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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   1036 thread views

Transnational Thursday for December 18, 2025

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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A few weeks ago I spoke about Ireland's new President, the outspoken leftist Catherine Connolly. So far, her presidency is going about as expected:

President Connolly hosted a visit from Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg to Áras an Uachtaráin* today, while also greeting runners taking part in a Gaza solidarity fundraiser organised by a member of Kneecap** in the Phoenix Park.

I didn't think it was possible to be so annoyed by a single sentence.

*The President's residence in Dublin's Phoenix Park.

**A hip-hop band from Northern Ireland who were recently facing charges in the UK of incitement to violence and offering support to proscribed organisations, owing to their conduct at various gigs in which they urged attendees to "murder [their] local MP", chanting "Up Hamas" and leading attendees in chants of "Ooh! Ah! Hezbollah!"

Something I've wanted to ask you for a while is how much of the Irish obsession with Israel you think can be explained by Jew hatred (probably at least some) vs widespread Irish enthusiasm for horrific gratuitous violence as some sort of spectator sport. The fact that a band like Kneecap can name themselves after a torture procedure and have backing from the country's elites is pretty remarkable to me as someone not from the country - I can't imagine even the most gung-ho Americans would want to be publicly associated with a band called something like "Waterboarding".

The USSR was funding a lot of left wing groups. They did this throughout the west. Irish groups got / took more money because Ireland was seen as opposing the UK and thus NATO.

When the USSR ended the money dried up, but wealthy Muslim governments & individuals took over funding anti-Israel activism. So many left wing groups pivoted to focussing on Israel.

Oh, I'm a good old Rebel soldier, now that's just what I am. For this "Fair Land of Freedom" I do not give a damn! I'm glad I fought against it, I only wish we'd won. And I don't want no pardon for anything I done.

Three hundred thousand Yankees are stiff in Southern dust! We got three hundred thousand before they conquered us. They died of Southern fever and Southern steel and shot. But I wish we'd got three million instead of what we got.

I hate the Yankee nation, And everything they do; I hate the Declaration and the Constitution too; and I hate the glorious Union, and it’s flag red white and blue;

I can't take up my musket and fight 'em now no more. But I ain't gonna love 'em now that's for goddamn sure! I do not want no pardon for what I was, and what I am. And I won't be reconstructed, and I do not care a damn!

That’s a folk song from the southern United States from the late 1860s. It regularly got thrown into albums and collections of charming old songs from ye olde bygone Civil War era. It’s not played much anymore but it was regularly getting covered until the 1990s. But you can hear the violence in it, the “killing rage” as Eamon Collins would call it. Being exposed to intense political violence leaves a scar, and it’s a scar that can last a long time. I don’t think it’s just because the drunken violent Hibernians love violence.

wunderground.com has tens of millions of daily users, and it is named for the terrorist group The Weather Underground. It's an app that tells you the weather, it's not a rap group where you expect some edginess or weird politics.

Banana Republic has over 400 stores worldwide as the higher end brand for gap, and it's named for brutally repressive corrupt right wing Latin American dictatorships.

I don't think Kneecap is all that surprising in a world where Snoop Dogg, former crip, is a color commentary correspondent for the Olympics.

Ireland is also unique in Western Europe for being a state with a very recent myth of national liberation. In many ways, it's surprising that the IRA isn't more prominent in Irish culture.

I can't imagine even the most gung-ho Americans would want to be publicly associated with a band called something like "Waterboarding".

The name "Kneecap" specifically refers to the IRA torturing suspected informants. I think this scans rather differently to torture committed by agents of the state, which is the first thing people think of when they hear "waterboarding". A lot of Irish people still carry a residual fondness for the IRA (hell, one of our most popular political parties is literally the parliamentary wing of the IRA). I agree that American politicians would probably not want to be publicly affiliated with a band who named themselves after a torture technique used by agents of the state. But there are plenty of Democratic politicians who are eager to sing the praises of hip-hop musicians, many of which describe murdering e.g. their rival drug dealers in their lyrics.

The name "Kneecap" specifically refers to the IRA torturing suspected informants. I think this scans rather differently to torture committed by agents of the state, which is the first thing people think of when they hear "waterboarding". A lot of Irish people still carry a residual fondness for the IRA (hell, one of our most popular political parties is literally the parliamentary wing of the IRA).

