America as Zion, Will the USA Abandon Ukraine?, Europe's Farmers Are Simply Right, 'Stigmatized Turks of Balkan Descent', In Defense of Gone With the Wind
The thing that a lot of pampered, sheltered, bookish lefties don’t understand is that when you meet real people in Israel, they are living examples of families who have been chased out of where they were living and had no place to go, but back to Israel. To be clear, in recent generations, they have been chased by Arabs and other Muslims.
I mean Freddie lives in NYC, which is not the most difficult place in the world to meet Jews. Yet he never shows much evidence of ever having spoken with a Jew who isn't a hard-left anti-Zionist politico.
Yeah seems we have senselessly been killing each other since forever. I looked into some Homo Antecessor remains and they seem to have canabalized competing tribes. One even sees Chimps doing this
I don't think that's exactly what Freddie said. He was pointing out that nation-states that valorize petty territorialism and ethnic particularism have a way of getting into armed clashes with their neighbors. History bears him out on that score. National chauvinism is a real thing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chauvinism Nicholas Chauvin was a real guy. He didn't invent chauvinism, of course; he merely publicized it as a virtue.
I think that the eventual dissolving of national borders is a nice thing to wish for. Not viable as a guiding principle of governmental policy in the foreseeable future, though. And not to be confused with a goal of all-encompassing global government, either.
Actually, that's a well-thought out post. You have nothing to apologize for. It's what I look for in a text discussion- someone willing to elaborate on their position with their reasoning. Not some two-sentence drive-by post, or what's erroneously called "dunking"- one-line snark, intended to shut down a discussion instead of opening it up. Cheap shots for upvotes- how trivial. What a waste.
I think you've made worthy points. I explain my own position on questions like ethnic identity and assimilation by providing my own categorical distinction between the Cultural and the Social. The Cultural is about particular ethnic identity- language, food, style points, traditions- and the Social is about shared Values, and a shared attitude toward the Commons (not just the human commons, but respect for the health of the natural systems of the planet, which should best be considered like a vital organ of our shared physical existence.)
The Social is the bottom line that makes everything else work properly: don't steal, don't freeload, don't lean too hard as a stranger, don't take away more than you put in, don't be a predator, don't enter a society as a guest and demand that the host make extra provision to accommodate your personal whims. After that, you can express your Cultural and personal identity any way you feel like. I've had plenty of experience in multicultural environments; there's no reason they can't work. But there has to be a Social Consensus on values, a common basis of respect and a bottom line on duty. Know how to act.
I've always been a fan of "broken windows" policing; its Achilles heel has been the Drug War, with its rampant illicit economy and parallel society of criminalized chronic lawbreakers, multiplying that population exorbitantly; criminal status is something like a common right of passage for adolescents all over the country because of stupid drug laws, and it's been that way since I was in high school over 50 years ago. Drug Prohibition ruined the country. There's no bad publicity for drugs. Outlaw cred is running much of the youth culture.
I don't care about your taste in dope; I care how you act. Be polite, not hostile or intimidating. Don't litter. Don't break bottles in the street. Don't shit on the sidewalk. Don't jump turnstiles. Don't whine about racism if you're guilty. Don't represent antisociality as if it were a vital part of your Culture.
"I live adjacent to Sunset Park here in Brooklyn, which has an enormous Chinese community that may even be bigger than Flushing’s now. At any rate, it is a community for Chinese by Chinese. They have a self-sustaining community among themselves, an enclave within NYC. At the risk of “just asking questions”: precisely what is the benefit to this? They do not mix with other immigrant communities, nor do other immigrant communities mix with them. When I’m there, I’m the only white person, without fail, unless I’m at the southern end of the neighborhood where the Irish pub bizarrely lingers on. There may be SOME tax revenue gained from them, but a tremendous number in that community are on means-tested benefits and, for what it’s worth, fudge their taxes something fierce. And I don’t mean to suggest that they’re bad people or anything - they’ve always been nothing but courteous to me, and I them, but the question remains: what precisely is New York City gaining from this? We do not have a shared culture at all."
With substitutions of the ethnic groups in question, you're describing New York in the 19th century. Except that the problems associated with the FOB immigrants were unimaginably worse. As a Brooklyn resident, you owe it to yourself to read the book The Heroic Gangster, by Neil Hanson. The first half of the book is a sociological history of the conditions of the poor immigrant neighborhoods of New York City at the turn of the 19th-20th century.
Also, keep in mind that for better or worse (sometimes much worse- read The Heroic Gangster), the US has never been a place where the children of first-generation immigrants keep on with replicating the strict boundaries of the traditional cultural heritage of their parents. Some do that, but they're more the exception than the rule.
The difference is that 19th century immigrants faced enormous legal and cultural pressure to assimilate. Another difference is that 19th century immigrants, once they arrived in the US, rarely, if ever went back to their homeland for holidays or vacations.
The result was that their children felt even less connection to those countries. These days its uncommon for immigrants to NOT go back to their homeland at least once every few years with their families.
Improvements in communications also means that first, second, and even third generation immigrant Americans are extremely connected to their homelands via movies, music, social media etc.
A third factor is the immigration moratorium of 1924 stopped the newer arrivals who could keep bringing their foreign cultures, which put even more pressure on existing immigrants to assimilate. In the present era, mass immigration keeps on increasing. When you have ever increasing number of your countrymen around you(who also don't face legal or cultural pressure to assimilate, go back to their countries for annual holidays, watch movies and TikToks and listen to music from those countries), you are even less likely to assmilate than some Italian in New York in 1924.
Basically we cannot say the current era of mass immigration will see the same levels of assimilation as 19th century because all the legal, cultural, and technological factors that forced assimilation then are weakening day by day and if anything are strengthening in the opposite direction.
Those are all really good points. It's worth noting that there's a class aspect to it, because the examples that you're drawing on presuppose some amount of affluence and success. That elevated class status doesn't make the effects of those immigrants all positive. And I hear a lot of cloud-castle dreaminess and avoidance of discussion of possible negative aspects and future consequences on the part of advocates for continuing to loosen restrictions on immigration, some of whom are relatively recent immigrants themselves, with a markedly circumscribed, naive, and/or self-interested viewpoint that they mantle as a justice concern.
I've never thought that chain immigration was a good idea, frankly. I have similar concerns about the sheer number of people allowed to enter the country annually when we are, by recent estimates, around 3 million houses short of estimated demand (according to an NPR report I heard last week.) To say nothing of the infrastructure and public works required to support a dramatically fast increase in population.
In the case of the more affluent- and wealthy- immigrant population you speak of, other provisions besides immigration law are enabling the influx. Our Delaware Corporation laws enable wealthy foreigners to invest huge amounts of money in American real estate for the purpose of tax shelters, for instance. And our self-absorbed political class of elected officials and lobbyists- who either already have serious fuck-you money, or need wealthy backers to pursue their ambitions- would much prefer to kick the can of reform down the road, on that particular situation. That rainbow coalition known as the "stateless cosmopolitan wealthy" are more interested in paying courtesy to each other than realistically looking at the impacts on the rest of us. The level of pampered self-absorption has gotten to a toxic level. The rich are the last to notice it, even when their own children are suffering the impacts. To say nothing of the rest of us.
The one narrative I reject is the paranoid idea that the Democrats support loose immigration policies because they hate America and/or are seeking to fill the ranks of Democratic Party supporters with immigrant votes. I don't think the Democrats are intentionally trying to tear down the country. For the most part, they're just bliss ninnies. They argue points on the basis of ideals, rather than practical results and long-term consequences. No different than Drug Warriors, supporters of American Hyperpower Interventionism, advocates for the Dysfunctional Homeless population, Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anyone NIMBYs, Abortion Criminalizers, Environmentalist Extremists, opponents of all Tax Increases, Bliss Ninny Militarists, Techno-Utopians...Luxury Believers, all of them. Abstract Idealism is not a Principle.
I still think you should read The Heroic Gangster. Because it shows that industrious people of good will can work together to restore civic order and build their way out of a quagmire. If that hadn't been done, New York City would be a rotting sore on the coastline.
I completely agree with your points regarding the wealthy. The "stateless cosmopolitan wealthy" are generally only loyal to each other rather than the nation states they are technically citizens of.
I don't think the average white working class, black or Hispanic Democrat who form the vast majority of the Democratic voter base hate America. They tend to have more immediate materialist concerns which is completely understandable. But they don't set policies or have much influence over actual direction of the country. But the elites who staff the Democratic party apparatus as well as its cultural support units(New York Times Daily Show, Harvard University, etc.) do hate the (still majority) white Americans and see mass third world immigration as their way to dilute the current majority. They might be motivated by blind idealism but the disdain is also there in my opinion.
One faction of elites using foreigners to fight another faction is nothing new. Just like actual violence to conduct regime change have been replaced by elections, mass immigration seems to me to be the modern equivalent of a 9th century Arab caliphs replacing their Arab kin soldiers(who could easily replace them) with foreign Persians or Turks or the Ottoman Turks replacing native Turkic soldiers with Janissaries(converted Balkans).
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The next entry in the Spanish Civil War series will be out no later than Monday.
I think Freddie captures his worldview very well. It's progressivism without any unprincipled exception for the Jews.
The best argument against him is as follows:
1) Non-Orthodox Jews in Israel have a replacement level fertility. The same Jews in America have some of the lowest fertility in the west. Giving up Israeli culture and adopting American Jewish culture would be a "Holocaust of the Cradle".
2) While peace with the Palestinians is probably impossible (they should remove them by force), peace with the broader Middle East was already on its way. Saudi and UAE oil barons don't give a shit about the Palestinians really. They want to get billionaires on their side like everyone else. Time was on Israel's side here.
I just spent 3 weeks in Israel and their culture has a lot to admire. I mean the people, not the dysfunctional govt (oxymoron?). Israelis are not all that similar to US Jews, and I have a ton of experience with both.
Freddie somewhat conveniently omits Stalinist Soviet crimes and Mao’s crimes in China. He may write well and make some intelligent points, but he is at heart an egalitarian internationalist (i.e. a communist) and should never be trusted.
Why fcuk Freddie? The creation of Israel destabilized the Middle East and continues to do so. No one is allowed to ask this question without being labeled a Jew hater and getting huge amounts of vitriol No dispassionate analysis is allowed. You read articles on how Palestinians should be ethnically cleansed from Gaza and the West Bank frequently. See Richard Hannania or the op Ed in the WSJ from Israelis that Palestians need to be taken in by the West.
I'm Jewish. Not observant, but still. One of the most compelling aspects of the faith is that it is embodied in its people, not its structures.
It is for this reason that I too have asked the question about Jews moving en masse to the US. I suggested a large swath of Texas, where they can make that desert bloom, too.
The Israel project fails conceptually and in reality if all the Jews are dead.
What was this stable middle east of which you speak?
It rather disappeared in 619 AD when the Persians stormed Roman Jerusalem...
but do go on.
Actually the creation of Israel stabilized more than a few Arab governments.
It's all the dirty Jews fault !!
Our government is a tyranny because.....we need to fight the Jews !
We could throw in the collapse of the Ottoman and European Empires and mandates and the World Wars, anti-colonialism, the sorta appeal of Communism, the American anti-colonialism, the resurgence of Islam once the Ottoman's fell, oil was discovered, and Arab Nationalists discovered Nationalism all on their own...
I don't understand why Freddie, who is opposed to all forms of nationalism, seems to focus on Jewish nationalism so much. What about all the Arab and/or Muslim nationalism, why not focus on that at least as much, or even a little bit?
It is also a metaphysical case: the entirety of the post-war global system is based on the defeat of the Nazis, whose greatest crime was the Holocaust.
To allow Israel to disappear would be tantamount to rejecting the basis of this order.
People also impose their own national struggles into the conflict. The moral basis for Israel’s creation and existence invite intensity and emotion, the same way moral conflicts do.
