Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

… gradually, and then suddenly.

Fuck that bum, let’s go Joe!

Russia bombs Ukraine’s maternity hospitals; Republicans in the House can’t sort out supporting Ukraine.

How can republicans represent us when they don’t trust women?

Republicans would impeach Biden if he bit into a whole Kit Kat rather than breaking the sections apart.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

Everyone is in a bubble, but some bubbles model reality far better than others!

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

The gop couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse with a fist full of 50s.

Fight for a just cause, love your fellow man, live a good life.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

Their boy Ron is an empty plastic cup that will never know pudding.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

The republican caucus is covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

Quote tweet friends, screenshot enemies.

You know it’s bad when the Project 2025 people have to create training videos on “How To Be Normal”.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

People are weird.

The most dangerous place for a black man in America is in a white man’s imagination.

Somebody needs to explain to DeSantis that nobody needs to do anything to make him look bad.

Marge, god is saying you’re stupid.

The revolution will be supervised.

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Reader Interactions

108Comments

  1. 1.

    burnspbesq

    Zarif is a dead man walking.

    Not sure I’m surprised to hear that the RGC calls more of the shots than was previously believed.

  5. 5.

    maeve

    Business as usual?  I was in a checkout line (6 ft behind but I could hear) when the woman in front of me (wearing a mask but it was in combat fatigue colors) told the checker that just before she left home she had “heard” that we should be on nuclear alert because of the Chinese – who had  been interfering with our government but it had just come out in public so now the Chinese were going to react and go nuclear.  Or something. Wonder what news she listened to.

  8. 8.

    Rob

    @karen marie: ​
      Indeed. Based on what I’ve read about Iran since the summer of 2009 (I am not an expert at all though) I was not terribly surprised to see this.

  9. 9.

    Roger Moore

    @maeve:

    wearing a mask but it was in combat fatigue colors

    This doesn’t necessarily mean much.  My employer issued me with three camouflage masks when mask requirements first came out, and I work in a hospital.  I think that was what was available and cheap enough to give away, so that’s what we got.

  10. 10.

    mrmoshpotato

    @karen marie:

    How is this a surprise?

    Are you talking about the power of the Revolutionary Guard, or Dump destroying all international agreements because the Russkis wanted that?

  11. 11.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Roger Moore:

    This doesn’t necessarily mean much.  My employer issued me with three camouflage masks when mask requirements first came out, and I work in a hospital. 

    Makes sneaking up on the horse easier too.

  12. 12.

    maeve

    @Roger Moore: Not saying it meant anything in particular but it fit with the character.  I made my own masks in March 2020 – god, it seems so long ago.  Donated a lot to the local mask community, Mostly we had local saved quilt fabric.

  14. 14.

    Brachiator

    @maeve:

    … the woman in front of me (wearing a mask but it was in combat fatigue colors) told the checker that just before she left home she had “heard” that we should be on nuclear alert because of the Chinese – who had been interfering with our government but it had just come out in public so now the Chinese were going to react and go nuclear.

    It’s funny how for many right wing dopes, it is not enough that China is a competing superpower with their own set of national interests. They must be our sworn enemy. And it is typically insane that these dopes believe that anyone can win a large scale nuclear war.

    And it is  political funny business as usual that conservatives believe that China is interfering in the US government, but that Russia is an innocent lamb.

  15. 15.

    Geminid

    @mrmoshpotato: I’ve read that the Russians are ambivalent about the JCPOA. On the one hand, the JCPOA does tend to stabilize the Middle East. On the other hand, when trump reimposed sanctions on Iran, eliminating a large portion of Iran’s oil exports allowed Russia to charge more for their oil, which is their major source of cash. And the Russians want a somewhat unstable Middle East anyway.

  16. 16.

    Sloegin

    There’s always been 3 groups in power in Iran since the revolution, with the clergy and the guard maneuvering over the lion’s share of foreign and domestic policy control.  The elected portion of the government gets the remainder of the table scraps.  Nothing particularly new here besides Iran’s unwillingness to play the ‘fool me twice’ game in negotiating a new nuclear deal with the US.

  19. 19.

