of God.

WEEKEND RECOMMENDATIONS

1. The Gospel Coalition: Discipling Asian American Millennials

“Michael Lee, Steve Bang Lee, and Alex Choi talk about complexities of Asian-American ministry and how it shapes their explanation of Christian spirituality, practices of community, and approaches to discipleship.”

2. Albert Mohler: The Showdown Between the NBA and China: Why Are American Corporations Abandoning Conscience When It Comes to China?

“China is considered to be the coming thing economically and North America, the going thing. Central to the claims of the Chinese Communist Party is that it represents the wave of the future. All of those global companies that are now practicing the art of capitulation are actually helping the Chinese Communist Party to make that very point.” For further reading: LeBron James Missed His Shot When He Entered the Controversy Between the NBA and China: The Moral Perils of Economic Involvement.

3. Aaron Lee: Book Reviews

This week I reviewed The Joy Project by Tony Reinke.

FROM SOLA

1. Angela Hom: 5 Ways to Handle the Transition to College

“It’s been a few weeks since school has started. The exciting last days of summer have now faded into papers, midterms, and late-night studying binges. But despite having lived at your new home for a few weeks, you still feel out of place. You don’t have friends to sit with during lunch, but everyone else looks like they’re so comfortable. You ask yourself, ‘Is there something wrong with me?’”

2. Moses Y. Lee: What John Calvin Taught (Me) About Refugees

“This question set me on a journey to rediscovering John Calvin, an endeavor that’s produced a newfound appreciation for the great reformer and his pastoral heart for “the other.” As an immigrant myself, it’s difficult to describe the validation I experienced as I read Calvin, the most respected theologian of the Reformation, defend the newly arrived Protestant refugees and immigrants flooding into the city of Geneva against xenophobic, native Genevans and their elite. Consequently, what Calvin has to say about refugees and immigrants is more relevant than ever for Christians in America today.”

3. Aaron Lee: 6 Special Challenges for Asian American Worship Teams

“We know that God has given church leaders the authority and responsibility to shepherd our sheep. For those of us in Asian American contexts, we must think critically about how our cultural history and practices affect what we do and why we do them. For worship leaders in Asian American churches, that means being knowledgeable about the musicians on our teams and the congregation we lead in praise. Here are 6 challenges that I have observed leading music in an Asian American church, and I hope it will help you to lead your people well.”

4. Jason Chao: What To Do if You Didn’t Like Sunday’s Sermon

“Yes, a preacher’s job is to correctly interpret the Word of God and proclaim the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. His sermon should be moderately prepared, organized, and easy to follow. He also should avoid eisegesis and passage isolationism. But what does it say about us when we hear the Gospel faithfully proclaimed and we find it unmoving and unenjoyable?”

5. Thank God It’s Friday: Weekend Roundup

In case you missed it, here are some headlines from last week: The 20 best Asian American films of the last 20 years, Screens Are Changing the Way We Read Scripture, The Missing Backdrop to the NBA and China, and Why Are There So Many Filipino Nurses in California?

[rickjsposts]

My thoughts on a Monday morning, both as to the markets, and the political environment they operate in.

New Post has been published on https://www.rickjshandicappingpicks.com/30224-2/

My thoughts on a Monday morning, both as to the markets, and the political environment they operate in.

The markets are gaping down again this morning several hours before the open ( Yes I get up very early in Las Vegas):)

Some things to note this morning:

$VIX.X is positive .90% This is gap fill territory. Its not that good at predicting reversals unless you see a move to say negative 10%.

TLT is only +.20 % This is less then we have been seeing the last week on the plunge.

On the negative side QQQ is off about 1/2 % leading the way on the down side.

A very positive sign is @CL is + 1.15%. Crude has been plunging with the markets.

So far it looks like we may get a rest for a bit on this plunge lower. I do not think it is finished however. The news is not good.

First we have Google. They have finally been put front and center by the DOJ into some of their practices. I suspect the deeper the investigation gets the more abuse that will be found.

Second, FB just got caught doxing a customer. I think a DOJ investigation of FB is right around the corner.

To me that means very shortly tech is going to take another hit. And a big one. They have been allowed to concentrate power never seen in corporations before, and have wielded it without regard for the consequences. It has the potential to get very ugly. Congress will not be able to help them this time.

Next, we have no fewer six house investigations on President Trump. And that is after the SC report essentially cleared Trump of wrongdoing. Now I know this is a controversial statement, but as a trial attorney for some 30+ years, when a prosecutor does not recommend charges, it’s over.

