Given a legal consultant's work is never done, a short comment to let you all know that I'll be leaving for the US today for work. Presence around here--at least on my part--will be light to variable for the next week or so.
Except the targeting is not West Bank settlers, it is Israeli Jews qua Jews (“from the River to the Sea”). Israel withdrew its settlers from Gaza. Where did that get it?
“The emergence of the conservative power bloc, a coalition led by Prime Minister Christopher Luxon of the National party, also comes as the number of Maori members of parliament hits a record high, some of whom are key advocates of the new agenda.”
You cannot even correctly quote the post you are commenting on. It is, quite literally, the worst slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust. Even treating it as a pogrom with hang-gliders and dash-cams puts it up there as one of the worst pogroms in Jewish history. Including a public gleefulness about killings Jews that not even the Nazis managed.
If you want my views on the Israel-Palestine dispute — this is a post about Postcolonial Theory, which is not usually used against Palestinians — then see here:
That the British Empire could be run with so few people does point to how much home-grown organisational and technological capacity — generated by intra-European rivalries — drove the ability to acquire empires. And yes, settlement was by no means intrinsic to empire.
A lot of the British debt was owed internally. Britain actually ran up a higher debt, as % of GDP, by 1820: as one wag said, half was incurred pushing the Bourbons off the throne of France and the other half was incurred putting them back on. But Britain became more productive after each debt surge, despite the debt burden: or perhaps partly because of it, as it generated reliable returns that could be balanced out with higher risk investment in industrialisation.
Yes, Indian independence was already widely accepted, but Attlee’s Labour Government could be so keen precisely because there was nothing in it for their voters. Elsewhere, there was a certain cheap glory in Empire. Except where there wasn’t, hence the Palestine withdrawal.
French neo-imperialism in West Africa is a whole thing in itself, that did not seem germane to Fanon, his book and its implications.
Many Palestinian terrorists, as you say, do not care where they go. But for a sizeable proportion, the only good Jew is a dead Jew. If they escape to someplace else, the Holy Warriors will only have to kill them later. They aren't fighting for a Palestinian state -- they would be happy to be part of a greater Islamic Empire state, with its headquarters far outside of Palestine. Their problem isn't one of 'we want Palestine' -- their problem is that the accursed Jews must not be allowed to have it. Internationalist/Globalist Islamism is a real thing and if people do not notice that this is a different animal than 2 or more groups fighting over a homeland they all want, then no wonder there are so many foreign policy blunders.
Israel was not someone’s colony in the sense meant. It doesn’t and didn’t have a metropole. Which makes the “terrorise them and they will go home” strategy stupid and wicked.
The other aspect in play is - the Palestinians never had a state until the U.N. offered them one in 1947 (in the partition plan). They lived in South Syria under the Ottomans and "Palestine" was only introduced in the British Mandate.
As a matter of fact I would accept that premise with regard to Ukraine, given prior to the Soviet Union (which brutally annexed it and gave Ukraine its current borders) it was split between Tsarist Russia and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and before that (during the long devolution of Poland) it was part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
Yes, the place name of Palestine was resurrected by the classicists employed in the British Foreign Office, but at no time since the Roman occupation (since we are talking colonialism here) did anyone refer to it as such.
If you want to ignite a conflict that would unite the unthinkable alliance of Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria - propose nationhood for the Kurds.
"Israel was not someone’s colony in the sense meant. It doesn’t and didn’t have a metropole."
Can we stretch things a bit and say the Torah and the mythos of David, Solomon, and Jerusalem (or with added post Babylon adjustments?) played a metropole-like role, even when Jews resided in ghetto or middle class circumstances around the world? It would have provided sustaining moral and psychological resources even if it did not provide material or military ones?
The Jews obviously COULD leave (they could just go live in the west with the other diaspora Jews). However, I don't think they SHOULD. See comment below.
---
"and a country full of refugees and their descendants who have nowhere else to go"
I both agree and disagree with this.
I disagree in the sense that of course the Jews could leave Israel and move to the various western countries where they wouldn't have to be surrounded by a billion hostile Muslims and deal with these sorts of periodic terrorist wars. That is an option available to the Jews of Israel and there are lots of Diaspora Jews taking advantage of it right now.