    Another Scott

    @Geminid: Vlad’s biggest wish is to show that the west, NATO, and the USA in particular, are unreliable / devious / double-talking / not-to-be-trusted allies.  Having Donnie pull the US out of the JCPOA was perfect, even if there were no other obvious consequences.

    “You can’t trust the US.  You can trust me – I’m strong and keep my word.”

    That’s before the bump in oil prices and all the rest.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  21. 21.

    Cheryl Rofer

    The Iran experts I follow are scratching their heads over this. The leak and Zarif’s willingness to be recorded for three hours seem more significant. Or did he know that he was being recorded? Hard to say, but he’s nobody’s fool.

    I suspect it has more to do with the Iranian election coming up, but I am not closely enough acquainted with Iranian politics to figure out the details.

  22. 22.

    Dmbeaster

    The tape describes what I believe is already common knowledge – that the religious factions spearheaded by the revolutionary guard hold the lion’s share of power in Iraq.  That this guy would risk saying this in the context of being taped suggests real carelessness on his part.  That the tape was leaked suggests the motive of someone trying to destroy his power and influence using the tape – probably the revolutionary guard. It looks like a typical internal political knife fight, and may suggest the infighting as Iran tries to establish its policy on the question.

    As for the stuff about Russia, it looks like typical conspiracy monger thinking that is prevelant in the Middle East.  Putin supported the original deal.

  23. 23.

    VOR

    @mrmoshpotato: I live in an area with a lot of people who hunt. Wearing camo year round is not unusual. Camo hats, shirts, pants, shorts, shoes, and jackets. Probably socks and underwear too, but I haven’t checked. Giant “Realtree” or “Mossy Oak” stickers on their pickups. A camo face mask is unremarkable.

  24. 24.

    Brachiator

    @Sloegin:

    Nothing particularly new here besides Iran’s unwillingness to play the ‘fool me twice’ game in negotiating a new nuclear deal with the US.

    This is a very good point. Since US foreign policy tends to swerve severely depending on who’s in power in Washington, there is little value in Iran or any other nation to try to negotiate any particular deal. They would have to look first at their own interests, and pursue a deal which would be least disruptive and most compatible with their own goals. This might be true even if the current US is position is in good faith and honest.

    There are some deals, such as the peace settlement between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, where Democrats and Republicans are on the same page. But in other areas, the US is an inherently unreliable negotiating partner.

  26. 26.

    steve g

    So the military influences foreign policy. Is that in the USA or Iran? I think maybe both.

    Also the comments in this thread are particularly snarky and humorous, it must be Monday morning.

  27. 27.

    Geminid

    @Anonymous At Work: And Russia can recruit more intelligence assets while they’re at it. Already the Russians probably know more about the Iranian nuclear program than do Zarif and President Rouhani.

  28. 28.

    Robert Sneddon

    @VOR: ​
     

    I live in an area with a lot of people who hunt. Wearing camo year round is not unusual.

    There’s a character in a comic strip who writes country music songs for a (good) living. One of his more popular titles was “Has my wife left me or is she just wearing RealTree?”

  29. 29.

    Adam L Silverman

    But since I’m here, and I’m procrastinating, what the hell…

    There are four different take aways here and I think one of them informs the other two.