Not just resources, but American lives. Take the people killed and injured in the recent attack on the American base in Jordan near the Syrian boarder. Why are we involved in Syria? Obviously to install a regime friendly to Israel
The US is in Syria to disrupt transportation between Iraq and Syria and to exert maximum pressure for Washington's preferences on hydrocarbon infrastructure (i.e. the proposed pipeline from Qatar to the Med that Assad vetoed).
I don't think US was that exited about compromising their LNG exports to Europe. Maybe they wanted to somewhat please their other allies, but that is a minor thing. More important was removing Syria from Iran's influence
The US remains involved with Israel for several reasons. If the US were to cut Israel loose there is a risk that the Russians might team up with Israel. This was a major fear in the years between 1948-1967. Alternately, an isolated Israel would be a truly loose cannon, especially if NATO fractures.
Re resources, most of the money spent on Israel is spent within the US. It is a subsidy to US arms manufacturers.
Finally, the relationship with Israel offers Washington a fig-leaf to cover its fast-evolving regional ambitions. Biden's noisy and performative Zionism camouflages his concessions to Iran and Hizbollah (above all on nuclear proliferation, the Lebanese border issues etc) and the complex, sensationally sensitive, relationship between Washington and the Muslim Brotherhood.
Having said this, it would make sense for Biden to formally distance himself from Jerusalem. A post-hegemony version of Nixon's Guam doctrine would be best but is probably beyond the ability of Biden and Blinken to pull off.
By all means, let the Russians team up with Israel. Once Israel is cut loose, stop meddling in the Middle East. America has no national interest in that region.
Europe should also be told that it's time for them to handle their own affairs. They can evolve NATO into EUTO, if that is their wish. I'd like to see Canada and the US out of NATO as soon as possible.
Isolationism is necessary so that resources can be redirected away from the military. It is high time to address problems back home. But that will never happen until the rot in Washington is cleared out. Same goes for Ottawa.
Representatives are supposed to represent the electorate. In other words, foreign agents sitting in Congress should be charged with treason.
Stop meddling? America simply does not know how to do this.
In the future Washington will remain heavily involved in the Middle East in order to disrupt any attempt by the Europeans to achieve energy security via closer relations with the region or through the development of the natural gas fields in the eastern Mediterranean by non-American firms. America will also seek markets for high tech weaponry and for infrastructure.
Ultimately, a degree of isolationism would indeed be best for the American people. I just have trouble imagining it happening.
Well, because a muslim elite is not bribing the worlds biggest super power to support them. Just look at Sheldon Adelson alone. He spent ca 200$ million in 2020 election cycle to promote that one issue
It is illigal for arab countries to "donate" to politicians or their PACs. They mainly influence american politics through hiring lobbyists. This is dirty I agree, but far from the same thing
Disagree there. In addition, these arab monarchies do not represent muslims. Saudi prince for example wants to normalize relations with Israel, but is prohibited because of recent tensions
You may want to check out how much Qatar has given to US universities. And their investment has paid off handsomely in college activism/influence. That's how it deeply influences American politics. Think all those Biden staffers and their antics....and so on.
I'd argue that Qatar is becoming a major problem because it is pouring in money on a grand scale, while intriguing with jihadist groups that have an exceptionally long record of being dangerous and very difficult to control (the Muslim Brotherhood). The Qataris are getting out of their depth and in time will precipitate further crises. They are currently trying to normalise jihadi and salafi activism within the US with fairly obviously catastrophic implications for public safety.
NB in 2020 that Arab media released tapes of a phone conversation between the late Colonel Qadaffi and Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani, the late Emir of Qatar. It is clear from these that Qatar intends to become the number one backer of ultra-hardline Islam. This is disturbing and very murky stuff. It will end in bloodshed.
I am not an American (am an Aussie) but I get the impression that the US government has historically used ethnic lobbies within the US as go-betweens and disposable cut-outs for foreign policy. It is a means of managing relationships between Washington and specific communities and is often highly theatrical. It is debatable how wise this has been. It certainly adds to the lack of transparency in US policy making.
Western Leftists use Israel as their punching bag and/or movie screen to project their political fantasies onto bc Israel (as a Western extension) is the closest there is to an actual Western democracy in the Middle East, meaning Israelis are the only people who would even give them a hearing, whereas they know Arabs have no interest in what they're selling, there just aren't many shared beliefs to appeal to (Arabs don't seem to want to trade Salah for John Lennon's "Imagine").
Also, for Westerners Jews code as "White" and Arabs code as "POC", meaning this is just too juicy a Passion Play for the Western Left, who think of politics as a videogame where their chosen avatars are always either French Resistance or Jim Crow Freedom Rider—so heading to a protest in a keffeyih to chant "From the River to the Sea" is the closest they'll ever get to the March on Selma.
Do you really believe that dEMOcRacY propaganda? Why did USA support the overthrow of the democratically elected Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt for a brutal millitary regime?
Because they had very little choice. Morsi was dragging Egypt towards civil war and Morsi was also intriguing with Iran. Tehran wanted Cairo to ditch the Camp David Accords and let Tehran place missiles in the Sinai along the lines of the Hizbollah missiles in south Lebanon.
A democratically elected government is allowed to pursue relations and deals with Iran. If your opinion is that certain people are not able and should not be allowed to govern themselves then that is okay. Just do not falsely virtue signal that you are the champion and defender of democracy
I'm pretty sure that if you are pushing your country to civil war via your actions, you don't really have much of a "democratic mandate" anymore, and it would then be disingenuous to treat foreign policy deals under such a framework.
How deep inside USA's ass are you? Obviously these foreign-supported anti-democratic forces would be to blame for a potential civil war. How about USA and Golf countries stop funding these forces? There would be far less risk of civil war.
Israeli "democracy" is as phony as the American version. So called "democracy" is managed by elites through propaganda, censorship and increasingly by direct control of voting. "Fortified" elections are here to stay. And the cancellation of the Ukraine election may come to the USA in November. One or two violent false flags might be staged to impose martial law and keep Trump from winning.
In Israel, despite massive, ongoing demonstrations against Netanyahoo up till Oct 7, he remained in power with minor, insane, fascistic Kahanist parties as vital coalition allies. Currently, ZERO dissent is allowed from the Gaza slaughter. The current anti Netanyahoo demos must cloak themselves as advocates for ceasefire on behalf of the hostage families.
Look under the rock. Israel is squirming with hostile, fascist, and brutally anti-democratic forces. No ethno-supremacist state can avoid apartheid (at best) and/or genocide (in a pinch.) The Eretz Israel forces are as genocidal as the Nazi's with the exact same lebenstraum ideology of conquest for Greater Israel. That is the logic of racist supremacism.
"The Eretz Israel forces are as genocidal as the Nazi's"
this is a grotesque lie and slander (not to mention grammatically incorrect)
The Israelis just want to have a peaceful prosperous nation without having to worry about terrorist attacks or a terrorist state for a neighbor.
If you can judge a cause by the people who back it, the Palestinians are even more fucked than I thought—every deranged shut-in who imagines they're on the side of peace and justice but whose words reek of rage and race hate seems to want to join their jihad.
Probably many Israelis just want to live in peace. However the same cannot be said for their government. they supported Hamas all the way. Qoute from Netanjahu at 2019 Likud meeting: "Those who want to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state should support the strengthening of Hamas and the transfer of money to Hamas,” divide and conquer "This is part of our strategy, to differentiate between the Palestinians in Gaza and the Palestinians in Judea and Samaria".
Wikileaks also showed us that israeli intelligence supported Hamas taking power in Gaza in 2007
I know Israel well and have Zionist relatives there I communicate with regularly. Of course most “just want to live in peace.” Duh! My liberal relatives want to preserve a European “garden” lifestyle. If they could push a button to peacefully, nonviolently disappear the Arabs, they would, preserving the falafel and pita bread.
They do NOT want to admit violent, religious Jews and settlers are the necessary enforcers and expanders of Jewish power. They don’t want to see the ethnic-supremacist state or it’s degradation and brutality against Arabs. Realty forces their noses into the stench of genocide, so they desperately deny reality. Unfortunately, their Fantasy Island will crumble as their patron, the USA collapses.
The Jews will flood back out of “Israel” within a few decades, again homeless wanderers among the nations. Or, like Samson, bring it all down with nukes.
I have a friend who did his army service in the Golani brigade, known as one of the most generally thuggish of the Israeli army units. He did about 1/2 his service doing policing work in the West Bank and I asked him if he had ever seen soldiers really beating the s**t out of Palestinians or abusing them. He said yes, but only Druze soldiers. For those who don't know, Druze are a weirdo esoteric Muslim sect that because of prohibition on conversion or intermarriage became an ethnic group. In Israel they switched sides during the 1948 war (smart move) and have since been strongly loyalist.
The point I'm making is that the Israeli-Arab conflict is really about different groups of brown people brutalising each other. The White Jews and Palestinians (many Christian Palestinians have some European descent like Ashkenazim, as well as purer Levantine bloodline unlike the Muslim Palestinians) are the only ones holding them back.
He focuses on Zionism because it’s constantly discussed in the US and a key basis of US foreign policy. Every publication has endless articles and op eds about Israel, Israel and Israel. It’s all over social media too. I’m tired of hearing about Israel all the time. Especially when it’s a small insignificant nation. Don’t care to hear about the Palestinians either. America is bigger problems and it needs to fix its own house and not waste endless political capital over the ME.
His 'modest proposal' has the great virtue of being an unusually honest expression of the Western leftist worldview. We should always pay attention when the left says the quiet part out loud, as they rarely do.
He tried to head off some of the most obvious counters to his argument, but one that he didn't directly touch upon is that many Jews will always have a lingering suspicion about their safety in the USA despite their overwhelming success in it.
As long as Stephen Miller succeeds, Jews will remain safe, otherwise they will fall victim to the ideology of Invading the World and Inviting the World popularized by the idiots among them who couldn’t understand the negative consequences of their actions.
While that 'lingering suspicion' is indeed real, I would not raise it to the level of an 'objection' to his 'argument' since deBoer's 'argument' is essentially that Jews among all the peoples of the Earth have the ability to deracinate themselves. This is Hitler's argument too. Freddie deBoer performs the role of anti-Semitic concern troll.
If Freddie wanted to be inventively trollish, he could suggest that, since there are no Jews left in the Jewish Autonomous Oblast, Putin could offer it as a Palestinian homeland. Of course he'd never suggest that, because he sees one group as basically deracinated and the other definitely not.
Freddie is not expressing conscious dislike of Jews, just the opposite, he views Jews as admirable citizens of the world, innately capable of 'internationalism', cosmopolitan, perhaps even rootles cosmopolitans; a quality he likely admires.
I agree. I said that "Freddie deBoer performs the role of anti-Semitic concern troll" not that he is an anti-Semite. Anyway, real anti-Semites are as rare as hen's teeth, but anti-Semitic concern trolls abound - especially on the left.
Franklin Roosevelt, the icon and hero of liberal progressive Americans, told one of his aides, Leo Crowley, on January 27, 1942: “Leo, you know this is a Protestant country, and the Catholics and the Jews are here on sufferance.”
So Jewish Americans are justified in having a lingering suspicion that they might not always be welcome in the USA. The “progressive” pro-Hamas “protests” and violence against Jewish students on university campuses and Jewish citizens in cities like New York, and the Democratic Party’s attempts to appease Rashida Tlaib’s pro-Hamas constituents in Dearborn, Michigan, are a warning bell.
Jews are in Israel by right and not on sufferance. In Israel the Jewish people have their own state with their own military to project hard power. A state where they are the masters, cannot be persecuted, and can follow their own agenda to build a living Israeli Jewish culture on ancient Jewish foundations. Of course, this is something Freddie deBoer, as a Marxist internationalist, neither values nor understands.
American "elites" are no longer WASP "royalty" like FDR. In 2024, Jews are completely integrated into the "ruling classes". In fact i would argue that they are vastly more powerful today than the old WASP elite.
I'd argue that the US today is too dynamic and too unstable to sustain a coherent ruling class of the old type. The WASPs and the Jews increasingly resemble the Alawites of Syria: well-connected clans at the very top with larger communities held hostage to socio-political agendas that do not necessarily suit their needs.
