Future of Taiwan

My expectations for the future of Taiwan is for a peaceful integration with the mainland of China sometime in the 2050's.

Over the coming decades, there are significant anniversaries in Chinese history (especially related the Century of Humilation):

• 2033 is the hundredth anniversary of the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War;
• 2045 is the hundredth anniversary of the end of World War II;
• 2047 is cessation of the fifty year transition of Hong Kong and Macau into the PRC;
• 2049 is the hundredth anniversary of the founding of the PRC;
• 2061 is the 150th anniversary of the founding of the Republic of China.

2047 would see the start of negotiations between Taiwan and the mainland about paths to integration as the results of the transition of Hong Kong and Macau would start to be apparrant. What the final form of this integration takes would inform these negotiations. I think that Taiwan would go for a 75 year transition for full integration just to show they are the older brother to both Hong Kong and Macau.

PRC would like to start the transition in 2049 just to celebrate the founding of the PRC. Taiwan may argue for a later start date just to frustrate this. Taiwan may argue for 2061 for start of the transition in order to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the founding of the ROC.

Difficult points for these negotiations include:

• KMT's acknowledgement of the primary role of the CPC in the political life of the PRC;
• The name of the country after integration: PRC; ROC; or some other name;
• The status of pro-independence parties during transition;
• The status of pro-independence parties after transition;
• What happens to US provided military equipment?
• Would there be a plebiscite in Taiwan about the transition treaty?

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Essence of Masculinity

The essence of masculinity is expendibility.

To illustrate this idea of masculinity, I have chosen the statue of David by Michelangelo.

Here is a young man prepared to risk his life in order to prevent deaths in battle of his people. This is the idea of expendibility. As a man, David was expected to offer his life for the greater good. 1 Samuel 17 gives the following account:

23. While he was talking to them, the champion (Goliath, the Philistine from Gath) came up from the Philistine ranks and made his usual speech, which David heard.
24. As soon as the Israelites saw this man, they all ran away from him and were terrified.
25. The Israelites said, 'You saw that man who just came up? He comes to challenge Israel. The king will lavish riches on the man who kills him, he will give him his daughter in marriage and exempt his father's family from all taxes in Israel.'
26. David asked the men who were standing near him, 'What would be the reward for killing this Philistine and saving Israel from disgrace? Who is this uncircumcised Philistine, to challenge the armies of the living God?'
27. The people told him what they had been saying, 'That would be the reward for killing him,' they said.

Emphasis Mine

Here, this extract shows five (5) components of masculine society:

1. Violence
2. Honour
3. Reward
4. Oppression of women
5. Advancing the Greater Good

The above extract shows that men consider violence to be the only option to solve problems. There are no other options presented like negotiations, surrender, or withdrawal. The situation between Israel and Philistine could only be resolved by the subjugation of one to the other.

The concept of male honour demanded this path of violence. It is disgraceful that this situation is unresolved.

To entice someone to take up the challenge from Goliath, Sual, the King of Israel, offered a generous reward. It is not enough for honour to elicit action from a man to rise to the level of violence needed, but a substantial reward is needed. This reward consisted of personal wealth, marriage into the royal family, and tax relief for the man's extended family. This reward enhanced the man's status through wealth, marriage, and source of benefit to his father's family.

As part of this reward, it is necessary to oppress women. The princess to be married off has no choice of husband; no choice as to when to marry; or, even, to marry at all. The oppression of women is a tool to control men.

The Greater Good here is advanced by removing a threat to the existence of Israel, either through annihilation or subjugation.

Expendibility is not disposibility as the life of a man has meaning in the former, but not in the latter. His death is supposed to advance the greater good of society. Men are supposed to accept this bargain.

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Chris Dillow: The two agendas

Chris Dillow discusses The two agendas

But there's something else. It's that actually-existing British capitalism - whether you call it neoliberalism, financialization, rentierism or whatever - has failed most people; even before the jump in gas prices real wages were barely higher than they had been 15 years previously. If you are going to talk about economics, then, you must either talk of big change or defend a system that works only for a minority. It's no wonder therefore that many on the right would rather point to a dead cat: Prince Harry is the latest one, but there'll be another along soon enough. "Culture wars" are a product of capitalist stagnation.