    1. There are three possible leakers of the tape: Israel, Russia, or Iran’s Quds Force. All three don’t want the nuclear deal back on the table for different reasons, though some of them overlap. In the case of Israel, Bibi is desperate to maintain a foreign threat that only he can safely lead Israel against. And he definitely does not want Iran to be incentivized to open up to the west, which will have profound impacts on Iranian society, economy, and ultimately politics. Without Iran, Israel has no foreign threat for Bibi to rail against as an existential problem that requires his experienced leadership to survive. Russia doesn’t want the deal because it also doesn’t want an Iran incentivized to come in from the cold in order to get out from under sanctions. Doing so would open up Iran, which would have profound impacts on Iranian society, economy, and ultimately politics. An isolated Iran needs Russia. The Quds Force is working this angle from the other direction – internal to Iran instead of external. Anything that potentially empowers the more moderate reformist elements, that potentially leads to a relaxation of sanctions, that potentially leads to Iranians actually being able to interact with Americans and Europeans on a more regular basis weakens the Quds Force. Because if real, legitimate political reform ever comes to Iran, it has to come at the expense of the Quds Force.
    2. While all of these three have means, motive, and opportunity to have gotten the audio and leaked it, the leak was done to make it harder to reach a deal to get Iran either back into the JCPOA or into a new, revised version of it.
    3. If Israel is the leaker on this, the Quds Force and the other elements of Iranian security and intelligence are fully puckered right now. Being able to get hands on to this indicates a level of Israeli intelligence penetration into Iranian elite circles that is beyond what we know and suspect based on reporting.
    4. Someone really wants to dirty up John Kerry. Given that Putin has been working this angle, as I’ve covered here repeatedly on the front pages, since May 2014 when the initial agitprop plant of misinformation was placed in RIA Novotny against Biden, Kerry, and Cheney, via attacks on their children, because all were being discussed as possibly running for president in 2016. Is this an indicator that Russia is the leaker? I don’t know. I just find it curious that Russia has previously tried to ensure that Kerry looks bad, so this might be a two birds, one stone type of thing. Especially as Putin does not want to see any action on climate change because of his own strategy to leverage its effects to the benefit of Russia. And yes, I know, that strategy is stupid and its objectives are not achievable.

    I’m going to go do my workout now.

  31. 31.

    jonas

    @MattF: That struck me as well. TFG clearly had no clue what the nuclear agreement actually consisted of or what it was intended to do, he just knew it was bad…because reasons. His unusually focused hostility toward it had to be coming from somewhere — other than it being an Obama accomplishment — and I think we now know.

  33. 33.

    Adam L Silverman

    One final point, back in 2013 I was asked to do an assessment on Iran & Hezbollah, really a follow on to an assessment on the Syrian civil war, by the then director of policy at the Office for the Secretary of Defense for Policy (OSD-P). This turned out to be the 2nd part of what became a three assessment series of analysis on the Levantine problem set: 1) Syrian civil war, 2) Iran and Hezbollah, 3) Iraqi identity and sectarian violence. In the Iran & Hezbollah assessment, I did an entire section about how the Quds Force, along with the larger Revolutionary Guard that it is technically a part of, control vast swathes of the Iranian economy and have leveraged that for more and more influence over the decision making by the Supreme Religious Authority. I described Iran’s political system as a parliamentary democracy operating as an opaque facade that provides cover for the theocracy that really runs Iran, but which also contains at the same time a military dictatorship led by the Quds Force and Revolutionary Guards. It is a fascinatingly bizarre form of government.

  35. 35.

    Amir Khalid

    @Ken:

    You can create a free account that lets you read the article. I just did that using the Google option, which requires you to give an email address and provide a password.

  38. 38.

    Mary G

    WASHINGTON (AP) — AP Exclusive: US to begin sharing up to 60M AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine doses with world after federal safety review.— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) April 26, 2021

  39. 39.

    Anoniminous

    Wasn’t the NYT the paper that said Saddam was buying yellow cake from Nigeria, had mobile bio-warfare laboratories, and was making chemical weapons?

  41. 41.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Jinchi: From the article:

    Former Secretary of State John Kerry informed him that Israel had attacked Iranian interests in Syria at least 200 times, to his astonishment, Mr. Zarif said.

    Frankly, this isn’t a state secret. If you follow the reporting on the Syrian civil war, you can get to about 30 of these just from reading straight news reporting, so…

  43. 43.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @VOR: Wearing camo if you’re a hunter is unspeakably stupid.  Unless you want to get shot, of course…

  45. 45.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Adam L Silverman: No doubt Tom Cotton is preparing another moronic press release as we speak.

    I also note that these same brainiacs forgot about TFG spilling Israeli secrets to Russian visitors in the Oval Office itself.

  46. 46.

    trollhattan

    @Brachiator:

    Peter Navarro banged that drum four years for Trump and the “right audience” lapped it up. I’m not sure how much they fixated on China pre-Trump but it’s on equal footing with ISIS at this point, in Republican brains.

