Blackcap Blog

Published at 07:57 on 15 September 2021

I am in general not optimistic about the Democrats’ chances next year. My rationale is rather simple: in recent decades the party that took the White House always does badly in the immediately following midterms. Couple that with Democratic-leaning voters’ tendency to show up poorly for midterm elections, and the conclusion seems foregone.

Newsom’s unexpectedly strong victory against the recall in California offers the Democrats some hope, however. It shows that the Democrats can learn how to campaign based on fear of what the other side might do. Like it or not, negative campaigning works and fear is a powerful motivator.

Democrats’ historic refusal to employ both tools is part of the reason why they tend to underperform in elections. If they can copy on a nationwide level what was done in California, add that to how we are in unprecedented times and something unprecedented (in recent decades, anyhow) might just emerge as a midterm election result.

If so (and it is important to note that qualifier, this is all far from certain), this would likely serve as a stinging rebuke of the GOP’s strategy of embracing the principles of fascism.

Published at 10:34 on 11 September 2021

There have already been a number of observations from Establishment sources comparing the lack of unity today to the unity of twenty years ago, and bemoaning this fact.

Inasmuch as the current state of affairs is undesirable because it prevents responding to a national crisis, they have a point. Just look around at the current mess being caused by the inability to unite around the clear facts of COVID-19 as proof.

It is not nearly so simple as that, however.

The unity of a generation ago was badly contaminated by an imperialist mindset that the ruling elite had spent decades cultivating, for purposes of mustering public support for the Cold War. That period of history had clearly ended with the dissolution of the Soviet Empire, resulting in a politics that was largely drifting and looking for a purpose.

Cold Warriors found the prospect of a demilitarized USA alarming and were busy strategizing how to prevent it, even so far as concluding that their project would likely be a difficult struggle “absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor.”

Well, twenty years ago today, they got their catastrophic and catalyzing event, and they exploited it to the max. They were quite successful in ginning up public support for a robust military and a muscular foreign policy, to the point of launching two wars.

The first war had an insufficient casus belli: It was not necessary to invade and occupy Afghanistan in order to apprehend Osama bin Laden, who at any rate was not even in Afghanistan when he was dealt with. He was in Pakistan, and he was dealt with via measures that fell short of subjecting Pakistan to a wholesale war and occupation.

The second war was launched on a total pack of lies, and served to help distract attention and resources from the first (as it was always obvious it would).

So much for the Establishment’s right wing. The Establishment’s left wing might not have much liked what the right wing was doing, but they didn’t really do much to oppose it, either. It was the standard Democratic Party playbook of bringing knives (butter knives at that, we wouldn’t want to hurt anyone) to gun fights.

So, as is typically the case, the right wing was allowed a needlessly easy victory, and its view of what to do in response to 9/11 prevailed, despite what a poor response it was.

There is a funny thing about inconvenient facts: they don’t magically go away if you ignore them and try pretend they don’t exist. The wars were doomed to go badly from the get-go, and the one in Afghanistan went particularly badly.

That which was intended to secure the place of the American Empire in the 21st century has ended up weakening it, quite possibly fatally. Perhaps more pertinently for the present moment, none of the above process made the Establishment look very good.

In a pre-Internet world, that might have provoked a very beneficial moment of political reckoning. But this is a world of information bubbles, and such bubbles have proven to be beneficial to the rise of fascistic, right-wing populism.

Add the media-bubble problem to a right-wing base upset at its own Establishment, and here we are. The current lack of unity that George W. Bush bemoaned today at Shanksville is thus not completely his fault, but he is far from blameless in it all.

Published at 07:52 on 26 August 2021

Not only have longer-term issues doomed the West in Afghanistan, so have shorter-term ones. In particular, the shorter-term ones probably doomed the West to a chaotic and awkward evacuation of the sort we are seeing right now. See this Twitter thread for the details.

Published at 11:42 on 16 August 2021

An Intelligence Failure of the First Order

I expected the Taliban to prevail (they prevailed in about a third of the country prior to the withdrawal, after all). I did not expect them to prevail so soon. Neither did the intelligence community.

My oversight can be excused. I am just some random guy with a blog; any failures in my analyses carry exactly zero national security import. The so-called experts should have known better.

Biden Has Egg on His Face

Yes, his predecessor had the idea of withdrawing in defeat first. So what? Trump had lots of other ideas, and Biden promptly tore the policies based on those ideas up when he got into office. Biden, not Trump, is president now. Biden, not Trump, made the ultimate decision to withdraw. The buck stops in the Oval Office.