Emphasis Mine

This is a facet of the principle of TINA (There is No Alternative). To defend Capitalism is a tacit admission that Capitalism needs defending against viable alternatives. The big lie of TINA has to be maintained fantically. This reveals an intellectual poverty of the defenders of Capitalism.

With the economy flat-lining, tricky questions arise. Should we allow public services to deteriorate or raise taxes, if so on whom? Do we really want to cut private consumption to make room for more public consumption? Given that higher energy costs mean that the UK is poorer as a country, whose real income should take the hit: nurses and railworkers, or others, and if so whom? In short, who do we throw under the bus?

These are nasty trade-offs. Which many don't want to talk about. This is true more of the centre and right than left: whereas the latter are comfortable demanding higher taxes on the rich (maybe too comfortable) the former don't like to call explicitly for the impoverishment of nurses.

Instead, if they must talk of economics they wibble about electability or a lack of money - which is only slightly less moronic than asking about nationalizing sausages. Better for them that they retreat to the comfort zone of culture wars.

I would read Truss's ill-fated premiership in this context. Although she spoke of being pro-growth and breaking with Treasury orthodoxy, this was mere cargo-cult economics. It was language without substance, and assertion without evidence - for example that tax cuts would boost growth. Instead, it was identity politics - invoking a (partly fictitious) image of Thatcher and appealing to Tory prejudices rather than seriously engaging with genuine issues.

Whatever the reason for this divide about what we should talk about, it has an important implication. One facet of political power is control over the agenda: if we're talking about immigration or trans people or "wokesters" we are not talking about the failure of capitalism. One under-appreciated route through which the media exercise influence is in deciding what it is that we do talk about. Given this, it's not at all clear to me that it is even possible for the BBC to be truly impartial.

Emphasis Mine

The Overton window cannot include the discussions of alternatives to Capitalism. Back in 2017, I made the following comment:

Thinkers, like Kunstler, believe the superstructure is undermining the political, economic, and social system. What is happening is that the class relations are changing, and the superstucture is struggling to maintain the old system. The ideology is diverging from reality.

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Seth Godin: Build a new one

Seth Godin says to Build a new one

Entrenched cultural organizations and icons feel more permanent than they are. Network effects, brand power and the status quo can seduce us into believing that we’re stuck with what we have, but things are rarely as permanent as they appear.

…

Nothing much changes until someone cares enough to build an alternative.

Emphasis Mine

Such naivete! There are institutions that have the backing of the State with its instruments of coercion and propaganda. These institutions are essential to the current power structures. One cannot simplify replace without expecting a violent backlash.

Hotels can be replaced by AirBNB. Taxis by Uber and Lyft. These institutions are not essential to the preservation of Capitalism. Capital is merely being reallocated to different sectors chasing higher profits.

What Godin describes is dual power. During the Russian revolution, dual power existed from February until November 1917. Dual power currently exists in Venezuela. As Lenin wrote:

What is this dual power? Alongside the Provisional Government, the government of bourgeoisie, another government has arisen, so far weak and incipient, but undoubtedly a government that actually exists and is growing—the Soviets of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies.

These dual organs of state power in Russia and Venezuela were able to exist because there existed military support that protected them. Dual power institutions without sufficient military support have a very short lifespan.

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Chris Slee: New book examines Australia's role in the region

Chris Slee reviews New book examines Australia's role in the region.

If Australia were to break with the US, the latter would react in a hostile manner. This might include military action, perhaps in the form of a naval blockade. Submarines might be useful in deterring this.

But if Australia still had a capitalist government, even one that was relatively independent of the US, it might use its armed forces to attack and intimidate its Pacific neighbours.

Breaking with the US is essential, but so too is opposing the exploitative relations between Australian capitalism and the people of the Pacific.