    I presume the Zarif “leak” is a sharp tug on the choke collars fitted to all Iranian moderates. The hard liners (a.k.a. the establishment) aren’t interested in opening things up to the West.

  47. 47.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Adam L Silverman: looks like somebody who might want to destabilize US politics might be getting what they wanted

    Elise Stefanik @EliseStefanik 45m
    This is a criminal act and John Kerry must be immediately investigated and PROSECUTED. President Biden must immediately remove John Kerry from any government or advisory position.

    You think anyone’s going to point out that Elise and her twitter friends are taking, at face value, the word of a man they think is a terrorist?

  50. 50.

    PJ

    @burnspbesq: Why?  He made the interview as part of an official government archival project.  As far as we know, Zarif was not the leaker, so why would someone take him out?  I mean, I could see the Revolutionary Guard working to get him removed as Foreign Minister, but this seems like one of those things that’s an open secret in the Iranian government, and probably known by the rest of the world’s interested governments.​
     
    The question is, as Adam has explored, why was it leaked? Who benefits? If the leakers are Iranian, then maybe they just want to get Zarif and the moderates out of the picture in negotiations.

  51. 51.

    Brachiator

    @Mary G:

    AP Exclusive: US to begin sharing up to 60M AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine doses with world after federal safety review

    This is good news, but 60 million doses is a drop in the bucket when you consider the billions of people who need it.

  52. 52.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I’m thinking that’s the whole point of the actual leak. It was to launder this information. Which no matter what Kerry does or does not say, cannot resolve the problem.

  54. 54.

    Brachiator

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    This is a criminal act and John Kerry must be immediately investigated and PROSECUTED. President Biden must immediately remove John Kerry from any government or advisory position.

    Talk about hysterical overreach.

  55. 55.

    dopey-o

    Amir Khalid

    @Adam L Silverman:
    Why five times? You only have to say Beetlejuice’s name three times.

    The pentangle has 5 points. Ergo, Adam is Satan!

    Grace Slick asked “Why don’t the pentangles keep away the evil spirits?” speaking of the US flag. Now you know.

  56. 56.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Brachiator:

    I must confess, China scares the hell out of me, even more than Russia does. I’m afraid that if and when they surpass us, they’ll try to dictate terms to us and turn the rest of the world into an extension of China. By that I mean China will try to export it’s totalitarian values to everybody else, including the US.

    We’re already seeing that with professional sports teams, like the Houston Rockets bending over backwards to apologize to the Chinese government for a tweet by a high-ranking employee that was critical of their treatment of Hong Kong

  57. 57.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Brachiator: What are they even accusing him of? Saying that Israel had attacked Iranian assets in Syria a bunch?

    I mean… yeah? This was public.

  59. 59.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    an essential point from some twitter rando as Lindsey Graham mixes up a pitcher of gin Rickies and outrage in preparation for tonights appearance on Hannity:

    New York Times Pitchbot @DougJBalloon 20h
    Breaking character: the problem with establishment media is that upper middle class white people don’t understand how to deal with bad faith actors and are unwilling to admit that ppl with a certain level of attainment (educational, financial, political) can be bad faith actors

    Brian Beutler bangs the bad faith drum a lot, and I think he’s right wrt most anti-anti-trump pundits and the Ivy/Oxbridge pseudo-trumpist Senate caucus (also Nikki Haley, Elise Stefanik, and even Marco Rubio knows he’s lying) but with people like Chuck Todd I would never underestimate the stupid, and with Ron Johnson and Louie Goehmert, I think it’s hard to draw the lines between cynical, stupid and nuttier than a squirrel turd.

  60. 60.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Brachiator:

    This is good news, but 60 million doses is a drop in the bucket when you consider the billions of people who need it. 

    Gotta start somewhere.

  62. 62.

    cain

    @Adam L Silverman: How do they get anything done? I mean no wonder their people are frustrated. It’s just seems like you’re moving pieces around.

    A static society like that tends to die over time.

  65. 65.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Gravenstone:

    Doesn’t what I described above with the Houston Rockets disturb you? That the CCP was able to effectively silence critics here in the US with it’s economic power?