Sure, but is this disagreeing with my point? The fact that there's plenty of support for the IRA and Sinn Féin suggests a lot of the Irish openly favour extreme violence against their perceived enemies in a way that I don't see as usual in other first world nations. My question is whether the fact that the typical Irish person's attitude towards Israel seems indistinguishable from that of Hamas/Hezbollah is a consequence of this type of attitude being redirected towards an easy new target more than a consequence of anti-semitism per se.

The fact that a band like Kneecap can name themselves after a torture procedure and have backing from the country's elites is pretty remarkable to me as someone not from the country

I interpret their name as a straightforward imitation of the violence (real or bragged about) in hip hop culture generally, plus the obvious fact that the IRA used to kneecap people.

As to why they have backing from the country's elites, I'd say this article puts its well:

This is Kneecap: they steal valour from physical-force republicanism to give their bien-pensant ‘West Brit’ views the lick of radicalism. They pull on a balaclava to hide the truth that their every utterance is likely to get the Trinity grads at the Irish Times rattling their jewellery in vociferous agreement.

It’s the performative nature of Kneecap’s radicalism that endears them to so many bourgeois youths in Britain and Ireland. I would wager that a majority of the people leaping up and down at Kneecap gigs as they rap ‘Brits Out!’ and ‘Fuck Israel!’ are kids of privilege. Indeed, the Irish Times published a piece earlier this year titled: ‘A middle-class millennial at a Kneecap gig: am I just cosplaying at republicanism?’ Yes, you are. But you’re not alone. Disguising milquetoast guff in radical garb is all the rage. So where posh young Brits will don Novara Media’s 25-quid earrings that say ‘Literally A Communist’ before wanging on about how fucking dumb ‘the gammon’ are, Kneecap fans will pull on a t-shirt featuring a Mick in a balaclava before wringing their untoiled hands over how pitiably traumatised the Irish are. Everyone hides their class prejudice behind class politics these days.

They express quintessentially bourgeois views with a fake veneer of working class radicalism.

Water boarding seems like a plausible enough metal band name to me.

In any case, brain dead anticolonialism is genuinely popular in Ireland as a shibboleth for anti-British sentiment, which they hold for historical reasons. Don’t know if they’re genuine antisemites or not.

Water boarding seems like a plausible enough metal band name to me.

A punk album, but close enough.

The unstoppable force meets the unmovable object

https://ici.radio-canada.ca/espaces-autochtones/2213574/affaire-cope-cour-supreme-gladue-vulnerabilite-droit

A man in Nova Scotia was condemned to 5 years for battery on his wife. The appeal court reduced the sentence to 3 years because the original judge did not properly take into account the systemic difficulties that first nations offenders have faced through their lives (a precedent set by the Supreme Court in 1999 requires taking the circumstances of the accused into consideration for sentencing). The crown prosecution is appealing this to the Supreme Court now on the basis that the appeal court has not taken into account recent additions to the criminal code that require taking into account the particular vulnerability and frequent victimisation of first nations women.

Text of opinion

The appellant says the sentencing judge made legal errors by: failing to apply Gladue principles in a meaningful way; placing minimal weight on the recommendations of the Sentencing Circle [a special pre-sentence report from members of the defendant's tribe, in addition to the usual pre-sentence reports from the defendant and the prosecutor]; overemphasizing denunciation and deterrence, and underestimating the restraint provisions of the Criminal Code that specifically apply to Indigenous offenders; and failing to place adequate weight on the mental illness he was experiencing when he committed the offences. He seeks a new sentence of time served and “a period of residual probation with conditions that encourage rehabilitation”.

As these reasons explain, I agree the sentencing judge erred by not sufficiently accounting for the appellant’s serious mental health and addictions issues at the time of the offences. I find these factors, viewed in the context of the appellant’s Gladue factors, were underemphasized, which constituted an error in principle. The principle of restraint should have had more resonance in this case.

https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/c-46/section-718.04.html

718.04 When a court imposes a sentence for an offence that involved the abuse of a person who is vulnerable because of personal circumstances — including because the person is Aboriginal and female — the court shall give primary consideration to the objectives of denunciation and deterrence of the conduct that forms the basis of the offence.

https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/c-46/section-718.201.html

718.201 A court that imposes a sentence in respect of an offence that involved the abuse of an intimate partner shall consider the increased vulnerability of female persons who are victims, giving particular attention to the circumstances of Aboriginal female victims.

