Post your thoughts on recent and coming elections here. Civil discussion and no coarse language.
I may have something to say a bit later.
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Post your thoughts on recent and coming elections here. Civil discussion and no coarse language.
I may have something to say a bit later.
John Quiggin 
And a bit further south of the Rio Grande, in Bolivia the Movement to Socialism won the presidential election in the first round which not even they were expecting. Additionally, elections to the parliament MAS also won handsomely. Thus the constitutional coup was overturned at the ballot boxes. And the right wing evangelists had to concede within hours.
Next door in Chile the constitution installed by the military dictatorship was discarded by the electorate with a 79% to 21% of the vote. The supporters of the military constitution won in only three electoral seats.
Does lack of education correlate with support for conservative parties? Does religious orthodoxy or even religious fundamentalism and fanaticism correlate with support for conservative parties? I would hypothesize there is a connection. Education (literacy, numeracy, scientific literacy, social and philosophical literacy) will all have a bearing on this. People who can’t think for themselves contract their thinking out to demagogues and they actually pay these demagogues in blood and treasure (payment flowing in the non-market direction) for the dubious service of letting the demagogues do their thinking for them. How does market economics account for this process of making payments for a disutility?
Ikon asks ” Does religious orthodoxy or even religious fundamentalism and fanaticism correlate with support for conservative parties?”
This snippet may assist in answering that question. I heard David Smith on R&E Report the other day.
Listening to all these religious groups biases and beliefs, I think JQ needs to run a ‘religious’ filter over all models and projections. First 9.5 mins. Being an immagrant ex Cuban seems to make anything to do with ‘social’ the devil, and ‘capital’ and ‘free’ heaven.
“How the faithful will vote at the US elections
On The Religion and Ethics Report with Andrew West
“Dr David Smith from the US Studies Centre takes a look at where the religious vote might be showing up as the US election results come in – the Jews in Florida, white Catholics in Western Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Ohio, Hispanic Catholics in Texas and Arizona, Muslims in parts of Michigan, and of course the white Evangelicals across the country.”
https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/religionandethicsreport/david-smith-on-how-the-religious-vote-in-the-us-elections/12843582
Book by David Smith
“Religious Persecution and Political Order in the United States
AUTHOR: David T. Smith,
University of Sydney
PUBLISHED: November 2015
https://www.cambridge.org/al/academic/subjects/politics-international-relations/american-government-politics-and-policy/religious-persecution-and-political-order-united-states
In the earliest Australian federal elections, some rural areas voted for conservative parties, as they still do now (for example, the Darling Downs in Queensland and the southernmost part of South Australia have been reliable bases of support for conservative parties continuously since Federation), but other rural areas voted for Labor, some of them reliably by wide margins. Is this puzzling? Well, not to me: I figure that Labor does best in districts where the proportion of the population who are employees is highest and that the conservative parties do best in districts where the proportion of the population who are employers or self-employed is highest. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in Australia there were some rural parts of Australia (but only some) where there were high proportions of employees, and where therefore Labor did well; since that time, the proportion of employees in the population of those areas has progressively declined (because of socioeconomic changes related to technological changes), and the electoral performance of the Coalition parties in those areas has strengthened–unsurprisingly, at least to me.
Unfortunately not much of this is about logic and facts ,its emotional ,its about fear and cultural anxiety. So many Americans crying ‘freedom ‘ while desperately trying to submit to authoritarian rule . Everything ,including democracy , takes second place to that submission. They are prepared to cheat ,lie and use force to get there .For them Democracy is part of the problem. The scab is off in America ,they are all out in the open now ,there is no denying it. Experts recommend combating this with truth but what other option is there ?
Johnathan Haidt wrote that it is easily proven that Conservatives are more prone to violence ,cheating ,vengeance , crave structure and harsh justice, are more afraid of others and the unknown etc but that raw intelligence isnt much of a factor .I haven’t tried to verify that since i read it years ago ,but commenters on right wing websites frequently openly approve of the idea of authoritarian rule and glorify violence and Christianity .They love heterosexuality and traditional gender roles. The idea of gender fluidity ,no matter how small, terrifies them.
I think Conservatives do well in rural areas simply because those are more white and Christian and its not that much to do with class . The classic Fascist heartland and location of the nations mythic past is rural. An old farmer friend of mine and his family are prone to Right and far right influence .They are white, heterosexual ,christian and rural so they are in the sweet spot. On current trends soon something like 70% of US senate seats will be held by 30% of the population -mostly white rural Christians .
Trade, College and University education is the name of the game. Get people educated in the sciences and arts and even over-educated, if there is any such thing. The “diploma divide” explains a lot about US electoral trends and those elsewhere too. Education is a positive sum game. It improves citizen economic, social and political decision making and it improves equality outcomes. Only demagogues and ideologues want an ill-educated public outside narrow technical minds for their limited, favored technocrat areas of production science (not impact science ) and social / political economy manipulation via propaganda and advertising. The oligarchic elites fear an educated public who will reject their manipulative schemes and call for a more just and equal society.
I wouldn’t rely on anything Jonathan Haidt wrote on this subject (and I have reasons for that, which I am prepared to enlarge on if anybody is interested). It would suit my political bias if he were right on this particular point! but I’m not going to believe him just because of that.
Hopefully its the womens vote that will bring down the ”Trumpster’. He is crude, vulger, big mouth, sexist, a spoilt brat who always gets his way, and past the used by date, very yesterdays man. Thats the ”Trumpster’. Needs a good kick up his big bum. Women don’t like men like that. Sonia Bennett.