I agree in the sense that I think Israel is a unique state worth fighting for despite the difficulties. Life in the west would probably be pleasant enough for Jews that move there, but it would be very different than life in Israel. I would go so far as to say that what Jews gain from Israeli culture is worth the periodic attacks.
Take a simple metric. Even non-orthodox Jews have much higher TFR in Israel than the west. If I run the math (going on memory here), 325x more non-Orthodox Jews have been born in Israel then would have been born in the west then were killed by Hamas terrorists. To whatever extend Hamas terrorism enables the militant ethno-nationalism that seems to allow Israel to fight progressive ideology and be a TFR outlier, Hamas is creating 325 Jews for each one it kills.
There is nowhere, collectively or individually, that would take over 7 million Jews. Israelis with joint citizenship have somewhere to go, the rest have no rights of residence anywhere else. There are also very bitter memories of the closed borders of the interwar and even postwar periods.
How many millions of Arab refugees did the West take recently? And most people didn't even want them.
How many Ukranian refugees just recently.
I'm pretty sure that if a bunch of smart Jews ask their billionaire co-ethnics for entry so that they can go and produce a bunch of tax revenue it will be allowed.
If Israel is "colonial" please identify the primary "Father" nation. For example, here in the USA, we see that a handful of European states, with the UK being predominant. were the source nation. Jews have been in that land since Jacob was renamed Israel. Yes, Jews from all over the world of the Jewish diaspora have been migrating to Israel, but markedly not from say the USA or other non-European western powers (commonwealth countries). This "colonization" argument is a very weak argument indeed.
Thank you for the article! I appreciate the North African historical context showing there’s nothing unique to European settlement. (We probably also need reminders that slavery has occurred between all peoples throughout history, especially between people of the same race, and there’s nothing unique to European enslavement of Africans in the 17th and 18th centuries.)
> within hours, various academics told us how it exemplified decolonisation
Do you have a few references to support that claim?
Oh wow. I hadn’t paid attention to statements from university professors and academics right after Oct 7th. Unbelievable. From the National Post link you provided:
> On the morning of Oct. 7, when Canadians woke up to images of bodies being paraded through the street by Hamas terrorists, a professor of African history at the University of Toronto, Safia Aidid, tweeted: “solidarity with the Palestinian people, today and everyday.”
> On Saturday afternoon, Uahikea Maile, a professor of Indigenous politics at the U of T, characterized the attack — which consisted of massacres, rapes and hostage-takings — as “anticolonial resistance”
> PhD candidate Maddie Brockbank downplayed reports of Hamas terrorists raping Israeli women. “Hyperfixation” on “interpersonal violence” distracts from state violence and dehumanizes the oppressed, she claimed.
We did NOT create the wreckage of the World Wars , Europe did that...we DID not play the fool twice, this led to NATO and the long past shelf date 'Western Alliance."
Our decolonization role - and the US State Department post 1945 is the DeColonizer par excellence-is an unspoken corollary of our real NATO policy; "Keep them ALL down [all of Europe], so the Russians CAN stay out [of Western Europe which does actually face the USA] so the American's had to stay IN."
The British told themselves "Keep The Americans In, Keep the Germans Down, Keep the Russians out' but ....that's not what we did. We decolonized England, France, undermining them at every turn, we even went after poor Portugal, which treated their colonies and people's far better than the other Europeans. This isn't a footnote Helen and Lorenzo as 'decolonization' served our American interests far more than any infiltration or co-opting Campus Marxists [such as a certain Frank Davis, and a certain Obama fellow, and a certain Soweto fellow].
All of this nonsense is a hangover from the Cold War, which was a hangover from the World Wars.
A dangerous hangover to be sure, but don't ignore what happened.
* America has no Metropole, it's a Federation. America is Federations from the Iroquois to the Internet and all arrangements in between.
DC isn't the Central Government as THERE ISN'T A CENTRAL AMERICAN GOVERNMENT.
DC had forgotten that and is now to it's horror realizing the awful truth.
As far as Empire America needs neither the resources, nor the Strategic Depth...nor any of it.
