#there's evidence of historical context (i.e. cold war)

[allixirr]

oh.

i see.

i have now joined the goncharov (1973) hypetrain 🎉

why does tumblr love goncharov all of a sudden did i miss something

[marxistduboisist]

Comments on “Where’s the Winter Palace”

I have two main critiques of this interesting but, I argue, ultimately unpersuasive essay on the Marxist-Leninist movement in the US. This note grew out of a Facebook comment, and it presumes familiarity with the general subject as well as the essay linked above. I left aside several other critiques which were made by other people on the thread, so this is an incomplete critique.

First, I found the critique of line-centrism (laid out in "Dogmatism and 'Line'") less than persuasive; I thought it misidentified the cause of the NCM’s failing in the first place (here I disagree with Max Elbaum who is the original source for this claim); applies with far less force to the Marxist-Leninist movement at present than it did to the NCM; and, finally, is unrealistic in the sense that it takes an unfortunate truth about large group organization, Marxist-Leninist or otherwise (that the determination of some kind of a minimal line and the holding of it is crucially necessary to effective politics and will also never satisfy every individual party member entirely) and makes it an avoidable, volitional failure borne of dogmatism (whereas I think it is just a feature of doing politics as such); I also think that the argument that certain issues are simply not ones on which lines should be tightly drawn (e.g., imperialist wars of aggression) is unpersuasive.

Second, I thought that the attempted historicization of Marxism-Leninism (i.e., the reading of it as an analysis which was true “then” but is now “outdated Cold War politics”) was also unpersuasive. I don’t think that the authors really argued for this point with as much evidence as such a strong claim merits; I do take up, in detail, what evidence they do provide at the end of “The Sect System”, and I argue that this evidence does not provide a foundation for their claims. I also address some of their specific study suggestions for Marxist-Leninists, which I argue are inconsistent and, in some cases, difficult or impossible to reconcile with Lenin’s work or the Third International tradition generally. 

To the first point. I’ll set aside the first sub-point (about the NCM) since that’s something of a different topic. On the second point, I think, viewed historically, the three organizations which the authors are talking about are far less strict about adherence to lines on every conceivable issue than during the NCM, less strict than the Trotskyist movement (from its inception to present), and, to some degree, less strict than the official CP movement; the movement in all of those subsections of the left and on the left, generally, during the 1930s-1980s was substantially larger in the US than it is now. So, I think this provides some prima facie evidence that adherence to a strict line is, at the very least, not a huge brake on the size and influence of the left, all else equal. The NCM failed, for sure, and its genuinely ouroboros-character with regard to line-struggle clearly contributed to that (although again, I think the emphasis on that is overstated); but, the fact that line-struggle is now far less heated and that the movement is smaller means that this can’t be the only, or primary, cause (WWP goes far out of its way to avoid polemics against other groups, e.g.—one would never see from WWP the kind of personalization of politics that was common during the NCM, such as the adoption of hyper-specific name-based epithets or condemning the line of fellow leaders of tiny groups, by name, in print, as, quite literally, “evil”). I can't speak for all the groups in question, but certainly the ones I'm most familiar with have no restrictions on members disagreeing with assessments of other members on a great variety of questions—it's just disagreements which would threaten unity of action which are prohibited (I think it's perfectly reasonable to prohibit people from publicly saying things like "I fundamentally think this strike that we're supporting as a group is wrong"—there just isn’t a point in having a political organization that can’t agree on some baseline goals and strategies, in my view). For some groups, that could well reasonably include discussions about China; if one believes that the particular method of organizing socialist revolution in China ineluctably led to a counterrevolution or ineluctably led to a socialist-developmental state, then it would be good to avoid or pursue those methods (or at least learn the lessons that can be learned from them and apply them to a different context)—that actually would be a question of great importance (and, in a way, the author sare implicitly entering into that debate without intending to by arguing that the experience of those countries is probably irrelevant—that is “a position” in that debate, in my view). [I should acknowledge that this last point is also laid out in a comment on the original post concerning Cuba, made by one Daniel Sullivan].

