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Another week, another Tucker interview, another transcription of a juicy part by yours truly. I promise, this is unusual, I haven't listened to two in a row, at all, ever.
This week is Jeffrey Sachs. The part below is just after 1:44.
That was the first mention of Israel, that I could recall, but the whole conversation is about Ukraine, Russia, Putin, and NATO. It's not exactly new to me, but it's refreshing to hear someone so clearly say that this is a war of choice, and the choice is being made by the USA, and their puppet states involved in NATO.
And that was all before any discussion of COVID. tl;dl, it's obviously from a lab, we (USA) pretty clearly funded it, and Fauci has been running the germ warfare branch of the DoD for decades. Which lab, and how is unknown, but, in his own words:
Great interview, and I'm glad that Tucker has twitter dot com to host his stuff, rather than be consigned to the fringes of the internet.
I agree with Sachs general sentiment that the US government has deceived the people far too much with disastrous consequences.
I'm not sure I buy Sach's argument that if we "told the truth" about Ukraine or Israel there would be no war. Maybe less US intervention or involvement. Based on my limited knowledge and understanding maybe Putin wouldn't have invaded Ukraine to try to create proxy barrier, but Israel I doubt there could ever be a peaceful 2 state solution. Pretty sure Israel has tried multiple times throughout it's history to do exactly that and each time it was rejected by the Palestinians.
There is a question to be considered about if a government should actually tell the citizens 100% of the truth. It's easy to say we should always be truthful as a matter of principle, but there is a good reason lying exists. Most people lie, or at least only tell the partial truth, to people close to them all the time, and sometimes that lying is done with good intentions. But you know what they say about good intentions.
Government deception of recent times have done a tremendous net negative to the population, but is that because they didn't tell the truth or because they didn't tell the truth about the wrong things? Could there exist information where lying about it or not releasing it would be to the benefit of the people of the country? One example could be that a nation is engaging in conflict with another nation and lies to its own citizens to prevent crucial information from being passed on to its adversaries. Is lying to the population acceptable in times of war or conflict? And the follow-up question, is a nation as powerful as the US ever not in conflict with a nation like China which holds radically different political and cultural views? Should the US allow China to grow even stronger and bigger, or should it engage in economic and political battles to check its growth?
Edit: Edited to replace "lying" with "deception" when appropriate.
This is my take as well. I was surprised he mentioned Israel, because the conversation had been elsewhere. Some partition of Ukraine seems inevitable now, but Israel will fight to the last.
Sachs' version of tell the truth isn't reveal all secrets, but to be honest about our past dealings and future intentions. In this he bemoans the obvious duplicity of western promises to the Soviet Union. Furthermore it's about public health, too. If you're going to tell me there's a good reason lying exists when it comes to the government telling me about public health, then I don't want to hear it. Honestly I barely read the rest of your post because it's the same arguments that got us here.
Less lying. A whole lot less lying. From everyone, especially if you think it's for the common good, I don't believe you and don't want to hear it.
As for China, the worst thing Nixon did was open China. The worst thing Clinton did was let them in WTO. Now we can't build ships for our navy any more than we can clothe ourselves, or furnish our homes, and everything is imported from elsewhere. But I'm not going to let the specter of the Orient let the lying fedgov off the hook for their lying ways.
On the matter of public health there aren't any strong arguments I've seen in support that those lies that benefited the public on the matters of public health. Maybe someone could steelman their position because I can't think of any. I was thinking more in terms of geopolitical conflicts between nations.
This better clarifies his position and I am in general agreement with that approach.
Honestly you don't have to mention this. I'm just asking questions to facilitate discussion and to better understand why governments behave the way they do, and if there is actually any value in doing so. You might not want to hear the reason, but I do, and I'm sure others do as well. Isn't that the point of this forum? To shed light and try to understand the opposition? Maybe there actually is some value in what they have to say. If not, then it better equips you (or anybody else reading) being able to point out the flaws in their reasoning.
I get your frustration, I really do. The government's fearmongering of and lies regarding Covid was an absolute disaster and I still feel the ramifications today. I feel like it robbed me of 4 years of my life, and that my life is worse today than it was at the start of 2020. But I still want to understand the line of reasoning and support of government lies (not necessarily of the response to Covid, but in general).
To fool your enemies, you must first fool your friends - this is a proverb for a reason. Now you may personally disagree with this as a matter of principle and refuse to engage with such an idea, but you cannot deny the utility it has. I think one could make a strong argument in support of such tactics in times of war. If one agrees with the argument, then it goes to reason there is some line where the cost to benefit justifies or denies it's usage. I don't think refusing to acknowledge its utility just because it can then lead to a discussion of where and when its justified is appropriate because most of the world is not black and white and most behavior of people isn't black and white.