Agree with J-D on Haidt. I doubt that his presentation of the conservative position is as negative as Sunshine’s summary suggests, but regardless of that I wouldn’t pay him any attention.
There’s another minority that well know not to vote against their interests…
Even if its a win, could Democrats be in for a post-election reckoning?
PM ABC Radio, 6 Nov 2020
Linda Mottram interviews Margaret Kimberley, a New-York based writer and the Editor of Black Agenda Report.
https://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/pm/margaret-kimberley/12858722
Black Agenda Report
blackagendareport.com/
Whatever Happened to Left Solidarity?
https://blackagendareport.com/whatever-happened-left-solidarity
Howie Hawkins, 2020 Green Party candidate for President, 28 Oct 2020
Freedom Rider: Black People Lose in 2020
blackagendareport.com/freedom-rider-black-people-lose-2020
Margaret Kimberley, BAR senior columnist 05 Nov 2020
Corporate Democrats Want to Run Against Trump-like Republicans Forever
blackagendareport.com/corporate-democrats-want-run-against-trump-republicans-forever
Glen Ford, BAR Executive Editor 05 Nov 2020
en-gb.facebook.com/blackagendareport/posts/10158877282030987?__tn__=-R
Australia began with the Rum Corp, the lash, and the gun, which just about says it all. The USA began with the hard core, the lash, and the gun. For the US the last lines of the movie Killing Them Softly (2012) just about says it all (expletive warning).
– Jackie Cogan is an enforcer hired to restore order after three dumb guys rob a Mob protected card game, causing the local criminal economy to collapse.
– In a smoke filled bar, Barack Obama can be heard on tv making his 2009 election victory speech.
Barack Obama: “…to reclaim the American dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth, that, out of many, we are one…”
Driver [Richard Jenkins]: “You hear that line? Line’s for you.”
Jackie Cogan [Brad Pitt, last lines]: “Don’t make me laugh. One people. It’s a myth created by Thomas Jefferson.”
Driver: “Oh, so now you’re going to have a go at Jefferson, huh?”
Jackie Cogan: “My friend, Thomas Jefferson is an American saint because he wrote the words ‘All men are created equal’, words he clearly didn’t believe since he allowed his own children to live in slavery. He’s a rich white snob who’s sick of paying taxes to the Brits. So, yeah, he writes some lovely words and aroused the rabble and they went and died for those words while he sat back and drank his wine and f’d his slave girl. This guy wants to tell me we’re living in a community? Don’t make me laugh. I’m living in America, and in America you’re on your own. America’s not a country. It’s just a business. Now f’n pay me.”
imdb.com/title/tt1764234/quotes
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1764234/quotes/qt1796031
youtube.com/watch?v=5V6GHnxEJjg&feature=youtu.be&t=115
youtube.com/watch?v=5zK-b0INu1k
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_Them_Softly
I would be shocked if Conservatives are not more like that than Leftists are and would have to reassess my entire world view. Maybe its just an exercise in confirmation bias but I have a book on order for my local library called ‘ Authoritarian nightmare ‘ by John Dean and Bob Altemeyer. (Maybe I stated Haidts position in unflattering terms too.)
The authors analyse people that are attracted to authoritarian rule saying they are submissive to authority but can be aggressive on behalf of that authority. They are conventional in their thinking and behavior, highly religious, have less education, are highly prejudiced against other groups, oppose equal opportunity, lack critical-thinking skills, and often hold inconsistent positions. They “have only a superficial belief in liberty and democracy ”
One of the authors once devised something called an RWA scale which measures someones receptiveness to right wing authoritarianism and claim that ” American state legislators were surveyed in the 1980s and 1990s to measure their RWA scores, and Republicans almost uniformly scored significantly higher than Democrats. The highest RWA scores in both parties came from representatives in Southern states.”
https://www.365news.com/2020/10/book-review-of-authoritarian-nightmare-trump-and-his-followers-by-john-dean-and-bob-altemeyer/
There are conservatives and conservatives. There are thoughtful educated conservatives who are just by nature very careful people. Sort of people from that side who find the Donald’s griping about the voting untenable.
Then there the rednecks.
These are not so much conservatives as reactionary populist kneejerks high on substances/grog or deeply drawn into red state authoritarian/theocratic fantasy memes. Reactionary modernism and future shock are phenomena and all folk have to deal with change. Why should red state people be any different except at what they react to in the light of an information vacuum.
The antiquated pol-economic and socio cultural structures and their manipulations by mischief maker pathologies involving unreflexive people like Murdoch, Trump and McConnell, make a reasoned reconciliation with reality glacial in process. Nor have hard neoliberals made accomodation to change easier with their sometimes brutalist, grasping anti labour, enviro and social infrastructure policies.
Don’t think personality trait conservatism matches very well with voting preferences even for far more moderate conservative parties across the globe. That is if that even works very well to separate people into coherent singular personalities.
Its all generalisations of course and no one is perfect .Everyone has friends and family members who vote Conservative .It is necessary, productive and possible to genuinely understand their perspective – Christmas gatherings etc need not degenerate. However those informed people who knowingly vote for any mainstream conservative party that actively accommodates and nurtures the bigoted vote must accept some responsibility for the result over time .Those who finance and promote such parties are also guilty. The higher up the tree you go the more the responsibility .No wonder so many are defensive and embarrassed about it. In the US many are reluctant to admit it and only the stupid few will march in the streets for it ,whereas Leftists turn out in their millions .In Australia the actual risk is still not widely recognised – you need to fix a leaky roof during the sunny weather. Generally I think that Conservatives just dont have as much faith in human nature . For me it helps to remember that they may be right about that (I doubt they are) ,but I think we need to try something else first or the end result will just be a self fulfilling prophecy. We need good leadership. One idea is that our tribal ancestors were most successful when the tribe contained a balance of people who were wary of outsiders and people who were more open.