Emphasis Mine

So Australia is bound to the US Imperialism through coercion and bribery. The stick of US military action coerces Australia to accept the bribes of imperial profits. The carcasses of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Vietnam, Somalia, Sudan, Nicaragua, Cuba, Venezuela, etc. are there for all to see what happens to those who oppose US Imperialism.

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Seth Godin: Arguing for inaction

Seth Godin discusses Arguing for inaction

The status quo might not be ideal, but if we’re afraid of change, if we focus on the costs of doing the work to make things better, it’s tempting to simply stay still.

And the real fears of change are that it might work (which is scary) and that it might not work (which is heartbreaking).

Easier to do nothing and simply settle.

Emphasis Mine

This ignores the actions of those who benefit from the status quo. They actively persecute dissenters, propagandise for the status quo, and, sometimes, use lethal means to suppress dissent.

This explains the increase criminalisation of protests with increase prison terms, fines, and breadth of offences. Those who loudly proclaim their freedom of speech and right not to wear masks, are remarkably silent on this trend.

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Seth Godin: It’s not what you deserve, but it is what it is

Seth Godin discusses It’s not what you deserve, but it is what it is

When your client or your boss turns down a great idea, it’s tempting to focus on the idea and how right you were. It might make more sense to try to find empathy for the fear and status issues that the client has instead. Because those issues probably got in the way of them ever seeing what you had to say.

Emphasis Mine

When we do agitation and propaganda work, we often encounter the fears of the working class:

• Homelessness
• Poverty
• Hunger
• Illness
• Prison

All the things that are reasons for overthrowing the system are also the props that hold up the system. As Machiavelli wrote (The Prince (1513), Ch 17):

Nevertheless a prince ought to inspire fear in such a way that, if he does not win love, he avoids hatred; because he can endure very well being feared whilst he is not hated, which will always be as long as he abstains from the property of his citizens and subjects and from their women. But when it is necessary for him to proceed against the life of someone, he must do it on proper justification and for manifest cause, but above all things he must keep his hands off the property of others, because men more quickly forget the death of their father than the loss of their patrimony. Besides, pretexts for taking away the property are never wanting; for he who has once begun to live by robbery will always find pretexts for seizing what belongs to others; but reasons for taking life, on the contrary, are more difficult to find and sooner lapse. But when a prince is with his army, and has under control a multitude of soldiers, then it is quite necessary for him to disregard the reputation of cruelty, for without it he would never hold his army united or disposed to its duties.

Emphasis Mine

The Capitalists have to maintain this semblance of fear without engendering widespread hatred of the system.

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Waging Nonviolence: Why the Fight over defining Antisemitism is Key to the Future of BDS

Waging Nonviolence discusses Why the Fight over defining Antisemitism is Key to the Future of BDS

As Israel continues military actions directed at Gaza — and the 2022 elections reveal far-right “Kahanist” candidates like Itamar Ben-Gvir building a far-right coalition in the Knesset — these questions are becoming even more salient. If the [International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA)] is an effective weapon to marginalize [Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS)] activism, to make criticism of Israel so untenable that it is nearly illegal in some contexts, then activists are going to have to address that foundational tool to make any other gains. The recent [Independent Jewish Voices (IJV)] report reveals exactly what IHRA’s defenders say is untrue — that IHRA is being used specifically to marginalize non-antisemitic criticism of Israel.

On Nov. 10, the Anti-Defamation League held it’s annual “Never Again is Now” summit, where they discussed the status of racist threats, including antisemitism. Speakers urged the mass adoption of the IHRA as a useful tool to fight antisemitism, something that mainstream Jewish and civic organizations have largely agreed with. This creates an uphill fight for groups like IJV who acknowledge the IHRA as a fundamental obstacle to maintaining an effective strategy to pressure for change in Israel-Palestine. This is part of what has created a rift between Jewish pro-Palestinian activists and the mainstream Jewish community. But these activists are committed to winning this fight because they see it as necessary to unlock further gains in the movement for Palestinian liberation.