I'm trying to recall who said it but the general idea is that the most dangerous type of people who believe they are doing something for the good of humanity. I think there are people who would vote for or be in support of governments lying to the population if they believed it was for the common good. We see people defending the government's response to Covid to this day. Getting mad at these people won't get them to change their minds. The ones that do are just as susceptible to shifting their feelings back with an equally emotional response from the other side. I seek to hone my arguments so that I can at least convince those who are willing to listen.
Sure, let's hold the government accountable for their past actions. But we live in the reality we live in. What would be the best approach to China now? Personally, I think the US could benefit from not playing world police for a decade and just focusing on solving our internal problems. But what are the potential consequences of that?
My belief is that the world can only be mostly peaceful if there is a significantly powerful force that is so powerful that it makes it not worth it for a foreign nation to cause war. In that case, I'd rather that force be the US and not China. The reason we don't have wide-scale World War 1 and 2 style conflicts anymore is because of mutually assured destruction and the fact that most of the world is now aligned with US and US interests and values. But if human history teaches us anything, it's that if someone can bully someone else out of their resources, they will do that. On a micro-scale, the only reason we don't have large portions of the population stealing from each other is because society (with the use of physical force such as police) keeps us in check. As soon as we started defunding police crime went up. I believe the same applies to larger scales. Remove the US-aligned hegemony and we will start to see more international conflicts. This is a belief I haven't really honed, so I'm open to criticism and a better alternative theory regarding minimizing international conflicts.
What are you going to do about international conflicts on which the USA plays a role at causing? Surely, you would want USA to dissuade other countries from causing trouble but be critical when USA itself causes trouble?
Do you think, we should see all the warmongering USA is responsible both in wars and including coups, funding extremist rebels as in Syria, as something that shouldn't be challenged and an acceptable sacrifice for the greater good? Because this way of thinking is exploitable and will lead to more bad behavior by the warmongering, CIA coups parts of USA.
Including those who deliberately might want conflict with other great powers so that they can be defeated and there would be American hegemony over them. If MAD is part of world peace, then that MAD includes the existence of rival powers too. Now, I don't think the way is to turn a blind eye to China, etc, but neither is to treat the American foreign policy establishment as the good guys.
I think in your model of world peace, you should not neglect to consider how American imperialist deeds, which include funding their own color revolutions/rebels should be restrained, because they actually have been the more warmongering active player around the globe.
Of course, it is also legitimate to treat the warmongering and threat of more, by non American powers as a problem.
Some part of the previous peace, relates to a different more friendly attitute of American foreign policy towards countries like Russia and China. And moreover, the fact that China was weaker, growing and not perceived as a threat while China it self also became more brazen. The Ukraine issue has been constantly debated, but certainly the Russians did have their own aggressive moves in Ukraine, in addition to the oust of their guy there from a western backed coup (with people like McCain openly supporting it). It seems to me that both the USA and the Chinese and Russians became more aggressive.
An aggressive American world dominance hegemonist perspective that seeks to dismember rival powers like Russia and China and seeks their submission as countries is itself war causing, and possibly ww3 causing. If there weren't nukes, it might have lead us there already. But international peace would require a general deescalation, not just from the USA, of course.
Sure, these are good points you bring up to criticize America, but what is the better alternative? When we consider long periods of peace, it's accomplished under a hegemony of powerful nations aligned in goals/culture or a singular empire.
I'm not defending US in all of its actions and agree there is plenty to criticize in what they have done on the global scale. But I don't think any of these things really addresses the core of my argument. The mutually assured destruction is an alternative to relative peace without needing global hegemony and even then plenty of conflict was done via proxies AKA the Cold War. It prevented full-scale war between the US and the Soviet Union. Personally, I think peace achieved via MAD is worse than peace achieved via a global hegemony. For all the wars that have existed from 1945 to today, in comparison to eras throughout human history, we exist in a relatively peaceful era.
Indeed, we should strive to be vigilant and not use this line of argument to just absolve the USA of what it has done, especially when it has negative outcomes. At the same time, it doesn't mean we shouldn't aim to preserve a powerful global presence. The best argument against focusing on that currently is that America has enough domestic problems to deal with. But it doesn't mean we should abandon our position either.
