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The MoA Week In Review – OT 2021-023
Last week's posts at Moon of Alabama:
> [W]e do express our concern at the UK’s decision to increase its nuclear weapons arsenal, which is contrary to its obligations under Article VI of the NPT. It could have a damaging impact on global stability and efforts to pursue a world free of nuclear weapons.
At a time when nuclear weapon risks are higher than they have been since the Cold War, investments in disarmament and arms control is the best way to strengthen the stability and reduce nuclear danger. <
> Suffice to say, President Joe Biden had given an impression that his era would be “different”. He held out a raft of promises that diplomacy is back at the centre of US foreign policy. By doing so, Biden won enormous credit with world capitals. Yet, before the Biden presidency reaches the 100-day mark, the new administration is busy weaponising sanctions and acting like a bully on the world stage. <
Other issues:
Covid 19:
One year on and the CDC still does not understand aerosol transmission.
Censorship:
If your data is in the 'cloud' they have it:
Bitcoins Are Prosecution Futures:
Use as open thread …
psychohistorian@81 imagines something called a “civilization war” and thinks the absence of this non-thing somehow proves China or maybe just Xi isn’t going to do what they say they are doing—not what *I* say, what *they* especially Xi says!—on the grounds the US wouldn’t be so hostile. There was no Communism per se in 1914, especially no Communist countries, but WWI came out anyway. A world of sovereign capitalist states is a world that breaks down into global war, eventually, nothing to do with imaginary constructs like “civilization war.” Also, proponents of a clash of civilizations as a justification for endless war against Muslims seem to have invented the concept as an ideological justification. See Samuel P. Huntington A Clash of Civilizations.
Piotr Berman@100 I have no interest in Bloomberg because I don’t value it. But having lived the largest part of my life in a flood zone, I can tell you that flood waters are *not* drinking water. And flood waters invading reservoirs ruins the water already there. The capitalist solution is to let the people drink bad water, like in Flint and other places non yet publicized.
foolisholdman@106 doesn’t understand that the World Bank set the bar low on purpose, to make themselves look good. Then foolisholdman lives up to, or down to, the username by ignoring the many times that it is Xi and others who keep talking about expanding the role of private capital in investment decisions, about increasing the role of the market. Again, *they* say it. It really is foolish to keep ignoring what they say. The belief that progress still requires more capitalism is a delusion, a misunderstanding of social reality.
c1ue@110 lobbies an empty insult about my posts being confused and without merit. As always, there is never an actual example of confusion pointed to, not even to pretend to laugh. But as a kind of compensation c1ue offers up dingbat comments @112 and @119 with major errors in historical fact, uncertain points and non-sequiturs for arguments. vk@125 mostly did a good job on correcting c1ue’s confused and meritless tripe, with the major exception that Deng was not a continuer of Mao’s policies. For well over a decade, Deng’s supposed superiority in economic policy was largely a fiction based on the giant falsehood that that the Cultural Revolution was a giant economic disaster. To repeat, the Chinese economy grew, it did not shrink. Deng’s policies took years to bear fruit, with great social costs by the way, not really taking off until after the notorious “Southern Tour.” In 1992. Also, Soviet support for compromise in China was real and extensive and properly resented by Mao. But it is a bit of an exaggeration to say the Soviet army didn’t manage to see Communist troops moving into Manchuria and picking up stray equipment and other supplies. The physical ability of the war-ravaged USSR to support another war, even if it wanted to, though, shouldn’t be overestimated. But c1ue@130 excels vk in error even while posturing as competent. Chiang Kai Shek was married to the sister-in-law of the reputed richest man in China and finance minister too, H.H. Kung. The sister married to Sun Yat-Sen broke with her sisters which means c1ue’s example proves the opposite, that Sun’s widow rejected him as Sun’s heir. Even the 1997 Honk Kong movie The Soong Sisters gets that right! (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLn2NGaS6dg
Jack Ma is still owner of Ali Baba, the Chinese Amazon. Jack Ma is still owner of Alipay, which is like owning the network of terminals for “Visa” etc and Jack Ma is still owner of Ant. Ant gives out small, high risk loans, then sells them on to local governments etc. as financial instruments. Basically Ant is subprime derivatives ultimately using government money. What happened is that at the last second, the Chinese government didn’t let Jack Ma personally cash out with an IPO for Ant. It’s not like Ant isn’t using cheap money from the government to make profits. So no, the idea that Jack Ma is being tamed is dubious indeed. A better example would be the case of Jimmy Lai maybe. But that is not an issue of economic justice, it’s closer to the Khodorkovsky case in Russia.
As to the Third World? The phrase as I recall was widely popularized as the third world between the capitalist (aka “democratic”) West and the Soviet East. The Third World was those in-between. The Bandung Conference in Indonesia 1955, initiator of the Non-Aligned Movement, was perhaps where the concept becamse a kind of real thing. Zhou En-Lai was the leader of the Chinese delegation, so yes, China was Third World. fyi’s duplicitous and corrupt usage is crypto-fascist twaddle where “Third World” is mentally reserved to the inferior races, without the impolitic candor of saying so.
Posted by: steven t johnson | Mar 22 2021 17:07 utc | 135
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