The question now is how much this will hurt Biden. Hurt him it will, of that there is no question. The only question is how much. One thing working in Biden’s favor is that most Americans don’t give a shit about foreign policy. The Republicans are going to try and make this stick, and unlike the Democrats, the Republicans actually do have effective propagandists. But they will still be swimming against the tide of a public that generally does not give a shit.

The Real Losers Are the Afghan People

Many of them do not yet realize how much they have lost. Like most of the Third World, Afghanistan’s population skews young. Many of them don’t have personal experience living under Taliban rule. They now will.

The biggest losers are the Afghans that for one reason or another threw their lot in with the West. Actually, that wording has some problems. For some of them, there really was no choice. If you were a feminist, or LGBT, Fate herself had chosen to throw your lot in with that of the Western modernizers. But that is of little consequence when it comes to the consequences that those Afghans will now suffer at the hands of their new, brutal overlords.

Get Them Out!

As much as possible, we need to ensure that those in Afghanistan who want to get out, can get out. Every country that participated in the invasion, particularly the USA, needs to welcome as many Afghan refugees as humanly possible. Any quotas or paperwork that get in the way need to be shoved out of the way.

Although the general goal should be retreat, it is acceptable (and almost certainly necessary) to maintain some military presence for purposes of managing the evacuation. Make it clear to the Taliban that their lives will be much simplified if they cooperate with the evacuation, then honor that deal by promptly leaving once the evacuations are complete.

Published at 14:47 on 15 August 2021

Some random observations, in no particular order:

Not a Surprise

Anyone surprised by this simply has not been paying attention. The USA and its allies have been set to lose this one basically ever since Day One, when the war was launched, largely under laughably false pretenses, by a deluded nation in narcissistic awe of its own military might.

Well, One Surprise

That surprise is just how quickly the domestic opposition to the Taliban suddenly evaporated and blew away in the gentlest of breezes. I expected Kabul to fall, but maybe in about a month’s time, not today. I was genuinely surprised when I heard the news this afternoon.

The Afghan People Really Did Not Support the US-Backed Government

I mean, come on, the West in general and the USA in particular showered vast amounts of military aid on the (now former) government of Afghanistan. If, given all of that, virtually zero opposition was mounted to the Taliban, this cannot but show how little support for that government there was.

This is a general statement, of course. Some Afghans really did support the government. There just were not very many of them, and their support did not run very deep, else the Taliban would have run into more fighting on their way to victory.

This Is a Win for Fascism

Make no mistake, the Taliban do qualify for the epithet “Islamo-fascist.” None of my observations above imply that the Taliban are anything other than an arch-reactionary gang of authoritarians. Afghanistan will now become markedly less free. There is nothing to celebrate about a group like the Taliban taking power.

Who Has Learned What?

That is now the question we must ask. Has the USA learned anything about the limitations of empire? Have the Taliban learned anything about the limitations of holding power in a single landlocked, impoverished Third World nation?

If the answer to both of these questions is in the affirmative, some sort of stable coexistence is possible: The USA will refrain from invading again, and the Taliban will refrain from provoking the West into invading by supporting groups that commit acts of major terrorism against Western nations.

If not, then we have not seen the end of Western military actions in that part of the world.

Published at 10:52 on 8 August 2021

Oh yes they can, and the lack of appreciation for this brings up one of the things that has so often galled me when the subject of freedom comes up.

Let us first discuss how vaccine mandates can increase freedom:

1. They increase it for those who are medically unable to receive (or to much benefit from) being vaccinated, due to health conditions that they were born with or which they acquired through no fault of their own. (Real-world vaccine mandates are not universal; they do have exemptions for the minority who are incapable of tolerating vaccines.) Why should such unfortunate individuals have their freedom compromised by those who refuse to cooperate in a collective effort against a common enemy of humanity? How is this state of affairs in any way “freedom?”
2. They also increase it for the rest of us. If vaccine mandates had existed, the Delta variant would not be spreading as much as it is. Had it not been spreading so much, mask mandates would not be coming back, and normal, vaccinated folks like me wouldn’t be having to bother with those damn masks and other restrictions yet again. (And yes, they annoy and inconvenience even those of us who find them worthwhile.) How is the current state of affairs in any way “freedom?”

It’s not just COVID-19 vaccinations, by the way. It extends to other areas of human behavior. Take air pollution, for example: How is it “freedom” for people’s ability to get out and be active to be impacted by bad air quality? Why is the “freedom” to drive polluting cars or profit from polluting factories the only “freedom” that routinely gets brought up when the issue of air quality regulations gets discussed? Get it straight: better air quality increases personal freedom for many.