As far as the Hegemonic abortion that popped up in the 90s after the 'end of history' that's ending, you see far from just being a narrow parochial interest of the Foreign Policy community it has FATALLY UNDERMINED their control of the Continental United States.
They are panicking and running and discovering there's really no place to go but America....
...an America they our elites have deeply offended.
American de-colonialism was rooted in Wilsonian idealism about spreading the gospel of democracy. It always competed with the commercial desires of a more conventional (if quasi-) colonialism. The Cold War of course introduced an entirely different calculus. The end of that conflict left a gap that has yet to be filled.
I don't think Wilson wanted to enter WW1 at all, when he was forced into it and he was he decided he never wanted to do this again, FDR who also wished to avoid war implemented this policy.
It would make sense in a war of ideas to spread our ideas.
It long ago stopped making sense, but our leaders haven't made since for 30 years.
I think a lot is put on Wilson and others that they never would have supported, one merely need ~ism and one's legacy is twisted and distorted beyond recognition.
I agree with you our policy after ww2 was certainly decolonization.
Largely successful.
That businesses make money anywhere is what they do...
Helen's point that Imperial nations got richer from decolonization is well taken.
What wasn't addressed in this essay is the question of Strategic Depth - which was the real payoff for England and France in the World Wars. Even in WW2 the Free French save France's independence [from America BTW] by regenerating from Africa and then the Middle East. Great Britain of course called on vast resources of food, material, above all men from her colonies, France as well. Even Spain won its Civil War with troops from Spanish Morocco.
The gap in the cold war ending needs to be we end our portion in America.
We end all alliances outside the Western Hemisphere, they are all mutually toxic.
There's nothing and no one in the Eastern Hemisphere that is existential and vital to America, we must leave. We need no resources, strategic depth, allies ...nor trade...nor do we need to risk nuclear war. Farewell !
However you left out one factor: the satellite belt. To maintain its position in space the US needs satellite relay stations outside of the USA. Key stations are in Australia but I expect that there would be others elsewhere too. A vestigal empire, designed around strategic supply chains (hydrocarbons, rare earth, strategic minerals like nickel) is more likely than comprehensive decolonisation.
In addition, US business is not satisfied with the US market alone. It seeks access to and control over foreign markets. Superpower status provided America with this.
The problem with retreating from "Empire" is that some other power is likely to fill the vacuum.
England profited from its retreat from Empire because the power that filled that role was one that was friendly to England and shared similar ideals, namely the United States. If the US retreats the power mostly likely to take over is China, to which neither of the above two factors apply.
There's really nothing inevitable about empire, so I would disagree that there must always be one to dominate any particular region, let alone globally.
An interesting essay...agree with all of it. I would just make this observation though: In my view, most white-liberal Correct-Think does not primarily derive from any deep ideological stance. It is shallower than that. The 'causes' - 'oppression', 'colonialism', 'racism', 'sexism' et al - are, to the white-liberal, just shallow abstractions. The real driver is "the endless struggle to think well of themselves" (as TS Eliot put it). https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/are-we-making-progress
True, most progressive thought is shallow, but its acceptance comes from "authorities" who have spent time and effort developing a worldview, however distorted it may be. I appreciate the critique of these authorities.
But we all "think well of ourselves", as when we also denigrate the shallow thinking from the "other side". I am not a deep student of the topic, but I understand there are about two dozen varieties (versions/ categories?) of self-delusion and confirmation bias. The psychological separation between our rational selves and our emotional selves must have had survival value via evolution somehow. I gather that factoid is being recognized more and more, but has not yet risen to the level of general populational awareness.
While noting that evolution has no teleology, per se, as our societies get more and more complex, is that an environment that favors increased rationality, or continuing the current logical - emotional mix?
I think this is all well observed, if a little beyond the scope of a comment thread like this. I do think there is a diffence between the typical conservative and the typical progressive in this respect. The conservative is more likely to expect others to take, at least some, personal responsibility for their discontents and failings (and will take personal responsibility for their own) whereas the progressive is more likely to blame someone else or some 'xyz-ism' or 'xyz-phobia' et cetera. You might think me naive.