When we look at US-caused international conflicts, we have to consider, whether the primary purpose is to maintain and grow the American hegemony in service of maintaining global peace, or if that is being used as an excuse with some other primary motive in mind (fund the military-industrial complex, drum up support for an upcoming election, etc.). If the former, I think that would warrant a legitimate criticism about the pitfalls of relative peace achieved through this method and find ways to account for it. But if the latter, that's not really a criticism of the model. People will always use existing values and models to justify whatever they want to do, but it doesn't mean that it's wrong.
What do you think would be a better path to a more peaceful world, and what can be done to maintain it?
Edit: Not a response to you directly, more of my thoughts concerning people who say the US spends too much on the military and then act like we would have world peace if America just drastically cut its military budget. I think there is legitimate criticism to be had of the military-industrial complex to take into consideration, but I also feel like many people with that sentiment take this era of relative peace for granted. Do they not read history? Do they not consider human nature?
Yes, America has instigated wars with little to no benefit and should be rightly criticized. But this does not mean the military is useless or that having a military presence globally is a strictly negative thing. I acknowledge that if I wasn't an American and a foreigner, I would have reason to want to break the American-led global hegemony, especially if I was for example Chinese. But I'm an American, and I am more favorable to a world under American values than a world under Russian values or a world under Chinese values. I'm not so naive to believe that you can have hundreds of relatively equally powerful countries acting independently peacefully. What would stop one country from just using force to take the resources of another? Sanctions? Their "image"? Propaganda on the citizens to make them not want to fight? You only need a few people to maintain an army that can suppress people. These things have to be backed up by military force otherwise it's futile.
I am for maximizing human potential and development, and the countries that aligned with American values post-WWII saw tremendous economic growth and development. Now one could make arguments about how countries that didn't had their growth artificially restricted by American policies against its adversaries or how the growth of America and its allies came by extracting value unfairly from its adversaries, but for the person that is born under a richer country, does that really matter? Countries that aligned with the US and adopted positions favorable to the US are far, far better off than those that didn't. Just look at North Korea versus South Korea. If I were born in a foreign nation, I would be extremely grateful if my country chose to lick the boots of the American imperialist ambitions some 50-60 years ago and benefited greatly from it, than if they didn't and my country ended up in poverty instead.
What use is my country's culture and tradition if the average GDP per capita is $1,000 and I have to live as a farmer when it could've had a GDP per capita of $30,000 and my quality of life is vastly superior? Why do so many people leave their countries to try to come to the US if culture should matter more than economic growth and prosperity? I don't particularly care for preserving the culture of every other people in the world, especially when said culture is an active detriment to the growth and development of those people. This doesn't mean I think we should just make all of the world America, just that we shouldn't go out of our way to preserve existing cultures. And just for good measure, I'm going to repeat myself that this doesn't mean America is absolved of all its wrongdoings, or that we should be careful in adopting this perspective without criticism, but I don't see a better alternative that would realistically work without fundamentally changing human nature. I'm going to make this claim - that the world today for the average person is far better due to America taking a global position than it would have been if America chose to stay neutral during WWII and take a far more isolationist approach.
I challenged you directly if you think you should excuse blatantly immoral and destructive conduct under the idea that US hegemony is good. It seems to me that you want to do that and are just trying to promote it based on arguing that US hegemony is good actually. But you also say you accept restraint and criticism. And it doesn't seem that you really do in a substantial manner. How should current policy change if it means you accept that there are areas it has acted wrongly.
There are a few problems with this. Which is that destroying other countries and causing civil wars to cause more US hegemony will result in far more devastation.
And part of the peace has been because of existence of other powers and not adopting fully culturally marxist agenda. When Japan open its borders and follows more the cultural marxist agenda the result wouldn't be good for the Japanese but worse. Moreover, the existence of an other, helps restrain predation by Americans against their allies, and now seems less so.
Anyway, a USA that is against the immoral conduct of other countries, and restraints it self from instigating more trouble, will work better. Part of my solution includes a push for general deescalation that includes non Americans also doing that through negotiations and attempts to diplomacy being part of the process. I am not suggesting that the USA should stop having a military, but I do think that the neocons being highly representative of what I am critical of a criminal conduct, as a faction are removed from any influence.
When people like Bret Stephens arguing to replace the white working, this isn't good because higher GDP, because this agenda also comes along with massive redistribution, and quotas at expense of targeted group. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2023-09-30/how-corporate-america-kept-its-diversity-promise-a-week-of-big-take
The package offered by the modern GAE is also unattractive to many African countries because it comes with prioritising submission to cultural far leftist agenda. Chinese investment with less lecturing is more attractive. So, one of my alternatives is to abadon that and ideology of woke/neocon types to be abadoned. However, I don't think ideology should be absent from global politics. There is a value in certain human rights, and want those genuine rights to be protected. But the general cultural marxist conception of rights should be thrown to the garbage. And we don't need people trying indirect justifications due to GDP. It is both bad in its own right, but also alienates people who would be otherwise more positive towards USA influence.