And if you do not believe me both Turley and Dershowitz, my go to experts for constitutional law, both agree. And both are very critical of the way Mueller and his team has handled this.

They are both liberals, they both are not Trump supporters in the sense that neither voted for Trump, but they are both true to the law and their principles.

Irregardless, the house leadership, is continuing on with the investigations. This will further divide the country (if that is possible) and will further promote uncertainty for the markets. The ebb and fall of the news cycles wrecks havoc on the markets.

Then we have Barr and Durham. For the first time it appears that the people that started the Russia hoax are going to feel the heat. I am not going to predict anyone is going to be brought to justice, but for the first time I see that as a possibility.

If history is a guide, everyone will skate. But, Barr seems like a different animal. And appointing Durham to me means he is dead serious.

So again, more uncertainty as this unfolds. Which means more volatility.

Then we get to trade. The dirty word Tariffs:) Trump uses it as a tool rather them isolationism. So the naysayers whose arguments are that Tariffs are bad, are only addressing in the terms of isolationism, not in terms of helping solve problems.

In my opinion, that is where their analysis goes wrong. Unless, you address the root problem that is causing Trump to put on the tariffs, and evaluate the effectiveness of the strategy, then you really are not putting forth an accurate assessment.

I view it in the same way I view sanctions, as opposed to viewing it as a means of isolating the U.S. A good example is China. They have tariffs, and they have them for protectionism, not as a means to resolve issues. Therein lies the difference.

Will these tariffs have an affect on the U.S.? Of course, in the short run. But Americans need to learn that this is the lesser of the many other evils. Do you allow China to continue to steal intellectual property rights? So you continue to allow China to keep dumping Steel through Canada?

The long run pain from that will be far worse then the short term pain caused by using Tariffs as a tool. And since when have Americans not been willing to sacrifice a bit for American values?

For the first time an American President has been using Tariffs effectively as a tool. We see now that Mexico is going to have to make a choice. Tariffs will ruin Mexico. And the President of Mexico knows it.

But, look at NAFTA. Its been renegotiated to the benefit of the U.S. Looks at NATO, the countries are taking some of the burden off the U.S. for the first time. Look at the climate accord, it was a sham from the start, meant to enrich certain people, and let some nations completely off the hook. Finally other countries have woken up to what Trump saw from the beginning.

The bottom line is all this change, is creating turmoil for the markets. And yet, the markets are up over 6% this year and +35% since Trump took office.

Finally, you get the arguments, from the left and the media, that Trump’s own party is against many of the things he is doing. This is pretty disingenuous to use the GOP selectively when you bash them at every opportunity.

Be that as it may, The GOP has a vested interest in the status quo. Many have strong private dealings with China, and Mexico. Some are legit some are not. Many of the GOP get special interest money from foreign interests. So naturally they are going to be opposed to many of Trump’s policies, even though they help the U.S.

Our political system has been designed that way. And to change it you have to get the same people that are taking advantage of it to vote for a change:) A real catch-22 for America.

But it means that again more uncertainty as the executive branch fights the legislative branch on all these issues.

So that is a readers digest version of the back drop for the markets this morning. Its much more complex than this, but, its not the purpose of this site to examine each in more detail.

As a trader you have to have a grasp on what is going on. What that means is forget about the media. Forget all Cable Tv pundits. Pick out five to 10 real experts in their fields, and follow them to get an idea of the environment. I see some of the best traders stuck in these destructive political themes. It can only hurt their trading.

I have no particular ideology. I am issue driven. I evaluate politicians based upon what i see and observe, rather then what the media tell me to believe.

In addition, I am a true contrarian. Usually the herd is wrong. You can almost take that as a given.

My granddaughter was explaining her views on many issues to me, some of with I agreed with and some I did not. But after seriously explaining to me her thoughts she said: ” But I do not like Trump”. My only comment to her was that when all around you have the same view, you should question whether its the correct one. As usually, group thinking is wrong.

It seemed like a light went on:) But, who knows.

There are things to like about Trump and things to dislike. But, to hate the person to the degree we are seeing is a symptom of obsessive irrational thought. A trap that is not good to fall into.

The idea is to approach things from an analytical perspective rather than an emotional one. Not everyone has the ability to do that. As we say a person light themselves on fire in front of the White House last week. But many do, and many choose the emotional irrational side.

Its not easy when you are bombarded 24/7 with fake news. But, nothing is ever easy in life. And its times like these that determine what you are made of.

So, try to let your analytical side take hold, get good information, and you will become a better trader.

I will try to post more often, but between handicapping sports, and preparing for the stock market open, it’s tough to work in a blog post regularly.

