Geopolitics in the 2020s.

[NotThePars]

What do Enlightenment notions like liberté, egalité, fraternité have to do with imperialist values?

Like I agree that the Enlightenment was ultimately enshrined in the victory of Stalin’s Soviet Union over Nazi Germany but you clearly haven’t read many Enlightenment era writers if you think loads of them weren’t providing tons of justifications for slavery, imperialism and racial supremacy.

[Detournement]

2 hours ago, LongTimeLurker said:

What do Enlightenment notions like liberté, egalité, fraternité have to do with imperialist values?

Libertie, equalitie, fraternite unless you are a Haitian slave trying to claim your freedom.

If you are really interested read about Locke's writings which set the legal and moral framework for the British genocide of Native Americans. David Hume is another enlightenment giant who wrote some extremely racist texts. 

 

[wirez]

1 hour ago, NotThePars said:

 

Like I agree that the Enlightenment was ultimately enshrined in the victory of Stalin’s Soviet Union over Nazi Germany but you clearly haven’t read many Enlightenment era writers if you think loads of them weren’t providing tons of justifications for slavery, imperialism and racial supremacy.

Stalin?

Slavery - millions sent to, and dying in the gulag system.

Imperialism - Eastern Europe conquered and Stalinist regimes implemented for near on 50 years.

Racial supremacy - The policy of ethnic cleansing was endemic in Stalinist USSR.

Maybe it took a monster to beat a monster, but the man was a paranoid murderous b*****d.

 

[NotThePars]

5 hours ago, wirez said:

Stalin?

Slavery - millions sent to, and dying in the gulag system.

Imperialism - Eastern Europe conquered and Stalinist regimes implemented for near on 50 years.

Racial supremacy - The policy of ethnic cleansing was endemic in Stalinist USSR.

Maybe it took a monster to beat a monster, but the man was a paranoid murderous b*****d.

 

If I was making a list of the biggest suckers on this website who would bite for the weakest bait I would probably put you top five so good going boyo

[wirez]

2 hours ago, NotThePars said:

If I was making a list of the biggest suckers on this website who would bite for the weakest bait I would probably put you top five so good going boyo

Oh. Such cutting remarks from a delusional twunt as yourself.

 

 

 

[LongTimeLurker]

13 hours ago, wirez said:

Stalin? ...

Showed that placing too much power in the hands of a leader is a bad move if said leader turns out to be a paranoid psychopath. Communist ideology can still claim to be an inheritor of the more utopian application of the Enlightenment in terms of being driven by scientific reason and concepts of certain inalienable rights as can the more pragmatic approach of modern western liberalism that tries to temper the worst aspects of capitalism rather than replace it.

Things calmed down again in the Soviet Union post-Stalin under Khrushchev and Brezhnev to something closer to what was really intended before its final collapse in the late 80s once it had become abundantly clear that utopian applications don't work. By the late 60s a large portion of the elites in Communist countries were already aware that the system wasn't working out as intended and was never going to.

It's not at all clear how the 18th century Enlightenment ties into 19th century imperialism though as the UK elite were still largely opposed to it at that point. Ditto with Germany under a militarist Prussian kaiser when the Namibian genocide was being carried out shortly before WWI. The Nazi Fuehrerprinzip was a complete rejection of Enlightenment thinking so the Holocaust is better described as being the culmination of that opposition.

Edited May 29, 2021 by LongTimeLurker

[dorlomin]

23 hours ago, Detournement said:

 serves to prove that the Nazis weren't an aberration but the inevitable conclusion of enlightenment imperialist values. 

 

17 hours ago, NotThePars said:

Like I agree that the Enlightenment was ultimately enshrined in the victory of Stalin’s Soviet Union

 

 

10 hours ago, NotThePars said:

bite for the weakest bait

A pair of shitposting edgelords. Best to dismiss their drivel with a condescending smirk. 

Its the sort of thing a stoned 16 year old might think of as deep. 

[NotThePars]

It's genuinely parody at this point to be the guy who frequently posts clips from shit like Idiocracy while you think you're the superior intellect on the forum. It's like Bill Maher but somehow even more smugly stupid.

[Detournement]

1 hour ago, dorlomin said:

 

 

A pair of shitposting edgelords. Best to dismiss their drivel with a condescending smirk. 

Its the sort of thing a stoned 16 year old might think of as deep. 

Yes thinking and reading about the links from fascism back through genocidal European colonialism to the philosophers who laid the intellectual framework for colonialism is shitposting. 

Hitler wrote about how his plans for Eastern Europe were directly inspired by Germanic white American's treatment of Native Americans and African Americans. The intellectual tradition that results in Hitler runs from early capitalist 17th century British intellectuals, through the founding fathers of the USA and the long 19th century of European expansion and Empire. 

Locke specifically says that if Irish or Native Americans aren't realising the full productivity of their land they have no moral or legal claim to it and can be dispossessed. Hume was an outright white supremacist.

