[Beren]

That is just another way of saying you prefer to live in prosperity rather than in poverty.

I didn't mean to say that at all. I could imagine being Russian, because it's an Eastern European way of existence too, but I wonder if I could ever be a Chinese properly.

[Atlantis]

I didn't mean to say that at all. I could imagine being Russian, because it's an Eastern European way of existence too, but I wonder if I could ever be a Chinese properly.

I couldn't live in Russia, but having spent much of my working life in the Far East, I know I could have lived in China, Korea or Japan for the rest of my life. I guess, we decided to come back in the end because of some sort of nostalgia for good old Europe. You know from my posts that I'm still passionate in defending Europe, because I get mad when I see so many good opportunities being squandered. But I could have said good by to Europe for good and settle in the Far East. All things are transient, and if Europe decides to self-destruct, so be it! Atlantis is waiting for you at the bottom of the dark blue sea.

[Paradigm]

Lol, this is why no one takes the left seriously anymore.

With all due respect, you are in no position to say who does and doesn't get taken seriously.

[The Immortal Goon]

Can you be American without identifying to some degree with US global hegemony? As an American, how can you live with Mossadegh, Vietnam, Allende, Afghanistan, Guantanamo, torture, extrajudicial killings, Iraq, and, and, and? As an American, do you believe that all of this was necessary to defend your country or to impose US hegemony on the world? How do you live with the violence, the racial tension, the plutocracy of money, the absence of a social safety net? I don't know how they do it.

Pretty much the same way that you do.

Europe unite against the forces of Imperialism!

[LV-GUCCI-PRADA-FLEX]

This current political situation in the US disproves that.

The right flank of the Republicans were damned close to going to a third party TEA Party. The GOP, instead, took a rightward turn and absorbed the potential dissidents. The result has been the Republican Party forced to take seriously positions that Ike claimed were "stupid," and dangerous for America, and Bush 41 becoming a Democrat.

So the threat of a third party forced the Republicans to be that party. Let's look what it did to the Democrats:

The Democrats happily moved to the right, as they had been doing, and became a comfortable place for Bushs and Eisenhowers. That is to say, it's become a center-right party.

The left flank for the Democrats, this time, rallied to Bernie and the party had to concede in order to stop its left from going third party. But even then, the left typically simply does not vote when they don't like the platform, which allows the Democrat snakes to move to the right. Or they hold their nose and vote for the lesser of two evils, again allowing a snake to the right.

The structure, then, are TEA Baggers leading a congo-line to fascism and people reluctantly falling in line, "to help."

The only thing that will stop it, constitutionally, will be to apply the legitimate threat of third parties on the left to stop the moderates and social democrats from compromising their way to the right.

Sure, I could see your logic here. We can mobilize in order to move the needle one way or the other in terms of working within the two party system during the primaries. However, now that the candidates are decided and there are only two candidates with any mathematical chance of winning the election, voting third party is just patting yourself on the back at how you didn't participate in the system. Meanwhile you're still out there buying consumer goods, consuming media, tacitly supporting US foreign policy, etc, so if you really want to say that you made a difference it's all in your head.

Not directed at you specifically. I know you're a commie and likely a commie that puts his money where his mouth is, but I'm talking about the people who have iPhones, work their 9-5, post on social media, go out and consume every day, while being "ideologically" one way or the other. To me those people are worse than the patriots and the liberals who believe in the system, because they think they know better but do the same old shit anyway.

[Donna]

With all due respect, you are in no position to say who does and doesn't get taken seriously.

LOL, as usual you don't have anything original to say except an argument from incredulity. Low energy Paradigm.

[Godstud]

Ash

[Atlantis]

Pretty much the same way that you do.

You mean the colonized are to blame and not the colonizer?

Just like the crime victim is to blame and not the criminal, the oppressed and not the oppressor, the rape victim and not the rapist?

Why am I not surprised IG?

With your alien ideology ...

[Potemkin]

With your alien ideology ...

Will all due respect, Atlantis, you seem to be incapable of thinking beyond the horizons of the Weltanschauung laid out for you by the victorious Allies from 1945 onwards. This may surprise you, but there are other systems of thought, other ways of being, out there. They may contradict your own Weltanschauung, but this does not make them nonsensical or evil, just different. Open your mind, Atlantis....

[The Immortal Goon]

You mean the colonized are to blame and not the colonizer?

This is an excellent demonstration of the kind of narrow thinking and nonsensical demand that one be considered a victim that I was talking about.

The idea that Europe or North America (or Japan for that matter) are the losers in the great game of imperialism is an absurdity to just about everyone.



This being said, there are plenty of Americans and Europeans that will paint themselves as victims because they don't feel like they're in control of their lives. They mistake this for a conspiracy, or the Chinese, or a panic about not having enough imperialism (think 19th century France or early 20th century Germany)...But it's probably something else.

Regardless, this is how Americans deal with being imperialists. Essentially exactly the way that Europeans do.