Or how about indoor air pollution and smoking? It used to be considered “pro-freedom” for smokers to be able to light up in any indoor space: offices, stores, airports, aircraft, buses, etc.: smoking was allowed in all. How on earth was this “freedom” for those of us who are allergic to smoke and physically sickened by it? How was it “freedom” for those who simply didn’t want to stink of smoke to be made to stink of it? Why was (yet again) the only “freedom” that was routinely brought up the “freedom” to impose costs on others without their consent?

Make no mistake: there is also a cost in freedom to be paid when regulations and other standards of conduct are instituted. I am not disputing that. What I am disputing is unquestioned implicit assumption that this is the only side of the balance sheet worth considering. It is also an issue of individual liberty when one individual’s freedom to swing his fist impacts another individual’s freedom to not have his face punched.

It goes beyond regulations and impacts the development of positive policies as well. Consider, for example, universal health care. That typically requires taxes or other mandates to support, and those taxes do deprive the taxed of the freedom to spend that money on things other than taxes (or to save it). But the result frees people from having a run of medical bad luck drain their life savings, thereby destroying much of their freedom. It also frees children from the oppression of having the accidents of birth and inheritance determine the health care they get. Universal health care creates greater freedom for many. Any reasonable, balanced debate on health policy simply must include this fact. Yet in the USA, all too often it does not. The enemies of universal health care often get a monopoly on playing the freedom card.

One-sided characterizations of freedom are, in a word, a dangerous pitfall. Badly-warped concepts of “freedom” breed societes with badly warped value systems that in turn breed badly warped public policies.

Published at 21:59 on 6 August 2021

There are plenty of graphics like the following one circulating on social media:

If true, such statistics are shocking. A significant number of major cities where over half of households face eviction? That’s a major, major social crisis in the works! And the source is a US Census survey, not some dubious polling outfit one has never heard of.

Turns out, not nearly so much. Here is the actual household pulse survey data from the US Census Bureau. Note the caption: “Percentage of adults living in households not current on rent or mortgage where eviction or foreclosure in the next two months is either very likely or somewhat likely [emphasis added].” Not the percentage of all adults, just the percentage who are already behind. Here is a related set of data showing those who are behind and have little hope of ever catching up.

Take Mississippi, one of the worst states, for example. 12.3% of adults live in households that are behind, and of that number, 60.5% are at risk of eviction. The actual fraction of adults in the overall population at risk is therefore more like 60.5% of 12.3%, or 7.4%. That’s still not an insignificant number, but it is far less than 60.5%.

Published at 11:42 on 28 July 2021

Remember the videos of apparently complicit Capitol Police officers waving putschists into the Capitol building? Yes, there were also officers that bravely fought the enemy, and those should be recognized and honored. I have problems with the entire concept of police, but that doesn’t mean that everyone tied up in that institution is therefore all equally 100% absolutely evil. The latter is a childish oversimplification of a complex and nuanced world.

That said, there is evidence of a pattern of police officers being sympathetic or supportive of the cause of Trumpist fascism. In addition to apparently sympathetic Capitol Police officers, numerous off-duty officers from local police agencies were found to have been at the putsch attempt. Many spent considerable amounts of their own money traveling to DC from across the country. The concept that the police harbor a dangerous pro-fascist element has much to suggest it is valid. As such, ignoring evidence that it might extend to some Capitol Police officers is dangerous and troubling.

One reason this is being done is that many Democrats are running as fast as they can from the concept of defunding the police. As much as it inconveniences an anarchist such as Yours Truly, there is ample evidence that most Americans presently are too fond of being submissive to authority for such rhetoric to play well with them.

Part of the blame must also rest on those doing left-wing messaging constructing said messaging primarily for the purposes of acquiring status within a subculture, instead of reaching out and growing the size of our movement, but that is a subject for a different post. The point I want to make is that Democrats, particularly those on the right of their party, want to show they are pro-police. Hence the tactic of trotting out loyal Capitol Police officers who fought the insurgents bravely at risk to their lives.

Also, there is a political jujitsu moment here. The Republicans have been the ones loudly chanting “back the blue” for the last year or more. It is very difficult to resist the temptation to make them squirm. In fact, squandering such an opportunity borders on gross political malpractice, considering the general political dynamic outlined above.

But, none of this changes that there is nevertheless a risk. There is undeniably institutional corruption in policing, this corruption has its roots in the very nature of authority tending to be corrupt, and it is a very real threat to a free society. Ignore it (or simplify it out of existence) at our peril.