Expanding a bit on my last. Some people are bad with change, any change no matter how small or rather scared overall. The rational response to that would usually involve a left shift – more equality, more social safety net, fewer risks. Also reduces crime and the like most efficient. Overall people are on average far more scared than they should be about many things- like getting killed by terrorists. And less about other they should be more scared about like that goddamn covid virus. American voters of both Dem and Rep underestimated the virus based on polls about voting priorities(1 economy, 2 racism, covid far down at 3). Other things are just not very coherent on an individual level. Once major addiction is in play, e.g. smoking all reason goes out of the window with everyone. Many also have specific fears up to a pathological level. Even without all those effects it seems unlikely one can match -uses car instead of public transport for long trips and drives often risky with -has lots of stocks in his portfolio (adjusted for age and the like) very well.
SS, re: “They only have two choices”
(Bird?) That’s not so. Voters who potentially had those choices took a third choice in greater number than voting either way for the duopoly. For US president this time it’s something like 70 million voted Rep, 70 million voted Dem, 100 million voted no vote.
“There are conservatives and conservatives.” [paul walter].
Indeed. I recall my then 18 year old niece, who was allowed to vote for the first time in the French presidential elections in 2002, expressed her horror of a choice between two conservatives: “I have to vote for Chirac at my young age!” (the only alternative in the second round was the ‘right’ Front National – Le Pen).
In 2002 France, Chirac was the candidate for the ‘right’ and Gaullist conservatives.
In 2020 Florida, Chirac might have been classified as a socialist (and with more justification than labelling Biden as such, for Chirac was a member of the communist party in his young years and a Minister under the socialist Mitterrand presidency).
To see America in the near future, read AOC’s twitter act… and lots of deleted tweets too.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
@AOC
“Is anyone archiving these Trump sycophants for when they try to downplay or deny their complicity in the future? I foresee decent probability of many deleted Tweets, writings, photos in the future”
In the presidential race, the US voters chose the “least worst” option of the options presented to them. Trump was a horrible option. Biden was just a very bad option. Nothing fundamental will change in the USA. It will continue being a far right, though not fascist, neoliberal capitalist nation. The 1% will continue to rule.The poor and oppressed will continue to be poor and oppressed. The US nation as a whole will continue declining and collapsing, either slowly or in an accelerating fashion.
On the other hand, China will continue rising, at least until the limits to growth put limits on its rise. Australia has no real geopolitical options. We will continue to be stuck with the USA as an ally. as our least worst option. The quad (USA, Japan, India and Australia) and ASEAN and NATO will have to cement and re-cement their alliances to contain China. China is now in its empire building, expansionist phase, a phase whose temptation all economically and militarily great nations seem unable to resist. By contrast to China, any other nation is minnow even the now-collapsing USA.
The conjunction of Chinese expansionism, attempts at China containment and general global limits-to-growth collapse mean we will face more trade wars, cyber wars, grey wars, proxy wars and regional non-nuclear wars. I don’t expect nuclear war to break out but accidents can happen.
Australia needs to realize that its days of equal, benign and fair trade with China, if we ever had that, are over. China is the new bully on the world block. There can be no fair dealing with China. China is clearly signalling everything will be on its terms or no terms at all. Australia should rush to meet its future by diversifying as much trade as possible away from China and by becoming more self-sufficient in the production and manufacture of strategic essentials (foods, medicines, light and medium industrial products and so on). Australia probably also should consider acquiring nuclear weapons if our allies agree. [1]
What is really needed in the longer term is a democratic trading bloc and a refusal to trade with or treat with non-democratic nations. For practical purposes the “democratic bar” would be set fairly low but it needs to be there all the same. Certainly, China and Russia top the list of non-democratic nations. The false belief that “free trade” (really just rules that enable oligarchs) assists democracy has been exploded. Authoritarian states take advantage of free trade for their own purposes. Our (Australia’s) foreseeable future is one of being heavily bullied and even compromised or attacked by China in various ways. A very strong democratic-nation alliance is needed to contain the enormous dangers an authoritarian China poses the world. The whole of the democratic world will have to counterbalance China or else China takes over the world. This natural counterbalancing can and most likely will happen. Authoritarian China’s expansionism, aggression, arrogance, bullying and hubris is uniting the world against it.
It will take a very firm multi-lateral alliance to contain China. Nothing less will suffice. China is already far and away the most economically powerful and technologically advanced nation in the world. It is not catching up. It has already greatly surpassed the US or the EU taken individually. People need to put away illusions that China is catching up. It’s well in the lead already. It’s now in the phase of converting economic and technological power into cyber power and military power. Even there it could lead the world by as early as 2030, if not 2025.
Note 1: No doubt this would be very contentious. On the negative side this amounts to nuclear proliferation and could provoke nations like Indonesia to acquire nuclear weapons. On the positive side, the real politics and geotrategy of it is that a nuclear armed small nation (in population) can dissuade all thought of unilateral invasion by any other nation. This is a capability we might soon need.
Ikon, radiation, like covid, knows NO boundaries. And like a virus, those you are suggesting we ‘deter’, want this host- Australia – to be alive and mineabke, not a hot zone.
I appreciate your writing yet on this occasion, don’t let catastrophic thoughts lead down the path of destruction. Please.