Listen, let’s be real: the leftists in America will be coming for the Jews too (already are, really). Is absurd that so many “liberal” Jews in America don’t get it. Hubris?
It's not hubris. To understand why American Jews have not deserted the left en masse you must understand that most of these folks belong to the urban Professional Managerial strata of the American population. So, they have an innate loyalty to the Democratic aligned establishment. In the USA the culture war is not really about ideas, but rather it's about power and for most Jews power comes from being inside the Professional Managerial elite who administer state power. Switching sides in the culture war is a really big deal for most people and especially so for Jews because of their historical memory of vulnerability to populist movements gone awry.
I will make it simple via an expression: “this ain’t your grandfather’s democratic party”. The typical UWS Jew is a fool, they don’t see what’s coming. I am friends / acquaintances / business associates with many who fit this description. (And quite a few who see through it.)
What's coming? I'm not sure what you have in mind. From where I sit, I think that Jewish leftists are making a rational choice when they align themselves with the Democrats. They are very uncomfortable with the idea of joining a populist movement which is not controlled by hyper educated elites.
This critique of Jewish leftists also applies to other middle and upper middle class leftists. All these folks know that their friends are in the elite institutions of power, not among the populists living in flyover country.
I read the link in your comment (https://samkriss.substack.com/p/against-the-brave). You think you have uncovered a huge swath of amorality and hypocrisy, but you have really missed the essence of the situation. Israel is in the unique position of being a victorious occupier unable to expel an enemy population.
The Turks resolved the Armenian question. The Americans resolved the Indian question. The Greeks resolved the Muslim question. Poles resolved the German question. Ethnic cleansing is a fact of history. You cannot make it go away by claiming it is an anachronism.
No, the essence of the situation is the miserable pettiness and inhumanity of self-justifying ethnic chauvinists. Warring packs of zombie primates led by insecure zombie alpha males, like baboons, as the eternal fate of humankind. The Past as Prologue. It's evo-bio! All nice and scientific-like!
The rest of us aren't obligated to accept that dismal, ghastly view of human existence as Final Wisdom.
It's edifying to read someone express that hopeless, terminally delimited view so candidly, though.
As a leftist I assume you believe that human nature is subject to progress. That is what defines leftism. However, progress of human nature has never happened - at least I have not seen an example in the last several thousand years. You may earnestly want the arc of human history to "bend toward justice", but this belief is at best a delusion and at worst an excuse used by tyrants for social engineering and the worst excesses of human nature. This is my "delimited candid view" in a nutshell.
I think my original characterization of your views was more complete, and more accurate: "hopeless, terminally delimited candid view."
"Leftist" is a label you're trying to stick on me, which is something that rigid ideologues do. Sometimes they follow up their clueless attempts at pigeonholing with dreary rhetorical repackaging that they mantle as self-evident Truth, when it's actually dogmatic table-pounding.
I would not object to your characterization of me as hopeless, delimited and candid. I don't see any reason for hope that 'progress' will be realized in the real world. 'Leftist' is obviously a label. Can we live in a world without labels? I find that categories are essential for ordered thought, although yes, labels can be used to create strawmen. Your writing on Israel/Palestine seems very earnest, so kudos for believing in something so passionately. It's very leftist to be very passionate about abstract political issues. Of course, one can be pro-Palestinian without being a leftist, but I suspect your views are based on leftism rather than any innate love for Palestine.
From the essay: "...Al-Shaima Akram Saidam was the highest-scoring student in last year’s Palestinian high school exams. She wanted to study English at university and work as a translator. She was killed by an Israeli bomb. Abu Shadi ran a popular knafeh restaurant. Every day, people used to queue up outside his place; if they couldn’t afford to pay for his sweets he gave them away for free. He was killed by an Israeli bomb. Elham Farah was a music teacher; she taught generations of Gazan children to play the piano. When the bombs came, she sheltered with some other Christians in the Holy Family Church. During a quiet moment, she left the church to see if her house was still standing, and an Israeli soldier shot her in the leg. The people inside the church tried to help her, but every time they stepped outside the Israelis opened fire. She died slowly in the street. Later, an Israeli tank rolled over her corpse. Yotam Haim, Alon Shamriz, and Samer Talalqa were three Israeli hostages captured by Hamas on October 7th. Two months later they managed to free themselves. They approached Israeli troops while stripped to the waist, waving a white flag, and calling for help in Hebrew. An Israeli sniper shot and killed Tamriz and Talalka instantly. Haim fled into a nearby building. Soldiers followed and called for him to come out. When he did they killed him too.
They’re murdering indiscriminately. You can wave a white flag; you can be an old woman or a newborn baby or someone else who visibly poses no threat whatsoever; you can be an Israeli hostage calling for help—if they see you, they will try to kill you..."
War is always an atrocity. It's interesting that when the Jews do the killing the victims get names. I haven't thought about this before, but don't you think it's odd?
You say you've read Sam Kriss' essay. You clearly haven't comprehended it. It must have required a lot of effort to miss the points that he made so eloquently.
As for your statement that the victims of atrocities only get names when Jews do the killing, that's so plainly not the case that the claim is practically delusional.
Can you name some other victims of war? What are the names of those who died in Dresden? Belgrade? Donetsk? Grozny? Raqqa? Fallujah?
My point is that almost all outrage against atrocities is self-serving. This is true for both the left and the right, although it is more often a fault of the left since they are so focused on their humanitarianism. Pointing out some conscripts' mistakes or crimes is not a categorical way of thinking about war or policy.
I feel like the Russians would be open to some kind of settlement. I doubt they want this war grinding on for the next few years. The problem though, is that I'm not sure the US is even in contact with the Russians? And they should assume the US will eventually screw them anyway. So maybe it makes for RU to keep pushing
If it's true that Ukr is sending women plucked off the street onto the battlefield, then it's clearly a dire situation. But Russia doesn't seem anywhere near rolling into Kiev. I think that's what it would take for the US to be humiliated.
Afa Israel Jews -> US, just to entertain the thought. I think that would be just as bad as importing millions of palestinian refugees. I'm not even one of those DA JOOZ! guys. It would simply be a different flavor of weird ethnic conflicts we already have and don't need more of. Imho.
From the Russians standpoint, maybe it makes sense to press on for a little while longer. And from a power politics machiavellian perspective, you could make the argument that it actually is worth it from the US to spend the money to drain Russian resources. Make it a little harder for the russians to reconstitute when we do this all over again in 10 yrs.
This of course has a flip side. Might be easier for RU to take on Ukraine when it'd likely be a complete shell of a country with no economy and millions fled/dead by then. It's already like that now
And at this point they probably respect the Germans less (and French but Germans were the more important trade partner). I will never understand why they publicly said they were only buying time for Ukraine with the previous agreement.
Isn’t this just Russians complaining that the US should disregard what other countries and peoples want to satisfy Russia? The Poles hate and fear Russia and for obvious reasons. Russia cannot demand that the rest of the world ignore Russian aggression and history. They see themselves as the rightful rulers of EE.
If I was Russia I would want a permanent settlement where I don't need to rely on Western promises or goodwill (which is worthless) and that can only come with an AFU collapse. They will press on until that either happens or doesn't, at which point they will try to make a deal.
In theory they will want Kharkov and Odessa, but I think the Dnieper is just too much of a natural barrier that makes for a good dividing line. Kharkov might be easier to swallow.
The lesson I want America to learn from this is the the CIA, etc are malign influences always trying to stir up new wars. Perhaps Ukraine needs to lose hard for that lesson to be taught. No more color revolutions. No more spy bases. I don't feel like I'm at war with Russia, the CIA is.
The longer this goes on the less they want to negotiate I think. They negotiated in april 2022 and then the west sabotaged the peace deal. Now the average ukrainian soildier is well into his forties. This means that all of Ukraine is getting easier and easier to millitarily occupy
"And they should assume the US will eventually screw them anyway. So maybe it makes for RU to keep pushing... rolling into Kiev [is] what it would take for the US to be humiliated."
Sadly, yes, this is the case. It may take another year, but Russia can and will annex the four remaining oblasts east of the Dnieper and lay siege to Kiev, if only symbolically.
My rosy prediction is that it won't come to that. Once Western cash stops flowing to the Zelensky regime, and it will, it'll get internally coup'd within a month. The new leadership of 'traitors' will tell the Washington Blob to pound sand and strike a deal with Putler to keep Odessa. And Westerners will return to neither knowing about nor caring what's going on in Slavland.
I listened to your interview with Alex Kaschuta. Regarding Lubic, what was the motivation of Croatian communists in teaming up with Croatian nationalists in the late 80s/ early 90s? Just a pragmatic way to get out of Milosevic's yoke?
"Nationalism has been implicated in almost all of the great crimes against humanity in history." Except that internationalism (communism) killed more people in the 20th Century than all nationalisms combined - and it's not even close.
They love that lie, try telling a college kid that communism killed 10 times more people than Hitler could dream about and they will call you a liar. I guess giving away Western tertiary education to commies was a bad idea..
Gene, Freddie DeBoere is consistently and reliably wrong. He’s a brilliant writer, and a very smart guy who is genuinely learned and yet always comes to the wrong conclusion. I was a subscriber of his and have read 50 posts. He is reliably wrong.
DeBoere, to me, has been something of a puzzle for about two years. As you say, some of his writing is absolutely brilliant, but at the same time a lot of what he writes is just plain lousy - it’s biased, self-centered, and almost juvenile. It’s as if he is different people on different days.
No. He is open about having Bipolar disorder. A very different but no less challenging lifelong condition. And if you are intelligent enough to comment on a Substack it might be worth avoiding the ridiculous notion of schizophrenia being ‘split personality’. My own take from reading him for years is similar to Gym + Fritz comment above. I don’t agree with anyone on everything but doesn’t mean he can’t write some amazingly perceptive articles.
Spot on, hilarious, in the shadow, Freddie is too much of a knob to be in the cathedral proper but by holding too the right kind of beliefs he can make a grubby living just outside. I am convinced of the primacy of Yarvin”s cathedral, the “selective advantage of dominant ideas and the inability of recessive ideas to compete” is the engine of all human endeavour, the unavoidable and natural convergence of practical considerations and ambition. We must get it wrong, we will always get it wrong. Freddie is perfect for the world where wrong is right.
DeBoer wasn't making a claim based on a death toll comparison. He was speaking of the number of wars provoked by nationalism over the centuries. And on that score, he's indisputably correct.
"Nationalism" is too strong. With most wars it's been more localism, although in fairness we're talking "my tribe" writ large for a nation. And you might just as well say that greed caused more wars. Then there are religious wars. People, right or wrong, fight for what matters to them.
I suppose that it depends on when one wants to begin the chronology. But the results are nothing to brag about. Unless one exalts the glories of War, I suppose.
This is all speculation but if you take the example of Africa's tribal conflicts, remove any bribes and incentives the rest of the world gives those African tribes to keep the ethnic conflicts from spiraling out of control, apply them to an ethnic map of pre ~1600s Europe, I think you'd find European style national conflicts to be the far lesser of two evils.
You haven't read A Distant Mirror by Barbara Tuchman, have you? Or A World Lit Only By Fire, by William Manchester. Or any books about the Crusades, or the Wars of Roses, or the conquest of Ireland. Or about the reconquest of Spain from the Moors. Or the beginning of the wars between Venezia and the Ottoman Turks. Or the Livonian War...
Hey you edited that to add a bunch of other topics! I've read books on the northern crusade, the Ottoman empire, the Crusades, and the Spanish Reconquista. Just not the two particular books you mentioned here.
The Balkan Turkish issue is a really interesting one. I don't know if this is true, but I've heard (from Serbs) that Turkish basketball recruits very heavily from villages populated by Muslims from Serbia.
Nobody wants the poor Gagauz, it seems. If Moldova tries to ethnically cleanse them, which is always a possibility, I don't know where they could go.
Turkish basketball NT played against Italy on Thursday on occasion of the 2025 Eurobasket qualifiers. Their highest scorer? Tarik Biberovic, a 23-year-old Fenerbahçe player born in Zenica, BiH.