I do share my thoughts for a few minutes each morning on my private twitter feed @rickjswings. Its free, and it is only for about ten min in the morning after the market opens.

As a part of my sports handicapping subscription I sent out almost all of my trades via Viber. This has been a nice valued added feature of the handicapping service. At $49.00 a month for all sports plays I handicap, you get most of my stock trades.

If you want to follow some of my thoughts typically given after the open you can go to @rickjswings. Typically I talk about the overall day expected with the markets and also give some levels on the ES and NQ for failed breakout scalping.

It’s my private twitter feed for the stock market and its free. Sports Handicapping is the subscription-based part of this site. But considering the cost of joining it’s almost free:) In addition, I share all my short term swing trades to subscribers.

Good Luck Today

RickJ

RickJ’s Handicapping Picks

https://rickjshandicappingpicks.com/investing

Skype: Ricca

[shenzhenblog]

How the U.S. Can Navigate an Ever-Scarier World

Anybody who pays attention to the global security scene knows we are in a whole new world — one variously called the “post-post Cold War era,” the “return of great-power conflict” and the “struggle between liberalism and authoritarianism.”

But what does any of this really mean? The end of the U.S.-led global order? A hegemonic China? The rise of so-called illiberal democracy? That we can no longer rely on McDonald’s to bring world peace? (Actually, that one didn’t work out so well.)

On this topic, as with so many others, I decided to gain insight from somebody who actually knows what he or she is talking about: Richard Danzig, a former secretary of the Navy who is now a fellow at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab 1 in Laurel, Maryland. (Michael Bloomberg, the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent of Bloomberg Opinion, is a major donor to Johns Hopkins.) A giant in the military affairs/foreign policy/national security establishment, Danzig, along with 10 other fellows at the Hopkins lab — including Bloomberg Opinion columnist Admiral James Stavridis — has written a far-reaching paper entitled “A Preface to Strategy: The Foundations of American National Security.” (PDF available here.) We spoke about its points and more. Here is a lightly edited transcript of our discussion:

Tobin Harshaw: So let’s start with the Applied Physics Lab report’s title, “Preface to Strategy.” What does that term mean to you?

Richard Danzig: A number of us were skeptical about the classic model of a strategy document, which attempts to be comprehensive and predictive about evolving interests, potential opponents, technologies, economic conditions, etc. We wanted to focus on certain basic propositions but go into them in considerably more depth than is generally the case. We focused predominantly on U.S. strengths and opportunities. We also wanted to show how present thinking is shaped by the past and how we might liberate ourselves — at least to some degree — in thinking about the future.

TH: You note that many of your predecessors in the national security establishment had articulated objectives and methods very clearly, and that’s been lost today. Is there a historical example that serves as sort of a model?

RD: Sure, in the early years of our combating communism there was George Kennan’s famous long telegram and NSC-68 — strategic documents that articulated a philosophy of containment.

An even more striking example is so evident we don’t even pause to think about it — the way in which Franklin Roosevelt rallied the nation to fight the Axis powers in World War II.

Today we face a much more complicated world. We haven’t been physically attacked in the way that we were at Pearl Harbor. But that makes it only more important for a strategic document to speak to the public. Our paper is intended to be read broadly by the American public.

TH: But before Pearl Harbor, of course, FDR had a great deal of trouble generating support for entering the war. He did what he could, for example, with lend-lease for the U.K. Now we have a president who’s kind of the opposite, who disparages alliances and commitments. Do you think that the American people are still engaged with the world? Or do you think that Trump’s election showed the isolationist mind-set of the populace?

RD: We think today’s position is quite different from the World War II situation or the Cold War competition. We think the general population is committed to the idea of U.S. primacy; that the U.S. should be the leader of the free world; that it should be engaged with the world. We don’t see strong trends toward isolationism.

But there’s less clarity about why we’re committed to that role. It’s pretty obvious if you’re being attacked or if you think, as in the Cold War, that there’s a risk that our opponents will come and take over America and impose totalitarian rule. Nobody really thinks that China or Russia will take over the U.S.

TH: We’ve been at war now for 17 years. My children have never really known peacetime. Do you think that the war on terrorism just becomes kind of a background noise? How does that affect the younger generations that are going to replace us?

RD: I think it creates public fatigue. The military forces get both stronger and more worn from use. But for us a less noticed but central concern is the way in which it affects the strategies and priorities of our military and civilian decision-makers. We believe they become too present-tense oriented.

