Nikita Khrushchev: We will take Amrica without firing a shot.

Good question - I read it wrong, and apologies to Daniel Light.

 

Hmm. You think the country is destroyed. I'm glad I don't live where you do because everything is normal around here.

 

That's because your red MAGA cap is obstructing your view.

 

That supposed Kruschev quote, repeated by Ezra Taft Benson from memory, is a fake.
Use your brain: would Kruschev ever SAY "we will destroy America from within"??? To an enemy? NO -- he MAY have said something like, "You will decide on your own to become socialist" -- and may have said, "peacefully" ... but at that time, the Chinese were accusing the Russians of being 'revisionist', that is, of believing tha tthe capitalists would just submit peacefully when the Communists and their allies won a majority, a cardinal sin within the Leninist camp. So that quote is nonsense. It would be like Reagan saying, publically, "We hope to see the Soviet Union collapse and return to raw capitalism, with high unemployment and mass poverty, ha ha ha." That would obviously be a fake quote -- Reagan wouldn't be so stupid as to say something like that, nor would he have believed it.

As to globalism, etc. The whole world is experiencing globalism. It's just that the open societies, the liberal democracies, are experiencing it much faster than the closed societies like Iran and China. And the US, in particular, having long adhered to something like the idea of the Free Market everywhere and for all things, including labor, health care, etc. ... is especially exposed to the downside of the free market -- jobs going overseas, cheap labor coming in, people not being able to afford private healthcare. So we're in a fix.

In a 'normal' country, there would be a left-leaning political party representing the interests, or claiming to, of the working class and those on the bottom third of society, another party representing the upper third, and they would compete for the middle third, mainly over economic issues: minimum wage, free university, how much to spend on the national health system.

But in the US, the traditional party on the left now represents the younger middle class, whose are more concerned with social issues. They're doing pretty well from globalization -- they can even move to Dubai or Hong Kong for a while to ply their skills, and as they accumulate wealth, they find that it's handy to have some low-paid illegals keen to do their lawn and look after their children. They do sex and drugs sensibly, and make sure they live as far as they can from Black and Hispanic areas, while believing they are keen supporters of equal rights.

The white working class has no party which is close to it: the Republicans cater to its social values... look how keen they were to punish Bill Clinton for having sex with Monica! (No Republican has ever cheated on his wife.) But they're even more free trade, free market, devil take the hindmost than the Democrats.

That's why their base went for REAL 'RINO' in Trump.

So are we doomed? The future is not predictable. China is rising, we have not succeeded in teaching the Muslims of the Middle East and further out the values of liberal democracy, half the country couldn't care less because they're doing okay now Jack. On the other hand, the US has a huge reserve of advantage to draw on ... not just its geography but its people.

But who knows? Anyway, here are a couple of poems to ponder on, from two mid-20th Century poets. You'll probably recognize one of them, maybe both.

The Second Coming
BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Shine, Perishing Republic
by Robinson Jeffers

While this America settles in the mould of its vulgarity, heavily thickening
to empire
And protest, only a bubble in the molten mass, pops and sighs out, and the
mass hardens,
I sadly smiling remember that the flower fades to make fruit, the fruit rots
to make earth.
Out of the mother; and through the spring exultances, ripeness and decadence;
and home to the mother.
You making haste haste on decay: not blameworthy; life is good, be it stubbornly
long or suddenly
A mortal splendor: meteors are not needed less than mountains:
shine, perishing republic.
But for my children, I would have them keep their distance from the thickening
center; corruption
Never has been compulsory, when the cities lie at the monster's feet there
are left the mountains.
And boys, be in nothing so moderate as in love of man, a clever servant,
insufferable master.
There is the trap that catches noblest spirits, that caught – they say –
God, when he walked on earth.

 

Interesting. And, in a broad perspective, over time, not wrong, in my opinion.
But how?
The Founding Fathers warned about avoiding 'entangling alliances', and against 'going abroad seeking monsters to destroy'. And for their time, that was right.
A hundred years later, and things were changing.
Good old capitalism, the most revolutionary system that mankind has ever evolved, was uprooting the old order everywhere, and changing the world profoundly. We certainly needed a deep understanding of this, and long-term global strategy to cope with it.
But what should it have been? Or should be now?

 

Yes, fellow Hobbsian, that's what we have The State for. No state, you get Somalia, where life is solitary, nasty, brutish and above all short.

If men were angels, we'd have no need of The State. If The State were run by angels, we'd have no need for restrictions on The State.