In the early 2010s they regularly had also Zenica-born Emir Preldžić in their squad, too. And one of their current team stars since several years is San Antonio Spurs player Cedi Osman, born in Ohrid, (North) Macedonia.
"They do have a point: if the Ukrainian Army does collapse, the Russians can snatch a total victory instead of just a tactical one. That would definitely harm the USA’s standing globally. This is why it is in the USA’s strategic interests to not allow this to happen"
How did hanging on for as long as possible work out in Afghanistan?
You mention that many on one side of GOP are being called “Putin admirers”. Is there truth in this? Can we attempt to take a neutral examination of this?
The truth is many on the right feel they have lost their country. Their enemies own the institutions. They have seen protests, like the farmers, only slow down this rot, but never actually stopping it or reversing course. They can create a fervor which will stop one government anti disinformation group, lead by a singing authoritarian, but they know 10 other secret groups with the same purpose are popping up in other bureaucracies and ngo‘s. The list could go on and on.
I’m convinced many on the right would prefer a strong man of some sort, either that be from reading moldbug’s writings or just because they see no other option. Someone to just “do what it takes”. On the world stage there is not many people that fit this archetype, but one stands taller than the rest: Putin.
Doesn’t a recent poll in the uk even reflect this admiration?
Hey I am still angry that Hitler didnt pack up all the Jews and send them to Madagascar like his original plan before Goebels got involved, could you imagine Africas resources both natural and human with that sort of management class on the periphery, the human growth potential would be immense.
Anyway “liberal” journalist and “nationalist” dictator both talking about moving Jews around like they are some unfashionable furniture you found at your dead grans house is exactly how I expect the the world to work in 2024..
Flatline, I adore your point, nobody has been hit harder than the Jews and yet they always rise up and rebuild. You are altogether correct, Madagascar would be a very different place today: successful.
Jews are winners. In contrast, Palestinians are their own worst enemy.
“For forms of government let fool’s contest: whatever’s best administered is best”
There was something similar to this historically with groups like the Lebanese in West Africa, Indians in Uganda, British in Rhodesia, and of course the Boers in South Africa. Not certain about the Lebanese but obviously didn't work out well for those other groups.
I have a humbe suggestion: how about we stop burning our food and increase food prices through the coercion of mixing ethanol into our fuel? This is even leading to european countries buying up African land hindering their food security. Black lives matter?
Freddie De Boer's suggestion is creepy, petty and sophomoric and is of interest only as an example of how very limited Left wing thinking about history and politics has become.
The Israelis are fine where they are, where they belong through both right of conquest (the universally valid foundation of politics) and through folkloric/cultic connection dating back to the Bronze Age.
And he is one the more thoughtful ones. Certainly came up way short here but as said elsewhere I enjoy his insights generally of nothing more than to understand that world more.
FdB is certainly more readable than the febrile and unhinged types. He'd probably be OK in person. But he reminds me of the stock character of 80s cinema, the teenager who is being bullied and who has yet to meet the mentor who teaches him how to stand up for himself.
Ya winning is out of favour, déclassé, but historically, for all previous generations winning was a valid foundation of nations and politics. We have been educated onto stupidity: social sciences are a pox.
Fantasies distilled from the social sciences are effective if you seek to develop a collective death wish. Otherwise they are only useful for students of morbid psychology.
In politics/war/history winning merely gets you a spot in the next game. Without it you don't necessarily get to show up.
"...right of conquest (the universally valid foundation of politics),and through folkloric/cultic connection dating back to the Bronze Age."
Under that logic, Adolf Hitler would have been justified, if only he had waited to develop the V-3 and the A-bomb before going on his continental rampage. But Hitler was a Loser, therefore he was Wrong.
Setting aside your hyperbole (hundreds?), ruthless conquerors are not universally admired, either. They aren't even all that widely admired. Some of them are locally admired, for want of anyone else to look up to. Others are despised. Some show up doing star turns as divisive historic presences in unending robotic blood feuds.
The recent excesses known as Wokeness notwithstanding, I'm thoroughly glad that I got an American history and civics education in public school in the early 1970s that didn't insist on whitewashing murderers as heroes, and that opened up debate on historical questions like the clearances and internment of indigenous tribes, slavery, Jim Crow segregation, American populism (back when it was a good thing), and the Gilded Age. (Part of my ire at the Wokists is that they act like the Klan was in charge of every school district in the US before they came along to set things straight.)
Nowadays, I often get the impression that intellectually curious young people are getting most of their history education from "revisionist" Hot Takes on Youtube and similar Guided Meditations on the Internet. Some of the would-be intellectual new jacks occasionally sound like they're capable of reading a few pages of text in one sitting.
The Global American Empire is arguably the most obvious example of “ruthless conquerors” lauded as saviours; they co-opted the logic of the left to justify their aggression and it is a masterful slight of hand. Responsibility to protect: what a crock of shit. Liberals do love war.
Wait- what? In a different post, you were valorizing war, and dogmatically declaiming about its "necessity." Which leaves you post as just more sweeping partisan turf claiming. It's trite. I enter into these discussions to seek more substantive issue content.
I'm also one of those people--no cheap partisan label need apply--who realize how flimsy nearly all of the rationales for American military intervention have been in my lifetime. Some of us are trying to bust myths and change minds in order to move things to a saner place.
The idea in the back of my mind is that if we can somehow get humanity to peak global population at mid-century without a cataclysm, we stand a chance of getting clear of mass desperation and precarity. I don't know if it will happen, but it beats passively capitulating to the rote robotic programs that govern mass human aggression. Most everyone has a latent potential for sadomasochism, but some of us see it for the degraded pathology that it is, and work tirelessly to defuse the tyrannical self-importance that insists on its necessity.
Right and wrong take shape on the Procrustean bed of history.
Had the Nazis won you can be certain that the great majority of people in the West today would be perfectly comfortable with that. Many of today's liberal democrats in particular would be more than comfortable.
I expect that plenty of those now working in the human rights industry would be thrilled to describe themselves as Nazis. I have no trouble imagining Dr Goebbels grandkids doing PR work for the UN or Martin Bormann's running philanthropic foundations.
For the record, I'd argue that Hitler was indeed wrong because he paid way too high a price for his fleeting victories, brought catastrophe upon Germany itself, and was stupid enough to become intoxicated with his own prejudices. He was also a weak strategist: had the Germans focused their forces on the soft underbelly of the British Empire in the Middle East they would have won. Instead he prioritised attacking Moscow and seizing the Soviet hydrocarbons in the Caucasus.
Right and wrong are not a matter of upvotes. And history is a rigorous intellectual effort that respects the most complete accounting of events not abusing them by twisting facts to ones personal satisfaction on a Procrustean bed. History isn't solipsism.
"I expect that plenty of those now working in the human rights industry would be thrilled to describe themselves as Nazis. I have no trouble imagining Dr Goebbels grandkids doing PR work for the UN or Martin Bormann's running philanthropic foundations."
Observations like that one go a long way toward explaining my skepticism of counterfactual scenarios. Unless their didactic points are delimited and the counterfactual shifts kept to a minimum, they're fantasy indulgences that can be spun to serve the persuasion goals of ones preference.
"For the record, I'd argue that Hitler was indeed wrong because he paid way too high a price for his fleeting victories, brought catastrophe upon Germany itself, and was stupid enough to become intoxicated with his own prejudices..."
So for you, right and wrong are entirely a matter of Power. Whether one happens to be the victor or not. My original suspicion was correct. In your view Hitler was wrong, because he was a Loser.
Not at all. I am arguing (not very ably) that Hitler's reputation in the world at large was settled by his failure. Had he won the war he'd be regarded very differently. This not an endorsement of amorality on my part, merely an acknowledgement of a fact.
No, it is not an acknowledgement of "fact." Facts are extant. Facts are not counterfactual. Facts are not to be confused with fantasy conjuring and conjectures.
Hitler lost. That's an opportunity that deserves better than being squandered, out the denial that there's any way to do any better. Who benefits from an attitude like that one?
Who is fantasizing? If Hitler had won the war the overwhelming majority of today's liberals and anti-racists would be vehement Nazis or at least vigorous Nazi apologists. Moral certainty (political fashion dressed up for public worship) is downstream from history.
Hitler was discredited by the crushing defeat he brought down on Germany and its allies. When Hitler was successful he was very highly regarded by his contemporaries. Wasn't he Time Magazine's Man of the Year in 1938?
As for the opportunities made available by Hitler's defeat, those were varied. The Czechs and Poles took full advantage of their opportunities and rid themselves of their German minorities. The Russians established a cordon sanitaire (now crumbled) that protected them from the West for a generation. The Africans and Asians benefited from the collapse of the European empires. The US did best of all and gained global hegemony at the expense of her foes and allies alike.
Who benefits from an attitude like mine? I like to think that I do. I free myself from enchantment by wishful thinking.
I wonder if he has ever spoken to typical, non-woke Israelis?
Right?!
Right?!
The thing that a lot of pampered, sheltered, bookish lefties don’t understand is that when you meet real people in Israel, they are living examples of families who have been chased out of where they were living and had no place to go, but back to Israel. To be clear, in recent generations, they have been chased by Arabs and other Muslims.
I mean Freddie lives in NYC, which is not the most difficult place in the world to meet Jews. Yet he never shows much evidence of ever having spoken with a Jew who isn't a hard-left anti-Zionist politico.
Yeah seems we have senselessly been killing each other since forever. I looked into some Homo Antecessor remains and they seem to have canabalized competing tribes. One even sees Chimps doing this
I don't think that's exactly what Freddie said. He was pointing out that nation-states that valorize petty territorialism and ethnic particularism have a way of getting into armed clashes with their neighbors. History bears him out on that score. National chauvinism is a real thing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chauvinism Nicholas Chauvin was a real guy. He didn't invent chauvinism, of course; he merely publicized it as a virtue.
I think that the eventual dissolving of national borders is a nice thing to wish for. Not viable as a guiding principle of governmental policy in the foreseeable future, though. And not to be confused with a goal of all-encompassing global government, either.
I lived in the most multi-ethnic city in the US in the 1990s and early 2000s. Speaking as a native-born whitey, it was awesome. https://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,340694,00.html
Then the US invaded Iraq, and the whole damn country has been meaner ever since.
Actually, that's a well-thought out post. You have nothing to apologize for. It's what I look for in a text discussion- someone willing to elaborate on their position with their reasoning. Not some two-sentence drive-by post, or what's erroneously called "dunking"- one-line snark, intended to shut down a discussion instead of opening it up. Cheap shots for upvotes- how trivial. What a waste.
I think you've made worthy points. I explain my own position on questions like ethnic identity and assimilation by providing my own categorical distinction between the Cultural and the Social. The Cultural is about particular ethnic identity- language, food, style points, traditions- and the Social is about shared Values, and a shared attitude toward the Commons (not just the human commons, but respect for the health of the natural systems of the planet, which should best be considered like a vital organ of our shared physical existence.)
The Social is the bottom line that makes everything else work properly: don't steal, don't freeload, don't lean too hard as a stranger, don't take away more than you put in, don't be a predator, don't enter a society as a guest and demand that the host make extra provision to accommodate your personal whims. After that, you can express your Cultural and personal identity any way you feel like. I've had plenty of experience in multicultural environments; there's no reason they can't work. But there has to be a Social Consensus on values, a common basis of respect and a bottom line on duty. Know how to act.
I've always been a fan of "broken windows" policing; its Achilles heel has been the Drug War, with its rampant illicit economy and parallel society of criminalized chronic lawbreakers, multiplying that population exorbitantly; criminal status is something like a common right of passage for adolescents all over the country because of stupid drug laws, and it's been that way since I was in high school over 50 years ago. Drug Prohibition ruined the country. There's no bad publicity for drugs. Outlaw cred is running much of the youth culture.
I don't care about your taste in dope; I care how you act. Be polite, not hostile or intimidating. Don't litter. Don't break bottles in the street. Don't shit on the sidewalk. Don't jump turnstiles. Don't whine about racism if you're guilty. Don't represent antisociality as if it were a vital part of your Culture.