Another timely base hit with runners in scoring position - well done. (Apologies for the Yank-speak baseball-ism.) A couple points in support: the more facile brand of political advocacy of Native American rights in the US consistently portrays pre-Colombian Native life as Edenic, thoroughly cleansed of anything resembling conflict or conquest. Ancient residency is routinely invoked as a precursor to enlightened attitudes about environmental issues and land stewardship. The mythologizing runs aground on the immensity of the Great Plains, though, which only became habitable for sizable groups with the rise of equestrian culture, which, as in Eurasia, produced warrior societies and constant conflict. Having lived in this ‘flyover country’ - and taken Native history seriously - helped me grasp the difference between the myth- making and historical reality. As an unreconstructed lib I also see the issue with the current Left’s soft Marxism. It’s exasperatingly simplistic when it comes to offering a compelling economic analysis and, despite the overwhelming historical evidence, refuses to accept any distinction between free enterprise and other aspects of capitalism that are of relatively recent vintage, such as predatory private-equity / hedge-fund acquisition and demolition of viable businesses. So the need for clarity has never been more urgent. The enemies are approaching from all sides now.
"It requires only mastery of Theory: rhetoric and narratives that impart to its initiates a gratifying moral grandeur."
This is the legacy of Plato in particular out of the Socrates-Plato-Aristotle foundation of most Western thought. There is a reason that Nietzsche rejected them. It is a form of Gnosticism.
This is the same Frantz Fanon who wrote of white women: "Basically, does this fear of rape not itself cry out for rape? Just as there are faces that ask to be slapped, can one not speak of women who ask to be raped?” (Black Skins, White Masks). Yet the mad-left adores him. The double-standard I can understand, but how do we explain the degree of decadence that makes Fanon a figure of such adulation?
The disease of Managerialism always appears to the victims and surrounding communities as “local” - as it is Political- in the strangest way it validates “all politics is local.“
In this case the local politics being academia or the Intelligentsia. Or the media room, which extends to Slack and Twitter... the politics being denunciation.
Until the Fanon’s are fired from the mouth of cannons our suffering continues.
Ask people who talk about "de-colonialization" "what is colonialism and when did it start?" In the unlikely event you get an answer, it's probably going to be something like "European Transoceanic empires post 1492." It's hilarious how little these people, who use the term "Eurocentric" as a criticism or a slur, know about history, including and especially the history of the non-western world.
One need only read a bit about the Mongol Empire and the Hans in China to prove your point. How is it that with such prodigious resources at our disposal;, so many remain so woefully ignorant?
The Eurocentrism of the Left is underappreciated. If it wasn't pasty pale people doing it to dusky hued people, they never know a goddamned thing about it.
Given a legal consultant's work is never done, a short comment to let you all know that I'll be leaving for the US today for work. Presence around here--at least on my part--will be light to variable for the next week or so.
Except the targeting is not West Bank settlers, it is Israeli Jews qua Jews (“from the River to the Sea”). Israel withdrew its settlers from Gaza. Where did that get it?
Ah yes, believe my Theory, not your lyin’ eyes. And let’s deploy the No True Scotsman Fallacy while we are about it.
“The emergence of the conservative power bloc, a coalition led by Prime Minister Christopher Luxon of the National party, also comes as the number of Maori members of parliament hits a record high, some of whom are key advocates of the new agenda.”
That is a fairly spectacular misreading of the post, which is about bad ideas.
You cannot even correctly quote the post you are commenting on. It is, quite literally, the worst slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust. Even treating it as a pogrom with hang-gliders and dash-cams puts it up there as one of the worst pogroms in Jewish history. Including a public gleefulness about killings Jews that not even the Nazis managed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pogrom#Selected_list
I will grant you that, in terms of Muslim massacres of non-Muslims, it is comparatively much less notable.
https://www.lorenzofromoz.net/p/hamas-displays-a-muslim-way-of-war
If you want my views on the Israel-Palestine dispute — this is a post about Postcolonial Theory, which is not usually used against Palestinians — then see here:
https://www.lorenzofromoz.net/p/in-the-shadow-of-empire
It is not as if there is a shortage of public criticism of Israel.
I think you might benefit from a reading comprehension class. Your comments indicate a failure to understand the ideas put forth by the author.
