Musings of an anarchist misfit
Published at 07:29 on 7 November 2022
Establishment pundits are starting to acknowledge that the fact that the USA has a powerful, politically viable fascist party that is sympathetic to the cause of its fellow fascists in Russia could be Putin’s ace in the hole. This was always obvious, and I believe I mentioned it at one point, but I figured it deserved another short mention.
Published at 09:25 on 6 November 2022
Odds disfavor a military whose official history glorifies itself from being able to honestly assess how a legacy of intervention in the Western Hemisphere, including in Haiti itself, presents serious obstacles when it comes to being trusted by the Haitians.
Odds get even worse when it comes to political maneuvering in Congress that will end up pressuring the military, and political maneuvering in an electorate (which will end up pressuring Congress) that understands history even worse than those in Congress and the military do.
“Stabilize Haiti” is a vague mission with no clear endgame. Any invading US troops will be asked to perform missions whose goals are increasingly implausible over time. It will turn into a quagmire that builds upon the already significant distrust of the United States in the Western Hemisphere and adds to it.
This is mentioned because the chattering classes are already cranking up their propaganda mills in favor of ignoring Rule No. 1, which is as a result likely to be ignored.
Don’t set out to “stabilize Haiti.” Set out to, for example, secure the port from the gangs stopping it from being used to import food and other needed items. When you accomplish that, declare your mission has been accomplished, congratulate yourself, and get out.
Because, face it, odds favor both Rules Nos. 1 and 2 being ignored.
Published at 19:43 on 2 November 2022
Biden’s speech was necessary. It wasn’t the speech I would give about the current situation, of course, but Biden is in a vastly different situation than I am in and his politics are not mine. That said, the basics were correct: the coming election is a choice between autocracy and democracy.
The question is: do enough Americans care enough about democracy? To paraphrase what I wrote in an earlier article, if we have a fascism-friendly public, then fascism becomes basically inevitable. I chose the term “fascism-friendly” deliberately; it is not necessary for the public to be majority fascist. All that is necessary is for enough of the public to be friendly to the idea of maybe giving fascism a little whirl and seeing how it goes.
Of course, the very concept that fascism can be given a little whirl is fatally flawed: once fascists get power, they don’t easily give it up. Then the regrets kick in, but it is too late.
Published at 18:15 on 30 October 2022
It looks like — unless the Right tries some hanky-panky — Bolsonaro is on his way out. Regarding the possibility of that hanky-panky, Biden wasted absolutely no time when it came to congratulating the winner. That sends a signal that any hypothetical coup government would probably have a rocky time ahead of it when it comes to relations with the USA.
All of which means that, despite their faults, it really matters that both Biden is and soon Lula will be in office instead of their fashy predecessors.
But it’s also worrying: Lula’s margin of victory wasn’t really that great: in a contest between a social democrat and a fascist, the fascist almost won. Likewise, it is far from certain that the Democrats will hold on to either the House or the Senate, despite how prominent election deniers are in today’s GOP.
Published at 20:21 on 4 October 2022
Maybe, but probably not.
Maybe because he’s somewhat nuts. He did stupidly try to annex all of Ukraine, of course, and that went even worse than most analysts (including yours truly) thought it would (and we didn’t think it would go well).
Probably not because it would have severe downsides for Russia. You think Russia is badly isolated now? Just wait until Putin makes enemies of China and India with a nuclear first strike. The latter would be breaking a huge taboo.
More than likely, both countries have already privately warned Putin not to do that. Also more than likely, the USA is encouraging them to (again, privately, behind the scenes). It is, therefore, unlikely Putin is totally insulated from reality on this, like he apparently was while making his decision to launch a full-scale invasion.
With every day that passes, news stories come in of impressive territory regains on Ukraine’s part, in territory that Putin just “annexed” and now proclaims to be “Russian.” Ukraine has even attacked Crimea, which Russia “annexed” some years ago. So far, no nukes have been launched. That’s probably because Putin is bluffing.