But men aren't angels, and the ones running ANY state -- even one crafted on your principles -- will NOT be self-sacrifcing, only doing things for the Good of the Race. So the best we have been able to do so far is some form of liberal democracy, which has worked not too badly among Europeans and their descendants abroad, less well in other places but even in those other places, 'less well' runs the gamut from Argentina to Somalia. And in all those places which have tried one-man rule, one-party rule, you get lots of problems.

Even the Chinese, with a culture that conditions them to obedience to legitimate rulers, do best when there is a kind-of/sort-of democracy, as witness Singapore, where there is a self-conscious ruling elite that has pulled them out of Third World backwardness in two generations, but which still has to face electoral competition every few years.

So we've got to make liberal democracy work better. Best through slow, conservative change, not wild leaps into the Perfect Society.

But how? We'd better be thinking hard about that one.

 

LOL to the SANE it's called reality.

 

And chaos.

 

o

I think it is similar to what Mussolini found attractive. Power concentrated into the hands of big business/big banking/elites, who are indistinguishable from the gov't...due to the deep symbiotic relationship involved. This destroys any idea of a Republic actually existing, except as a farce. I think we are very close to that as we speak, if not already in it. I think congressional record used(two decades) by Princeton evidences this fact. After all, if you wanted evidence, that is exactly where you would find it...in congressional record. Right? For no politician would ever admit it, would they? ha ha ha But their damned actions would be self evident admission, whether they owned up to it or not.

 

But don't ALL governments end up that way? The people who are in charge of the biggest institutions come to have the most power. Well duh. I don't see how there's any necessity to call some Vast Conspiracy into being.

 

It's disputable that the Roman Empire left chaos. The lives of most people, particularly the lives of the lower classes, seemed to have gotten better, at least gradually after the plagues. Only the upper/upper crust really suffered, they were displaced from power and no longer had slaves to support a lavish lifestyle comparable to our own but using human beings instead of machinery to support it. The Gauls maintained their vineyards just like they do now, just the names of the masters were Franks and not Romans

 

And where are YOU my friend? Are you in the "directionless mob" that must be ruled by "force alone" or are you one of the ones in charge...let me guess.

You want the world to be better off? Put ME, (or my race, ethnicity, nation, whatever) in charge of it and DO AS YOU'RE TOLD.

Heard this before, goes back to forever in fact.

6,000 years ago we left the caves and the mastodon skeleton huts because we finally decided that Og and his descendants, (our shamans, who ate mushrooms and always got the best meat even though they never hunted) didn't speak for the gods alone and we might make our lives better by figuring out better ways to make knives than out of stone for ourselves. We did fairly well for a few hundred years until another group of Ogs came along, calling themselves Kings and Emperors this time.

We went back to the caves for another 4500 years until about 400 years ago we threw Og and his Kings out again. We've done REALLY well this time but here you are again. Just put ME in charge,and we'll give you....stability (and what else do you expect when you kill anyone who does anything differently?) law and order (your law to **** on me by your order) and finally...social cohesion (whatever the **** that is).

Thanks but no thanks this time, Mr Og, go eat your mushrooms back in the darkest part of the cave and tell us all about how your dreams are better than reality. We got these computers to build up here in the sunlight.

 

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For whatever reason -- it's actually an interesting problem, and if anyone knows of any serious research/speculation on it, I'd be grateful to see it referenced here -- the human species is FAR more diverse in terms of its capacities than any other.

Look at a herd of deer, a pack of wolves, a flock of birds. There is little to distinguish one from another. Yes, there are, in some species, 'alpha' males and females. But until they interact, it's hard to see which animal is which.

But homo sapiens, for whatever reason, is very diverse. If we just take the measure of one of our most important characteristics, intelligence -- which is mainly driven by our genes -- we find a huge variation among people, covering four standard deviations in either direction. Or take the less-measurable but real characteristic of 'dominance' (leadership): again, a wide range of that characteristic.

It may have had something to do with that human invention, the Division of Labor (from which all class society flows).

In any case, whatever caused it, it's real, its largely hereditary, and it plays a big role in determining who gets (and keeps) the goodies. (Not just intelligence, but other characteristics too.)

Until we deal with that, we're going to have leaders/rulers and followers.

And we're right on the verge, historically, of being able to deal with that.

As we speak, we're discovering the genes which influence intelligence. We've found some which influence impulsive behavior. More will follow. Much more.

And ... we're on the verge, historically, of being able to choose the genes our descendants will have. And perhaps even 'edit' the genes themselves. (By 'historically' I mean within a few generations. ... a century or so.)