Emphasis Mine

So, in effect, an on-going genocide against Palestinians is being masked by another genocide (the Holocaust). Unfortunately, the State of Israel (and its supporters) is emulating Nazi Germany by justifying the genocide by protecting its people from an internal enemy who are not human. And it is the same reason that the Ottoman Empire did a genocide against the Armenians.

When you deny the humanity of others, you open yourself to exploitation by those who are intent on mass-murder and extinguishment of a people from the pages of history.

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Chris Dillow: Why economists need history

Chris Dillow argues Why economists need history

Reigning in monopoly power requires governments to overcome these forces. And that in turn requires the growth of either a threat to capitalism itself or at least a countervailing power to capital. It's no accident that capitalism was more equal (and productive) when there were strong trades unions and a threat of communism.

So yes, I think we do need intellectual (and social and economic) history - because it teaches us that meaningful improvements in economic policy must be a collective effort and not merely clever people proposing technocratic tweaks.

Emphasis Mine

This really requires a significant portion of the proletariat to raise its class consciousness enough to confront the forces of Capitalism. Using the ERA (experience, reflection, action) model, workers should:

1.		Experience what is happening. This means articulating what is happening to them. Articulation brings the experience to the foreground. It can be simple as saying "This is sucks!". It is a realisation that things are right somehow. It may be something simple as a feeling of unease.
2.		Reflect upon this experience. This is when theory and a knowledge of history comes in. The current state of things has arisen from the decisions made in the past. It is vital that people understand that society is a human construct that is reproduced daily. Rules and customs exist to solve problems. We need to understand what those problems were, and why those choices were made. Theory helps us to clarify our thinking by focusing on what is important.
3.		Act upon this reflection and experience. What happens next depends on what you perceive your capabilities to be and what reaction you can survive. Be very aware that any action you take will incur a reaction from those whose believe that they benefit from the current system. The intensity of this reaction will be proportional to the fear that they feel.
4.		Repeat

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Ted Rall: Elon Musk, Gender and the War over Pronouns

Ted Rall discusses Elon Musk, Gender and the War over Pronouns

The pronoun thing also feels irrelevant to people who live in communities where they not only don’t know anyone who is transgender or nonbinary, no one they know knows someone who is. Politics fail when they don’t connect to perceived reality.

Can transgender Americans achieve full equality and eliminate discrimination without a radical grammatical transformation? If not, there is only one way to get there absent the kind of wholesale cultural transformation that took place in revolutionary Russia and its attendant social pressures. Stop preaching and wage a patient, persistent educational campaign that convinces most citizens that a more complicated world is a better one.

I’m not optimistic.

Emphasis Mine

The pronoun issue is a microcosm of a social revolution. Individual changes in behaviour eventually becomes a societal one. Because the order of society is changed, those who consider themselves to be beneficiaries of the current order, will wage a vicious campaign to maintain their current status in the current order. The benefits of a new social order must exceed the cost of overcoming the resistance to change, and that benefit must be seen by enough people to be good enough to pay the cost, in order for the societal change to be implemented.

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Peter Boyle: The recent protests in China: An interview with PSM’s Choo Chon Kai

Peter Boyle discusses The recent protests in China: An interview with PSM’s Choo Chon Kai.

In the context of the escalating imperialist drive to contain China’s rise on economic, political and military fronts, some leftists in the West, and even in your country, are painting democracy activists in China as agents of imperialism. What do you say about this tendency?

This is really divisive for the left. The US feels threatened by China’s rise in economic power and is using every means to try and contain it and retain US supremacy. Of course the US is trying to use the recent protests as an excuse for its hostile policies against China, but the people in China also have a legitimate right to struggle for a better life and more democratic space. 

A lack of support from the left around the world will alienate them from the genuine democracy movement, and the real left, in China. This will also have the effect of pushing some democracy activists to the right-wing imperialist forces — not only in China but also in other countries whose governments are the targets of the imperialist powers in this period of growing geopolitical tensions.

It is challenging for the left to work out the correct policy in this situation, but this is a challenge it needs to take up.