"I live adjacent to Sunset Park here in Brooklyn, which has an enormous Chinese community that may even be bigger than Flushing’s now. At any rate, it is a community for Chinese by Chinese. They have a self-sustaining community among themselves, an enclave within NYC. At the risk of “just asking questions”: precisely what is the benefit to this? They do not mix with other immigrant communities, nor do other immigrant communities mix with them. When I’m there, I’m the only white person, without fail, unless I’m at the southern end of the neighborhood where the Irish pub bizarrely lingers on. There may be SOME tax revenue gained from them, but a tremendous number in that community are on means-tested benefits and, for what it’s worth, fudge their taxes something fierce. And I don’t mean to suggest that they’re bad people or anything - they’ve always been nothing but courteous to me, and I them, but the question remains: what precisely is New York City gaining from this? We do not have a shared culture at all."
With substitutions of the ethnic groups in question, you're describing New York in the 19th century. Except that the problems associated with the FOB immigrants were unimaginably worse. As a Brooklyn resident, you owe it to yourself to read the book The Heroic Gangster, by Neil Hanson. The first half of the book is a sociological history of the conditions of the poor immigrant neighborhoods of New York City at the turn of the 19th-20th century.
Also, keep in mind that for better or worse (sometimes much worse- read The Heroic Gangster), the US has never been a place where the children of first-generation immigrants keep on with replicating the strict boundaries of the traditional cultural heritage of their parents. Some do that, but they're more the exception than the rule.
The difference is that 19th century immigrants faced enormous legal and cultural pressure to assimilate. Another difference is that 19th century immigrants, once they arrived in the US, rarely, if ever went back to their homeland for holidays or vacations.
The result was that their children felt even less connection to those countries. These days its uncommon for immigrants to NOT go back to their homeland at least once every few years with their families.
Improvements in communications also means that first, second, and even third generation immigrant Americans are extremely connected to their homelands via movies, music, social media etc.
A third factor is the immigration moratorium of 1924 stopped the newer arrivals who could keep bringing their foreign cultures, which put even more pressure on existing immigrants to assimilate. In the present era, mass immigration keeps on increasing. When you have ever increasing number of your countrymen around you(who also don't face legal or cultural pressure to assimilate, go back to their countries for annual holidays, watch movies and TikToks and listen to music from those countries), you are even less likely to assmilate than some Italian in New York in 1924.
Basically we cannot say the current era of mass immigration will see the same levels of assimilation as 19th century because all the legal, cultural, and technological factors that forced assimilation then are weakening day by day and if anything are strengthening in the opposite direction.
Those are all really good points. It's worth noting that there's a class aspect to it, because the examples that you're drawing on presuppose some amount of affluence and success. That elevated class status doesn't make the effects of those immigrants all positive. And I hear a lot of cloud-castle dreaminess and avoidance of discussion of possible negative aspects and future consequences on the part of advocates for continuing to loosen restrictions on immigration, some of whom are relatively recent immigrants themselves, with a markedly circumscribed, naive, and/or self-interested viewpoint that they mantle as a justice concern.
I've never thought that chain immigration was a good idea, frankly. I have similar concerns about the sheer number of people allowed to enter the country annually when we are, by recent estimates, around 3 million houses short of estimated demand (according to an NPR report I heard last week.) To say nothing of the infrastructure and public works required to support a dramatically fast increase in population.
In the case of the more affluent- and wealthy- immigrant population you speak of, other provisions besides immigration law are enabling the influx. Our Delaware Corporation laws enable wealthy foreigners to invest huge amounts of money in American real estate for the purpose of tax shelters, for instance. And our self-absorbed political class of elected officials and lobbyists- who either already have serious fuck-you money, or need wealthy backers to pursue their ambitions- would much prefer to kick the can of reform down the road, on that particular situation. That rainbow coalition known as the "stateless cosmopolitan wealthy" are more interested in paying courtesy to each other than realistically looking at the impacts on the rest of us. The level of pampered self-absorption has gotten to a toxic level. The rich are the last to notice it, even when their own children are suffering the impacts. To say nothing of the rest of us.
The one narrative I reject is the paranoid idea that the Democrats support loose immigration policies because they hate America and/or are seeking to fill the ranks of Democratic Party supporters with immigrant votes. I don't think the Democrats are intentionally trying to tear down the country. For the most part, they're just bliss ninnies. They argue points on the basis of ideals, rather than practical results and long-term consequences. No different than Drug Warriors, supporters of American Hyperpower Interventionism, advocates for the Dysfunctional Homeless population, Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anyone NIMBYs, Abortion Criminalizers, Environmentalist Extremists, opponents of all Tax Increases, Bliss Ninny Militarists, Techno-Utopians...Luxury Believers, all of them. Abstract Idealism is not a Principle.
I still think you should read The Heroic Gangster. Because it shows that industrious people of good will can work together to restore civic order and build their way out of a quagmire. If that hadn't been done, New York City would be a rotting sore on the coastline.
I completely agree with your points regarding the wealthy. The "stateless cosmopolitan wealthy" are generally only loyal to each other rather than the nation states they are technically citizens of.
I don't think the average white working class, black or Hispanic Democrat who form the vast majority of the Democratic voter base hate America. They tend to have more immediate materialist concerns which is completely understandable. But they don't set policies or have much influence over actual direction of the country. But the elites who staff the Democratic party apparatus as well as its cultural support units(New York Times Daily Show, Harvard University, etc.) do hate the (still majority) white Americans and see mass third world immigration as their way to dilute the current majority. They might be motivated by blind idealism but the disdain is also there in my opinion.
One faction of elites using foreigners to fight another faction is nothing new. Just like actual violence to conduct regime change have been replaced by elections, mass immigration seems to me to be the modern equivalent of a 9th century Arab caliphs replacing their Arab kin soldiers(who could easily replace them) with foreign Persians or Turks or the Ottoman Turks replacing native Turkic soldiers with Janissaries(converted Balkans).
And here I was thinking the worst thing Chauvin did was kneel on someone's neck!
hey, maybe you should try that one out at an open mike comedy night.
I did, it killed!
Is that right?
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The next entry in the Spanish Civil War series will be out no later than Monday.
Fuck Freddie.
He writes well and it's important to see how people from other vantage points think.
Of course.
Speaking of, Yarvin beat him to the punch by over 3 months https://graymirror.substack.com/p/clearpill-yourself-on-gaza
I think Freddie captures his worldview very well. It's progressivism without any unprincipled exception for the Jews.
The best argument against him is as follows:
1) Non-Orthodox Jews in Israel have a replacement level fertility. The same Jews in America have some of the lowest fertility in the west. Giving up Israeli culture and adopting American Jewish culture would be a "Holocaust of the Cradle".
2) While peace with the Palestinians is probably impossible (they should remove them by force), peace with the broader Middle East was already on its way. Saudi and UAE oil barons don't give a shit about the Palestinians really. They want to get billionaires on their side like everyone else. Time was on Israel's side here.
I just spent 3 weeks in Israel and their culture has a lot to admire. I mean the people, not the dysfunctional govt (oxymoron?). Israelis are not all that similar to US Jews, and I have a ton of experience with both.
Yeah ofc, they have a great water system for example
I have long admired his writing even if I disagree. His analysis is important to me.
Listen, I am all about hearing other voices. You should see the range of stuff I get in my inbox!
Here I was about to write a whole paragraph regarding that deBoer piece, when two words was all it took.
At least, unlike most globaloid Leftists, he _attempts_ to be intellectually consistent.
Same way I feel about him. At least he's clear in his commitments; you can understand his paradigm.
Freddie somewhat conveniently omits Stalinist Soviet crimes and Mao’s crimes in China. He may write well and make some intelligent points, but he is at heart an egalitarian internationalist (i.e. a communist) and should never be trusted.
He’s like Bernie. Loves communism because he hasn’t experienced it.
I don’t trust him either but he makes some good points.
Why fcuk Freddie? The creation of Israel destabilized the Middle East and continues to do so. No one is allowed to ask this question without being labeled a Jew hater and getting huge amounts of vitriol No dispassionate analysis is allowed. You read articles on how Palestinians should be ethnically cleansed from Gaza and the West Bank frequently. See Richard Hannania or the op Ed in the WSJ from Israelis that Palestians need to be taken in by the West.
I'm Jewish. Not observant, but still. One of the most compelling aspects of the faith is that it is embodied in its people, not its structures.
It is for this reason that I too have asked the question about Jews moving en masse to the US. I suggested a large swath of Texas, where they can make that desert bloom, too.
The Israel project fails conceptually and in reality if all the Jews are dead.
if they came here, Freddie would help kill them here too.
See.
Freddie doesn't want a nationalist America, either.
And America as safe refuge is ...over.
What was this stable middle east of which you speak?
It rather disappeared in 619 AD when the Persians stormed Roman Jerusalem...
but do go on.
Actually the creation of Israel stabilized more than a few Arab governments.
It's all the dirty Jews fault !!
Our government is a tyranny because.....we need to fight the Jews !
We could throw in the collapse of the Ottoman and European Empires and mandates and the World Wars, anti-colonialism, the sorta appeal of Communism, the American anti-colonialism, the resurgence of Islam once the Ottoman's fell, oil was discovered, and Arab Nationalists discovered Nationalism all on their own...
I don't understand why Freddie, who is opposed to all forms of nationalism, seems to focus on Jewish nationalism so much. What about all the Arab and/or Muslim nationalism, why not focus on that at least as much, or even a little bit?
This is part of why I mentioned that no other global issue draws in so many people who have no ties to that land. It's quite the phenomenon.
Why should the US be complicit in war crimes for a land they have no ties to?
The Zionist project is a charity case, a drain on resources.
It is also a metaphysical case: the entirety of the post-war global system is based on the defeat of the Nazis, whose greatest crime was the Holocaust.
To allow Israel to disappear would be tantamount to rejecting the basis of this order.
P.S.
Not my personal view, just descriptive.
That should be regarded as ancient history by now.
People also impose their own national struggles into the conflict. The moral basis for Israel’s creation and existence invite intensity and emotion, the same way moral conflicts do.
Not just resources, but American lives. Take the people killed and injured in the recent attack on the American base in Jordan near the Syrian boarder. Why are we involved in Syria? Obviously to install a regime friendly to Israel
The US is in Syria to disrupt transportation between Iraq and Syria and to exert maximum pressure for Washington's preferences on hydrocarbon infrastructure (i.e. the proposed pipeline from Qatar to the Med that Assad vetoed).
I don't think US was that exited about compromising their LNG exports to Europe. Maybe they wanted to somewhat please their other allies, but that is a minor thing. More important was removing Syria from Iran's influence
The US remains involved with Israel for several reasons. If the US were to cut Israel loose there is a risk that the Russians might team up with Israel. This was a major fear in the years between 1948-1967. Alternately, an isolated Israel would be a truly loose cannon, especially if NATO fractures.
Re resources, most of the money spent on Israel is spent within the US. It is a subsidy to US arms manufacturers.
Finally, the relationship with Israel offers Washington a fig-leaf to cover its fast-evolving regional ambitions. Biden's noisy and performative Zionism camouflages his concessions to Iran and Hizbollah (above all on nuclear proliferation, the Lebanese border issues etc) and the complex, sensationally sensitive, relationship between Washington and the Muslim Brotherhood.
Having said this, it would make sense for Biden to formally distance himself from Jerusalem. A post-hegemony version of Nixon's Guam doctrine would be best but is probably beyond the ability of Biden and Blinken to pull off.
By all means, let the Russians team up with Israel. Once Israel is cut loose, stop meddling in the Middle East. America has no national interest in that region.
Europe should also be told that it's time for them to handle their own affairs. They can evolve NATO into EUTO, if that is their wish. I'd like to see Canada and the US out of NATO as soon as possible.
Isolationism is necessary so that resources can be redirected away from the military. It is high time to address problems back home. But that will never happen until the rot in Washington is cleared out. Same goes for Ottawa.
Representatives are supposed to represent the electorate. In other words, foreign agents sitting in Congress should be charged with treason.