  67. 67.

    cain

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: ​
     

    an essential point from some twitter rando as Lindsey Graham mixes up a pitcher of gin Rickies and outrage in preparation for tonights appearance on Hannity:

    I read this as “Gin Rickles” and I’m thinking that would be a great cocktail named after Don Rickles.

  72. 72.

    Ken

    @Baud: Well, until UNICODE lightens up and releases the two three code-point planes needed to fully support the “obscene emojis” RFC…

  73. 73.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @cain:

    I don’t appreciate this comment or Gravenstone’s. I’m calm and clear-eyed. I’m simply expressing my concerns about something I’m going to have to deal with for the rest of my life as an American. I’m younger than most of you so I’m going to be dealing with this a lot longer

  74. 74.

    trollhattan

    @mrmoshpotato: ​
     
    AstraZeneca hasn’t been approved for use in the States. Have we been stockpiling it in anticipation?

    BBC World Service has been covering India a good deal with both reports and interviews. Chilling stuff. And wow, is that government incompetent.

  77. 77.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @trollhattan:

    BBC World Service has been covering India a good deal with both reports and interviews. Chilling stuff. And wow, is that government incompetent

    Hindu superiority! /s

  79. 79.

    Kay

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    and are unwilling to admit that ppl with a certain level of attainment (educational, financial, political) can be bad faith actors

    No one wants to admit they’ll contest the next election either, and they will. They’re setting it up right now. It’ll be worse the next time. Why wouldn’t it be? Nothing happened to any of them.

  81. 81.

    trollhattan

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): ​
     
    IMO the critical point will be when they decide it’s time to “take back” Taiwan, and we discover we’re incapable of stopping it. Voiding the Hong Kong agreement has proven pretty easy.

  83. 83.

    trollhattan

    We’re back in charge, baby! Enjoy your electric pickup trucks.

    –California

    “The Environmental Protection Agency announced Monday that it will move to grant California permission to set stricter climate requirements for cars and SUVs, a reversal of a key Trump administration policy,” the Washington Post reports.

    “The step, coming days after the Transportation Department withdrew Trump-era restrictions of state tailpipe emission rules, could help pave the way for a broader climate deal with the nation’s automakers.”

  84. 84.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @trollhattan:

    If they did decide to “take back” the ROC by force, I’d have to imagine the international outcry would be intense

  86. 86.

    Adam L Silverman

    @cain: The point is social and religious control, which provides political and economic control. You can’t think of Iran as a nation-state, it is better understood as a nation wide/societal wide religious congregation with a military being run to enrich the religious and military leaders.

  90. 90.

    mrmoshpotato

    @trollhattan: No clue.  Brachiator is saying sending 60mil doses out into the world isn’t enough, but we gotta start at some number regardless of how many doses are needed worldwide.

  91. 91.

    Adam L Silverman

    @trollhattan: When I’m ready for a new vehicle in a few more years – my ten year old Lexus hybrid is in great shape and is now even lower mileage after 15 months of going nowhere at all from the pandemic – it will be to one of these all electric trucks or SUVs. That new Ford Mustang EV SUV looks really nice. I’m curious to see the Hummer EV once it comes out.

  92. 92.

    trollhattan

    @Adam L Silverman: ​
     
    I’m not averse to full electric once the charging infrastructure is mature, which will be one more marker of the blue/red state divide.

    The prospect of a nearly maintenance-free car is awfully appealing and my limited experience as a driver/passenger is they’re pleasantly quiet and startlingly quick.

  95. 95.

    cain

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): ​
     

    I don’t appreciate this comment or Gravenstone’s. I’m calm and clear-eyed. I’m simply expressing my concerns about something I’m going to have to deal with for the rest of my life as an American. I’m younger than most of you so I’m going to be dealing with this a lot longer

    I’m sorry you were offended and I retract my comment. But I think though you’re being unnecessarily alarmist. Also, you might be younger, but I’m only in my early 50s so I still got plenty of living in front of me – and so anything within the next 30 years is going to affect me too.