To the third sub-point of the first point: the policy of presenting a united front on questions of great import seems to me to be a pretty standard organizational practice of most political orgs., small communist ones and large liberal ones; in the absence of this kind of minimal discipline, the group can and almost certainly would simply cease to reproduce itself as a group (or turn into an inert federation). Even the DSA draws lines somewhere (and I think the only reason that they can be so lax about what lines they do draw is that they don't actually get much done, conditional on their size). Where the lines of disagreement should be drawn is a good and open question, in my view, and I think it would be better to be more specific about which kinds of lines of disagreement are wise and which aren't; I think it overstates the question to say that groups are too fixated on the proper line as such, since surely nearly everyone would agree that lines need be drawn somewhere—the more specific question of what kinds of lines are or aren’t relevant is much harder to answer at the level of principle. The conclusion to the essay and the “further reading” includes a number of suggestions which are actually adequate to the level of generality posed by this argument—in other words, the fact that this critique could apply to almost an effective organization—by simply advocating very loose organizations, the DSA among them. It is fine to make this argument, of course, but I think it’s wrong; those types of groups are, as a rule, typically not productive ones (I think this is pretty well-established by social movements sociology; I don’t have much time here to elaborate on that, but the empirical question is kind of moot—I would imagine that a pre-condition of being a Marxist or even simply a social democrat, as opposed to an anarchist, would mean holding that view as a precept). 

I’d like to end my commentary on this point by suggesting the great relevance of such line struggles on the specific question of Syria since the authors specifically raise this point: they suggest that positions on Syria are basically of little relevance to the left (presumably they mean the left outside of Syria) because of the negligible practical outcomes of those positions: "[i]f you don’t 'uphold' Bashar al-Assad, you’re 'no better than the State Department', despite the fact that 'uphold' in this context means little more than voicing support". By contrast, it seems to me that the relevance of one's position on Syria is very clear: if one doesn't think that Assad is a leading a national-bourgeois war of liberation but instead is prosecuting an imperialist war of conquest, then there would be a far less clear imperative for the workers' movement to oppose the war. In fact, if it were true that Syria (and Russia) were after all imperialist powers, socialists here would need to be careful to not demand an antiwar politics with such fervor that they reduced the ability of the United States to genuinely defend itself against larger imperialist powers (and it would imply a need to coordinate very closely with workers in Syria and Russia, closer than is possible at present thanks to the degeneration of the left in Russia and the US, to ensure that neither wing of the communist movement inadvertently assisted one imperialist power over another). The urgent need to unilaterally call off the war on Syria and the strategy that has developed around that (which is not dissimilar in many ways to the strategy that developed around the war on Vietnam for instance) flows/flowed from a Leninist analysis of the situation. A different analysis could lead to an entirely different political strategy. Even more fundamentally than that, an analysis which says that this question just isn’t that relevant to the first world left—because it can’t do anything about the war—is an analysis which leads us to a position that we shouldn’t do anything about the war (the position “the war shouldn’t matter to us that much” implies a position of “we shouldn’t do much about it”, which compounds the problem of “we can’t do much about it”, which further fuels the position “the war shouldn’t matter much to us”—it’s a classic vicious cycle).

My second point is that I don't find the near-relegation of Marxism-Leninism to the dustbin of history as unambiguous as the authors seem to argue. They imply in the introduction that Leninism is "outdated Cold War politics" (or at least, that appears to be the meaning from the context, although it's not explicit). Later they expand on this claim, and though they do argue that “the world is still in the era of imperialism as Lenin defined it”, they then append a long list of changing historical conditions and ask rhetorically whether we are “in the same period that Stalin speaks of”; they don’t answer in completely unequivocal terms, but since the sub-section is titled “can Marxism-Leninism be salvaged” and since they reply to their rhetorical question with “certainly a lot has changed”, it seems to me that they are, without saying so outright, arguing that at the very least its relevance has been severely weakened. So, I’d like to look at the evidence they offer. Their list of changed conditions is as follows: “the Eastern Bloc has collapsed, formal colonialism has largely been replaced with neo-colonialism, Keynesianism has been replaced with neo-liberalism, and the United States has emerged as the dominant imperialist power”.

It seems to me that it would be better to be clear about the exact stakes of each of these historical changes and how exactly they render Lenin's analysis outdated or not. It's easy, as the authors say, to list changes, but it's equally easy to list continuities: we still live in a capitalist world; most of the African continent, Latin America, and the Arab world are under the heel of “Western” powers; the threat of inter-imperialist wars has returned to the horizon; the continued slide towards the full restoration of capitalism in China and the destruction from within of the USSR mean that we actually have a world which looks much more like the world just before 1914 than the world of 1975 did; and so on. Without a more detailed and clearer explication, this kind of list-making practice doesn’t tell us all that much, in my opinion. And to the implicit claim that simply being old makes the practice of Leninism outdate, I would counter that the dominant political practices of the imperialist countries (right-liberalism and conservative modernization politics) are virtually as old as capitalism itself (and of course, Marx is also older than Lenin, and the democratic socialist politics which the authors end by halfway-advocating are roughly as old).