The present tense involves certain kinds of transient conflicts. The long-term issues are larger. One of those is what happens if you get involved in a more fundamental struggle with an opponent like China. The risk is that we lose track of the fact that our military must, in all circumstances, attend to that basic, most fundamental challenge as well as deal with the present. Also, there are significant risks to the environment and global health that demand international cooperation. We must manage both long-term competition and long-term cooperation. That wasn’t so central a problem in the Cold War, and it can’t be addressed if America’s leaders are overly absorbed by the present.

TH: In terms of Pentagon acquisitions and readiness policy, what changes are called for?

RD: Everybody preaches “innovation,” and has a great deal more difficulty practicing it. We try to breathe life into our precepts. For example, we emphasize the need for investment in technological skills and then specify changes to the existing military manpower system that are required to attract, sustain and empower those with the relevant skills. At present, as we see it, people with particular technical skills have a great deal of difficulty entering the senior ranks. You’re not going to wind up as chief of your service if you have a deep technical specialty. You’re not going to wind up controlling the budget or policy. If you are an enlisted man or woman, you are not going to rise above the middle ranks. We think that needs to change. Or, as another example, we want to encourage innovation, dissent and debate, and we make some specific suggestions as to how civilian leaders can promote that.

TH: You mention that the private sector has taken on a great deal of the innovation responsibility that the government used to do. Is there a chance that the Pentagon can actually move toward the Silicon Valley metabolism?

RD: Yes. The software revolution is very helpful because it pushes away from the acquisition of hardware and its long lead time. It also reflects another very important concept which is that you don’t acquire a fixed good, as for example, you historically might have acquired a tank. You’re acquiring something that’s constantly changing and evolving. The challenge is for the bureaucracy to keep pace with that speed of adaptation.

TH: On the flip side, some of the technology companies are antagonistic toward the military and intelligence side of government — we have the big example of Google dropping out of its Pentagon drone-project contract. Do you think they’ll wake up to the threats we face?

RD: I’d like to see that and expect that we will. There are a number of companies that continue to work with the Pentagon and that are quite committed to it. Amazon is an example; Microsoft continues to be at the forefront of companies working with Pentagon; the same is true of IBM and others.

The Google objections to Project Maven are not persuasive to me. I think that you can rightly insist that your contributions be used ethically and be concerned about the consequences, both intended and unintended. But I don’t think it’s the right response to quickly walk away from that relationship. I think you want to inject as much responsibility into it as is required.

TH: Let’s jump to our new age of great power competition. One thing that I found really interesting in the report was noting that when we talk about threats to sovereignty, we tend to think of it in terms of geography. Putin grabbing Crimea is what we think of. But you say not only is that changed, it changed a long time ago.

RD: After World War II, American leaders created institutions that continue to dominate the international security framework. They created the strategies that shape the thinking of all of the present senior decision-makers. This thinking rested on premises, some of which were evident at the time, some of which we can see more clearly now, and some of which are probably still not evident to us.

One of these premises was that the main threat to American national security was from other militaries crossing borders. Now cyber poses a different kind of problem, one that doesn’t recognize a border and doesn’t manifest itself even as a military action, much less as an action involving an attack that crosses a physical boundary. And so we have difficulty dealing with it.

TH: A lot of people, without wanting to be in China or Russia, feel that there are great advantages to an authoritarian system in terms of consistency and policy, in terms of control over dissent, etc. But you and your co-authors also feel that democracy has a lot of strengths that are unique to it, correct?

RD: Yes. You lead into it nicely when you comment as a sort of subordinate clause, “without wanting to live there.” One of the striking things is how many members of the elites within those countries don’t want to live there. That’s a reflection of a whole lot of things. Among them, fundamentally, it’s a reflection of lack of freedom in their own societies.

Authoritarian systems have advantages in the short term. A directed economy and a directed political system force rapid consensus. But we also know that these systems have a great deal of difficulty correcting their errors. They have difficulties with latent dissent that tends to manifest itself in subtle ways that drag on the political system and the economy. In the long-term, we think the American system is likely to be more successful, whatever the challenges in the short term.

TH: Speaking of China, it’s estimated that its economy will surpass ours in the next decade and perhaps double ours later in the century. But I’m old enough to remember when this was supposed to be the Japanese Century. That didn’t happen, obviously. How could the Chinese stumble on this path to global dominance?

RD: A lot could happen. You’re right in pointing out that the Japanese likely success was, in retrospect, exaggerated. Like you, we wouldn’t assert too much precision about this. Nobody knows what it will be like in 2050 or whatever. But it does seem highly likely that Chinese GDP will grow to exceed ours. And our basic point about that is that we haven’t, in our lives, experienced an opponent with a GDP anything like equal to ours.