Emphasis in original

This is also the case with the Kurds, Ukraine, BREXIT, Cuba, Venezuela, etc. There is a genuine progressive current that is being exploited by the Imperialist forces for their own needs. The progressive forces are glad to accept help from the Capitalist class because the Capitalists currently have the overwhelming force on their side.

The difficulty for progressive forces to maintain their identity and integrity while accepting help from a rival Imperialist power to counter another Imperialist power. Survival can make identity and integrity seem like luxuries to be enjoyed in better times.

Blank pieces of paper stuck on the 'Freedom' sign at Xidian University in China. Image: Wikimedia Commons

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Sonia Hickey: Thugs in uniform: NSW Police assault Danny Lim

Sonia Hickey discusses Thugs in uniform: NSW Police assault Danny Lim

He’s beloved around the Sydney CBD for his cheeky but peaceful protests. But Danny Lim was in a “poor state” in hospital after sustaining injuries during a violent arrest by New South Wales Police on November 22.

78-year old Lim is a Sydney icon. He was wearing his trademark sandwich board sign — “SMILE CVN’T! WHY CVN’T?” — when police confronted him.

Emphasis Mine

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Daniel Little: Alexander Herzen's radical liberalism

Daniel Little discusses Alexander Herzen's radical liberalism.

Finally, Herzen has a healthy distrust of "ideology", or purely philosophical theories of an ideal future for which all present human wellbeing must be sacrificed. Against Trotsky, Lenin, and Mao, Herzen mistrusted grand ideological goals and favored a process of social change that permitted ordinary human beings to exercise their freedoms as society changed. Berlin emphasizes this point in his introduction.

It is, in the main, a frontal attack upon the doctrine at that time preached by almost every left-wing orator in Europe (with the notable exception of Proudhon and a handful of anarchists to whom no one listened), about the sacred human duty of offering up oneself—or others—upon the altar of some great moral or political cause—some absolute principle or ‘collective noun’ capable of stirring strong emotion, like Nationality, or Democracy, or Equality, or Humanity, or Progress. For Herzen these are merely modern versions of ancient religions which demanded human sacrifice, faiths which spring from some irrational belief (rooted in theology or metaphysics) in the existence of vast and menacing powers, once the objects of blind religious worship, then, with the decay of primitive faith, degraded to becoming terms of political rhetoric. The dogmas of such religions declare that mere invocation of certain formulae, certain symbols, render what would normally be regarded as crimes or lunacies—murder, torture, the humiliation of defenceless human bodies—not only permissible, but often laudable. (From the Other Shore, Berlin introduction, xv)

Emphasis Mine

I think that Little and Herzen consider philosophical systems such as Marxism to prescriptive rather than descriptive. My reading of the above quotes is that they see left-wing politics (with a few exceptions) as requiring a form of human sacrifice in order to realise the political objectives.

In other words, Little and Herzen do not see Marxism as a way to analyse the world, but rather as a goal to be achieved. The misconception of about Marxism being prescriptive appears to arise from the Manifesto of the Communist Party in which there is a prescriptive ten (10) point plan. That plan was a response to the existing conditions in Europe as of 1848. Since then several of these pints

Little and Herzen see this prescription as requiring some form of human sacrifice while ignoring the human sacrifice imposed by Capitalism through poverty, hunger, disease, homelessness, etc. This is not "what-about-ism" as the implication of their quotes that the need for human sacrifice is inherent in left-wing politics.

Marxism is based on dialectical materialism in which the world is analysed (or described) through the contradictions between material (or real) forces. By examining these contradictions, one can devise a plan to remove them through synthesis.

Little concludes:

The new society, if it is to conform to these disparate values, must accomplish several different social goods:

• respect liberty and equal dignity of all individuals;
• secure the human needs of everyone — workers, engineers, poets, and owners of property;
• be democratic, not autocratic.

Was there any place on the planet in 1850 that satisfied these different structural features? There certainly was not — not Britain, not Switzerland, not the United States. Is there a society on the planet today that satisfies them? Perhaps there is; it is called Finland.