 

[LongTimeLurker]

1 hour ago, Detournement said:

Yes thinking and reading about the links from fascism back through genocidal European colonialism to the philosophers who laid the intellectual framework for colonialism is shitposting....

Perhaps worth bearing in mind that Christopher Columbus landed on Hispaniola in 1492 and that European colonialism of the Americas started shortly thereafter with the Treaty of Tordesillas between Portugal and Spain that provided the basis of how to divide up the world between those two powers with the blessing of the Vatican. That long predates the philosophers you have mentioned and suggests that their role was in no way pivotal to what unfolded in terms of providing an intellectual framework for colonialism.  

[Detournement]

5 hours ago, LongTimeLurker said:

Perhaps worth bearing in mind that Christopher Columbus landed on Hispaniola in 1492 and that European colonialism of the Americas started shortly thereafter with the Treaty of Tordesillas between Portugal and Spain that provided the basis of how to divide up the world between those two powers with the blessing of the Vatican. That long predates the philosophers you have mentioned and suggests that their role was in no way pivotal to what unfolded in terms of providing an intellectual framework for colonialism.  

Spanish and Portuguese colonialism collapsed because it was precapitalist.

The form of capitalism that resulted in Nazism originated in England.

 

 

 

 

 

[LongTimeLurker]

You are drawing a distinction related to favoured brands of ancestral sky fairy worship that would probably not have seemed particularly important to the Taino, Maya, Aztec and Inca peoples at the point of conquest. In the present day, Latin America can still be viewed as a series of capitalist settler states with marginalised indigenous populations to a large extent with the exceptions possibly of Paraguay where the Guarani language is as mainstream as Spanish and more recently Bolivia on the latter part. Cuba would be an exception on the capitalist part obviously.

Where the 18th century Enlightenment clearly did have an influence on Latin America would be on Simon Bolivar who is believed to have been in the masons like many of the founders of the North American state that would eventually prove pivotal during the 20th century in defeating the totalitarianism of the Nazis, Fascists and Ustaše etc and then successfully opposing the totalitarianism of Soviet Communism to shape to a large extent and for better or worse the world we live in today.

I seriously doubt that's the end point Francis Fukuyama claimed it was but a large portion of the world has moved towards liberal democracy rooted to varying extents in Enlightenment values as their favoured system.

Edited May 30, 2021 by LongTimeLurker

[Guest TheJTS98]

On 25/05/2021 at 22:04, Pato said:

Does this fit in here lol

 

China's hilariously babyish attitude to the Taiwan issue has strong vibes of how Rangers fans make football media people dance on the head of a pin to not refer to liquidation.

Whatever else people think of China, I think their perpetual massive petted lip over anything anyone ever says about Taiwan, while also trying to project power, poise, and influence has a very comedic feel.

[Guest TheJTS98]

16 Chinese military planes seem to have flown through Malaysian airspace this week. China says no, Malaysia says yes. If they didn't, they were at least needlessly and knowingly provocatively close. Malaysia sent planes up to chase them away and now they do the whole dance of summoning ambassadors and having a huff for a month or two.

More bizarre behaviour from China. This has no impact in terms of making Malaysia fear China, since absolutely nobody believes China would ever attack. It just builds more bad feeling. Very strange that China constantly chooses to antagonise in the region rather than doing anything constructive.

Also, eyes on Hong Kong this week to see whether the Chinese continue their attempts to rewrite history on June 4th. It's not surprising that a regime that came to power only through force and has never sought any public legitimacy would need to hide history from the people it governs and criminalise any reference to it. But I suppose this assault on the basic liberty of millions of people is justified by the Opium Wars or something.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/02/no-political-story-allowed-hong-kong-broadcaster-falls-silent-on-sensitive-subjects

All the John Cena videos in the world won't be enough to convince the citizens of democratic Taiwan, with their free media and free elections and right to assemble and protest and criticise, that anybody has the right to put them under the rule of these utter, utter wronguns.

Edited June 2, 2021 by TheJTS98

[NotThePars]

haha

[Detournement]

Military coup incoming. 

 

[DublinMagyar]

Military coup incoming. 
 

Fresian fighters?

[DiegoDiego]

Military coup incoming. 
 

I had a discussion about this sort of thing a few months ago. I figured most chocolate was made closer to the consumer because finished chocolate bars would melt pretty swiftly in Ghana. Their incredibly unreliable power supply means refrigeration/air conditioning isn't really an option.

[Detournement]

45 minutes ago, DiegoDiego said:

3 hours ago, Detournement said:

Military coup incoming. 
 

I had a discussion about this sort of thing a few months ago. I figured most chocolate was made closer to the consumer because finished chocolate bars would melt pretty swiftly in Ghana. Their incredibly unreliable power supply means refrigeration/air conditioning isn't really an option.

They've got huge renewable capacity. I'm sure they can guarantee power to profitable enterprises. 

 

[madwullie]

3 hours ago, Detournement said:

Military coup incoming. 

 

That video is something else.