    So I don’t think it’s necessarily fair to say it’s not a concern of ours if because our life expectancy is short term compared to yours. We’ve also went through a lot of life changing events through the years as well.

  97. 97.

    Brachiator

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    I must confess, China scares the hell out of me, even more than Russia does. I’m afraid that if and when they surpass us, they’ll try to dictate terms to us and turn the rest of the world into an extension of China. By that I mean China will try to export it’s totalitarian values to everybody else, including the US.

    I would ask why China frightens you so much, but instead let’s get down to the nitty gritty.

    When the US became a great power, it exported racism and white supremacy. A lot of people were fine with this.

    I don’t know that China wants to extend its values everywhere. They may settle for non-interference at home, which they pretty much have anyway.

    But the bottom line is this: if a nation becomes the sole or primary superpower, they get to call the shots. That is pretty much how the world has worked, from Greece to Persia, to the Roman Empire, to the British Empire to the United States.

    Of course, with a global economy and international organizations, even a new Numero Uno superpower might want to soft pedal its ambitions.

    We’re already seeing that with professional sports teams, like the Houston Rockets bending over backwards to apologize to the Chinese government for a tweet by a high-ranking employee that was critical of their treatment of Hong Kong

    This is horseshit. China has never liked anyone interfering in their affairs, whether it was Tibet or Hong Kong. And yet no country is going to apply strong sanctions on China because the world depends on China’s manufacturing and assembly operations.

    But this all goes back to Nixon and the right wing, who assured the world that China would inevitably become more democratic once American business was allowed to invest there.

    How did that work out.

    Also, Western powers have been fucking with China since the British forced China to buy opium. Do you really expect China to continue to kiss Western ass?

    And I ask this as someone who hates China’s continued oppression of people, and as someone who has had the sad honor of visiting Tibetan refugee camps in India.

  98. 98.

    Another Scott

    @Brachiator:

    But this all goes back to Nixon and the right wing, who assured the world that China would inevitably become more democratic once American business was allowed to invest there.

    Nixon was worried about China and the USSR teaming up against the West. That’s why he went to China.

    The economic stuff came later, after the disaster of the Cultural Revolution and all the rest.

    I don’t think the rest of the world was interested in an even more radicalized China that would have resulted if the Gang of Four had won, so supporting economic development was in everyone’s (except the hard-liners’) interests.

    What the West and the rest of the world did and didn’t do in response to China’s rapid development is on us, not them.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  99. 99.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Haha, very funny lol

    @Gravenstone:

    I think you’re missing the point here. The Chinese government was able to get a major American sports organization to apologize for an employee’s personal tweet criticizing their human rights abuses in Hong Kong. And they punished him by getting him to step down. They did this through money. This is evidence of their growing influence, imo, on our values. Money was more important to the NBA and the Rockets, just like it is to other corporations. Imagine if this were done on a larger scale. It reminds me of the gag rules the antebellum Southerners engaged in

    @cain:

    It’s fine and I understand what you’re saying and I apologize. I suppose I was being a tad presumptuous. But I don’t think I’m being alarmist, however at the same time I hope I am if that makes sense

  100. 100.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Brachiator:

    I would ask why China frightens you so much, but instead let’s get down to the nitty gritty.

    I’ll answer why. It’s because they’re a huge country that’s on the rise and they don’t share our liberal values. That’s why. Hollywood movies have to censor LGBTQ scenes for the Chinese market, which often means we get inconsequential LGBTQ rep that can be easily edited out. Russia is dangerous, but it’s an aging petro state with an economy smaller than Italy’s. It’s continued survival after Putin’s death is in question.

    When the US became a great power, it exported racism and white supremacy. A lot of people were fine with this.

    And that was wrong

    I don’t know that China wants to extend its values everywhere. They may settle for non-interference at home, which they pretty much have anyway.

    But the bottom line is this: if a nation becomes the sole or primary superpower, they get to call the shots. That is pretty much how the world has worked, from Greece to Persia, to the Roman Empire, to the British Empire to the United States.