[Beren]

What an evil world it is in which Germany cannot ally with Russia and dominate the world culturally at least. Just imagine hard-working people listening to Beethoven and reading Goethe (or Stravinsky and Dostoyevsky for that matter) while there is peace and harmony all over the world! Wouldn't it be wonderful? How could any sane and good people prefer Anglo imperialism to that?

[Pants-of-dog]

Sure, I could see your logic here. We can mobilize in order to move the needle one way or the other in terms of working within the two party system during the primaries. However, now that the candidates are decided and there are only two candidates with any mathematical chance of winning the election, voting third party is just patting yourself on the back at how you didn't participate in the system. Meanwhile you're still out there buying consumer goods, consuming media, tacitly supporting US foreign policy, etc, so if you really want to say that you made a difference it's all in your head.

If the system is set up in such a way that voting for the main parties is either counter-productive or (at best) supporting the status quo, then not voting for either is the best option.

And you are assuming that the third party voters tacitly support US foreign policy. This is probably not correct. The main critics for US freign policy probably come from the same group that refuses to vote for the main parties.

Not directed at you specifically. I know you're a commie and likely a commie that puts his money where his mouth is, but I'm talking about the people who have iPhones, work their 9-5, post on social media, go out and consume every day, while being "ideologically" one way or the other. To me those people are worse than the patriots and the liberals who believe in the system, because they think they know better but do the same old shit anyway.

I think of these people as supporters of Clinton.

[The Immortal Goon]

Sure, I could see your logic here. We can mobilize in order to move the needle one way or the other in terms of working within the two party system during the primaries.

It's toothless unless one acts, or at least has a legitimate threat of acting like the Tea Baggers had.

In a parliamentary or congressional system, you want to be the fulcrum of power. You essentially want to put the bigger powers in a place where they are reliant upon your support. My avatar here is Charles Stewart Parnell. He was hardly a Marxist (though I am) but he was the most gifted politicians that I know of, in part, because he was able to use this as a weapon. When it seemed like Liberals were going to make a good compromise with his tiny faction of committed Irish Party members, Parnell kicked them to the curb and sided with the Tories, essentially putting them into power.

The Liberal Party than had to come groveling back without a compromise in hand, but a pretty full capitulation to Irish Home Rule.

This is basically what the Tea Baggers did to the Republican Party. And even committed Democrats do nothing but excitedly rush to the right to safeguard ground previously rightfully vilified as contemptible.

But, of course, this goes for me beyond a misguided loyalty to the Democratic Party. The left needs to assert itself in general before it even begins to wake up from the delirium of believing the charming of the middle-class politician before it can march irresistibly forward to its destiny, the Socialist Republic.

[Atlantis]

The idea that Europe or North America (or Japan for that matter) are the losers in the great game of imperialism is an absurdity to just about everyone.

I didn't talk about losers. I said that the occupied nation cannot be held responsible for the crimes of the occupier. Or do you think the Jews are responsible for the holocaust?

I think most Marxists are probably closet imperialists.

What an evil world it is in which Germany cannot ally with Russia and dominate the world culturally at least. Just imagine hard-working people listening to Beethoven and reading Goethe (or Stravinsky and Dostoyevsky for that matter) while there is peace and harmony all over the world! Wouldn't it be wonderful? How could any sane and good people prefer Anglo imperialism to that? :?:

Oh Beren, you grow dearer to my heart every day. Let's weep into the harpsichord together

[The Immortal Goon]

I didn't talk about losers. I said that the occupied nation cannot be held responsible for the crimes of the occupier. Or do you think the Jews are responsible for the holocaust?

I think most Marxists are probably closet imperialists.

Not that any of this makes any sense, but if you're referring to the US military, for a lot of people in the United States--and this is something Trump carries currently--the theory is that Europe are the imperialists forcing the Americans to fight their battles. In this view the US is roughly comparable to the barbarians that Rome would employ to protect its interests. The United States, in this argument, doesn't get pension, health care, sick days, all these things that Europeans get to have because all of their gold and resources are being put into protecting Europe so that they can have all these nice things that Americans don't get to have.

Now, this is not really the full picture as you know full well. But if you ask how an American, and especially an American jingoist, lives with themselves it's this same type of thinking that you're exhibiting; that none of the benefits that you enjoy count, and all the negatives do count, so you can be a victim and shake your fist at someone else to explain away your own alienation.

None of these relations are ultimately so simple, which is why the false consciousness to keep it going is so reliant upon jingoism instead of understanding how these things work.

[Atlantis]

Europe are the imperialists forcing the Americans to fight their battles. In this view the US is roughly comparable to the barbarians that Rome would employ to protect its interests. The United States, in this argument, doesn't get pension, health care, sick days, all these things that Europeans get to have because all of their gold and resources are being put into protecting Europe so that they can have all these nice things that Americans don't get to have.

Yes, yes, we know all this Mr. Trump, unfortunately, or rather fortunately, your level of rhetoric won't win you an apple in Europe. That does indicate a difference, does it not?

But if you ask how an American, and especially an American jingoist, lives with themselves it's this same type of thinking that you're exhibiting; that none of the benefits that you enjoy count, and all the negatives do count, so you can be a victim and shake your fist at someone else to explain away your own alienation.