It's clownish to me that specific additions were made to the criminal code to protect Indigenous women, but that since the overwhelming amount of violence done to them is domestic violence from Indigenous men, these protections are essentially cancelled out by provisions to protect Indigenous offenders.

Prime example of too much policy being a bad thing. If there weren't specific protections for Indigenous groups, this wouldn't have happened in the first place.

I'm curious about Mottizens' opinions about the US administration's motivations for the regime change push in Venezuala.

I think its multi-factoral. Monroe doctrine cleansing of Iran's influence (shadow fleet, drone technology sharing) as well as potentially stopping sharing of a cleaner less high-sulphur based crude oil to China which is easier to process for US's rival.

Reclamation of oil industry nationalised assets doesn't quite sit right as Grok says in 1976 they got paid 'fair market value' and there was varied compensation in 2006 (although they straight up seized assets from Exxon-Mobil).

I believe Fentanyl/cocaine has practically nothing to do with it despite the administration's claims.

Thoughts?

I want the US to deport everyone. Venezuelans are annoying. The ones not homeless on the streets are super loud and want to argue about everything. To me fixing Venezuela is all about fixing countries so that they remigrate. The rest of Latam is fairly pissed off at Venezuela too. Nobody likes migrants. In the US non of the recent ones speak English. With Maduro in power it was tough to figure out how to deport them. Now we can send a few million back.

I don’t think Venezuela is one main drug supplier. I don’t think the oil matters for a long time. But I do think fixing Latam lets us deport a ton of people I want out of America.

Maduros gone. Now we can get rid of asylum claims and begin the process of shipping people back.

The best Casus Belli we had here was the 10 million Venezuelans who have invaded countries throughout Latam and the US. That’s far worse than fentanyl claims. This won’t be a Syria/Libya situation because the migration already occurred.

I think it's mostly the US importing foreigners and their grudges. It's primarily Rubio's thing, he's an anchor baby of Cuban refugees. There's a lot of focus on Israel and they probably approve as well given Venezuela and Iran's ties, but there is less focus on the huge failed elite caste that was outcast from South American countries and has settled in the Florida GOP which as a lot of influence with Trump. The neocons of course approve because this keeps blood flowing to the forever war machine until Trump can get decimated in the midterms and they can send 100s of billions to Ukraine again, but this is mostly Rubio and that foreign influence group's thing.

until Trump can get decimated in the midterms and they can send 100s of billions to Ukraine again,

For the record for everyone else, the National Defense Authorization Act that passed Congress under the Republican trifecta this week has $800 million earmarked for Ukraine military aid across the next two years.

I think that it is partially a return to the Monroe Doctrine, not allowing China to gain more of a foothold in South America. I read someone's claim that it was because Venezuela was trying to sell petrol in Yuan. However I am not terribly familiar with the petrodollar concept and maybe someone else can explain.

I spent a decade in the oil and gas industry and I've always found Republicans' attitudes towards energy policy rather curious. On the one hand, they have a "drill baby drill!" mentality, and they express support for American energy companies. On the other hand, they talk about lowering prices for consumers. These are contradictory positions. When I was working in oil and gas, like most people, my livelihood was tied to how much my company could sell its product for, and the more we could sell it for, the more I got paid. The headiest times in my career were when oil was well over $100/bbl in the summer of 2014 and everyone was making money hand over fist. Of course, gas was $5/gallon adjusted for inflation, and conservatives were blaming Obama for hamstringing the energy industry. By February 2016, the price of oil had crashed, and there were mass layoffs, my office was down to a skeleton crew, and these were obviously also Obama's fault because he was hamstringing the industry. But gas was down to $2.50/gallon.

In other words, they expect good energy policy to mean constant drilling, even though constant drilling just isn't profitable. If oil is cheap they aren't going to spend billions of dollars on well starts. Most of the work I was doing in 2015/2016 was asset assignments from companies looking to unload their holdings to large investors, or smaller operators getting bough out by big companies like Consol and EQT. There was a modest rebound in 2017, which some people attributed to Trump, but the crash at the end of 2019 was worse than anything under Obama because it was clear that it wasn't turning around any time soon. We could muddle through 2016 with a skeleton crew, but 2019 spelled the end of my firm's oil and gas division. The Trump years have been pretty meh overall from an industry perspective, so the idea that Republicans are somehow good for the oil and gas industry is hogwash, since we had bigger highs and shallower lows under both Obama and Biden.