The voting visualisation I have been looking for. People not place. One day soon it will be individual humans. I hope we have a bill of rights and suty of care before then.
“Land doesn’t vote. People do”
https://mobile.twitter.com/karim_douieb/status/1231216013313789955
Via
https://www.core77.com/posts/90771/A-Great-Example-of-Better-Data-Visualization-This-Voting-Map-GIF#
Note: had to use core77 – thanks – as gif should animate. Twitter only animates in twitter.
My enthusiasm for above let me post before I checked data source. Apologies. It is US 2016 election. Watch this space.
Summer Stardust “Trump won this election by a landslide. Why wouldn’t he?”
Umm.. because not enough people voted for him ?
You’re suggestion (clearly not unique to you) that there was widespread voter fraud (despite the lack of evidence) will no doubt be tested in the courts. Given that Trump has had more appointments to the Supreme Court and (AFAIK) lower courts than any other president, if the courts find there was no systemic fraud, I guess you’re going to have to find another reason for Trump’s loss.
I understand discomfit with the idea of Australia adopting nuclear weapons. I have been against militarily nuclearizing Australia for many years. However, democratic socialism needs to be tempered with “Left Realism” as I term it. Left Realism notes;
(1) The international order is “anarchic” and characterized by “offensive realism” as noted by the lead theorist in this arena, John Mearsheimer. Mearsheimer defines the terms given above in quotes in a particular way. Refer to his work if interested.
(2) Being a pacifist and “nice guy” is no guarantee nobody will attack you. Indeed, being too passive and too unprepared is an invitation to being attacked. Being over-belligerent, over-critical and over-exploitative is also to invite attack. It is sensible to steer a middle course. Speak quietly and carry a big stick is good advice. The world is changing into a place where we might need a big stick.
(3) Defence of a small to middle size power (Australia) relies on a combination of alliances and national capabilities. Among those national capabilities we might need to acquire or develop nuclear weapons. Note, I say might at this stage. Our allies might not grant that permission, which we would reasonably seek, due to fears of a nuclear arms race in South-East Asia. In that case, we would need assurance, as much as that can be trusted, that we are covered by the nuclear umbrella of the USA and other nuclearized allies. That assurance should include, one would hope, an explicit warning that any power invading the land borders of Australia (by sea obviously) could face any and all responses up to the use of tactical theater nukes at sea to destroy enemy navies.
(4) The plant world, the animal world (to which humans belong) and the human political-economic-strategic world all demonstrate that after intra-species, or at least intra-nest, culture and nurture, it is aggressive attack and defense (or at least aggressive and defensive threat posturing) that is the final signalling and recourse “language” of the entire biological and human world.
(5) Yes, ideally we would want to encourage human cooperation at the global level. All of our historical experience to date however shows that all human empires and empire-nations become aggressive and expansionist. China is showing all signs of repeating that behavior just like Ancient Rome, the Mongol Hordes, the Ottomans, the Spanish, the Portuguese, the French, the Russians, The British, the Germans, the Japanese and the Americans (US) have done. To imagine that the Chinese and China are any different is to be naive in the extreme, IMHO. There is no other way to interpret China’s assimilations, attacks, expansions, suppressions and threats relative to Tibet, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South China Sea, China-Vietnam War. Line of Actual Control with India and so on. China is totalitarian and expansionist and for those reasons we have to assume, very dangerous and potentially inimical to the rest of the world.
(6) Yes, it is a tragedy that we have to be this suspicious. It is also a tragedy that mutual suspicion heightens tensions and creates a dynamic where both sides are almost at equally at fault for the raised tensions. But it will also be a tragedy to be weak and naive and get conquered or turned into a vassal or satrapy of some kind. Those are real possibilities for Australia in China-dominated Eastern hemisphere.
(7) Left Realism notes that Chinese “Socialism” is neither democratic nor anything like true socialism. It is an authoritarian, dictatorial, oligarchic, state capitalist system.
Finally, would China ever sign an agreement where it stated and admitted its acceptable national limits? Or does it want to expand incrementally and indefinitely? I would wager London to a brick that China will never accept such limits being made explicit. Its historical strategy (since first unification) has been endless, incremental expansion of its empire. That is still its strategy to this very day. Otherwise why does it claim ALL of the South China Sea and why does it absorb Tibet and Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region? Why does it contest the Line of Actual Control with India and incrementally occupy commanding high ground to control key passes? China cannot be permitted to expand its control on all fronts indefinitely, physical and cyber, or it will gain unchallenged world supremacy. It has to be stopped somewhere. Where do we (the democratic nations) draw the line? No authoritarian system has ever been a benign master.
We simply cannot allow China to become our masters. They are already using trade to attempt to bully Australia into toeing their line. That is completely unacceptable. The proper course of action now is to retrench from economic interaction with China and to both diversify to other markets and become more autarkically semi-self-sufficient. It blatantly obvious we can never trust China under the current regime nor ever give it another inch. Give it an inch and it will take every nation it can and make them vassals and satrapies. All great nations attempt this. China is no worse and no better than any other great power in this regard. Coalitions and balances of power are required to limit great nations with imperial ambitions. The USA is self-limiting now, bizarrely out of strategic over-reach and elite oligarchic incompetence of the worst kind. A realist recognizes all these changes: that the USA is now a self-limiting but still dangerous, wounded imperialist beast, that China has entered its global imperialist and expansionist phase and that a coalition and balance of power needs to be implemented to contain China and its power within safe limits for the rest of the world.
That has already begun.