Emphasis Mine

This is not far from what The Communist Manifesto concludes with:

In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.

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Now on Mastodon

I have created an account on Mastodon

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Seth Godin: It's easy to do (if you know how to do it)

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Seth Godin discusses It’s easy to do (if you know how to do it)

The three elements of successful instructional design might be:

1. Acknowledge that communicating what you know is difficult.
2. Find empathy for people who don’t know what you know yet.
3. Test the work, often.

Humility in design dances with the arrogance of believing we can help other people move forward.

Emphasis Mine

This is particularly relevant as one organises for a social revolution. One has to convey a different ordering of society to people who think that the current society is the most natural thing in the world. They may consider some reforms are needed, but not a wholesale reordering of society.

However, revolutionaries need to believe that they can change society. This counts as an "arrogance of believing". We also need to "find empathy for people who don't know what [we] know yet". We should remember our own journey of discovery.

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Seth Godin: Reality isnt optimized

Seth Godin argues that Reality isn’t optimized

Falsehoods, spin and legends can be tweaked and tested and changed to exactly match the dreams and desires of the people they’re aimed at.

This is why manipulative stories are so much stickier than what really happened.

What reality has in its favor is that it’s generally resilient. Gravity doesn’t care who believes in it. It’s still here.

Emphasis Mine

This is why conspiracy theories are so successful—they offer satisfying explanations that do not require too much thinking as they rely on confirmation bias. Reality is far more messy and much more difficult to explain.

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Hyman P. Minsky: Finance and Stability: The Limits of Capitalism

Hyman P. Minsky discusses Finance and Stability: The Limits of Capitalism.

One reason capitalism won and the Soviet version of socialism lost was that the Lenin-Stalin version of socialism allowed for only one form, the highly centralized linear command model, whereas, as the call for this conference recognizes, capitalism comes in many forms. The successful capitalisms of the 1950's through the 1970's were not the same as the capitalisms that failed in the 1930's. In general a system which we can characterize as a small government gold standard constrained laissez-faire capitalism was replaced by a big government flexible central bank interventionist capitalism. As Kalecki and Jerome Levy pointed out, a government deficit is the equivalent of investment as far as the maintaining of the profits of enterprise is concerned. The big government capitalism put in place in the 1930's and after World War II were and still are protected from a severe fall in aggregate profits, such as occurred in the great contraction of 1929-33.

Emphasis Mine. pp.5-6

This was certainly the problem with Socialism after the 1917 revolution and the formation of the USSR. Given that a Socialist country had just survived a near-death experiences in the Russian Civil War and the Great Patriotic War. In both cases, the USSR was able to emerge stronger and defeat its enemies.

Unfortunately, the means that the USSR used to achieve their victories proved not to be appropriate in the post-war years. The USSR went through several phases:

• War Communism (1918-1921)
• New Economic Policy (1921-1928)
• Great Break (USSR) (1928-1929)
• Five-year plans of the Soviet Union (1928-1991)

Except for the period of the New Economic Policy, all of the other phases relied on centralised control of the economy. The great advantage of this was the rapid development of the productive forces which was necessary because Russia was primarily an agricultural country (indeed, a peasant-based economy).

Minksy did not realised that Capitalism has been Finance Capitalism since the early 20th century:

As a result of the security market reforms of the Roosevelt era the law caught up with the fact that modern capitalism is corporate capitalism.