Published at 09:56 on 25 September 2022
It’s a desperate act. Putin is doing it because he has suffered big losses on the battlefield, and he’s a stubborn old man who cannot admit defeat.
Odds disfavour it succeeding. The mobilized troops will have even less training than the already ill-prepared and ill-trained ones Putin has had to work with so far. They will have even lower morale. They will be working with stocks of materiel that have been damaged and depleted by six months of fighting. Unlike Ukraine, Russia does not have a bunch of powerful, well-equipped allies shoveling new materiel its way.
It is not popular at home, and this is probably significant. One of the reasons the Vietnam War started going badly for the USA was the level of conscription it eventually prompted, and the domestic opposition that conscription provoked. Nothing prompts interest in an issue like self-interest.
The war could still go on for an unpleasantly long time. Russia is a dictatorship, and can resist popular pressure in ways that the USA could not in the Vietnam Era (and the Vietnam War lasted for a painfully long time). That said, odds still favour Russia slinking out of Ukraine in defeat sooner or later. It’s just that it may well be later rather than sooner, and later might mean a significant amount of time.
Published at 11:32 on 11 September 2022
Really, no disagreement there. If this move to Canada ends, as hoped, with my getting citizenship, I will probably become active in the republican movement.
I know a number of people who are monarchists, and being disrespectful during the time they are feeling a sense of loss won’t help you convince them of the merits of the republican position. Plus, have some respect for the members of the Royal Family who just lost their mother. They are still human, and still feeling a sense of loss. As someone who recently lost his own mother, I understand.
First, while the British (and Canadian) monarchy is silly, it is also pretty harmless. I didn’t fear Elizabeth II would do anything to endanger my basic freedoms in an open society, and I don’t fear that Charles III will, either. Compare and contrast with ex-president Trump and the fascist and fascism-friendly followers and enablers has in the USA. Can we please spend our time worrying about actual serious threats to liberty?
Second, Elizabeth II didn’t have much to do with imperialism. Yes, some of her predecessors did, but the second Elizabethan era was one of decolonization. Moreover, Elizabeth II was a constitutional monarch. Unlike in earlier eras, the sovereign does not play a part in British politics. Any lingering imperialism during the second Elizabethan area has been the work of politicians, not the Queen.
Published at 08:20 on 5 September 2022
There is also no material evidence indicating otherwise, but guess what? That is not how the US criminal justice system works. It is the State’s job to demonstrate the accused are guilty; it is not the accused’s job to demonstrate his or her innocence. That the accused is a particularly unlikable character does not change this. The civil rights of others do not depend on your personal likes or dislikes.
Yes, Trump probably violated the Espionage Act. That is not the same thing as actively participating in espionage. Yes, participating actively in espionage opens one up to prosecution under the Espionage Act, but that Act prohibits more than just espionage. Pertinent to this case, it also prohibits conduct that might facilitate espionage by others, e.g. mishandling classified documents.
Those special, distinctive folders and envelopes for classified documents exist for a good reason: they help such documents be recognized at a glance. This in turn helps those who work with them treat them with the care that they require. It helps co-workers recognize mishandled classified documents.
Early in my career, I held a government security clearance. I never worked with any classified information directly myself, but I did work with people who did. The reason I was cleared was in case any co-worker mishandled classified information: if so, my running across it would not constitute a security breach. Moreover, like all employees being granted a security clearance, I was given training in how to recognize classified documents (and the standard folders and envelopes used to contain them) at a glance, so that I could report the mishandling and it could be corrected.
Folders without documents imply the existence of documents without folders, documents that are significantly harder to recognize at a glance as classified. It is, therefore, quite likely that the FBI overlooked some classified documents in their raid last month. In other words, there are still probably stolen classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. Intelligence services of hostile powers know this, too. Mar-a-Lago is certain to be drawing their attention if it had not done so already.