In one court action brought in Pennsylvania by the Trump campaign, the complaint filed stated that the county board of elections was intentionally (in violation of Pennsylvania law) keeping Trump campaign observers out of the room where counting was going on. In court the judge asked the Trump campaign lawyer whether they had observers in the counting room, and the lawyer replied that there was a ‘non-zero’ number of people in the room. The judge then asked the lawyer ‘as a member of the bar of this court’ (what those words signify in this context is ‘as somebody who can be penalised for failing to tell the truth’) whether observers for the plaintiff (the Trump campaign) were in the room, the lawyer said ‘Yes’, and the judge said, ‘I’m sorry, then what’s your problem?’
Exactly as J-D points out. Trumpists have not a leg to stand on in any their ludicrous, illogical, non-factual, conspiracy claims about the election. But you can’t argue with deluded people who can’t think straight. They don’t understand basic facts, basic logic or basic math. One must simply ignore them and address sensible, logical people.
Ikon, don’t be MAD & Bush, be Kennedy. Or Vasili Arkhipov!
“The second-in-command, Vasili Arkhipov, refused to launch despite an order from Captain Savitsky to do so.” Wikipedia & ^1.
‘^1. “Kennedy chose quarantine as an alternative to military action,” he said. ”Bush is committed to military action.”
^2. And would Bush have used Herman Kahn’s Doomsday Machine?
These points below are the questions needed to be overcome to go MAD.
From Wikipedia…
Mutually Assured Destruction
MAD -Criticism
Image if Nuclear weapon test Apache (yield 1.85 Mt or 7.7 PJ)
Challengeable assumptions
● Second-strike capability
● A first strike must not be capable of preventing a retaliatory second strike or else mutual destruction is not assured. In this case, a state would have nothing to lose with a first strike, or might try to preempt the development of an opponent’s second-strike capability with a first strike. To avoid this, countries may design their nuclear forces to make decapitation strike almost impossible, by dispersing launchers over wide areas and using a combination of sea-based, air-based, underground, and mobile land-based launchers.
● Perfect detection
No false positives (errors) in the equipment and/or procedures that must identify a launch by the other side. The implication of this is that an accident could lead to a full nuclear exchange. During the Cold War there were several instances of false positives, as in the case of Stanislav Petrov.
● Perfect attribution. If there is a launch from the Sino-Russian border, it could be difficult to distinguish which nation is responsible—both Russia and China have the capability—and, hence, against which nation retaliation should occur. A launch from a nuclear-armed submarine could also be difficult to attribute.
● Perfect rationality
No rogue commanders will have the ability to corrupt the launch decision process. Such an incident very nearly occurred during the Cuban Missile Crisis when an argument broke out aboard a nuclear-armed submarine cut off from radio communication. The second-in-command, Vasili Arkhipov, refused to launch despite an order from Captain Savitsky to do so.[35]
● All leaders with launch capability care about the survival of their subjects (an extremist leader may welcome Armageddon and launch an unprovoked attack). Winston Churchill warned that any strategy will not “cover the case of lunatics or dictators in the mood of Hitler when he found himself in his final dugout.”[36]
● Inability to defend
No fallout shelter networks of sufficient capacity to protect large segments of the population and/or industry.
No development of anti-missile technology or deployment of remedial protective gear.”
****
And look what being a smart arse got us: ” In response to such a strategy, Kahn (only half jokingly) proposed his “Doomsday Machine,” …
^2.
“Herman Kahn’s Doomsday Machine
“While working at RAND, Kahn settled in with a group working on nuclear strategy known as the Strategic Objectives Committee. Its members recognized that an all out nuclear war with an initial strategy to attack cities was not feasible. In response to such a strategy, Kahn (only half jokingly) proposed his “Doomsday Machine,” a massive computer connected to a stockpile of hydrogen bombs. When the computer sensed imminent and intolerable danger from a Soviet attack, it would detonate the bombs and cover the planet with radiation fallout and billions of dead. No one laughed (except for Stanley Kubrick, whose 1964 dark comedy, Dr. Strangelove or: How I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb, parodied Kahn’s Doomsday Device). The Doomsday Machine, nonetheless, was only a mildly absurd version of existing US policy: If the Soviets scare us, we destroy their cities and provoke them to retaliate. Kahn advanced the strategists’ thinking to a new level by suggesting military installations as the next logical target. This work led Kahn to believe there could be such a thing as a winnable nuclear conflagration. ”
https://web.archive.org/web/20040902085658/http://trace.ntu.ac.uk/frame2/articles/borg/kahn.html
****
^1.
The Boston Globe
(Boston U.S.A.)
Octubre 13, 2002
SOVIETS CLOSE TO USING A-BOMB IN 1962 CRISIS, FORUM IS TOLD
…This story ran on page A20 of the Boston Globe on 10/13/2002. © Copyright 2002
http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/cold-war/sovietsbomb.htm
Ikonoclast, we see you’ve grown to love the bomb at a time when first we ought stop covetously squeezing all our own interior fluids dry ourselves. Strange love.
“That is still its strategy to this very day. Otherwise why does it claim ALL of the South China Sea and why does it absorb Tibet and Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region? Why does it contest the Line of Actual Control with India and incrementally occupy commanding high ground to control key passes?”
Why the whys? There are many whys. Apparently you’ve taken from history only that which suits your sinophobic arguments,
One why is similar to one of the whys why Russia occupied and remained in eastern Europe in such great projected military force numbers long after WW2. If the foreigners are coming for the motherland, as they have, as they will, then arrange to have the next battleground somewhere outside the homeland. Have a buffer, a moat, a home preserved.