China could stumble. We note, for example, that this could happen because of its environmental problems; because of its very large population — so that its GDP per capita is considerably less than ours; because of its problems of corruption; because of its problems dealing with dissent and so forth. GDP is not, by any means, some talismanic measure of national power. It’s a rather outmoded, 20th century way of calculating well-being in wealth. And it doesn’t necessarily correlate, by any means, with military power.

But while acknowledging these diverse considerations, as national security analysts we need to plan for challenging cases. The dominant very plausible one is one in which China’s economic power exceeds ours. We think strategic planning needs to proceed from that premise.

TH: The paper points out that another advantage is that America has a vast network of allies and partners. China and Russia don’t have friends, and you say that’s not coincidental.

RD: This is another manifestation of the failures of an autocratic regime as distinguished from one that prizes freedom and is based on that range of values. It gives us exceptional power. And one of the concerns many of us have, about the present administration, is the undervaluing of alliances.

TH: We have a president whose rhetoric is, well, poisonous to our allies. Does this do permanent damage to these alliances?

RD: This paper is not about President Trump, pro or con. It is about where, we think, from a national security perspective, we ought to be investing. And one of those things we ought to be investing in is alliances.

I think we can come back from any interruption in that investment. But the interruptions make it harder to come back. And they sow seeds of doubt that risk enduring.

TH: We throw around the term “soft power” a lot. You also call it “sharp power” in the paper. We know how that’s worked in the past. But it’s been devalued, even before Trump. What is soft power for this next era of great power competition?

RD: One example is provided by what the Chinese are doing with their so-called Belt and Road Initiative, trying to reach out both overland and by sea, which is the fabled Silk Road.

So the Chinese are investing an estimated $90 billion a year in aid, infrastructure projects and the like. Chinese access and Chinese values tend to go with those investments. China’s vision of the internet or of surveillance or of control through systems of facial recognition and the like become more accessible to the rulers of those countries. That’s an example of something that is very distant from military power but very relevant to influence. Of course, more direct hard power can also flow from these investments as bases are established and data is collected.

TH: So what is our Belt and Road then?

RD: Presently, we might invest on the order of $30 billion a year, a third as much. In our view, we ought to be encouraging more aid and trade in those contexts. We place a lot of emphasis on business relationships as a useful mechanism for spreading values and rules of law. When Americans are abroad selling their goods, they carry with them American values.

A different example is in the spread of information and our efforts to present our point of view. We think there are rich opportunities in those arenas. To the extent we withdraw from the world and don’t invest that way, we undervalue that aspect.

TH: Last question: There are, I think, 11 names on this paper. That’s a lot of chefs in the kitchen. How do you all work together to not just get your individual opinions in but to make sure that you have sort of common agreement?

RD: That’s another unusual aspect of this paper. It’s not uncommon for strategy documents to be written by committee. But I think anybody who reads this will feel that this is not a committee product. We didn’t dumb down the language, make the views lowest common denominator and the like. I was delighted that, in the end, we all felt we could sign this paper.

  Note : This article was originally posted on Bloomberg by Tobin Harshaw

How the U.S. Can Navigate an Ever-Scarier World was originally published on Shenzhen Blog

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By Andrew Levine. This article was first published on Counterpunch.

Photo by Ninian Reid | CC BY 2.0

When Hillary Clinton called some (many? most?) Trump supporters “deplorable,” she may have been thinking about their racism, misogyny, nativism, and Islamophobia.  She may also have been giving voice to her own class prejudices, and those of her donors and fans.  Whatever was going on, her remark correctly described a non-negligible portion of the American electorate.

For a while, there was reason to fear that, under a Trump presidency, the ranks of deplorables would swell.  This could still happen; Trump has a knack for unleashing the inner fascist in susceptible populations.  It hasn’t happened yet, however.  Last year’s deplorables are holding their own, but there seem to be no more of them now than there used to be, and their views are no more noxious than before.

However, other kinds of deplorability have emerged and flourished since Election Day.

There is, first of all, the deplorable slowness of voters who thought that Trump’s election would somehow improve their material situations to realize that they have been had.

They did not vote for Trump because they wanted rank incompetents or thoroughgoing reactionaries installed in high offices.  Insofar as they were not just voting against Clinton or the version of neoliberalism that is almost synonymous with the Clinton name, they voted for Trump because they thought foolishly that on matters affecting jobs, trade, infrastructure, and war and peace, he actually would do what he talked about during the campaign.