So when he talks about taking Venezuelan oil, I'm not sure how this is supposed to benefit either the oil and gas industry or the American consumer. Oil is currently trading around $55/bbl. Rig counts are dropping and are down about 30% from their Biden-era highs. Producers aren't drilling the oil they already have access to; giving them more isn't going to do much, especially when that oil is expensive to access and in a war zone. It's no surprise then that when Trump reached out to industry leaders earlier this week, reps from companies like Exxon and ConocoPhillips said point blank that they had no interest in resurrecting the Venezuelan oil industry with prices at five year lows. It's almost as if he doesn't understand how the laws of supply and demand work. If he were really concerned with how much American consumers are paying at the pump—which isn't much, historically—he'd strike a deal with Maduro to flood the US market with Venezuelan oil and use whatever money he had planned on spending on the war and use it to subsidize the US oil companies outright. This is a terrible policy for a number of reasons, but it's still better than the idiocy we have now.

Populism. The answer to your incoherency is populism.

Venezuelan oil isn’t for today, it’s for fifty years from now. The Ghawar and North Sea oil fields are drying up rapidly. Pretty soon the two major sources of oil on the planet are going to be Venezuela and Siberia. Sure Venezuelan oil is heavy sour crude, but when that’s all you can get it will taste like mana from heaven. When you are a state, you have to think on longer time frames than the individual. Fifty years from now might as well be next Thursday.

Venezuelan oil isn’t for today, it’s for fifty years from now.

Do you think that oil will really matter that much in 50 years? Solar is outcompeting all other forms of electricity production and electric cars are replacing petrol ones. Oil is useful as a manufacturing material I guess, but in 50 years the global population will be in freefall thanks to low birthrates and the carbon transition will be completed. Surely there will be plenty of oil to go around?

Airplanes? Ships? Semi-trucks? Electric cars are only good for suburban commuters. Everyone else needs a power source that can last over long distances and doesn't take ten hours to recharge.

As for solar, battery storage capacity lags far behind power generation capacity. Which is a problem, because it means solar is unreliable. It doesn't matter if on average solar can produce all the power you need; a couple of cloudy days in a row will screw you over.

Airplanes?

Not there yet, but in fifty years, I'd wager so. They're already in development.

Ships?

For cargo shipping, there are already electric versions. Of course, cargo shipping doesn't really consume that much fuel relative to how much stuff they transport. Again, in fifty years we can reasonably expect technology to have improved.

Semi-trucks?

These already exist.

Solar and batteries are now cheap enough (and getting cheaper!) that grid-level storage is possible. We don't need any new technological innovations, just to scale today's technology at today's prices, which is exactly what's happening. Combine some overbuilding with solar panels (easy now that they are dirt cheap) along with some wind turbines and you've got yourself constant power, since wind and sunshine are anticorrelated. Not that oil even matters for electricity generation, almost all fossil fuels used to power grids are coal and gas, which are now significantly more expensive than solar panels and wind turbines.

Worrying about oil in 50 years is like worrying about shortages of natural rubber now. Technology has superceded old requirements. The future is now.

Airplanes? Ships? Semi-trucks? Electric cars are only good for suburban commuters. Everyone else needs a power source that can last over long distances and doesn't take ten hours to recharge.

All minor in terms of consumption. Regardless, biofuels can be uses for airplanes and ammonia for ships and semi-trucks.

As for solar, battery storage capacity lags far behind power generation capacity. Which is a problem, because it means solar is unreliable. It doesn't matter if on average solar can produce all the power you need; a couple of cloudy days in a row will screw you over.

This is a problem that will be solved in 50 years. Probably closer to 10 years.

And you expect them to do what, exactly? The issue here isn't access; the Venezuelans are perfectly willing to sell their oil to the US at favorable prices. Yet Trump made it so Citgo couldn't do what limited business they were doing down there at the time. We're already at an advantage on that front to begin with since US companies are among the few that can actually refine the toothpaste sludge that they call oil down there. And even if the Bolivaran regime absolutely refused to sell us oil or grant US companies concessions, it wouldn't matter that much, since it's a global market. If there is some future where Venezuelan oil is the only game in town, Chevron isn't going to sell it at a favorable price to the American consumer, I can tell you that right now. Whatever impediments there are to our "having" that oil are entirely political.