Oh, and having a modern economy, and not aligning with American warmongering are different things. I don't want a world that doesn't trade with the USA, but one that doesn't support belligerence. Some of your rhetoric leads us to a more reductive path and makes it harder to face specific issues. Moves us away from clarity and conflates things that shouldn't be conflated. And it is anachronistic, not taking into account the massive amounts of investment that a more pro chinese aligned block is seeing.
European countries benefited much more when they traded and had more positive relations with Russia, China and USA. Being overly aligned with a neocon aggressive, arrogant USA is not a move for better economy but one were you suffer consequences at your expense. Although some protectionism is also reasonable to protect their own industries, so I am not free trade but pro trade against against trying to strongly suppress and stop trade and enact new cold wars.
In regards to American interests, there is an issue of interests of foreign lobbies, of weapon manufacturers, and of people with ideological obsessions that don't fulfill even American interests. There is also an issue of higher cost than they are worth. Much of American warmongering, has reduced American prestige, and USA can be a more credible pusher for world peace, by avoiding doing such actions, and retaining influence as the most powerful member of an actual alliance, where America treats other countries part of its alliance as allies and respects their rights. So, I genuinely think that people whose agenda is ethnically destructive are immoral on their own rights, and ironically help damage Pax Americana. They are incentivizing non Americans to correctly resist on grounds of their human rights to exist and self determination So, I would suggest you compromise and abadon trying to excuse such agendas. The cultural marxist agendas are irredeemably extreme and destructive.
This idea that with rhetoric and excuses, anything will be tolerated and people are going to accept any and all arrangements that are destructive against them, is simply not true. Hubris doesn't solve decline but accelerates it. So, a pax americana is going to rightfully end for good, or as you think for ill, if modern USA is a cultural marxist very arrogant country that has moved to a much more radical path than its previous conduct towards its allies were it was willing to compromise with the existence of nation state democracies. Indeed peace, becomes impossible under such an extreme USSA, because it promotes aggressive policy.
So, to summarize:
There is nothing wrong with an influential USA in a pro USA alliance, provided this USA avoids its substantial own bad behavior, and respects the rights of its allies which includes not trying to impose ethnically destructive and other social agendas.
There is plenty of wrong with much of American warmongering which has been destructive both economically and otherwise and it is of a different nature than countries being part of NATO or having some ties with the USA.
There is something wrong with an attempt by the USA to make the entire world aligned with it, and to succeed in destroying rival powers, will come with enormous blood and destruction.
It is better to have a multipolar world that collaborates and tries to some extend to share some principles on issues of opposing say invasions. Where good faith behavior makes it easier for principles to be taken seriously and there is more win-win entanglement. A connected world order in such ways. Trade, negotiation are key aspects of this, and there is probably a value in different blocs aligning to oppose the worst deeds of other blocs and restraining each other. So, I am not arguing here in favor of the disapperance of USA as an influential player.
Although its modern moral decline and rising extremism, is an enormous problem that needs to be corrected and not something to just dismiss. It is a massive elephant to the room of how USA became a much more radical power with its embassies promoting very extreme and destructive agenda. Although I also don't think that Russia and China with their own third world nationalist elements are an adequate solution. Cultural marxist ideology is a gigantic problem, and not part of a healthy alliance and the only solution is to be suppressed, and those elements with such ideology to not be allowed to have influence. Including outside the USA, GAE being about more than just USA. Indeed, ironically cultural marxism with its own antiwestern, anti the peoples of the alliance propaganda, helps promote Russia and China and non western countries as alternatives. Why should people support self hating west over nonwestern blocks, if they buy into this ideology? Including those outside the west? The contradictions can't be sustained by just the same tired propaganda of ww2, pretending opposition are far left, far right, promoting only the threat of Russia, and China, or claiming it is economically superior path. My conclusion, in addition to suggesting that it would be a good path for our world and the USA too, to abandon this ideology, is to note an inability for the cultural marxist GAE types to compromise. This ideological purity spiral would serve them as poorly as it served other very ideological empires which refused to compromise.
No, you didn't. That's like asking someone if abortion is bad and then saying "I challenged you directly if you think murder is bad". You can't just assume that abortion is murder, even if you're going to argue it.
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