That’s all well and good KT2 but I can guarantee you to 100% certainty that USA, Russia, China and the other nuclear nations will not voluntarily give up their arsenals in the next 100 years. To believe otherwise is complete pie in the sky. Unilateral nuclear disarmament would be a death warrant for any superpower. The others would take advantage of it straight away.
Unfortunately, the only thing some humans ultimately respect is lethal force, especially the socopaths and psychopaths who seem to rise to high power too often, Yes, 99% of us would stop before lethal force in 99% of cases unless pushed far too far. The other 1% are quite willing to contemplate lethal force almost straight away if they can achieve it without effective response. It’s the nature of the spectrum of the species. Maybe we can evolve out of it, meaning culturally-mediated biological evolution over the long term. Until that distant future day, we are constrained by current realities.
My position is entirely logical and consistent given that I am not a pacifist, although I am pacifically inclined in the main. If required to use lethal force to protect my life or lives of those close to me, and I had any means to hand, I would use lethal force. At the same time, since I live in a nation where few citizens own guns (gun control) I deem it safe (safer actually) to not have a gun. With nuclear weapons,it has been safer for Australia to not have nuclear weapons to date.
The world is changing so radically it might soon be unsafe for us to not have nuclear weapons soon. It’s hard to say as there are so many variables and unknowns. But Australia is a democracy with free speech. I can put my view. Others can put their view and I can be out-voted on this issue if the other view prevails… so no big deal. I suspect we will remain non-nuclear for a considerable time yet unless things become terrifyingly unstable (a real possibility) or China becomes terrifyingly belligerent (also a real possibility). Then the mood and the democratic decision might change.
I’ve taken this too far off topic. I’ll go to the last Sandpit if I have more to say on the geostrategic questions.
Iko- “Biden was just a very bad option. Nothing fundamental will change in the USA. It will continue being a far right, though not fascist, neoliberal capitalist nation. The 1% will continue to rule.The poor and oppressed will continue to be poor and oppressed. The US nation as a whole will continue declining and collapsing, either slowly or in an accelerating fashion.”
And it’ll take the globe with it. I have heard loads of times now of how this US election was about character more so than policy as as there’s been so little actual details given Democrat policies. There’s been lots of masking motherhood statements, yet like lipstick plastered on a pig it’s still a pig. Like the Democrat’s climate policy set to boost fossil extractive industries generally out to at least 2035, boost a coming oil and gas boom, and boost the returns for huge donations made to the democrat campaign by fossil related unions, corporations and billionaires. Biden offers nothing but more war, austerity, white supremacy, environmental destruction, and carbon emissions – without Trump.
A defining signature policy of the Democrats and Biden-Harris, The Green New Deal, so called, is a crock. A sham.
Last night I got to read the lengthy and highly detailed article linked below, Part 2, covering the timeline and evolution of the Democrat’s Green New Deal from the time before they got their grubby hands on it to where it is now. It is revealed as having been an utter crock for some years. It has morphed into a cover for subsidising fossil fuel expansion for at least the next 15 years. It has been crafted in backroom deals to look something like it did before the DNC hierarchy formally resolved to adopt it. It is full of holes, twists, and deals with few redeeming qualities. It is spin. It was crafted so that it may be spun as all things to all people. However, it is one good thing for the Big Fossils and Nukes. Many in the democrat party factions know it, many NGOs from across a range of related issues know it at the top, many well known green/progressive activist types know it, and many in the left wing and progressive media also know it, but they have been manipulated by the party in various ways to be silent. The Green New Deal language is deliberately fuzzy. It has terms such as “non-renewable clean energy”, and “clean” that are interchangeably used and deliberately conflated with terms such as “renewable energy” and “green”. Terms like “zero” “net” emissions allowing for expanded tax credits as a subsidy for CCS CO2 enhanced oil recovery promoting a coming oil boom, or for nuclear, are now conflated with original terms such as “leave it in the ground”. It stinks. It fully accords with established bipartisan fossil fuel plans and legislation. Fossil fuel political donors are happy with the Green New Deal and are funding it.
All this was to put one over on the public and get one up on Trump. Trump may go, but the place of dirty energy will stay in the USA, whatever. When Biden gets in there will certainly be some further GND talks and arguments… I predict that those also also won’t go anywhere much, slowly.
I pulled some quotable factoids and quotable quotes from the article. There were far too many to pass on. I culled them, and there were still far too many. There are so many players so importantly involved, so many important events, so much switching sides, so much accommodating and prevaricating, so much obfuscation, so many timeline threads that imo to have an understanding of what has gone on, of where things and disgust-worthy/useful-idiot prominent individuals sit now, the article requires reading in full to understand developments. I doubt the author even with their apparent high level writing skills could have shrunk the article further. The article is a complete history listed as concise as it could be. It is long. It begins:
PART 2: THE UNANNOUNCED DEATH OF THE GREEN NEW DEAL
https://popularresistance.org/part-2-the-unannounced-death-of-the-green-new-deal/
By Michael Swifte, Wrong Kind Of Green.
November 6, 2020 | EDUCATE!
(Michael Swifte is an Australian activist and a member of the Wrong Kind of Green critical thinking collective.)
OK, ok, just two passages of notable interest from towards the end and the conclusion:
Maybe just one or two nuclear armed subs would do ? I wonder if we could arm one of our new ones, the others could serve as decoys . Maybe we could just buy the weapon rather than having to develop it ourselves. Selling something like that would be a big move though ,I cant imagine that happening, not a good precedent to set. One or two in a pack would be pretty useful.