In fact, Trump has only “delivered” or made a pretense of delivering on campaign promises that don’t adversely affect the interests of capitalist malefactors like himself, and it is undeniable that his paramount concern is his own bottom line.  That takes precedence even over ruling class solidarity, but, so far at least, Trump voters don’t seem to mind.

Because the moneyed interests could care less, he has delivered for Clinton’s deplorables by attacking vulnerable populations –especially Muslims and immigrant Hispanic communities.  This doesn’t make those deplorables better off materially, though it arguably does benefit them psychologically.

Therefore, they don’t yet feel buyer’s remorse.  But why are the people who voted for Trump for less odious reasons still standing by their man?  What is their excuse?

Willful blindness can be difficult to overcome, and people don’t like to admit that they have been conned, but how much more obvious can it be that Trump’s “populism” is inimical to the interests of the people it purports to serve, or that, by voting against Clintonism, what Trump voters got is an exceptionally nasty Clintonite?

Trump has flip-flopped on just about everything that non-deplorables thought made voting for him reasonable.  Here is a summary account of the spending agreement he reached with Congress last week.

Yet again, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Ascribing fixed views to the Donald is a fool’s errand; his mind flits around too much.  But his campaign speeches and tweets did suggest that his thinking, or whatever we call it, was at least somewhat at odds with the premises upon which America’s perpetual war regime is built.

It was all vague, of course, and it reeked of old-fashioned isolationism.  But there was enough there for anti-imperialists to deceive themselves into thinking that, by this measure, maybe, just maybe, a Trump presidency would be less awful than what would be, for all practical purposes, a third Obama term headed by Hillary.

Obama style “humanitarian” imperialism is a lethal brew, and Clinton’s version of it would have been less thoughtful and more bellicose than Obama’s.  As the election loomed, no one, least of all Trump himself, could have said what Trump would put in its place.  But his “America first” blather did suggest a kind of  “realism” that could hardly be worse.

Trump conveyed the impression that he would disempower the foreign policy establishment and knock the “military-industrial complex” down a few notches too; it was all part of “draining the swamp.”  However, so far from being drained away, those supposedly ill-fated swamp denizens are now running the show.

They have also taken it upon themselves to clean up after the Donald’s misstatements and tweets.  Life would have been better for them had Clinton won.  But Trump has ceded them the space to continue to rule, and they are working hard at it; after all, for the empire to survive, somebody has to do it.

Therefore, Trump and the foreign policy and military establishments have achieved a workable modus vivendi.  It is unclear how stable the arrangement is but, for now, they let Trump pretend to be President insofar as they can.

Sometimes, though, he does something stupid that slips beyond their control; precipitously firing the FBI Director is an example.  When this happens, problems arise which can lead to debilitating crises.  The longer Trump remains in office, the more profound those crises will be.

***

Clinton’s inveterate Russophobia was already becoming consequential as the campaign wore on.  She was hardly the first influential American politician to vilify Vladimir Putin, but, whenever the opportunity arose, she took up the cause, bringing “liberal” pundits along with her.  Their enthusiasm has been prodigious.  Thus nowadays when Rachel Maddow takes her usual twenty minutes to make a twenty second point, the evils of Russia and its President are almost always her target.

Getting the powers that be to go along is child’s play.  Russophobia coheres nicely with the foreign policy establishment’s nostalgia for the strategic clarity of the old Cold War, and it is consistent with the needs of the military-industrial-national security state complex for continuing sources of revenue and power.

This was another area where candidate Trump’s instincts seemed less dangerous than Clinton’s.   He saw, or seemed to see, no reason why the United States had to infringe upon Russia’s legitimate security interests or why it should initiate or promote provocations that would increase the likelihood of a cataclysmic descent into nuclear war.

Now people within the Trump administration, though perhaps not the Donald himself, seem to be flip-flopping on this as well.  If this troubles Trump supporters, they are keeping their dismay to themselves.  This is deplorable too.

However, Hillary’s supporters are worse.  Ever since the Electoral College handed Trump the keys to the White House, Democrats have been falling over themselves ratcheting up anti-Russia hysteria.

A large part of the reason why is that they are sore losers   Hillary did say that she takes “full responsibility” for Trump’s victory.  But then she continues to blame everyone but herself –  among others, James Comey (Democrats were against him before they were for him), Julian Assange and Wikileaks, and, of course, Vladimir Putin.

Long ago, the Clintons gave opportunism a bad name; Hillary is now doing the same for disingenuousness.