So then ... unless we really screw it up ... goodbye class society, hello a world where the mean IQ is 180, with correspondingly 'good' values for all the other human characteristics that are influenced by our DNA, with very small standard deviations (spreads), which up until now we inherit by blind chance.

 

I could have authored a book on this subject yet it wouldn't have covered all the points that would have been to serve together as a reasonable base to write many future scenarios and sub-scenarios on... I will in the future anyways tho...

What we got here for now is;

Hypothesis: China-Russia camp (revisionists) seems challenging the current international order.

Geopolitical assessment:

A) Mainstream view: Both are threatened by American leadership of the world order

Reasons Russia feel threatened:
-Economic:
*US petro/dollar system hurts Russian economy

My argument for the reasons the US petro/dollar system hurts Russian economy:
a) Natural factors:
Russia's geography: (75%)
Population is packed in the west and south of the Urals, ergo is not efficiently distributed.
Due to the climate agricultural production is scarce.
Due to both climate and inefficiently distributed population inefficient or lack of R&D "pre-planning", therefore lack of technological development for efficient automation, therefore low quality industry which results noncompetitive production other than natural resources.
So since Russian geography is preventing Russia to produce competitive products for the competitive markets other than "mostly" its natural resources Russia relies on exports of its natural resource reserves more which are bound to US petro/dollar system. Having no direct control over the factors determining the strength of the currency is risky from Russia's standpoint because it sells its product in exchange of that currency. This makes Russian economy vulnerable. But it if Russia's dependency had been less on the sales of petro/dollar products (natural resources in general) Russia would have been better off because it could have set the currency in the transactions had the dollar lost its strength. (I'm aware of the current deals in the eastern camp that leaves $US)

b) Outside factors: (25%)
Vulnerability to financial manipulation
Some possible reasons for the financial vulnerability:
Insufficient open-economy implementations in post-1990: Too much state control: Even the seemingly private corporations are state controlled through complex ownership layers.
Inexperience in handling financial markets: Moscow stock exchange established in 2011 by the merger of MICEX and RTS.

-Political:
*US political control in countries around the Russian heartland perceived by Russia as a decisive attempt against its stability, in other words its national security.
Ukraine, Baltic states (Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Poland), Caucuses (Azerbaijan, Georgia), Balkan states having direct access to the Black Sea (Bulgaria, Romania) are considered as "buffer states" by the Kremlin establishment that are seen as to be served Russian heartland as outposts and fire-starter positions in case Moscow decides to start an offensive on Europe.

-Military:
*US high-tech weaponry applications and significant increases on military spending
*US military/proxy existence in key regions where a global domination is possible through strict control over:
Middle East (Syria), Mediterranean(East), North Africa (Egypt), Central Asia (Afghanistan), Africa (CAR)
These key regions are mainly consisting of countries that either have valuable natural resource reserves or have link to control over them. The Kremlin establishment understands that a way to keep peace at home is through undermining dominant powers' accomplishments at anywhere possible by replacing them with itself. This approach is similar to Iran's in the Middle East. Iran is expanding westward to Israel for confrontations at Israel's borders to keep a dominant power from expansion eastward towards Iran. Another similarity in their approaches is their use of proxy groups that have strong links to their military/states (Wagner-FSB/GRU and IRGC/QudsForce-Hezbollah/Badr)

Reasons China feel threatened:
-Economic:
*US petro/dollar system hurts Chinese economy
This is not so relevant as China is a buyer of oil and foreign exchange leads relevantly less of a loss due to limited impact of yen/dollar exchange. Chinese exports are so great in volume that yen's low value from overall exports easily cover the loss from exchanges. However, diminishing European returns because of insufficient demands do have huge impacts on Chinese economy as what it produces is primarily to meet the European demand. So petro/dollar system does not hurt Chinese economy as much as it hurts Russian economy

-Political - Military:
China has shores to seas where a very significant percentage of the globe's most busy trade routes are at. Therefore, as a production hub of the world trade -thanks to its enormous population size, fertile lands and access to the said trade routes- the use of FON type of implementations in a certain way pushes China to take cautionary steps about the control over the trade routes, the security of which is not also a vital factor that determines the well-being of Chinese economy but of the world's that is depending on receiving shipments from China. China's northern and western borders are safe. So it doesn't have threat/enemy perceptions toward those directions as serious as it does so toward southern and eastern directions. Himalayas at the west and Gobi-Siberia at the north are naturally securing the countries western and northern borders. Thus the only policy it should have is to security of the seas that it got shores to. The US support to countries that also have shores to the same seas, as well as US Navy's cruise in those seas are therefore the biggest political and military threats for China

B) is my view, and yet to be stated...