But even if we assume that the Venezuela won't sell us oil under the current government and won't grant US companies concessions and the only way to get access is to regime change their asses, it still doesn't make sense unless you're hopelessly naive about the way oil concessions actually work. A freindly, Democratic Venezuelan government is not going to grant some magic lease that lets US companies sit on their asses for fifty years. Any oil deal, whether you're talking about a private lease in the US or an international concession, is going to require a certain amount of activity in order to retain the rights. For instance, here if you sign a lease with a company to drill on your farm and it will call for something like a 5 year primary term with a $3,000/acre bonus payment and a 15% royalty. What this means is that the comp[any has to pay you $300,000 up front for the right to drill a well within the next 5 years. If they drill a well and start paying royalties then the lease holds until the well stops producing. If the term expires and they haven't done anything then they're out the $300,000 and you're free to lease it to someone else.

International concessions are a lot more complicated, but the same principles apply. The biggest difference is that up-front bonus payments don't normally apply, but there's usually a commitment to start development within the first year, and the company is contractually obligated to spend millions of dollars on development. Whether you're a private landowner or a sovereign government, there's an expectation that if you give away something of value you expect something of value in return. Governments don't grant concessions so they'll eventually get paid when the grantee feels like doing something; if you're not going to act now they'll grant a concession to someone who will.

Yet Trump made it so Citgo couldn't do what limited business they were doing down there at the time.

Was that before or after Venezuela took six Citgo executives hostage in 2017?

It's no surprise then that when Trump reached out to industry leaders earlier this week, reps from companies like Exxon and ConocoPhillips said point blank that they had no interest in resurrecting the Venezuelan oil industry with prices at five year lows. It's almost as if he doesn't understand how the laws of supply and demand work. If he were really concerned with how much American consumers are paying at the pump—which isn't much, historically—he'd strike a deal with Maduro to flood the US market with Venezuelan oil and use whatever money he had planned on spending on the war and use it to subsidize the US oil companies outright. This is a terrible policy for a number of reasons, but it's still better than the idiocy we have now.

This is exactly what I'm saying. Some of these reasons seem to be a casus belli based on publicly available (semi-plausible?) information but don't seem to hold water when you dig into them.

I believe Fentanyl/cocaine has practically nothing to do with it despite the administration's claims.

Than what is there on those small speedboats that makes US wanting to sink them so bad?

I would guess that probably they want to encircle Brazil with right-wingish regimes.

The speedboats exist and I believe they are full of drugs, piloted by drug runners. Clearly there's some intelligence team (DEA/CIA/DIA/whoever) landside that has verified that the boats are being loaded with drugs and when they will leave. I think details about this ISR are suppressed for 'sources and methods' reasons. I personally think its great that they're being obliterated for deterrence and supply constraint reasons.

I don't think Fentanyl is coming out on those boats though. My understanding is that fentanyl production happens in Mexico under the Sinoloa Cartel and not in Venezuala by the Cartel of the Suns linked to Maduro.

Cocaine, sure. Fentanyl no. Does the Fentanyl crisis have more political gravitas that can be used as a regime change justification? Sure. Is the regime change cassus belli another 'directionally correct' Trumpism where cocaine is the real driver? I don't know. I still think foreign influence of America's rivals in Venezuala is more likely a factor and runs afoul of the Monroe Doctrine.

MAGA influencers are very eager to conflate fentanyl coming from Mexico killing thousands and cocaine which wasn’t necessary going to America to sell this operation. It's almost like they care more about being on the team and owning the libs than being honest.

The boats are carrying cocaine. Assuming that the maps and accompanying discussion in glossy reports produced by various anti-drug orgs (pre-2025 US, UN and NGO-produced reports broadly agree) are correct, most of the cocaine on these specific boats is not ultimately heading for the US.

Some cocaine enters the US by boat after island-hopping across the Caribbean, but most cocaine landed in Trinidad, Suriname, or the Dominican Republic is going to be smuggled in air passenger baggage into the relevant European country with historical links, at which point in can then move freely within the EU (and in practice almost freely to the UK or Switzerland). European street prices for cocaine are currently more than double US ones, so that is more lucrative for the smugglers.

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