Largely thanks to her, the old “Commie plot” trope is back, despite the fact that Communists in the Kremlin are as rare as snow days in July.  But since Cold War myths remain entrenched in the American civil religion, this hardly matters.  Casting skepticism aside, the press and large swathes of the public are lapping it up.

They could be onto something, of course; but where is the evidence?  All that the public has so far are assertions, not evidence-based arguments; and only a fool or a Democrat, insofar as there is a difference, would rest content with that.

J. Edgar Hoover famously called the Communists “masters of deceit.” That description applies, with equal or greater force, to the American “intelligence community” – the CIA most of all. And yet it is on the word of the CIA and the others that it has become gospel truth in the United States today that those damn Ruskies interfered with the 2016 election.  It is their fault, everybody “knows,” that Hillary Clinton’s otherwise certain victory never materialized, and that Trump was set loose upon the world.

Clinton and her team might at least have bothered to get their stories straight.  She, for example, all but identifies Wikileaks with the Russian security services; others are more circumspect.  In the fullness of time, the truth will emerge; it always does – eventually, though often too late.

For the sake of argument, though, let’s suppose that Hillary and the others are right: that Wikileaks obtained John Podesta’s emails from Russian hackers or “cut outs” or bona fide spies operating on the orders of the villainous President Putin.

Would it have been better if someone from the Clinton campaign had provided the documents?   Or if they had somehow fallen into the hands of journalists in another  Constitutionally protected way?   Apparently, the answer is Yes, but it is far from clear why.

Neither, for that matter, is it clear what the harm was in supplying the public of a self-described democracy with information that bore on a collective decision that they were about to make.

Informing the public would seem to be a good thing.  But even if it is not, or if Russian involvement somehow turns it bad, shouldn’t it matter that, so far as anybody can tell, the consequences were nil?

The leaked emails provided documentary evidence of what everybody who cared already knew – that the Democratic National Committee had rigged the nomination process in order to increase the likelihood that Clinton, not Bernie Sanders, would be the nominee.

Although no one bothers to make the connection explicit, the suggestion apparently is that this somehow caused Sanders supporters and others to stay home – or perhaps even to vote for Trump – costing Hillary the election.

A lot of people who would gladly have voted for some other than Clinton in order to defeat Trump did indeed stay home.  But to attribute their position to those leaked emails strains credulity.  Voters who refused to vote for Hillary, even if only to stop Trump, stayed home because Hillary was a lesser evil they could not stomach; not because the machinations of John Podesta or Debbie Wasserman Schultz kept them away.

Nevertheless, in just a few months time, the Clinton story line has become the conventional wisdom.   Even Republicans – from John McCain to Condoleezza Rice to unreconstructed Tea Partiers — are on board.

The hypocrisy is mind-boggling.  Since World War II, there has not been an election anywhere in the world that might go in ways that would challenge American dominance that the United States has not tried, one way or another, to influence.

And unlike the Russians who are alleged only to have leaked relevant information, defenders of the American empire have often crossed over to the dark side.  For a  concise and comprehensive account of their machinations, and of the geopolitical context in which they occurred, see John Dower’s The Violent American Century: War and Terror Since World War II (Haymarket Books, 2017).

Moreover, the United States has interfered repeatedly and blatantly in the political affairs of the former Soviet republics and the Russian federation since even before the Soviet Union imploded.  The American role in the so-called “color revolutions” has been documented countless times; the Obama administration’s shenanigans in Ukraine, which included support for fascist movements in that country, is only the most recent example.

And for Hillary Clinton especially to make an issue of Russian meddling is positively grotesque; for some two decades now, from the time that her husband did all he could to assure that the biddable drunkard Boris Yeltsin would continue to rule and enfeeble Russia, interfering in Russian affairs has been a Clinton family tradition.

It gets even more ridiculous than that.  At the very moment that our political class, with its media in tow, is working itself up into a tizzy over the unmitigated gall of Putin’s real or imagined efforts to affect the outcome of the election in the United States, they praise Barack Obama for publically endorsing Emanuel Macron in the second round of the French presidential election.   For reasons that reflect poorly on the current political scene in France, Obama is a popular figure in France.

And, of course, when Macron claimed that Russian hackers victimized his campaign too, our pundits assumed automatically that this must be the case.   That, after all, is what Russians do.

Meanwhile, Congress is “investigating.”  It is possible that they will find that what the CIA is telling everybody is actually true.  The source can hardly be trusted, but, as they say, even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

Until last Tuesday, it seemed that Trump would let the deep state have its way without putting up much of a fight.   Then he unceremoniously fired James Comey, a move of either consummate stupidity or sheer desperation.