Time to put some distance between us and the failed states of America. I feel China is punishing us so hard because we are the deputy sheriff. If you cant hit the bully take out the first mate. Morrison and co have really stuffed it .We are in a difficult position as far as making regional alliances goes because we have arrogantly neglected the region for so long. China has no real friends and probably never will.
Let’s party like it’s 2024
It is true that there is no essential difference between Democrats and Republicans except perhaps on identity politics. What is also true is that the Democratic Party primary was rigged. Parties run their own primaries. These primaries are not the national Presidential election of course, which was not rigged. But if rigged candidates like Biden or lunatics like Trump get to the Presidential election, what does that mean for real choice? Chris Hedges sums it up.
Footnote to Summer Stardust: People without arguments use abuse and caps. People without honesty or honor sock-puppet incorrigibly after repeated bans.
“China has no real friends and probably never will.”
Being careful what they wish for as always are white man’s burdens.
States have interests not friends.
Diplomacy is all about what you get not what you say.
War is diplomacy by other means.
Goodbye Stardust. Now you are memories…
1. We’ve heard enough from the troll
2. The benighted Electoral College is part of the reason for low American turnout. In California say, the result is a foregone conclusion for both presidential and Senate races. Democrats only vote out of civic duty or for House and local issues, a weaker incentive. A French conservative living in a socialist bastion like Saint-Denis knows her presidential vote matters, as it’s counted nationally.
3. My triumphalist scenario for the US election (note that I did not go all in for it) got one thing right: Georgia, Full credit to Stacey Abrams, who, like Harry Reid n Nevada, understands that GOTV has to be a long-term organizing commitment, not something improvised afresh for each election campaign.
Ikonoclast, Biden will:
—Will rejoin Paris climate accords.
—Reverse withdrawal from the World Health Organization.
—Repeal ban on immigration from Muslim-majority countries.
—Reinstate the DACA giving
How is rejoining the Paris Accord the same thing as leaving it? If it wasn’t for the kind of just as badism you’re touting, Trump wouldn’t have been elected in 2016.
UNCAGE THE CHILDREN.
Five years ago no one would have imagined defeating a villain from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang would be Joe Biden’s greatest accomplishment.
There’s no point keeping children in cages. Their egg production is terrible.
The Red Elephants is an unabashed pro-Trump and Republican site. It publishes this article.
https://theredelephants.com/there-is-undeniable-mathematical-evidence-the-election-is-being-stolen/
Benford’s Law is invoked. Wikipedia tells us “Benford’s law, also called the Newcomb–Benford law, the law of anomalous numbers, or the first-digit law, is an observation about the frequency distribution of leading digits in many real-life sets of numerical data. The law states that in many naturally occurring collections of numbers, the leading digit is likely to be small.[1] For example, in sets that obey the law, the number 1 appears as the leading significant digit about 30% of the time, while 9 appears as the leading significant digit less than 5% of the time. If the digits were distributed uniformly, they would each occur about 11.1% of the time.[2] Benford’s law also makes predictions about the distribution of second digits, third digits, digit combinations, and so on.”
Since “Stardust” or whatever-his-name-is-today has alleged the election was stolen from Trump, but provided no evidence or even claims of evidence so far as I can see, I have gone looking for evidence for him in the interests of objectivity. [1] I remain highly skeptical of course but I do want to see the evidence examined. Can the mathematicians cast their eyes over these claims and tell us if Benford’s Law has been violated in any statistically significant way? Of course, you would have to check the source data and not take as given a partisan site’s claims about the source data.
It’s amusing that there is also a Benford’s law of controversy which “is an adage from the 1980 novel Timescape, stating: Passion is inversely proportional to the amount of real information available.” – Wikipedia.
Any mathematician with psephologist interests here? I know J.Q. is one. Care to examine the claim?
I note the article refers to “statistical impossibilities” (sic). Does the author properly mean “statistical improbabilities” and should he/she not state the probabilities/improbabiities arrived at? Could not the voting method patterns created by the pandemic and by the different exhortations on which voting method to use (by Biden and Trump) lead to the very anomalies seen in the voting patterns? These are a few thoughts which cross my mind.
There are thousands of internet hits and sites alleging the vote was stolen. If this is correct then it must be proven by forensic, mathematical and legal means not by mere weight of allegation. If it is incorrect then the avalanche of misinformation (in that case) needs to be countered by forensic, mathematical and legal investigations and debunked as broadly as the potential lies are promulgated.
The problem of course is that “The election was stolen” is a simple narrative based on faith without evidence at the first stage of mass allegations. Whereas, the proof that the election was stolen or not stolen requires painstaking work with electoral forensics and statistics that most people don’t understand. Mass ignorance is a grave problem in a democracy. Where one lacks expertise (as I do in the matter of statistics) one must at least know enough to know he/she should look to the accredited experts.
Note 1. Why I would do this after being nastily abused is simply testament (I think) to the fact that I do value the truth over winning an argument or hurling abuse.
Ronald: I think you will come to regret your last comment.
Iko: one simple rejoinder to Dolchstoß conspiracy theories about the US election is that if the Democrats (or China or Slros or lizards) indeed stole the election, they were remarkably bad at it. Why leave the Senate in GOP hands or at best tied?
A stronger argument is that all the lawsuits alleging fraud disintegrate as soon as they hit the courtroom. Many judges are Republicans and probably biased towards the plaintiffs, but they are not idiots and need some evidence and legal justification before they can help out.
Easier to invoke Benford’s Law than present actual evidence of voting fraud I suppose. I’d never heard of it but at best it is surely no more than suggestive with actual evidence. And it will take actual evidence for this to be nothing other than unnecessarily divisive and damaging argument in bad faith – and going by the willingness of Trump and supporters to brazenly attempt to steal the election (by rejecting the legitimacy of legitimate mailed in votes) I would be inclined to look more closely for evidence of Trump and supporters engaging in fraudulent voting than Biden.