That the British Empire could be run with so few people does point to how much home-grown organisational and technological capacity — generated by intra-European rivalries — drove the ability to acquire empires. And yes, settlement was by no means intrinsic to empire.
A lot of the British debt was owed internally. Britain actually ran up a higher debt, as % of GDP, by 1820: as one wag said, half was incurred pushing the Bourbons off the throne of France and the other half was incurred putting them back on. But Britain became more productive after each debt surge, despite the debt burden: or perhaps partly because of it, as it generated reliable returns that could be balanced out with higher risk investment in industrialisation.
Yes, Indian independence was already widely accepted, but Attlee’s Labour Government could be so keen precisely because there was nothing in it for their voters. Elsewhere, there was a certain cheap glory in Empire. Except where there wasn’t, hence the Palestine withdrawal.
French neo-imperialism in West Africa is a whole thing in itself, that did not seem germane to Fanon, his book and its implications.
Rhodesia.
Many Palestinian terrorists, as you say, do not care where they go. But for a sizeable proportion, the only good Jew is a dead Jew. If they escape to someplace else, the Holy Warriors will only have to kill them later. They aren't fighting for a Palestinian state -- they would be happy to be part of a greater Islamic Empire state, with its headquarters far outside of Palestine. Their problem isn't one of 'we want Palestine' -- their problem is that the accursed Jews must not be allowed to have it. Internationalist/Globalist Islamism is a real thing and if people do not notice that this is a different animal than 2 or more groups fighting over a homeland they all want, then no wonder there are so many foreign policy blunders.
Empire has its upsides. As I discuss here:
https://www.lorenzofromoz.net/p/in-the-shadow-of-empire
Israel was not someone’s colony in the sense meant. It doesn’t and didn’t have a metropole. Which makes the “terrorise them and they will go home” strategy stupid and wicked.
The other aspect in play is - the Palestinians never had a state until the U.N. offered them one in 1947 (in the partition plan). They lived in South Syria under the Ottomans and "Palestine" was only introduced in the British Mandate.
One could argue there was no Palestinian nation in 1920. There clearly is now. This is ethnogenesis taking place within a single life-time.
As a matter of fact I would accept that premise with regard to Ukraine, given prior to the Soviet Union (which brutally annexed it and gave Ukraine its current borders) it was split between Tsarist Russia and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and before that (during the long devolution of Poland) it was part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
Yes, the place name of Palestine was resurrected by the classicists employed in the British Foreign Office, but at no time since the Roman occupation (since we are talking colonialism here) did anyone refer to it as such.
If you want to ignite a conflict that would unite the unthinkable alliance of Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria - propose nationhood for the Kurds.
Great essay.
"Israel was not someone’s colony in the sense meant. It doesn’t and didn’t have a metropole."
Can we stretch things a bit and say the Torah and the mythos of David, Solomon, and Jerusalem (or with added post Babylon adjustments?) played a metropole-like role, even when Jews resided in ghetto or middle class circumstances around the world? It would have provided sustaining moral and psychological resources even if it did not provide material or military ones?
The Jews obviously COULD leave (they could just go live in the west with the other diaspora Jews). However, I don't think they SHOULD. See comment below.
---
"and a country full of refugees and their descendants who have nowhere else to go"
I both agree and disagree with this.
I disagree in the sense that of course the Jews could leave Israel and move to the various western countries where they wouldn't have to be surrounded by a billion hostile Muslims and deal with these sorts of periodic terrorist wars. That is an option available to the Jews of Israel and there are lots of Diaspora Jews taking advantage of it right now.
I agree in the sense that I think Israel is a unique state worth fighting for despite the difficulties. Life in the west would probably be pleasant enough for Jews that move there, but it would be very different than life in Israel. I would go so far as to say that what Jews gain from Israeli culture is worth the periodic attacks.
Take a simple metric. Even non-orthodox Jews have much higher TFR in Israel than the west. If I run the math (going on memory here), 325x more non-Orthodox Jews have been born in Israel then would have been born in the west then were killed by Hamas terrorists. To whatever extend Hamas terrorism enables the militant ethno-nationalism that seems to allow Israel to fight progressive ideology and be a TFR outlier, Hamas is creating 325 Jews for each one it kills.