Looking specifically at the examples here, I would suggest that the relevance of these examples is left unstated and that each example seems to me to be less-than-sufficient to invalidate a Leninist analysis. The Eastern Bloc didn't even exist when Stalin provided that definition (1924), so the relevance of that point is indeterminate, in my view; formal colonialism was also more or less conquered by the workers movement just a few years after the Chinese and Cuban revolutions, and so it, too, has not existed in most of the world for long after Marxism-Leninism seems to have clearly been a relevant analytical framework (and I also don't think that Lenin or other leading Third International politicians assumed that the existence or not of formal colonialism was of life-or-death relevance to their analysis of imperialism); I think it's probably premature to say that Keynesianism has replaced neoliberalism—that seems, to me, to be an outcome of the class struggle (and it's also unclear whether Keynesianism was ever "dominant" or what the exact content of neoliberalism is)—and, in the first place, the relevance of this point is unclear; and, finally, it seems highly uncertain in what precise sense the United States is the dominant imperialist power, how long this conjuncture will continue to last, and how exactly that would invalidate Lenin's analysis of imperialism (there is a great text by a guy called Alec Abbott which can be found here; in pretty fine detail it goes over, from a Leninist perspective, the question of whether we really are in an epoch of ultra-imperialism thanks to the US' primus inter pares status). 

I now want to address the authors’ argument that the “M-L canon” is too often presented out-of-context and with minimal updates, demonstrating that the canon is of conjunctural, historical relevance but not of great relevance to the present day. I should begin by saying that I do think that the lack of context given for older texts in that one, specific study guide on Reddit is bad pedagogy, but I also think that this online study guide is probably not broadly representative of the internal education policy of these groups (I know that it isn't for at least one), where older members and people who know this history can often supply that crucial background knowledge; it would be a major publishing undertaking to provide that kind of annotated study guide, although it’s something that I have finally begun myself for a specific subset of the M-L “canon”). I agree with the authors that the exclusion from the one specific Reddit canon of newer writers like Samir Amin is lamentable (again, setting aside that this does not characterize very adequately, in my view, the attitude of actual *parties* to newer analysis), but I again think they’d do better to argue exactly why authors should be included (such as Etienne Balibar who is a philosopher and, aside from his interesting work on global racism with Immanuel Wallerstein, seems like he doesn’t have much to say which is of direct relevance to the US communist left). To argue for a more expansive canon sounds intuitively appealing when pitched at a high level of abstraction, but for the critique to really have teeth, I think a specific critique should argue for adding certain people for certain reasons (I do think the arguments for adding Ho or Gramsci or Luxemburg are fairly self-evident, although it should be noted that Luxemburg sharply disagreed with the Bolsheviks on a number of questions and that Gramsci, though a consistent Leninist, is simply difficult to read in a way that Ho, who I know for a fact appears on one of the candidacy reading lists of one of the parties mentioned, is not—I don’t think this means that people should ignore Gramsci or Luxemburg, but it does mean that it is not a great crime, in my view, to set them aside in some contexts). Let me also note that the critique of the line-centrism made earlier is to some degree in tension with the argument that organizers in M-L parties unduly restrict their canon or are movementists in the sense that they do not reflect adequately on their strategies—to add more and more authors to the canon is to add more and more things to debate lines on (if we are to take seriously the suggestion that we add, for instance, two people who think exactly-opposite things to the canon).