Emphasis Mine. p.13

Minksy admits that Marx's thesis that the long-term trend of decreasing rates of profit without acknowledging the source:

Once current profits fall by enough, or the carrying costs of debts increases by enough, so that the cash flows earned by operations or from financial assets by highly indebted operations are insufficient to meet commitments on liabilities then the pressure of the need to validate debts (and to meet withdrawals by depository institutions) leads to a proliferation of attempts to make positions by selling out positions. The result can be a sharp fall in asset values. A downward spiral is a possibility in which investment ceases and profits evaporate: the end result of over indebtedness can be a great or a serious depression. Although the obvious flaw in capitalism centers around its inability to maintain a close approximation to full employment, its deeper flaw centers around the way the financial system affects the prices and demands of outputs and assets, so that from time to time debts and debt servicing rise relative to incomes so that conditions conducive to financial crises are endogenously generated. Such a crisis, if not contained by a combination of Central Bank lender of last resort interventions, which sustain asset prices, and government deficits, which sustain profits, leads first to a collapse of investment and then to a long lasting depression accompanied by mass unemployment. This financial flaw cannot be eradicated from the corporate form of market capitalism, in which liabilities exist that are prior commitments of the gross nominal profit flows of corporations. Reforms which constrain the possibility of using excessive debts for specified purposes were part of the new model capitalism of the 1930's. Many aspects of these constraints were relaxed by the 1980's, especially critical constraints upon the assets eligible for the portfolios of the Savings and Loan Associations were relaxed. The result was a series of crises of financial institutions and corporate indebtedness. A big depression did not happen in the early 1990's because the government validated the debts of the financial institutions that became insolvent and the huge government deficits sustained profits.

Emphasis Mine. pp.18-19

This is a succinct prescription of the current Capitalist crisis.

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Claudio Katz: China: Neither imperialist nor part of the Global South

Claudio Katz argues that China is neither imperialist nor part of the Global South.

Dependency presupposes the existence of a state subject to external orders, requirements or conditioning, while imperialism implies the opposite: international supremacy and a high degree of external interventionism. These should not be intermingled in the same formula. In China the lack of subordination to another power coexists alongside great restraint in its involvement with other countries. This is neither dependency nor imperialism.

Katz is arguing is that China is not an imperialist power as it does not intervene directly in the affairs of other nations through the use of military force or economic coercion. This is a big change from the period prior to the 1990's when China tried to invade Vietnam, supported Maoist guerillas, and intervened directly into the Korean conflict.

Nor is China a dependent power like Australia in which we have to follow the lead of the USA in military and political matters.

Those who are unaware of this difference tend to denounce China and the United States alike as aggressive powers. They situate the two contenders on the same plane and stress that they intervene indifferently in those conflicts.

But this neutralism fails to note who is primarily responsible for the tensions that shake the planet. It fails to see that the United States sends warships to its rival’s coast and raises the tone of its accusations in order to generate a climate of growing conflict.

Katz is arguing that China is acting defensively. This defensiveness has to be seen in the presence of US bases in South Korea, Japan, Guam, and others. China has no comparable presence near the USA.

China does not suffer the outflows that typically drain the dependent countries. It is exempt from the trade imbalance, technological deficiency, scarcity of investment or strangling of purchasing power. There are no data from today’s China suggesting that its stunning economic might constitutes a mere statistical fiction.

This trade surplus allows some freedom of action for China on the world stage. And it is this freedom that is an affront to the US.

But these cheerful portraits overlook the fact that the consolidation of capitalism accentuates in China all of the imbalances already generated by overproduction and surplus capital. These tensions, in turn, accentuate inequality and deterioration of the environment. Ignoring these contradictions prevents us from noting how China’s defensive international strategy is undermined by the competitive pressure imposed by capitalism

Katz puts this contradiction as the core problem for China. While Capitalism has delivered stunning economic growth and properity for China, the need for ever-expanding markets brings it into sharp conflict with the hegemonic power of the USA.

In the short term, there is the robust rise of China in the face of an obvious decline of the United States. China is winning the dispute in all areas and its recent management of the pandemic is a confirmation of this. Beijing quickly achieved control over the spread of the infection while Washington coped with an overflow of cases that left the country with one of the highest numbers of deaths.

The pandemic has hastened the decline of the USA. And it is this decline that makes the USA more dangerous as it tries to maintain its hegemony. But we should also be wary of China as the Capitalist contradictions impel it towards imperialism.