I would gladly enjoy these or other benefits even without American imperialism. You, like your friend Trump, are like a brain-damaged accountant who only counts the assets and forgets all about the liabilities.

And I'm quite sure that most of the world would happily trade with us, unless the empire decided to impose a blockade on continental Europe (for which case we have our supply-lines to the East, and connections in the ME ), but that would definitely mean you would have to drop your pretense of benevolent protector who will give his last shirt to save ungrateful Europeans. No IG, I have found that myth hard to swallow even when I was a child; and that is 60 years ago. You better come up with another fairy tale.

I can feel you are approaching your great outing now. Will be such a relieve to no longer be a closet imperialist.

[The Immortal Goon]

Wait, what?

I suppose this is what I get for trying to go for subtlety.

I never endorsed Trump or his stupid jingoistic view. I compared it to your stupid jingoistic view and cited Lenin's conception of imperialism as a more rational one than your crocodile tears for false victimhood.

But if you're just going to lie about anything I said, why should I pretend you're honest in your victimhood?

[Beren]

Are you guys really discussing if Germany is a victim of Pax Americana? It's really hard to consider the Bundesrepublik a victim even if we call it American imperialism.

Dear @Atlantis, you really talk like the spoiled child of a rich father, who was beaten up badly before adopted and supported generously as a bloodchild. Now that you're even allowed to have your own sub-imperium in Europe, you dare blame the Americans for their imperialism and pretend to be its victim. It's ridiculous indeed.

[Atlantis]

@The Immortal Goon, @Beren, et al.

It was TIG who brought up the issue of 'victimhood' to derail the discussion and divert from his initial silly spin.

I literally said that 'the occupied nation cannot be responsible for the crimes of the occupier, just like the Jews cannot be made responsible for the holocaust'.

I am not responsible for the Iraq war which I, my government and everybody I know vehemently opposed. But I'm sure TIG with his outlandish theorizing will come up with a conspiracy making me personally responsible for the Iraq war.

In fact, TIG strongly reminds me of the US spin doctors who came over to Europe after the war alleging that Germany was responsible for the Iraq war, supposedly because its intelligence agency had provided them with intelligence giving grounds for the war. They did not explain why the German government based on the same intelligence had come to the opposite conclusion.

More than the actual act of the war, it was this total intellectual dishonesty combined with the ruthless and gratuitous will for destruction of the US war machine that convinced me that US militarism is the most destructive force on the planet and that we need to part ways. And now comes TIG making me personally responsible for US militarism.

I said it before and I will say it again, Marxists are not of this world and American imperialists posing as Marxists do so for no other reason than to bear the impossible burden of US imperialism.

TIG just ask yourself why do you so vehemently attack me for opposing US imperialism? Just be honest to yourself once in your life.

There is no point in continuing this discussion because TIG is enclosed in his own logic that does not allow the facts of the real world to penetrate. Just like everybody to the right of the Marxist far-left holds erroneous views in TIG's opinion, so is everybody not willing to recite his Marxist mantra complicit in US imperialism. It is impossible to argue with that sort of circular logic.

[The Immortal Goon]

I never once denied US imperialism...I just think it's silly for an imperialist nation to point at another imperialist nation and scream, "Imperialist!"

You may not be responsible for the Iraq War, though the vast majority of Americans (and everybody I know) vehemently opposed it. There is not a conspiracy theory to put you personally responsible for it any more than there is one to put me personally responsible for it.

I never claimed that Germany was responsible for the Iraq War. I have claimed, in the past, that the British were looking to start the war because the French were already looking to move into the area and open up wells; and the Downing Street Memos support this notion. It was then that the Americans were, according to these memos, brought in. When they were brought in, it was a giant mess that went far and beyond the British conception of it, but allowed them to stidestep their own stated goals while leaving the British in control of the major oil fields, the Chinese in charge of others, the US in charge of none, but protecting all of them.

Now, I don't know how to be more clear about this, this is not to say that one of the convoluted imperialist nations was better than the others in their pathetic scrawling for resources and colonies. This is, actually, exactly what Lenin predicted in my previous link. You somehow imagined that I had brought this up at all in the thread (which I haven't) and then imagined that I blamed one side of the Atlantic over another (which I didn't) and then imagined that I put Germany into the mix (which would be a blatant lie).

Not only did I not even mention Germany, I certainly made no individual responsible. I certainly didn't make you, "personaly responsinle for US militerisim," because that would be fucking stupid and I'm not fucking stupid enough to claim that.

So far as your weird diatribe that your imaginary argument based upon your imaginary discussion based upon your imaginary thesis represents Marxism, you might as well clap your hands and talk about how much you believe in fairies as this makes no sense at all.

You ask me to ask myself why I, "vehemently attack me for opposing US imperialism?" I oppose US imperialism. I do with ever fiber of my body. I just don't imagine that it lives under my bed and personally singles me out to get to me. It's part of an entire system of imperialism, the highest form of capitalism. Not some monster that lives in my closet when my parents turn the lights off.