Much of their critique feels sort of formalistic and procedural in this specific sense: the authors advocate for more diversity in terms of what kind of analysis and strategy communist activists should consider, and that’s desirable in the abstract, but they bring together under that heading a jumble of examples of other traditions which are either already well-covered by the expansive vision of Marxism-Leninism that characterizes WWP, PSL, and FRSO, or ones which are, at the end of the day, not compatible with one another because the traditions in question are directly opposed on key questions: “autonomism & operaismo, Marxist-feminism, [and] pre-war social democracy”. I’ve never encountered a single person claiming to advocate Leninism, in roughly eight years of being around people who call themselves that, who thought that Marxist-feminism was anything but of the highest importance, and of course, it’s almost impossible to study Lenin without simultaneously studying pre-war social democracy; anyone who’s read Lenin has, in a partial sense, studied the shortcomings and successes of pre-war social democracy (also, surely if M-L is conjuncturally dated, so, too, is the pre-war SPD). And, finally, it’s something of a contradiction in terms to ask Marxist-Leninists to study operaismo since one of the foundational analyses of Leninism as a political practice and analysis is that approaches such as operaismo are ultimately premised on mistaken analyses (Lenin didn’t live to see this tendency but he was very familiar with some of its precursors). That doesn’t mean it’s without merit—I recommend Bologna’s work on Marx as a crisis theorist and the electoral base of fascism to many people, for instance. But to say that communists must take an interest, necessarily, in this long-dead variant of the workers’ movement (which did not prove to be any kind of silver bullet—of course, its major theorist Tronti ultimately rejoined the PCI and has since become an open defeatist); we simply don’t have the time to study every last possible strategic analysis that exists. I again think that it would be far preferable for the authors to advocate the specific reasons why this analysis is important and how communists can learn from it even though the authors also advocate learning from Lenin, some of whose key precepts are actually, in a way, pre-emptive critiques of the very basis of operaismo (I agree that it would be good for Marxist-Leninist parties to have some people around who study or know this historical material, but it seems unduly onerous for all cadre to know this material). I think it’s good to study everything that we can, but at the end of the day, either Lenin was right or the autonomists were right—we simply have to draw lines, even if “drawing lines” just means “pursuing this strategy and not another”. There is no way to believe A and ¬A, dialectics aside. As I said earlier, I think their recommendations here are formalistic: it’s good and well to advocate greater diversity in an abstract sense, and we of course all agree on the maximum diversity possible in terms of our “canon”, but the devil really is in the details of what is “possible”. Some of their suggestions in this regard seem aimed to ask Marxist-Leninists to simply not be Marxist-Leninists (but their post doesn’t exactly offer a general or comprehensive critique of Marxism-Leninism, which I believe would have made for a more consistent essay). 

While the essay offers an interesting historical overview of the Marxist-Leninist movement at present, it is ultimately premised on what I think is a very formal and, to put a finer point on it, simply vague criticism. The authors close their essay by arguing that “in the U.S. in 2018, the truly important theoretical tasks have not been solved” but what these tasks are is left unstated as far as I can tell, let alone what kinds of answers might need to be supplied. Even just a rough sketch of the type of question to which this pronouncement refers would have made it easier for people to engage the essay in a more nuanced fashion, I think. As I noted above, it would have been better to simply argue clearly and directly against Leninism as a theory of the epoch of imperialism outright (the essay comes close to being, but is not, that); instead, the argument is often couched in procedural terms (the form of organization is wrong, the willingness to draw lines is wrong, the selective reading of texts and general seeking of a correct analysis rather than as many analyses as possible is wrong) rather than in concrete, substantial terms. I think the essay would have benefited from simply being more precise on these questions: why exactly does the non-existence of the Eastern Bloc, which didn’t exist when Lenin lived, matter? How, precisely? Why is it that it actually does not matter whether people in the imperialist countries argue against the war on Syria and spread antiwar propaganda? What, then, should communists do? How is it that Draper’s quasi-Bolshevik advice, which is recapitulated on the last page, can be reconciled with a DSA whose merits, in the opinion of the authors, are that it is has no effective national unity or consistency among locals? Despite some points about concrete strategy and political practice throughout the essay which are worth taking seriously, ultimately the essay aims for a very general case against Leninism (and, I would argue, communism and Marxism, given what the authors write about the dictatorship of the proletariat, although I don’t think the authors would agree with this reading) but fails to make that coherent case beyond highly impressionistic sketches of history.

J. Seratsky, 12 Mar 2018.

[kilieit]

Also here’s my Hot Take... which is actually really a pretty Cold Take by now because I have been saying exactly what I’m about to say since the very first thread on the RPC, from shortly after the lore book came out, that tried to claim Doman and Eorzean were two dialects of the same language.

This post focusses solely on the lore viability of the concepts involved, and should be taken in conjunction with a note from lore mom that was made back in June.

The bit I’ve been saying since the lore book came out:

The quote from the lore book that people took to mean “all Raen were raised speaking Eorzean, therefore Eorzean must be the native language in Doma” was taken out of context, to an illogical conclusion. All the quote said was words to the effect that “most Raen speak [Eorzean], though their usage is a bit odd, leaving most people to believe it’s a dialect”.

The lore book quote in question did not state that Eorzean is the Raen people’s first language, or their only language. It merely stated that most Raen know Eorzean. All along, I stated that I had interpreted this passage to mean that since the advent of magitek, Eorzean had been adopted by native peoples in the East as a trade language, and that they likely also had their own local/native language that they spoke when not in the presence of the scholars of Eorzean origin who “wrote” the lore book.