There is nowhere, collectively or individually, that would take over 7 million Jews. Israelis with joint citizenship have somewhere to go, the rest have no rights of residence anywhere else. There are also very bitter memories of the closed borders of the interwar and even postwar periods.
How many millions of Arab refugees did the West take recently? And most people didn't even want them.
How many Ukranian refugees just recently.
I'm pretty sure that if a bunch of smart Jews ask their billionaire co-ethnics for entry so that they can go and produce a bunch of tax revenue it will be allowed.
If Israel is "colonial" please identify the primary "Father" nation. For example, here in the USA, we see that a handful of European states, with the UK being predominant. were the source nation. Jews have been in that land since Jacob was renamed Israel. Yes, Jews from all over the world of the Jewish diaspora have been migrating to Israel, but markedly not from say the USA or other non-European western powers (commonwealth countries). This "colonization" argument is a very weak argument indeed.
Thank you for the article! I appreciate the North African historical context showing there’s nothing unique to European settlement. (We probably also need reminders that slavery has occurred between all peoples throughout history, especially between people of the same race, and there’s nothing unique to European enslavement of Africans in the 17th and 18th centuries.)
> within hours, various academics told us how it exemplified decolonisation
Do you have a few references to support that claim?
https://nationalinterest.org/feature/hamas-and-immorality-decolonial-intellectuals-206933
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/canadian-academics-decolonization-israel
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/10/israel-hamas-war-college-campuses-activism/675677/
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/10/decolonization-narrative-dangerous-and-false/675799/
Thank you very much for the links!
Oh wow. I hadn’t paid attention to statements from university professors and academics right after Oct 7th. Unbelievable. From the National Post link you provided:
> On the morning of Oct. 7, when Canadians woke up to images of bodies being paraded through the street by Hamas terrorists, a professor of African history at the University of Toronto, Safia Aidid, tweeted: “solidarity with the Palestinian people, today and everyday.”
> On Saturday afternoon, Uahikea Maile, a professor of Indigenous politics at the U of T, characterized the attack — which consisted of massacres, rapes and hostage-takings — as “anticolonial resistance”
> PhD candidate Maddie Brockbank downplayed reports of Hamas terrorists raping Israeli women. “Hyperfixation” on “interpersonal violence” distracts from state violence and dehumanizes the oppressed, she claimed.
Excellent.
No 'metropole' needs Empire less than America*.
Our historical American role was salvage crew.
We did NOT create the wreckage of the World Wars , Europe did that...we DID not play the fool twice, this led to NATO and the long past shelf date 'Western Alliance."
Our decolonization role - and the US State Department post 1945 is the DeColonizer par excellence-is an unspoken corollary of our real NATO policy; "Keep them ALL down [all of Europe], so the Russians CAN stay out [of Western Europe which does actually face the USA] so the American's had to stay IN."
The British told themselves "Keep The Americans In, Keep the Germans Down, Keep the Russians out' but ....that's not what we did. We decolonized England, France, undermining them at every turn, we even went after poor Portugal, which treated their colonies and people's far better than the other Europeans. This isn't a footnote Helen and Lorenzo as 'decolonization' served our American interests far more than any infiltration or co-opting Campus Marxists [such as a certain Frank Davis, and a certain Obama fellow, and a certain Soweto fellow].
All of this nonsense is a hangover from the Cold War, which was a hangover from the World Wars.
A dangerous hangover to be sure, but don't ignore what happened.
* America has no Metropole, it's a Federation. America is Federations from the Iroquois to the Internet and all arrangements in between.
DC isn't the Central Government as THERE ISN'T A CENTRAL AMERICAN GOVERNMENT.
DC had forgotten that and is now to it's horror realizing the awful truth.
As far as Empire America needs neither the resources, nor the Strategic Depth...nor any of it.
As far as the Hegemonic abortion that popped up in the 90s after the 'end of history' that's ending, you see far from just being a narrow parochial interest of the Foreign Policy community it has FATALLY UNDERMINED their control of the Continental United States.
They are panicking and running and discovering there's really no place to go but America....
