General Politics Thread

@President Stalkeyes

Admittedly "inevitable" is probably too strong a word. Still, I'd argue the post-Cold War world was essentially in a situation where it would have been generally difficult to go anywhere but downhill. In particular to my understanding there was a strong sense of complacency that I think might have helped.

It was not inevitable.

1-Solving the Middle East situation, plus 2- actually helping Russia recover, instead of exploiting it, and throwing its population to the mercy of organized crime and poverty, may have prevented 9/11, the Rise of Putin, and the radicalization of many ideologies and parties in the world.

The world today could be a more tolerant and economically prosperous one, if better choices were made in the nineties, or better yet, during the Cold War itself, instead of talking about "clashes of civilizations.". and " new world order".

Edited by jawal on Feb 1st 2024 at 1:55:46 PM

Are Panama and Grenada considered two successful cases of US nationbuilding attempts in Latin America? I have seen quite a few places refering to the 1983 Grenada invasion and 1990 Panama invasion as part of the few successful cases of nation building but I have no idea how true the claim is.

I think lesser evil would be quite region dependent if existing at all as US had allied with straight up genocidal dictators during the cold war like Yahya Khan of Pakistan during Nixon's time, while Pakistan was active in a genocide in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). Given that, the lower bar in the cold war was pretty much non-existent.

@xyz

Yes, this is my opinion as well.

For Egypt, the Soviet Union was the lesser evil between 1956—1972.

For Afghanistan in 1979—1989 it may be the other way around.

Edited by jawal on Feb 1st 2024 at 5:29:07 PM

I'd also agree with the "regional dependent" caveat.

I know fuck all about Grenada, but Panama suffers all the same problems as the rest of Latin America in terms of mass poverty, sharp division between rich and poor, and political corruption. Getting rid of a drug-trafficking dictator who the U.S. had already supported for years up to that point is hardly good "nation building".

Hell, even the term "nation building" is kind of sickening. It reeks of colonial attitudes of trying to "civilize" the "other". Might as well call what the USSR was doing to Afghanistan "nation building".

Edited by Diana1969 on Feb 1st 2024 at 10:35:59 AM

Marxist framing aside, the entire foreign policy establishment of the time were people who had long been advised by Henry Kissinger.

I don't see what relevance this has beyond confirming my point.

Nevermind that Kissinger was reared by a prior generation of foreign policy specialists who did their own crock of shit.

@Diane 1969

That sounds like a personal problem. I decline to answer.

The point I'm making here is that geopolitics is shaped by foreign policy of individual nations. In a democracy, said policy is being voted on (indirectly). Since there is no such thing as a perfect choice, one generally has to operate under the lesser evil principle. And you are arguing that this principle cannot be applied. That is at least my understanding.

take note of the "that my understanding" part. I'm not trying to make assumptions, but rather understand your position. While I'm sorry if I have offended you, I also expect that people properly read my posts instead of accusing me of something that I have explicitly tried to avoid by "that is my understanding" note.

Edited by Risa123 on Feb 2nd 2024 at 3:46:30 PM

Most of the time, the domestic policies and conditions are what people of a nation prioritise the most when voting though. If foreign policy gets notice, it is usually because of how that foreign policy affects domestic situation or has grown in response to domestic conditions (and how satisfactory of a response it is to the masses), doesn't it?

I usually phrase a statement as a question when I am not completely certain about something I am stating and believe there is a chance that my belief may be not true. If that ends up coming off as a leading question, I can't help it.

Edited by xyzt on Feb 2nd 2024 at 8:58:15 PM

That maybe true to many, but not to all, as myself for example.

Edited by Risa123 on Feb 2nd 2024 at 3:55:17 PM

I mean, in democratic nations, foreign policy can be something voters take into account, but I wouldn't expect anyone to make major concessions to domestic affairs on account of it, just for pragmatic reasons.

@Risa 123

It depends on what causes you value the most.

If you remember, we had this conversation before, and I explained my view then.

There is no easy answer, but you must decide based on your conscience, if you will rather, vote for the lesser evil (however you define it), abstain from voting, or Take a Third Option and select a third party (or even start your own).

It depends on one's morals, resources and what he held important.

Edited by jawal on Feb 2nd 2024 at 4:31:32 PM

You are not the person whose answer I was seeking, and it was a general question rather than one the one about me (despite how it was seen), but thanks for answering regardless.

I think part of it depends on where you are.

Like, a lot of people living in England are stuck with a really awful choice since there's only two relevant major parties. (Wales has Plaid Cymru and Scotland has the SNP, England doesn't have anything like that.)

Right now, it's the Tories and Labour. The Tories are pretty transparently horrible, but the current leader of Labour is very, very clearly trying to jack the Tory vote by reacting to every single attempt to challenge him by going "we're following the Tory lead on this".

I will said the diferent of US and URSS was simply the latter was more opently disfuncional as their control of eastern europe at times look more like a extention of russia than a aliance on itself, while for all the paranoid and downright arbitrary intervention, their hegemonic method means a degree of self rule was allow. Like at a all, even here in Latin america opinion of US varies a lot. Meanwhile much of the opinion right on russia seen to be clear on what to do.

The U.S.S.R. justified many of its authoritarian practices with the same excuses most dictators use.

1. People are not ready for democracy.

2- The West and the internal reactionary forces are conspiring.

3-It is just a temporary phase; once society is safe and secure, you will have more freedom.

...........

And of course, "there are more than 100 ethnic groups in the U.S.S.R.; without a strong central authority, there will be anarchy and chaos.".

The internal authoritarianism of the Soviet Union, and similar regimes, I would say is a logical consequence of their interpretation of Communism/Marxism.

Communist ideologies believe that it's necessary to broadly dismantle society and reshape it into a classless system. This in and of itself I'd argue breeds a heavy degree of us vs them mentality that can have pretty nasty consequences.

Marxism specifically calls for the establishment of a post-revolutionary government given the broad authority to deal with counterrevolutionaries, class traitors, and generally remake society; they believed the state would sort of naturally dissolve as classlessness was achieved. Engels wrote:

Now, I really don't think they intended this to be to Leninism levels. Certainly not Stalin levels. Having said that, I also think the above passage kind of shows where the mindset comes from.

Likewise I'd say there's probably at least some tendency towards "hype-cultism". Think akin to how Cryptobros and the Gamestocks guys dismiss criticism as "FUD".

So, my read of Marxist-Leninist authoritarianism is basically that you get a movement that:

• Sees themselves as the paternal guardians of what will eventually become utopia.
• Becomes very interested in protecting their power as said vanguards.
• Principally believe it's necessary to eliminate what's often a rather broad class of people.
• Has a tendency to see individual liberty as an obstacle if not outright a creation of the bourgeois.
• Often has quixotic ambitions combined with finding doubt highly suspect.

Of course, this comes in a spectrum. The Stalin-era Soviet Union was basically totalitarian madness, the Soviet Union post-Stalin was a good bit saner.

Yeah, as Venezuelan I could see the same, specially since many authoritarian lefties does carry some military workship in general, its kinda why many of then like the vanguard model so much, it allow them to "Direct" the revolution top down, not surprising it end almost in dictatorship that way