Me: American-Israeli (served in both militaries -- "walked walk, talk talk").
WRT 2nd-to-last para: 100%
WRT final para: Repeal 17th amendment!
Stop meddling? America simply does not know how to do this.
In the future Washington will remain heavily involved in the Middle East in order to disrupt any attempt by the Europeans to achieve energy security via closer relations with the region or through the development of the natural gas fields in the eastern Mediterranean by non-American firms. America will also seek markets for high tech weaponry and for infrastructure.
Ultimately, a degree of isolationism would indeed be best for the American people. I just have trouble imagining it happening.
Well, because a muslim elite is not bribing the worlds biggest super power to support them. Just look at Sheldon Adelson alone. He spent ca 200$ million in 2020 election cycle to promote that one issue
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/feb/10/sheldon-adelson-trump-donation-republicans-congress
I guess you've never heard of the Arab lobby.
It is illigal for arab countries to "donate" to politicians or their PACs. They mainly influence american politics through hiring lobbyists. This is dirty I agree, but far from the same thing
A distinction without a difference is no difference. The end result is the same.
Disagree there. In addition, these arab monarchies do not represent muslims. Saudi prince for example wants to normalize relations with Israel, but is prohibited because of recent tensions
And where are the arabs in Biden's cabinet?
You may want to check out how much Qatar has given to US universities. And their investment has paid off handsomely in college activism/influence. That's how it deeply influences American politics. Think all those Biden staffers and their antics....and so on.
Readers interested in pursuing this subject could start off with these two articles.
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/qatar-foreign-lobbying-campaign
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/biden-administration-backs-qatar-lobby-elliott-broidy-armin-rosen
How is what Qatar doing different from other countries or other groups?
Why is it better for US citizens and LPRs to advocate for policies that benefit their people or “homeland” than foreign governments?
It seems that foreigners lobbying is more honest and you know they have an agenda.
I'd argue that Qatar is becoming a major problem because it is pouring in money on a grand scale, while intriguing with jihadist groups that have an exceptionally long record of being dangerous and very difficult to control (the Muslim Brotherhood). The Qataris are getting out of their depth and in time will precipitate further crises. They are currently trying to normalise jihadi and salafi activism within the US with fairly obviously catastrophic implications for public safety.
NB in 2020 that Arab media released tapes of a phone conversation between the late Colonel Qadaffi and Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani, the late Emir of Qatar. It is clear from these that Qatar intends to become the number one backer of ultra-hardline Islam. This is disturbing and very murky stuff. It will end in bloodshed.
I am not an American (am an Aussie) but I get the impression that the US government has historically used ethnic lobbies within the US as go-betweens and disposable cut-outs for foreign policy. It is a means of managing relationships between Washington and specific communities and is often highly theatrical. It is debatable how wise this has been. It certainly adds to the lack of transparency in US policy making.
Western Leftists use Israel as their punching bag and/or movie screen to project their political fantasies onto bc Israel (as a Western extension) is the closest there is to an actual Western democracy in the Middle East, meaning Israelis are the only people who would even give them a hearing, whereas they know Arabs have no interest in what they're selling, there just aren't many shared beliefs to appeal to (Arabs don't seem to want to trade Salah for John Lennon's "Imagine").
Also, for Westerners Jews code as "White" and Arabs code as "POC", meaning this is just too juicy a Passion Play for the Western Left, who think of politics as a videogame where their chosen avatars are always either French Resistance or Jim Crow Freedom Rider—so heading to a protest in a keffeyih to chant "From the River to the Sea" is the closest they'll ever get to the March on Selma.
Do you really believe that dEMOcRacY propaganda? Why did USA support the overthrow of the democratically elected Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt for a brutal millitary regime?
did i say that anywhere?
i believe as little as possible
Ahh, I think I read too much into your comment. My apologies sir
and same to u!
Because they had very little choice. Morsi was dragging Egypt towards civil war and Morsi was also intriguing with Iran. Tehran wanted Cairo to ditch the Camp David Accords and let Tehran place missiles in the Sinai along the lines of the Hizbollah missiles in south Lebanon.
A democratically elected government is allowed to pursue relations and deals with Iran. If your opinion is that certain people are not able and should not be allowed to govern themselves then that is okay. Just do not falsely virtue signal that you are the champion and defender of democracy
I'm pretty sure that if you are pushing your country to civil war via your actions, you don't really have much of a "democratic mandate" anymore, and it would then be disingenuous to treat foreign policy deals under such a framework.
How deep inside USA's ass are you? Obviously these foreign-supported anti-democratic forces would be to blame for a potential civil war. How about USA and Golf countries stop funding these forces? There would be far less risk of civil war.
Israeli "democracy" is as phony as the American version. So called "democracy" is managed by elites through propaganda, censorship and increasingly by direct control of voting. "Fortified" elections are here to stay. And the cancellation of the Ukraine election may come to the USA in November. One or two violent false flags might be staged to impose martial law and keep Trump from winning.
In Israel, despite massive, ongoing demonstrations against Netanyahoo up till Oct 7, he remained in power with minor, insane, fascistic Kahanist parties as vital coalition allies. Currently, ZERO dissent is allowed from the Gaza slaughter. The current anti Netanyahoo demos must cloak themselves as advocates for ceasefire on behalf of the hostage families.
Look under the rock. Israel is squirming with hostile, fascist, and brutally anti-democratic forces. No ethno-supremacist state can avoid apartheid (at best) and/or genocide (in a pinch.) The Eretz Israel forces are as genocidal as the Nazi's with the exact same lebenstraum ideology of conquest for Greater Israel. That is the logic of racist supremacism.
"The Eretz Israel forces are as genocidal as the Nazi's"
this is a grotesque lie and slander (not to mention grammatically incorrect)
The Israelis just want to have a peaceful prosperous nation without having to worry about terrorist attacks or a terrorist state for a neighbor.
If you can judge a cause by the people who back it, the Palestinians are even more fucked than I thought—every deranged shut-in who imagines they're on the side of peace and justice but whose words reek of rage and race hate seems to want to join their jihad.
Probably many Israelis just want to live in peace. However the same cannot be said for their government. they supported Hamas all the way. Qoute from Netanjahu at 2019 Likud meeting: "Those who want to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state should support the strengthening of Hamas and the transfer of money to Hamas,” divide and conquer "This is part of our strategy, to differentiate between the Palestinians in Gaza and the Palestinians in Judea and Samaria".
Wikileaks also showed us that israeli intelligence supported Hamas taking power in Gaza in 2007
https://www.haaretz.co.il/news/politi/2023-10-09/ty-article/.highlight/0000018b-10f0-d2fb-a3df-d1f5ac2a0000
https://imemc.org/article/60238/
I know Israel well and have Zionist relatives there I communicate with regularly. Of course most “just want to live in peace.” Duh! My liberal relatives want to preserve a European “garden” lifestyle. If they could push a button to peacefully, nonviolently disappear the Arabs, they would, preserving the falafel and pita bread.
They do NOT want to admit violent, religious Jews and settlers are the necessary enforcers and expanders of Jewish power. They don’t want to see the ethnic-supremacist state or it’s degradation and brutality against Arabs. Realty forces their noses into the stench of genocide, so they desperately deny reality. Unfortunately, their Fantasy Island will crumble as their patron, the USA collapses.
The Jews will flood back out of “Israel” within a few decades, again homeless wanderers among the nations. Or, like Samson, bring it all down with nukes.
I have a friend who did his army service in the Golani brigade, known as one of the most generally thuggish of the Israeli army units. He did about 1/2 his service doing policing work in the West Bank and I asked him if he had ever seen soldiers really beating the s**t out of Palestinians or abusing them. He said yes, but only Druze soldiers. For those who don't know, Druze are a weirdo esoteric Muslim sect that because of prohibition on conversion or intermarriage became an ethnic group. In Israel they switched sides during the 1948 war (smart move) and have since been strongly loyalist.
The point I'm making is that the Israeli-Arab conflict is really about different groups of brown people brutalising each other. The White Jews and Palestinians (many Christian Palestinians have some European descent like Ashkenazim, as well as purer Levantine bloodline unlike the Muslim Palestinians) are the only ones holding them back.
So sort of like the merciful restraint and forbearance exercised by the Totenkopf SS, then.
I've read Freddie addressing nationalism in other contexts.
He focuses on Zionism because it’s constantly discussed in the US and a key basis of US foreign policy. Every publication has endless articles and op eds about Israel, Israel and Israel. It’s all over social media too. I’m tired of hearing about Israel all the time. Especially when it’s a small insignificant nation. Don’t care to hear about the Palestinians either. America is bigger problems and it needs to fix its own house and not waste endless political capital over the ME.
A great storm is brewing that will upend everything
Yugoslavia would still exist if all the Croatians, Slovenians, Bosnians and Albanians went to Germany!
His 'modest proposal' has the great virtue of being an unusually honest expression of the Western leftist worldview. We should always pay attention when the left says the quiet part out loud, as they rarely do.
He tried to head off some of the most obvious counters to his argument, but one that he didn't directly touch upon is that many Jews will always have a lingering suspicion about their safety in the USA despite their overwhelming success in it.
You gotta clean up that language a bit.
As long as Stephen Miller succeeds, Jews will remain safe, otherwise they will fall victim to the ideology of Invading the World and Inviting the World popularized by the idiots among them who couldn’t understand the negative consequences of their actions.
While that 'lingering suspicion' is indeed real, I would not raise it to the level of an 'objection' to his 'argument' since deBoer's 'argument' is essentially that Jews among all the peoples of the Earth have the ability to deracinate themselves. This is Hitler's argument too. Freddie deBoer performs the role of anti-Semitic concern troll.
If Freddie wanted to be inventively trollish, he could suggest that, since there are no Jews left in the Jewish Autonomous Oblast, Putin could offer it as a Palestinian homeland. Of course he'd never suggest that, because he sees one group as basically deracinated and the other definitely not.
Freddie is not expressing conscious dislike of Jews, just the opposite, he views Jews as admirable citizens of the world, innately capable of 'internationalism', cosmopolitan, perhaps even rootles cosmopolitans; a quality he likely admires.
A 5 minute conversation with a Kahanist would disabuse him of that silly notion.
I don’t think it’s fair to call FdF anti-semitic. He’s not against a homeland for Jews. He just thinks it’s the US.
I agree. I said that "Freddie deBoer performs the role of anti-Semitic concern troll" not that he is an anti-Semite. Anyway, real anti-Semites are as rare as hen's teeth, but anti-Semitic concern trolls abound - especially on the left.
Jews have been deracinated throughout history through conquest and defeat. Babylonians and Romans.
The Jews believe themselves to be the chosen people. This specialness cuts both ways.
Franklin Roosevelt, the icon and hero of liberal progressive Americans, told one of his aides, Leo Crowley, on January 27, 1942: “Leo, you know this is a Protestant country, and the Catholics and the Jews are here on sufferance.”
http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/_resources/images/morg/mpd13.pdf
So Jewish Americans are justified in having a lingering suspicion that they might not always be welcome in the USA. The “progressive” pro-Hamas “protests” and violence against Jewish students on university campuses and Jewish citizens in cities like New York, and the Democratic Party’s attempts to appease Rashida Tlaib’s pro-Hamas constituents in Dearborn, Michigan, are a warning bell.
Jews are in Israel by right and not on sufferance. In Israel the Jewish people have their own state with their own military to project hard power. A state where they are the masters, cannot be persecuted, and can follow their own agenda to build a living Israeli Jewish culture on ancient Jewish foundations. Of course, this is something Freddie deBoer, as a Marxist internationalist, neither values nor understands.
American "elites" are no longer WASP "royalty" like FDR. In 2024, Jews are completely integrated into the "ruling classes". In fact i would argue that they are vastly more powerful today than the old WASP elite.
I'd argue that the US today is too dynamic and too unstable to sustain a coherent ruling class of the old type. The WASPs and the Jews increasingly resemble the Alawites of Syria: well-connected clans at the very top with larger communities held hostage to socio-political agendas that do not necessarily suit their needs.