I cannot believe the promoters of the “stolen election” narrative do not know that Trump encouraging supporters to vote in person, vs Biden encouraging supporters to vote by mail would create a statistical “anomaly” where votes in person (earlier counted) favour Trump and mail in votes (later counted) favour Biden.
O’Brien continued as though answering a spoken objection: ‘… Do you suppose it is beyond us to produce a dual system of astronomy? The stars can be near or distant, according as we need them. Do you suppose our mathematicians are unequal to that? Have you forgotten doublethink?’
Ikon, good idea! Interesting that the losing side is even trying to overturn a mathmatical law!
I searched – “benford’s law” election usa 2020 – on el goog and the first link was ‘Tim Truth’ on yootub offering completely opposite ‘truth’ to below.
2nd was ratburger article below.
3rd jo nova!
4th catallaxyfiles
5th referencing your article “I recently came across several right-wing sources that claim President-elect Joe Biden’s vote counts in the 2020 election violate Benford’s Law. Examples include the website “The Red Elephants”and this r/donaldtrump thread. skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/49782/do-vote-counts-for-joe-biden-in-the-2020-election-violate-benfords-law
****
Benford’s Law and the 2020 Presidential Election
…
“If you want to check the results or do your own analysis with publicly-available election data for other jurisdictions, all of the raw data andJupyter notebook tools are available from the GitHub repository.
“Particularly interesting would be a Benford’s law analysis of early results versus those incorporating late-arriving votes “discovered” well after the polls closed, and comparing votes from regions expected to lean toward one candidate or the other.”
Author: John Walker
Founder of Ratburger.org, Autodesk, Inc., and Marinchip Systems. Author of The Hacker’s Diet. Creator of http://www.fourmilab.ch.
https://www.ratburger.org/index.php/2020/11/08/benfords-law-and-the-2020-presidential-election/
****
Miami Dade benfords…
****
Code & examples from article
“First digit visualization of in selected counties/cities in the 2020 presidential election.
“Jupyter notebooks to analyze various precincts/wards for the 2020 election. Each notebook has either a source URL for the dataset or a link to the spreadsheet that was downloaded and parsed.”
https://github.com/cjph8914/2020_benfords
****
Click on ‘ Jupyter Notebook100.0% ‘ link down github page to reveal…
“5 code results incjph8914/2020_benfords
Allegheny_County_PA_Benfords_Data.ipynb
Jupyter Notebook
Last indexed Nov 6, 2020
Chicago_Wards_Precincts_Benfords_Data.ipynb
Jupyter Notebook
Last indexed Nov 6, 2020
Fulton_County_GA_Benfords_Data.ipynb
Jupyter Notebook
Last indexed Nov 6, 2020
Miami_Dade_Benfords_Data.ipynb
Jupyter Notebook
Last indexed Nov 6, 2020
Milwaukee_Wards_Benfords_Data.ipynb
Jupyter Notebook
Last indexed Nov 6, 2020
Or use link for above…
https://github.com/cjph8914/2020_benfords/search?l=jupyter-notebook
****
And just so we know – who is…
John Walker (programmer)
“He publishes on his personal domain, fourmilab.ch, designed to be a play on Fermilab.[11] On his Web site, Walker publishes about his personal projects, including a hardware random number generator called HotBits, along with software that he writes and freely distributes, such as his Earth and Moon viewer.[12][13] Another notable article was called The Hacker’s Diet.
“One particularly noteworthy article was titledThe Digital Imprimatur: How big brother and big media can put the Internet genie back in the bottle, an article about Internet censorshipwritten in 2003 .”…
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Walker_(programmer)
***
And perhaps we need to use benfords law on coalition funds data. ‘Jammy / grass lands taylor” I’d say, wouldn’t produce a nice concave curve – ever – of the money doled out and pocketed.
I’m not too concerned, James. I know some people think I have a fowl sense of humour, but I’m not chicken.
“O’Brien continued as though answering a spoken objection ‘…The stars can be near or distant, according as we need them.'”
Orwell’s then dominant Steady State theory star.
There’s a lot of the “net-zero” term featuring in most Australian media today, often also with “target”, less so with “emissions”. ALL I’ve seen and heard conflate the term “net-zero” with that of the US DNC-Biden-Harris’ GND spin term. Many pieces are critical of and urge the Australian government to change climate policy, to catch up or be left behind as a pariah, and they say surely now Morrison must follow in the steps of Biden on “net-zero”.
If it wasn’t so sadly misinformed and willingly misled the current commentary might even be funny!
The DNC spin term underwrites with taxpayer funds greatly increasing fracking, increased extraction of oil and gas, an oil boom, massive new pipeline network construction, increased fossil energy job numbers, all covered by token CCS infrastructure investment to make it all “clean” and “net zero” energy production. It also includes nuclear and other so called “net-zero”, “non-renewable clean”, and “clean” energy industries and foreign trade in any such new technology. (see prior post). A bit of proposed tree planting also serves as a screen…
Slowmo and Recessionberg it now appears are far better informed on future US energy policy than they have been given credit for. The LNP plan, apart from introducing nuclear, as presented in the budget a month ago already had all the Biden-DNC greenwash energy policy crap and funds for it.
Morrison and the LNP in fact lead Biden and the DNC on this!
It’s already been a joint ticket. It’s Slomo leading Biden soon to a future near you.