Published at 22:48 on 27 July 2021

I’m back from a road trip. Back a few days early, in fact: wildfire smoke cut it short. Not much point camping, hiking, and surveying rare plants if the air quality level is someplace between Unhealthy and Hazardous, with minimization of time spent outdoors recommended.

Regarding the border reopening, thanks to the Delta variant, forget it. Yes, Canada announced that it would reopen on the 9th of next month. That is merely a non-binding statement of future intent. Canada can easily renege, and in all likelihood will. This is even the more likely given that the USA has announced it will not reopen so early. Really, now, why should Canada extend to Americans a privilege the USA refuses to extend to Canadians? It would amount to giving up a bargaining chip for acting in the interests of its own citizens. No competent national government would do such a thing. On top of that, a strike is brewing amongst Canadian border guards and customs agents.

Remember what I wrote in my prediction of a reopening:

This assumes no unexpected developments (such as a new, vaccine-resistant COVID variant emerging), of course. If such things happen, all bets are off and the border closure may truly become a long-haul thing [emphasis added].

Published at 08:40 on 12 July 2021

This is Unusual

Remember, Cuba stayed solidly Marxist-Leninist while the entire Eastern Bloc in Europe rejected “left” dictatorship over a quarter-century ago. I put “left” in quotes here because that is how such dictatorships have been categorized in the Establishment media and there really is no good alternate categorization. This is despite how the very notion of rule by force is incompatible with the fundamental notion of a politics based on egalitarianism and opposition to social hierarchy, which is the original definition of the political left.

Anyhow, to have this sort of unrest in Cuba is decidedly unusual.

How Much US Involvement?

I would be surprised if there was none whatsoever, but I would also be surprised if it is the primary driving force. The latter appears to have been how the Internet is making it easier for Cubans to organize in opposition to their government, and the USA has shown itself to not be very good at Internet warfare (we have trouble defending ourselves from attacks by Russia, and today’s Russia is but second-rate power).

It’s a dictatorship. It’s been over seventy years since Cuba had anything approaching a freely contested election. Yes, seventy. Castro did not destroy Cuban democracy; Batista did. Castro failed to restore the democracy that Batista destroyed. Follow that earlier link. (It’s an article written by a Cuban exile in Florida, by the way. Put that in your pipe and smoke it if you think that Castro was the source of all evil in Cuba.)

Anyhow, it’s a dictatorship. It is oppressive, and the island is currently beset with economic problems. It is no big surprise that people are revolting. It is not necessary to concoct a grand conspiracy involving US-led covert action (which has, prior to this point, failed to provoke widespread unrest) to explain the unrest. Many other dictatorships in similar situations have found themselves facing unrest.

Overall, a Welcome Development

After a prolonged period characterized largely by passive submission, widespread acts of revolt against a decades-old dictatorship have begun. What’s not to like? That’s fundamentally good news. Anyone who values freedom should celebrate it.

If you’re a friend of dictators who play dictator in the name of keeping “their” country safe for “socialism,” you are ultimately not my ally. I am opposed to ruling elites, no matter what principles those elites use to justify their rule by force. I am as opposed to elites that rule by force in the name of “socialism” as I am to those who do it in the name of “free enterprise.”

It May Be a Flash in the Pan

It is necessary to temper one’s excitement here. There is no guarantee that much of anything will come from the current unrest. Iran has been through many episodes of unrest, some far more significant than what has happened so far in Cuba, yet the reign of the mullahs still prevails there. Belarus is still a dictatorship despite all the unrest there in the past year. Uprisings often fail. In fact, more fail than succeed, if one defines success as unseating the government of the day.

There are Risks

Certainly there are risks. One has only to look how Western meddling derailed what glasnost and perestroika began in the ex-USSR, by pushing the Russians to create the very same strongman presidency that Putin soon used to create a new dictatorship, to see an example of what could go wrong. And it’s not just Russia; many nations in what was the Soviet bloc have proved to be disappointments when it comes to respect for basic human rights.

News flash: life itself entails risk. Progress entails taking risks. Revolution is always a risky endeavor.

It is Worth the Risk

Revolution is risky, but it is also necessary. Ultimately, it is the only thing that keeps ruling elites in check. Laws in law books might appeal to fans of the rule of law, but ruling classes have always been willing to break the very laws they wrote. The only thing that really restrains ruling elites is their own knowledge of the historical fact of many revolutions, and the fear, somewhere in the back of their heads, of what might come their own way should they push things too far.

So ¡Viva la revolución!