    I’d prefer it honestly if they did settle for non-interference at home. However, that doesn’t mean that others can’t criticize them for their conduct and vice-versa

    However, as you point out, great powers aren’t often content with just limiting themselves to their own borders. That’s what makes China dangerous imo. If they become dominant I believe it could mean the end of human freedom. Their civilization has survived for millenia and their current government is incredibly totalitarian. They little regard for human rights. And I don’t think international institutions would stop them. If anything they’d attempt to mold them to their own advantage and in their own image.

    This is horseshit. China has never liked anyone interfering in their affairs, whether it was Tibet or Hong Kong. And yet no country is going to apply strong sanctions on China because the world depends on China’s manufacturing and assembly operations.

    But this all goes back to Nixon and the right wing, who assured the world that China would inevitably become more democratic once American business was allowed to invest there.

    How did that work out.

    No authoritarian regime likes to have sunlight shone on them. That doesn’t mean doing so isn’t worthwhile. I’m fully aware how much the world depends on China’s manufacturing abilities, and that needs to change. Nixon was wrong and now we’re paying the price for it. The West needs to stand together against China and other regimes such as Russia or we’ll all fall

    Also, Western powers have been fucking with China since the British forced China to buy opium. Do you really expect China to continue to kiss Western ass?

    What the Western powers have done in the past does not make what China’s doing now ok.

    They don’t have to “continue to kiss Western ass”. They could try to not be assholes and respect human rights

  101. 101.

    Brachiator

    @Another Scott: 

    But this all goes back to Nixon and the right wing, who assured the world that China would inevitably become more democratic once American business was allowed to invest there.

    Nixon was worried about China and the USSR teaming up against the West. That’s why he went to China.

    This was a dumb mistake on the part of the US. So called experts falsely believed that two communist nations would always work together. These dopes just did not understand that the Soviet Union and China might have different national interests.

    I also recall that some of these dopes assumed that India tilted towards the communist nations because India insisted on being un-aligned. Western foreign policy people just flat out ignored past tensions between China and India. And so we gave more aid to Pakistan in the years following World War 2.

    The economic stuff came later, after the disaster of the Cultural Revolution and all the rest.

    I recall some of the “only Nixon could go to China” BS. And speculation that approaching China would make that country more democratic.

    I don’t think the rest of the world was interested in an even more radicalized China that would have resulted if the Gang of Four had won, so supporting economic development was in everyone’s (except the hard-liners’) interests.

    Who knows. But economic development has done little to ease oppression in China. And China delivered a big “fuck you” to the UK when they took back Hong Kong.

    What the West and the rest of the world did and didn’t do in response to China’s rapid development is on us, not them.

    I don’t think that it is a simple either/or or Us vs Them. China has a long history of autocratic rule independent of the West.

  102. 102.

    Gravenstone

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I’m not missing jack shit. You’re conflating a business decision (however poorly conceived and executed) with potential future governmental choices and actions. They are orders of magnitude apart.

  104. 104.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Gravenstone:

    The US government doesn’t come into this. I’m talking about US corporations being influenced by Chinese pressure and that slowly influencing American society to be more authoritarian

  105. 105.

    Gravenstone

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): From your original post: “I’m afraid that if and when they surpass us, they’ll try to dictate terms to us and turn the rest of the world into an extension of China. By that I mean China will try to export it’s totalitarian values to everybody else, including the US.”

    So essentially you’re projecting that China will become the big cock on the block and the US government will be powerless to stop them. If that is indeed your assertion, then please place the goalposts back to their original upright position and stop moving them. If not, then I apologize for reading too much into your post and will withdraw from further discussion on the matter.

  106. 106.

    Brachiator

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    The US government doesn’t come into this. I’m talking about US corporations being influenced by Chinese pressure and that slowly influencing American society to be more authoritarian

    Still an over-reaction that fails to logically connect any dots.

    China wants everyone to butt out of their internal affairs. This has always been the case. I don’t see much of anything else.

  107. 107.

    Brachiator

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    For the record.

    They don’t have to “continue to kiss Western ass”. They could try to not be assholes and respect human rights

    China has never respected human rights since the communists took over. They also have nukes.

    They don’t have to be Superpower Number One to get away with bad behavior.

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