...an America they our elites have deeply offended.
S
American de-colonialism was rooted in Wilsonian idealism about spreading the gospel of democracy. It always competed with the commercial desires of a more conventional (if quasi-) colonialism. The Cold War of course introduced an entirely different calculus. The end of that conflict left a gap that has yet to be filled.
Wilson - or Wilsonian?
Often not the same.
I don't think Wilson wanted to enter WW1 at all, when he was forced into it and he was he decided he never wanted to do this again, FDR who also wished to avoid war implemented this policy.
It would make sense in a war of ideas to spread our ideas.
It long ago stopped making sense, but our leaders haven't made since for 30 years.
I think a lot is put on Wilson and others that they never would have supported, one merely need ~ism and one's legacy is twisted and distorted beyond recognition.
I agree with you our policy after ww2 was certainly decolonization.
Largely successful.
That businesses make money anywhere is what they do...
Helen's point that Imperial nations got richer from decolonization is well taken.
What wasn't addressed in this essay is the question of Strategic Depth - which was the real payoff for England and France in the World Wars. Even in WW2 the Free French save France's independence [from America BTW] by regenerating from Africa and then the Middle East. Great Britain of course called on vast resources of food, material, above all men from her colonies, France as well. Even Spain won its Civil War with troops from Spanish Morocco.
The gap in the cold war ending needs to be we end our portion in America.
We end all alliances outside the Western Hemisphere, they are all mutually toxic.
There's nothing and no one in the Eastern Hemisphere that is existential and vital to America, we must leave. We need no resources, strategic depth, allies ...nor trade...nor do we need to risk nuclear war. Farewell !
Yes, the world won't miss England.
Apparently the English won't either, twats.
The case for a retreat from empire is inarguable.
However you left out one factor: the satellite belt. To maintain its position in space the US needs satellite relay stations outside of the USA. Key stations are in Australia but I expect that there would be others elsewhere too. A vestigal empire, designed around strategic supply chains (hydrocarbons, rare earth, strategic minerals like nickel) is more likely than comprehensive decolonisation.
In addition, US business is not satisfied with the US market alone. It seeks access to and control over foreign markets. Superpower status provided America with this.
I discuss the difference between empire and oceanic hegemony here.
https://www.lorenzofromoz.net/p/in-the-shadow-of-empire
no, we don't...satellites can talk from space.
they can also talk from Hawaii, our positions in Alaska, south america, and ships.
NO. Bye !
The problem with retreating from "Empire" is that some other power is likely to fill the vacuum.
England profited from its retreat from Empire because the power that filled that role was one that was friendly to England and shared similar ideals, namely the United States. If the US retreats the power mostly likely to take over is China, to which neither of the above two factors apply.
Yes. Though what Britain then and the US now have managed is an oceanic hegemony, which is not the same thing, as I discuss here
https://www.lorenzofromoz.net/p/in-the-shadow-of-empire
There's really nothing inevitable about empire, so I would disagree that there must always be one to dominate any particular region, let alone globally.
This isn't an American problem.
The American problem is this cost us the Republic.
The other problem is there's no way a Federation can sustain an entirely elective overseas something something.
The other problem is you are all toxic to us, you always have been.
Recently we've become toxic to you.
Moreover it's in your actual interests that we leave, even if you have to learn Chinese, because you see...the Toxic is about to SUPERSIZE
and you don't want whoever wins the war in America around you.
Not to mention the glee at watching all of you meet real monsters, then changing the channel or swiping the screen is just and overdue.
Well bye so long gee good luck see ya
The first American alliance to end with the end of the Cold War should have been NATO. We still can't extract ourselves from that tar baby.
That was talk of that at the time. Then the ex-Soviet Satellites asked to join.
An interesting essay...agree with all of it. I would just make this observation though: In my view, most white-liberal Correct-Think does not primarily derive from any deep ideological stance. It is shallower than that. The 'causes' - 'oppression', 'colonialism', 'racism', 'sexism' et al - are, to the white-liberal, just shallow abstractions. The real driver is "the endless struggle to think well of themselves" (as TS Eliot put it). https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/are-we-making-progress
True, most progressive thought is shallow, but its acceptance comes from "authorities" who have spent time and effort developing a worldview, however distorted it may be. I appreciate the critique of these authorities.
