Sunday, May 14, 2017
if you want to get into the history of it, you have to begin with the
recognition that assad's father was actually in the same political party
as saddam hussein, namely the ba'ath party, which was initially a
soviet front exporting the global revolution to arabs with a set of
ideological tweaks designed to accommodate the culture. they wrapped
this up and called it arabic socialism and used it to take power in
iraq and syria.
while assad is not his father, his father was every bit as brutal as saddam hussein was. the reason that usually informed actors find it so easy to lapse into fantasy on contemporary syria is that they remember the brutality of his father.
the calls for regime change in the early years of the younger assad's regime (and, it is a regime....) were tied into a call to democratize the country upon his father's death. at the time, you could even call it a call for debaathification. i supported those calls, and for good reason: there was an opportunity to peacefully democratize the country, as it opened up after the death of it's stalinist dictator. and, you have to understand how intertwined the process of democratization needs to be with the process of demilitarization, and removing inherited military power from the hands of elite families.
in fact, one of the strongest proponents for reform was the younger assad, himself, who was not groomed for power and only found himself in charge due to the assassination of his brother. assad is western-educated and had to actually be brought home in order to be installed. before the war opened up, assad was in the process of an orderly transition to a democratic government.
in fact, this is the reason that the saudis have invaded syria: they welcome assad's removal, but they do not want a democratization. they want a syria that is either under the control of conservative clerics, or at least dominated by a friendly dictator like al-sisi.
that's right: the truth in syria is that we are backing rebels to prevent democracy, which is what the regime actually wants. and, i do not believe that assad has ever indicated that he has changed his viewpoint on the matter. but, you can't have a democratic transition in the midst of a foreign invasion.
that said, it is not likely at this point, now, that the russians would back a transition to a democracy, either. that window has closed for the immediate future.
while assad is not his father, his father was every bit as brutal as saddam hussein was. the reason that usually informed actors find it so easy to lapse into fantasy on contemporary syria is that they remember the brutality of his father.
the calls for regime change in the early years of the younger assad's regime (and, it is a regime....) were tied into a call to democratize the country upon his father's death. at the time, you could even call it a call for debaathification. i supported those calls, and for good reason: there was an opportunity to peacefully democratize the country, as it opened up after the death of it's stalinist dictator. and, you have to understand how intertwined the process of democratization needs to be with the process of demilitarization, and removing inherited military power from the hands of elite families.
in fact, one of the strongest proponents for reform was the younger assad, himself, who was not groomed for power and only found himself in charge due to the assassination of his brother. assad is western-educated and had to actually be brought home in order to be installed. before the war opened up, assad was in the process of an orderly transition to a democratic government.
in fact, this is the reason that the saudis have invaded syria: they welcome assad's removal, but they do not want a democratization. they want a syria that is either under the control of conservative clerics, or at least dominated by a friendly dictator like al-sisi.
that's right: the truth in syria is that we are backing rebels to prevent democracy, which is what the regime actually wants. and, i do not believe that assad has ever indicated that he has changed his viewpoint on the matter. but, you can't have a democratic transition in the midst of a foreign invasion.
that said, it is not likely at this point, now, that the russians would back a transition to a democracy, either. that window has closed for the immediate future.
at
16:34
i also need to point out that countries like japan and new zealand continue to send signals on the tpp that are in contradiction to what the president has said, as though they're being instructed to carry on.
remember: pence was a big tpp supporter.
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2017/03/trump-nafta-renegotiation-environment-trade
remember: pence was a big tpp supporter.
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2017/03/trump-nafta-renegotiation-environment-trade
at
15:54
so, what is the trump administration, rather than trump himself, going to push on nafta, in the end? i think that the chances are that the confluence of policies on the tpp and nafta is going to piss you off that much more. you thought you were going to maybe get a win on this right? ha.
see, the way you manipulate trump into doing what you want on this is that you feed him tpp provisions as improvements to nafta. in the end, "renegotiating nafta and cancelling the tpp" morphs into "replacing nafta with the tpp".
he won't know that they're tpp revisions, because he doesn't actually know what was actually in the tpp. i'll repeat that he wouldn't have actually opposed the tpp if he understood it. the one concrete difference may be in throwing the geo-strategic and security-minded people out of the trade policy discussions, but that will just mean pursuing the same outcomes in two different processes. that sounds like the kind of thing that billionaires want to bicker over. people pushing for this point may win this battle.
i'm actually interested to see how well this works in reconverting republican voters, at least, back to trade orthodoxy, which has to be a key social engineering goal in the party, right now. i expect that the left won't fall for it. and, it would actually be nice for the left to get it's issue back, actually - these anti-globalization groups on the right are not temporary allies. we need to resurrect the kind of trade politics on the left that we had in the 90s; this was an effective vehicle for mobilization, before the war broke it up. now, the right has taken it. and, it's a neat trick, right? if it works, you end up with these typical clueless anti-everything trump voters actually providing the political cover for the tpp, because they think passing tpp revisions is dismantling nafta. and, don't think they won't fall for it. after all: they're in favour of the aca, and opposed to obamacare. this is considerably more complicated, and that much easier to hoodwink them with.
remember when we stopped pipa and sopa? they were actually both in the tpp, though. and, expect them both to resurface in nafta talks.
i know that everybody wants to be optimistic on this. and, i think there's some chance that the one thing we could get some concrete wins on is in curbing the isds powers, as that fits into trump's economic nationalism - we can play this game ourselves, in pushing the idea that the isds process harms american sovereignty, which is absolutely true. it's been awful for canadian sovereignty, certainly. unions and other left-leaning forces that have a voice should prioritize this, as they can win this.
but, brace yourself - because if you get your hopes up, you're going to get crushed.
see, the way you manipulate trump into doing what you want on this is that you feed him tpp provisions as improvements to nafta. in the end, "renegotiating nafta and cancelling the tpp" morphs into "replacing nafta with the tpp".
he won't know that they're tpp revisions, because he doesn't actually know what was actually in the tpp. i'll repeat that he wouldn't have actually opposed the tpp if he understood it. the one concrete difference may be in throwing the geo-strategic and security-minded people out of the trade policy discussions, but that will just mean pursuing the same outcomes in two different processes. that sounds like the kind of thing that billionaires want to bicker over. people pushing for this point may win this battle.
i'm actually interested to see how well this works in reconverting republican voters, at least, back to trade orthodoxy, which has to be a key social engineering goal in the party, right now. i expect that the left won't fall for it. and, it would actually be nice for the left to get it's issue back, actually - these anti-globalization groups on the right are not temporary allies. we need to resurrect the kind of trade politics on the left that we had in the 90s; this was an effective vehicle for mobilization, before the war broke it up. now, the right has taken it. and, it's a neat trick, right? if it works, you end up with these typical clueless anti-everything trump voters actually providing the political cover for the tpp, because they think passing tpp revisions is dismantling nafta. and, don't think they won't fall for it. after all: they're in favour of the aca, and opposed to obamacare. this is considerably more complicated, and that much easier to hoodwink them with.
remember when we stopped pipa and sopa? they were actually both in the tpp, though. and, expect them both to resurface in nafta talks.
i know that everybody wants to be optimistic on this. and, i think there's some chance that the one thing we could get some concrete wins on is in curbing the isds powers, as that fits into trump's economic nationalism - we can play this game ourselves, in pushing the idea that the isds process harms american sovereignty, which is absolutely true. it's been awful for canadian sovereignty, certainly. unions and other left-leaning forces that have a voice should prioritize this, as they can win this.
but, brace yourself - because if you get your hopes up, you're going to get crushed.
at
15:22
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