Listen, let’s be real: the leftists in America will be coming for the Jews too (already are, really). Is absurd that so many “liberal” Jews in America don’t get it. Hubris?
It's not hubris. To understand why American Jews have not deserted the left en masse you must understand that most of these folks belong to the urban Professional Managerial strata of the American population. So, they have an innate loyalty to the Democratic aligned establishment. In the USA the culture war is not really about ideas, but rather it's about power and for most Jews power comes from being inside the Professional Managerial elite who administer state power. Switching sides in the culture war is a really big deal for most people and especially so for Jews because of their historical memory of vulnerability to populist movements gone awry.
I understand it extremely well. Have worked and lived amongst this “professional class”. It is not a satisfactory explanation. They are blind.
In what way are they blind?
I will make it simple via an expression: “this ain’t your grandfather’s democratic party”. The typical UWS Jew is a fool, they don’t see what’s coming. I am friends / acquaintances / business associates with many who fit this description. (And quite a few who see through it.)
What's coming? I'm not sure what you have in mind. From where I sit, I think that Jewish leftists are making a rational choice when they align themselves with the Democrats. They are very uncomfortable with the idea of joining a populist movement which is not controlled by hyper educated elites.
This critique of Jewish leftists also applies to other middle and upper middle class leftists. All these folks know that their friends are in the elite institutions of power, not among the populists living in flyover country.
I'm interested. What's coming in your view?
"The Left" is not a monolith. https://samkriss.substack.com/p/against-the-brave
I read the link in your comment (https://samkriss.substack.com/p/against-the-brave). You think you have uncovered a huge swath of amorality and hypocrisy, but you have really missed the essence of the situation. Israel is in the unique position of being a victorious occupier unable to expel an enemy population.
The Turks resolved the Armenian question. The Americans resolved the Indian question. The Greeks resolved the Muslim question. Poles resolved the German question. Ethnic cleansing is a fact of history. You cannot make it go away by claiming it is an anachronism.
No, the essence of the situation is the miserable pettiness and inhumanity of self-justifying ethnic chauvinists. Warring packs of zombie primates led by insecure zombie alpha males, like baboons, as the eternal fate of humankind. The Past as Prologue. It's evo-bio! All nice and scientific-like!
The rest of us aren't obligated to accept that dismal, ghastly view of human existence as Final Wisdom.
It's edifying to read someone express that hopeless, terminally delimited view so candidly, though.
No offense but you sound like a redditor here.
I don't even know what a redditor is.
Let me guess- a comment poster who breaks up smug agreement fests?
That's the antonym.
As a leftist I assume you believe that human nature is subject to progress. That is what defines leftism. However, progress of human nature has never happened - at least I have not seen an example in the last several thousand years. You may earnestly want the arc of human history to "bend toward justice", but this belief is at best a delusion and at worst an excuse used by tyrants for social engineering and the worst excesses of human nature. This is my "delimited candid view" in a nutshell.
Human nature is never improved by politics. Those who claim otherwise are fools.
I think my original characterization of your views was more complete, and more accurate: "hopeless, terminally delimited candid view."
"Leftist" is a label you're trying to stick on me, which is something that rigid ideologues do. Sometimes they follow up their clueless attempts at pigeonholing with dreary rhetorical repackaging that they mantle as self-evident Truth, when it's actually dogmatic table-pounding.
I would not object to your characterization of me as hopeless, delimited and candid. I don't see any reason for hope that 'progress' will be realized in the real world. 'Leftist' is obviously a label. Can we live in a world without labels? I find that categories are essential for ordered thought, although yes, labels can be used to create strawmen. Your writing on Israel/Palestine seems very earnest, so kudos for believing in something so passionately. It's very leftist to be very passionate about abstract political issues. Of course, one can be pro-Palestinian without being a leftist, but I suspect your views are based on leftism rather than any innate love for Palestine.
From the essay: "...Al-Shaima Akram Saidam was the highest-scoring student in last year’s Palestinian high school exams. She wanted to study English at university and work as a translator. She was killed by an Israeli bomb. Abu Shadi ran a popular knafeh restaurant. Every day, people used to queue up outside his place; if they couldn’t afford to pay for his sweets he gave them away for free. He was killed by an Israeli bomb. Elham Farah was a music teacher; she taught generations of Gazan children to play the piano. When the bombs came, she sheltered with some other Christians in the Holy Family Church. During a quiet moment, she left the church to see if her house was still standing, and an Israeli soldier shot her in the leg. The people inside the church tried to help her, but every time they stepped outside the Israelis opened fire. She died slowly in the street. Later, an Israeli tank rolled over her corpse. Yotam Haim, Alon Shamriz, and Samer Talalqa were three Israeli hostages captured by Hamas on October 7th. Two months later they managed to free themselves. They approached Israeli troops while stripped to the waist, waving a white flag, and calling for help in Hebrew. An Israeli sniper shot and killed Tamriz and Talalka instantly. Haim fled into a nearby building. Soldiers followed and called for him to come out. When he did they killed him too.
They’re murdering indiscriminately. You can wave a white flag; you can be an old woman or a newborn baby or someone else who visibly poses no threat whatsoever; you can be an Israeli hostage calling for help—if they see you, they will try to kill you..."
Not a rhetorical question: how cool is that?
https://samkriss.substack.com/p/against-the-brave
War is always an atrocity. It's interesting that when the Jews do the killing the victims get names. I haven't thought about this before, but don't you think it's odd?
You say you've read Sam Kriss' essay. You clearly haven't comprehended it. It must have required a lot of effort to miss the points that he made so eloquently.
As for your statement that the victims of atrocities only get names when Jews do the killing, that's so plainly not the case that the claim is practically delusional.
Can you name some other victims of war? What are the names of those who died in Dresden? Belgrade? Donetsk? Grozny? Raqqa? Fallujah?
My point is that almost all outrage against atrocities is self-serving. This is true for both the left and the right, although it is more often a fault of the left since they are so focused on their humanitarianism. Pointing out some conscripts' mistakes or crimes is not a categorical way of thinking about war or policy.
I feel like the Russians would be open to some kind of settlement. I doubt they want this war grinding on for the next few years. The problem though, is that I'm not sure the US is even in contact with the Russians? And they should assume the US will eventually screw them anyway. So maybe it makes for RU to keep pushing
If it's true that Ukr is sending women plucked off the street onto the battlefield, then it's clearly a dire situation. But Russia doesn't seem anywhere near rolling into Kiev. I think that's what it would take for the US to be humiliated.
Afa Israel Jews -> US, just to entertain the thought. I think that would be just as bad as importing millions of palestinian refugees. I'm not even one of those DA JOOZ! guys. It would simply be a different flavor of weird ethnic conflicts we already have and don't need more of. Imho.
Russians have expressed frustration that any deals they enter into with the Americans are often undone by the next administration.
Right?
Us vs Russia will never actually end.
From the Russians standpoint, maybe it makes sense to press on for a little while longer. And from a power politics machiavellian perspective, you could make the argument that it actually is worth it from the US to spend the money to drain Russian resources. Make it a little harder for the russians to reconstitute when we do this all over again in 10 yrs.
This of course has a flip side. Might be easier for RU to take on Ukraine when it'd likely be a complete shell of a country with no economy and millions fled/dead by then. It's already like that now
We are only draining are own resources. Russia has much more industrial capacity not to mention they have China on their side.
And at this point they probably respect the Germans less (and French but Germans were the more important trade partner). I will never understand why they publicly said they were only buying time for Ukraine with the previous agreement.
I'm old enough to remember Hillary Clinton going to Moscow with a big red button labeled "reset".
Isn’t this just Russians complaining that the US should disregard what other countries and peoples want to satisfy Russia? The Poles hate and fear Russia and for obvious reasons. Russia cannot demand that the rest of the world ignore Russian aggression and history. They see themselves as the rightful rulers of EE.
If I was Russia I would want a permanent settlement where I don't need to rely on Western promises or goodwill (which is worthless) and that can only come with an AFU collapse. They will press on until that either happens or doesn't, at which point they will try to make a deal.
In theory they will want Kharkov and Odessa, but I think the Dnieper is just too much of a natural barrier that makes for a good dividing line. Kharkov might be easier to swallow.
The lesson I want America to learn from this is the the CIA, etc are malign influences always trying to stir up new wars. Perhaps Ukraine needs to lose hard for that lesson to be taught. No more color revolutions. No more spy bases. I don't feel like I'm at war with Russia, the CIA is.
The longer this goes on the less they want to negotiate I think. They negotiated in april 2022 and then the west sabotaged the peace deal. Now the average ukrainian soildier is well into his forties. This means that all of Ukraine is getting easier and easier to millitarily occupy
"And they should assume the US will eventually screw them anyway. So maybe it makes for RU to keep pushing... rolling into Kiev [is] what it would take for the US to be humiliated."
Sadly, yes, this is the case. It may take another year, but Russia can and will annex the four remaining oblasts east of the Dnieper and lay siege to Kiev, if only symbolically.
My rosy prediction is that it won't come to that. Once Western cash stops flowing to the Zelensky regime, and it will, it'll get internally coup'd within a month. The new leadership of 'traitors' will tell the Washington Blob to pound sand and strike a deal with Putler to keep Odessa. And Westerners will return to neither knowing about nor caring what's going on in Slavland.
Cass Sunstein, of all people, wrote a defense of GWTW in 2015. Sorry about paywall. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/07/gone-with-the-wind-confederacy/398663/
I listened to your interview with Alex Kaschuta. Regarding Lubic, what was the motivation of Croatian communists in teaming up with Croatian nationalists in the late 80s/ early 90s? Just a pragmatic way to get out of Milosevic's yoke?
Yes. We couldn't fight a war with the Serbs/JNA and a civil war against communists at the same time.
"We shall all hang together or we shall all hangs separately."
"Nationalism has been implicated in almost all of the great crimes against humanity in history." Except that internationalism (communism) killed more people in the 20th Century than all nationalisms combined - and it's not even close.
Flatine's math isn't any better.
They love that lie, try telling a college kid that communism killed 10 times more people than Hitler could dream about and they will call you a liar. I guess giving away Western tertiary education to commies was a bad idea..
If the Nazis had won, they would have gone on to kill more people than Stalin and Mao combined.
Gene, Freddie DeBoere is consistently and reliably wrong. He’s a brilliant writer, and a very smart guy who is genuinely learned and yet always comes to the wrong conclusion. I was a subscriber of his and have read 50 posts. He is reliably wrong.
DeBoere, to me, has been something of a puzzle for about two years. As you say, some of his writing is absolutely brilliant, but at the same time a lot of what he writes is just plain lousy - it’s biased, self-centered, and almost juvenile. It’s as if he is different people on different days.
Well, he is schizophrenic isn’t he?
No. He is open about having Bipolar disorder. A very different but no less challenging lifelong condition. And if you are intelligent enough to comment on a Substack it might be worth avoiding the ridiculous notion of schizophrenia being ‘split personality’. My own take from reading him for years is similar to Gym + Fritz comment above. I don’t agree with anyone on everything but doesn’t mean he can’t write some amazingly perceptive articles.
Getting it wrong is an advantageous adaptation to living in the shadow of the Cathedral. If Freddie got anything right he'd be unemployable.
Spot on, hilarious, in the shadow, Freddie is too much of a knob to be in the cathedral proper but by holding too the right kind of beliefs he can make a grubby living just outside. I am convinced of the primacy of Yarvin”s cathedral, the “selective advantage of dominant ideas and the inability of recessive ideas to compete” is the engine of all human endeavour, the unavoidable and natural convergence of practical considerations and ambition. We must get it wrong, we will always get it wrong. Freddie is perfect for the world where wrong is right.
DeBoer wasn't making a claim based on a death toll comparison. He was speaking of the number of wars provoked by nationalism over the centuries. And on that score, he's indisputably correct.
"Nationalism" is too strong. With most wars it's been more localism, although in fairness we're talking "my tribe" writ large for a nation. And you might just as well say that greed caused more wars. Then there are religious wars. People, right or wrong, fight for what matters to them.