Then I think this critique will interest you: https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/are-we-making-progress
But we all "think well of ourselves", as when we also denigrate the shallow thinking from the "other side". I am not a deep student of the topic, but I understand there are about two dozen varieties (versions/ categories?) of self-delusion and confirmation bias. The psychological separation between our rational selves and our emotional selves must have had survival value via evolution somehow. I gather that factoid is being recognized more and more, but has not yet risen to the level of general populational awareness.
While noting that evolution has no teleology, per se, as our societies get more and more complex, is that an environment that favors increased rationality, or continuing the current logical - emotional mix?
I think this is all well observed, if a little beyond the scope of a comment thread like this. I do think there is a diffence between the typical conservative and the typical progressive in this respect. The conservative is more likely to expect others to take, at least some, personal responsibility for their discontents and failings (and will take personal responsibility for their own) whereas the progressive is more likely to blame someone else or some 'xyz-ism' or 'xyz-phobia' et cetera. You might think me naive.
Another timely base hit with runners in scoring position - well done. (Apologies for the Yank-speak baseball-ism.) A couple points in support: the more facile brand of political advocacy of Native American rights in the US consistently portrays pre-Colombian Native life as Edenic, thoroughly cleansed of anything resembling conflict or conquest. Ancient residency is routinely invoked as a precursor to enlightened attitudes about environmental issues and land stewardship. The mythologizing runs aground on the immensity of the Great Plains, though, which only became habitable for sizable groups with the rise of equestrian culture, which, as in Eurasia, produced warrior societies and constant conflict. Having lived in this ‘flyover country’ - and taken Native history seriously - helped me grasp the difference between the myth- making and historical reality. As an unreconstructed lib I also see the issue with the current Left’s soft Marxism. It’s exasperatingly simplistic when it comes to offering a compelling economic analysis and, despite the overwhelming historical evidence, refuses to accept any distinction between free enterprise and other aspects of capitalism that are of relatively recent vintage, such as predatory private-equity / hedge-fund acquisition and demolition of viable businesses. So the need for clarity has never been more urgent. The enemies are approaching from all sides now.
"It requires only mastery of Theory: rhetoric and narratives that impart to its initiates a gratifying moral grandeur."
This is the legacy of Plato in particular out of the Socrates-Plato-Aristotle foundation of most Western thought. There is a reason that Nietzsche rejected them. It is a form of Gnosticism.
This is the same Frantz Fanon who wrote of white women: "Basically, does this fear of rape not itself cry out for rape? Just as there are faces that ask to be slapped, can one not speak of women who ask to be raped?” (Black Skins, White Masks). Yet the mad-left adores him. The double-standard I can understand, but how do we explain the degree of decadence that makes Fanon a figure of such adulation?
Somewhat O/T , perhaps Orthogonal not off-
The disease of Managerialism always appears to the victims and surrounding communities as “local” - as it is Political- in the strangest way it validates “all politics is local.“
In this case the local politics being academia or the Intelligentsia. Or the media room, which extends to Slack and Twitter... the politics being denunciation.
Until the Fanon’s are fired from the mouth of cannons our suffering continues.
I would settle for taking all of their books off of the nonfiction shelves and moving them over to the fiction section where they belong.
Or we could tell stories about their myths around a campfire using their books as fuel.
A warming thought.
Ask people who talk about "de-colonialization" "what is colonialism and when did it start?" In the unlikely event you get an answer, it's probably going to be something like "European Transoceanic empires post 1492." It's hilarious how little these people, who use the term "Eurocentric" as a criticism or a slur, know about history, including and especially the history of the non-western world.
One need only read a bit about the Mongol Empire and the Hans in China to prove your point. How is it that with such prodigious resources at our disposal;, so many remain so woefully ignorant?
The Eurocentrism of the Left is underappreciated. If it wasn't pasty pale people doing it to dusky hued people, they never know a goddamned thing about it.
"have nowhere else to go."
is the point Lorenzo, and they'll decolonize the entire western world including Australia.
You are you know colonial settlers.