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Ramzy Baroud: B’Tselem’s historic declaration, “A Regime of Jewish Supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea: This is Apartheid”

Ramzy Baroud writes about B’Tselem’s historic declaration, “A Regime of Jewish Supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea: This is Apartheid”.

Let’s be clear on what this actually means. Israel’s leading human rights organization was not arguing that Israel was turning into an apartheid state or that it was acting contrary to the spirit of democracy or that Israel is an undemocratic apartheid regime only within the geographic confines of the occupied Palestinian territories. None of this. According to B’tselem, which has for decades diligently documented numerous facets of Israeli government practices in the realm of politics, military, land-ownership, water distribution, health, education, and much more, Israel is, now, wholly an apartheid, undemocratic regime.

Emphasis Mine

This Israeli organisation will be seen as anti-semite or self-hating Jews by the Israeli government. The Israeli government hides behind Jewish identity to protect itself from criticism.

This automatic protection of the Israeli state from criticism extends to various public intellectuals—they all infer that any criticism or exposure of crimes is motivated by racial hatred, or, at least, malice. Their identity is tied to the existence of the Israeli state. Any attack upon that state is a personal insult.

As a Gentile, I am charged with preventing the recurrence of the horrors of the Holocaust and other genocides. The Israeli state is not immune from the emergence of genocide within itself. And the policies of the Israeli state is morphing into outright genocide against the Palestinians. Saying so does not excuse the Holocaust. Rather saying so is viligence against the recurrence of the Holocaust.

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FreiKorps in America

In my analysis of "Sam Williams: The Crisis (Pt 9)", I was worried about the rise of right-wing paramilitaries (such as a FreiKorps) to defend Capitalism. Unfortunately, this fear has now now been realised.

Dan Dinello writes about "A Confederacy of Vigilantes: White Supremacists, including some Police, attack BLM Protesters, Prepare to Defend Trump’s Theft of the Presidency":

The most vicious elements within these far-right militant groups correctly believe that their conduct is sanctioned by the government and the police. Given the maniacal fervor of pro-Trump paramilitary forces, it’s reasonable to assume that they’ve “upgraded” — in organization and tactics — as a result of involvement by law enforcement officers and even Iraq war veterans. “They have clear civilian targets and a President who eggs them on,” asserts Alexander Reid Ross, author of Against the Fascist Creep, who tracks vigilante groups. “There seems no doubt that America’s far right is keying up for conflict in the lead-up and aftermath of the presidential election” as Trump has floated the idea of rejecting an unfavorable election result as fraudulent.

Emphasis Mine

This is different from the Fascist uprisings in the 1930s. Back then, the Fascists overthrew what they saw as weak democracries in Italy, Germany, Spain, Hungary, Romania, and Poland. The Fascists saw themselves as revolutionaries ushering in a bright new future. They were the true representatives of the people in their world-view. They rejected democracy and Communism/Socialism/Anarchism as foreign to what they saw as the true national character.

Today, the proto-Fascist groups are defending the existing social structure. However, they see themselves as overthrowing the existing social order. Thus, there is a conflict between their subjective reality and the objective reality.

Barry Sheppard writes about Trump’s Bonaparte moment:

In the present day US, albeit for different reasons than at the end of 1848 in France: workers’ organisations play little or no role in politics; like Louis, Trump presents himself as a strongman; and as was the case between 1849–51, the bourgeois parties are continuously bickering between themselves and achieving little (except for bipartisan agreements like adopting ever-increasing military budgets).

Louis embraced France’s Napoleonic past for legitimacy and made himself Emperor. Trump looks to US history, especially the Jim Crow period. He seeks to solidify authoritarianism with bourgeois democratic trappings, while greatly restricting democratic rights, something like the regimes in the Jim Crow South, but with himself at the top.

Trump’s militia

Trump is also building up an armed force that is loyal to him.

Emphasis Mine

Trump is able to position himself as a Bonapartist by bridging the gap between the subjective and objective realities. The problem with Bonapartism is its inherent instability.

That the FreiKorps are now establishing themselves in American society. Whether Trump is able to keep control of them reminds to be seen.

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