He stole Federal property, including extremely sensitive classified documents. Those documents had strict standards for handling and storage. Those standards existed for a good reason: to protect them from unauthorized access by possibly hostile parties. After Trump stole them, those standards were not followed.
All available evidence indicates that Trump knew he stole the documents, and that he deliberately sought to frustrate efforts to recover them. Trump’s theft was intentional. As such mens rea exists. If the government were to prosecute, they would probably have a solid case.
If the narrative becomes “Trump deliberately sold classified information for profit,” and it later becomes quite clear that he did not do that, Trump and his apologists can then go around proclaiming victory and accusing their opponents of being unfair to them (and of being authoritarians who want to use the power of the State to baselessly prosecute political opponents).
As such, it’s best to stick with what hard evidence indicates Trump actually did do. If later investigation uncovers actual hard evidence of active participation in espionage, additional charges can always be laid then.
Published at 22:40 on 17 August 2022
It’s pretty obvious to me, because I have experienced it myself with Hugo Chávez, who I once (long ago) supported, until he did something that unambiguously crossed a line, then I opposed him as a dangerous authoritarian.
That line may have not seemed all that significant to a conservative or a centrist, but it was significant to me. A conservative would be likely to say something along the lines of: “Well of course he turned out to be a dangerous authoritarian, his politics inevitably led him there,” to which I would strenuously disagree.
So it is with Cheney. Of course conservative politics inevitably ended up like that, in a country where they are associated with Nixon, Reagan, and Bush the younger, all of whom broke laws and got away with it. Where else would a standard that you can get away with breaking laws in office lead? That’s all obvious to me.
For Cheney, it’s not so obvious. The line for her was obviously election denial and January 6th. She was pretty much a loyal Trumper, voting with Trump well over 90% of the time, before then. By her standards, it was OK to do all those reactionary (and even sometimes illegal) things, but if you lost an election, well game over for you, time to leave office.
So yes, she’s still a reactionary who helped get us into this mess. I agree with that.
But, she’s not a fascist like Trump. As bad as Dubya was, I never had to worry that if his team lost an election (as it eventually did, with its anointed successor), they would accept that loss. I never had to worry about being hauled off to a concentration camp for having sharply opposing views. And she is now, in her own way, and despite an imperfect appreciation for how she got us into that mess, making a good-faith effort to help us get out of it.
That part is critical, and if you cannot see it, you are pretty much doomed to babble nonsense about the current political situation.
Bourgeois democracy is hardly ideal, but it beats an authoritarian fascist state (or an authoritarian socialist one). It’s still an environment where one can fight for a better world without being in fear of one’s life. It’s still a place where one can fight for a better world without having to choose between shutting up or using violent means. That means something.
And again, that part is critical, and if you cannot see it, you are pretty much doomed to babble nonsense.
Published at 07:29 on 11 August 2022
Hubris: Trump deliberately chose not to return all the documents he stole simply because he thought he could get away with it. And he did get away with it… until his hubris got to the point where he started boasting about getting away with it. Then someone who learned about this (directly or indirectly) due to the boasting chose to squeal, quite likely because the stool pigeon was himself under a cloud and cut a deal to lighten his or her likely punishment.
Given his hubris, it is conceivable that Trump allowed multiple individuals to see examples of the deliberately retained documents. This allowed the tattle-tale to be explicit and specific. This in turn allowed the authorities to verify that indeed, those particular documents were missing. Affidavits from both were then presented to a magistrate who promptly signed off on a search warrant.
This is all vintage Trump, and it does not require much speculation on anything more sinister. On the latter, I am reluctant to do that. We have seen, time and time again, anti-Trump sources being “certain” that serious dirt was about to doom Trump… only to be disappointed when it turns out that while the truth is on the sordid side, it is far less lurid than speculated.
So no, I am not at this stage expecting any of the stolen documents to contain any big bombshells.