I don't think that is indisputable at all. Nationalism is historically a fairly new concept and is still mostly a European one at that.
I suppose that it depends on when one wants to begin the chronology. But the results are nothing to brag about. Unless one exalts the glories of War, I suppose.
This is all speculation but if you take the example of Africa's tribal conflicts, remove any bribes and incentives the rest of the world gives those African tribes to keep the ethnic conflicts from spiraling out of control, apply them to an ethnic map of pre ~1600s Europe, I think you'd find European style national conflicts to be the far lesser of two evils.
You haven't read A Distant Mirror by Barbara Tuchman, have you? Or A World Lit Only By Fire, by William Manchester. Or any books about the Crusades, or the Wars of Roses, or the conquest of Ireland. Or about the reconquest of Spain from the Moors. Or the beginning of the wars between Venezia and the Ottoman Turks. Or the Livonian War...
I have not, should I?
Hey you edited that to add a bunch of other topics! I've read books on the northern crusade, the Ottoman empire, the Crusades, and the Spanish Reconquista. Just not the two particular books you mentioned here.
Read “Shake Hands With the Devil” by Romeo Dallaire
The Balkan Turkish issue is a really interesting one. I don't know if this is true, but I've heard (from Serbs) that Turkish basketball recruits very heavily from villages populated by Muslims from Serbia.
Nobody wants the poor Gagauz, it seems. If Moldova tries to ethnically cleanse them, which is always a possibility, I don't know where they could go.
Turkish basketball NT played against Italy on Thursday on occasion of the 2025 Eurobasket qualifiers. Their highest scorer? Tarik Biberovic, a 23-year-old Fenerbahçe player born in Zenica, BiH.
In the early 2010s they regularly had also Zenica-born Emir Preldžić in their squad, too. And one of their current team stars since several years is San Antonio Spurs player Cedi Osman, born in Ohrid, (North) Macedonia.
In Toronto, there aren't many Turks, but the ones that are there all seem to be of Balkan stock. Very, very different in appearance than Anatolians.
So Balkan Turks are all just Slavs and Albanians who have been Turkified?
What’s a Muslim from Serbia? Serbs would say there are no Muslim Serbians. Just dirty Bosnians and Albanians.
"They do have a point: if the Ukrainian Army does collapse, the Russians can snatch a total victory instead of just a tactical one. That would definitely harm the USA’s standing globally. This is why it is in the USA’s strategic interests to not allow this to happen"
How did hanging on for as long as possible work out in Afghanistan?
Lots and lots of millionaires were made back home via defense and intel contracts.
You mention that many on one side of GOP are being called “Putin admirers”. Is there truth in this? Can we attempt to take a neutral examination of this?
The truth is many on the right feel they have lost their country. Their enemies own the institutions. They have seen protests, like the farmers, only slow down this rot, but never actually stopping it or reversing course. They can create a fervor which will stop one government anti disinformation group, lead by a singing authoritarian, but they know 10 other secret groups with the same purpose are popping up in other bureaucracies and ngo‘s. The list could go on and on.
I’m convinced many on the right would prefer a strong man of some sort, either that be from reading moldbug’s writings or just because they see no other option. Someone to just “do what it takes”. On the world stage there is not many people that fit this archetype, but one stands taller than the rest: Putin.
Doesn’t a recent poll in the uk even reflect this admiration?
Hey I am still angry that Hitler didnt pack up all the Jews and send them to Madagascar like his original plan before Goebels got involved, could you imagine Africas resources both natural and human with that sort of management class on the periphery, the human growth potential would be immense.
Anyway “liberal” journalist and “nationalist” dictator both talking about moving Jews around like they are some unfashionable furniture you found at your dead grans house is exactly how I expect the the world to work in 2024..
Flatline, I adore your point, nobody has been hit harder than the Jews and yet they always rise up and rebuild. You are altogether correct, Madagascar would be a very different place today: successful.
Jews are winners. In contrast, Palestinians are their own worst enemy.
“For forms of government let fool’s contest: whatever’s best administered is best”
Alexander Pope 1688 to 1744
FYI: Michael Chabon’s book (2007) “The Yiddish Policeman’s Union” shipped the Jews, post WW-2, to Sitka, Alaska. - interesting read.
Great book. Almost makes me forgive him for writing for Star Trek Picard.
That’s exactly the book I thought of when I saw this discussion
There was something similar to this historically with groups like the Lebanese in West Africa, Indians in Uganda, British in Rhodesia, and of course the Boers in South Africa. Not certain about the Lebanese but obviously didn't work out well for those other groups.
Thomas Sowell wrote about this phenomenon. No one like minorities especially successful middle men ones.
I have a humbe suggestion: how about we stop burning our food and increase food prices through the coercion of mixing ethanol into our fuel? This is even leading to european countries buying up African land hindering their food security. Black lives matter?
Freddie De Boer's suggestion is creepy, petty and sophomoric and is of interest only as an example of how very limited Left wing thinking about history and politics has become.
The Israelis are fine where they are, where they belong through both right of conquest (the universally valid foundation of politics) and through folkloric/cultic connection dating back to the Bronze Age.
Well then, if they in turn are conquered, they should die there. No more of this fleeing to other regions stuff, as depicted in the Bible.
And he is one the more thoughtful ones. Certainly came up way short here but as said elsewhere I enjoy his insights generally of nothing more than to understand that world more.
FdB is certainly more readable than the febrile and unhinged types. He'd probably be OK in person. But he reminds me of the stock character of 80s cinema, the teenager who is being bullied and who has yet to meet the mentor who teaches him how to stand up for himself.
Ya winning is out of favour, déclassé, but historically, for all previous generations winning was a valid foundation of nations and politics. We have been educated onto stupidity: social sciences are a pox.
Fantasies distilled from the social sciences are effective if you seek to develop a collective death wish. Otherwise they are only useful for students of morbid psychology.
In politics/war/history winning merely gets you a spot in the next game. Without it you don't necessarily get to show up.
"...right of conquest (the universally valid foundation of politics),and through folkloric/cultic connection dating back to the Bronze Age."
Under that logic, Adolf Hitler would have been justified, if only he had waited to develop the V-3 and the A-bomb before going on his continental rampage. But Hitler was a Loser, therefore he was Wrong.
History is written by the victors. Hitler would have been heralded as a modern day Alexander had he won.
Counterfactual scenarios are cheap.
It's not really a counterfactual when I can point to hundreds of historical examples of ruthless conquerors who are admired today.
No, it's still a counterfactual.
Setting aside your hyperbole (hundreds?), ruthless conquerors are not universally admired, either. They aren't even all that widely admired. Some of them are locally admired, for want of anyone else to look up to. Others are despised. Some show up doing star turns as divisive historic presences in unending robotic blood feuds.
The recent excesses known as Wokeness notwithstanding, I'm thoroughly glad that I got an American history and civics education in public school in the early 1970s that didn't insist on whitewashing murderers as heroes, and that opened up debate on historical questions like the clearances and internment of indigenous tribes, slavery, Jim Crow segregation, American populism (back when it was a good thing), and the Gilded Age. (Part of my ire at the Wokists is that they act like the Klan was in charge of every school district in the US before they came along to set things straight.)
Nowadays, I often get the impression that intellectually curious young people are getting most of their history education from "revisionist" Hot Takes on Youtube and similar Guided Meditations on the Internet. Some of the would-be intellectual new jacks occasionally sound like they're capable of reading a few pages of text in one sitting.
Tomb of Napoleon.jpg
Genghis Khan day celebration.jpg
Aircraft carrier Giuseppe Garibaldi.jpg
medieval picture of William The Bastard(commonly known as The Conquerer).jpg
Generic picture of muslims.jpg
Kirk and crew from Star Trek episode space seed admiring Khan.mp4
I can keep going but I think you get the idea. People love warriors, especially the ones who win big.
The Global American Empire is arguably the most obvious example of “ruthless conquerors” lauded as saviours; they co-opted the logic of the left to justify their aggression and it is a masterful slight of hand. Responsibility to protect: what a crock of shit. Liberals do love war.
Wait- what? In a different post, you were valorizing war, and dogmatically declaiming about its "necessity." Which leaves you post as just more sweeping partisan turf claiming. It's trite. I enter into these discussions to seek more substantive issue content.
I'm also one of those people--no cheap partisan label need apply--who realize how flimsy nearly all of the rationales for American military intervention have been in my lifetime. Some of us are trying to bust myths and change minds in order to move things to a saner place.
The idea in the back of my mind is that if we can somehow get humanity to peak global population at mid-century without a cataclysm, we stand a chance of getting clear of mass desperation and precarity. I don't know if it will happen, but it beats passively capitulating to the rote robotic programs that govern mass human aggression. Most everyone has a latent potential for sadomasochism, but some of us see it for the degraded pathology that it is, and work tirelessly to defuse the tyrannical self-importance that insists on its necessity.
Right and wrong take shape on the Procrustean bed of history.
Had the Nazis won you can be certain that the great majority of people in the West today would be perfectly comfortable with that. Many of today's liberal democrats in particular would be more than comfortable.
I expect that plenty of those now working in the human rights industry would be thrilled to describe themselves as Nazis. I have no trouble imagining Dr Goebbels grandkids doing PR work for the UN or Martin Bormann's running philanthropic foundations.
For the record, I'd argue that Hitler was indeed wrong because he paid way too high a price for his fleeting victories, brought catastrophe upon Germany itself, and was stupid enough to become intoxicated with his own prejudices. He was also a weak strategist: had the Germans focused their forces on the soft underbelly of the British Empire in the Middle East they would have won. Instead he prioritised attacking Moscow and seizing the Soviet hydrocarbons in the Caucasus.
Right and wrong are not a matter of upvotes. And history is a rigorous intellectual effort that respects the most complete accounting of events not abusing them by twisting facts to ones personal satisfaction on a Procrustean bed. History isn't solipsism.
"I expect that plenty of those now working in the human rights industry would be thrilled to describe themselves as Nazis. I have no trouble imagining Dr Goebbels grandkids doing PR work for the UN or Martin Bormann's running philanthropic foundations."
Observations like that one go a long way toward explaining my skepticism of counterfactual scenarios. Unless their didactic points are delimited and the counterfactual shifts kept to a minimum, they're fantasy indulgences that can be spun to serve the persuasion goals of ones preference.
"For the record, I'd argue that Hitler was indeed wrong because he paid way too high a price for his fleeting victories, brought catastrophe upon Germany itself, and was stupid enough to become intoxicated with his own prejudices..."
So for you, right and wrong are entirely a matter of Power. Whether one happens to be the victor or not. My original suspicion was correct. In your view Hitler was wrong, because he was a Loser.
Not at all. I am arguing (not very ably) that Hitler's reputation in the world at large was settled by his failure. Had he won the war he'd be regarded very differently. This not an endorsement of amorality on my part, merely an acknowledgement of a fact.
No, it is not an acknowledgement of "fact." Facts are extant. Facts are not counterfactual. Facts are not to be confused with fantasy conjuring and conjectures.
Hitler lost. That's an opportunity that deserves better than being squandered, out the denial that there's any way to do any better. Who benefits from an attitude like that one?
Who is fantasizing? If Hitler had won the war the overwhelming majority of today's liberals and anti-racists would be vehement Nazis or at least vigorous Nazi apologists. Moral certainty (political fashion dressed up for public worship) is downstream from history.
Hitler was discredited by the crushing defeat he brought down on Germany and its allies. When Hitler was successful he was very highly regarded by his contemporaries. Wasn't he Time Magazine's Man of the Year in 1938?
As for the opportunities made available by Hitler's defeat, those were varied. The Czechs and Poles took full advantage of their opportunities and rid themselves of their German minorities. The Russians established a cordon sanitaire (now crumbled) that protected them from the West for a generation. The Africans and Asians benefited from the collapse of the European empires. The US did best of all and gained global hegemony at the expense of her foes and allies alike.
Who benefits from an attitude like mine? I like to think that I do. I free myself from enchantment by wishful thinking.