Remarkably, there are people who say that, by firing Comey, Trump was being admirably decisive; the old con is evidently still not entirely expunged.  The emerging consensus, however, is that this latest incident is further evidence that our erratic Commander-in-Chief is going berserk.

Supposing, though, that there is some method to Trump’s madness, it would be fair to surmise that he is desperate to cover something up, and that it isn’t the red herring, Russian hacking, that bothers our media so much.

Most likely, it would be sleazy and longstanding business connections between the Donald and politically connected Russian oligarchs or criminal elements.  Indications abound that there is much to cover up.

As echoes of Watergate mount, will pusillanimous Democrats rise to the occasion and call, finally, for Trump’s impeachment?   This is not likely for a party headed by the likes of Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, but it would be possible if an enraged public forces them to act.

This would mean moving from an anti-Trump “resistance” that even Hillary Clinton says she has joined to a resistance that makes Trump’s America ungovernable.  American radicals managed that half a century ago and can do it again.

There is no less need now for that degree of militancy.  Demonstrations, parades and petitions, laudable as they may be, are not enough – especially in the absence of a genuinely oppositional political party.

Even now, with the Clintons out of the picture at least for a while, the Democratic Party is useless.   For ridding the world of the Trumpian menace, the Republicans, execrable as they are, are a better bet.

Impeachment would be a way for them to get their party back;  and, with Mike Pence, they would have the reactionary of their dreams in the White House at last.

Trump is not, and never has been, a “conservative.”  He is not much of anything other than a self-aggrandizing bully with nefarious instincts, a defiant attitude, and a nose for knowing who to con and how to con them.

He did run as a Republican, though; and impeaching a Republican President would not be easy for a Republican establishment.  The stain of the experience could endure for a long time.  Even so, they are more likely to take the lead than the Democrats are.  They may be obtuse and obstinate, but at least they are not spineless.

To be sure, there is a sense in which, for anyone with politics less retrograde than, say, Betsy DeVoss, Pence would be an even greater disaster than Trump.  But he does seem to have his head screwed on right, while Trump is temperamentally unfit to stand within a mile of the keys to the nuclear codes.  Were Pence, awful as he may be, to replace the Donald, his rise to power would be a relief.

So, by all means, Congress – investigate, investigate, and investigate even more.

It bears mention, though, that in an only slightly less hypocritical world, a Congress that cared about the sanctity of our electoral processes would also investigate itself.

When it comes to meddling in elections, even if the government led by Vladimir Putin is in fact as guilty as our politicians and media insinuate, the government led by Benjamin Netanyahu is many times worse.   He and others in his cabinet don’t need to use hackers or “cut outs” to get their way.   They operate in plain view – directly and through one of the most effective of all the lobbies in Washington.

They target public opinion, of course, but the principal object of their attention is Congress itself.  Is there anyone in the House or Senate – or, for that matter, anyone in the political class at the national level — who is not an active collaborator?

Investigate Russian hacking?  By all means!   Post-election Russophobia reeks of deplorability, but even with Democrats and Republicans running the show, something not deplorable might come of it.

For example, it could turn up something about Trump’s financial machinations that would actually succeed in damaging his standing with the part of the public that doesn’t mind that he is making America a laughing stock again.  So far, none of his other “high crimes and misdemeanors” have had that effect.

Even if that isn’t enough to cause Democrats and Republicans to come together to impeach the Trumpian menace, the thought that it might could damage the Trump brand enough to cause the Donald to cut and run – as he has done many times before in his vaunted business career.

Meanwhile, if only to keep from drowning in a sea of their own hypocrisy, Congressional investigators might think about finding the courage to look into far plainer, contemporaneous examples of election meddling — like Obama’s interference in the election that put the Clinton-wannabe Macron in the Élysée Palace, and the ways in which the Israeli government plainly does do what the Russian government is alleged to have done.

In a word, if Congressional investigators really want to keep our own elections and those of our allies free from the meddling of foreign state and quasi-state actors, the very first thing they ought to do is take a long hard look at themselves.

How pathetic that they are too deplorable for that!

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ANDREW LEVINE is the author most recently of THE AMERICAN IDEOLOGY (Routledge) and POLITICAL KEY WORDS (Blackwell) as well as of many other books and articles in political philosophy. His most recent book is In Bad Faith: What’s Wrong With the Opium of the People. He was a Professor (philosophy) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Research Professor (philosophy) at the University of Maryland-College Park.  He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion (AK Press).

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