In fact, in the very same lore book, there was another passage that already contradicted the “dialect interpretation” of the one above. In the section on geography, there is a passage which describes Othard as having been cut off completely by impassable mountains from the more western continents for literal thousands of years on end, developing its own cultures independently in the mean time, before being reunited with its western counterparts only at the advent of magitek, ~60 years ago (i.e. within living memory).

Separate culture development for 2000+ years, + same language with minor differences... = does not compute. It’d be like expecting people from modern-day countries to be able to read documents from their country dating back to 17, CE without any help from historians, and there we’re only talking about time as a barrier. Not distance as well.

So then some people tried to say, “well, maybe Hydaelyn has a universal language constant! Maybe language develops differently on Hydaelyn and it is possible to keep languages constant for 2000+ years across two sides of an impenetrable barrier! You don’t know it isn’t!”

Except we don’t even need Occam’s Razor for this one. (Yes, that’s me asking Sounsyy that question, specifically because of this debate.) Not to mention the countless references to the Echo’s power to transcend language barriers as a useful, important thing, even in the lore book itself. So that theory was a non-starter. Why would the language comprehension component of the Echo matter at all if there were no different languages to be comprehended?

Essentially, once taken in proper context with the rest of the lore book, my interpretation of the now-infamous raen quote - that a lot of raen learned Eorzean as a trade language, but also have their own local/native languages that aren’t Eorzean - becomes the most logical interpretation of the presented facts.

The new bit:

PAX West Panel Video + Transcript

Because people have been taking lore quotes out of context. Again. It’s bad scholarship and it’s not cute, especially when it’s used to try and tell other people they’re RPing wrong.

Like - lore policing is bad. Lore policing is hilariously bad when the lore you’re trying to use to police people with is incorrect. So let’s let Lore Mom’s note sort the first thing out, and my continuation of this post sort the second thing out (under note #3 of aforementioned Lore Mom post).

Here’s the thing that people have been using to “prove” that Doman “is” a dialect of Eorzean (emphasis mine):

Q: Does "Doman" or "Hingan" exist as completely separate languages?

A: First question, no, they [*] are not exactly separate languages. You can think of them kinda as American English and British English.

Except this goes on to say:

A: The first one being that origin language, the second one being of that land going to another land, using that language, but being separated long enough that words and pronunciations started changing a little bit. People from both lands [*] will pretty much understand what both are saying.

[*] both lands/languages that were mentioned, i.e., Doma and Hingashi

The mention of “[people] of that land going to another land”... because the Far East developed completely separately until very recently, historically speaking (within living memory!), that means there was no “Eorzean people going to the Far East” until, again, within living memory. The mention that words and pronunciations had started changing between the two dialects being discussed implies that the change took place relatively recently, but still long enough ago for those distortions to have taken place - and that until it did, the native people of the land which was travelled to must have been speaking something else... right?

For comparison, Christopher Columbus sailed to America in 1492, 525 years ago. British English and American English have taken ~500 years to get to the stage they’re at now, where they’re separate but comprehensible dialects used ubiquitously across two landmasses on either side of a traversible ocean. Since it’s the example Koji used, I’m going to use that rough timescale - ~500 years between first contact and modern day - as a stand-in until we can ascertain more concrete information about the history of the nations on Othard.

Now, which of these two scenarios seems most likely:

Eorzeans began travelling to the Far East ~60 years ago (for comparison: 60 years ago in the real world = 1957) thanks to advancement in both air- and sea-shipping technology. They began speaking their language over there, which was immediately adopted by everyone who lived in the Far East, to the exclusion of the other languages they used before. Everyone in the Far East now speaks a dialect of Eorzean, and has forgotten the languages they were speaking before then, rendering them non-existent. The names once used for those languages, Doman and Hingan, are now used to refer to dialects of Eorzean. OR:

~500+ years ago, Domans and Hingans began sailing across the small Ruby Sea separating them, making contact with one another and intermingling. Due to the close proximity of their countries and the likelihood of trade and/or war between them, a common language was developed, or arose naturally out of contact between the two peoples. Over time, this common language grew in use, although its usage differed on each side of the Ruby Sea; these dialects became known as modern-day Doman and modern-day Hingan.

So... it seems Koji (mis)interpreted this question as asking whether Doman and Hingan are separate languages from each other. NOT whether they’re separate languages from Eorzean. (The fact he interpreted it this way at all kind of speaks to how obvious it is to the developers that Eorzean is a separate language from Doman-Hingan - it didn’t even occur to him as a thing there could be a question over.)

Furthermore, the fact that Koji answered the question describing the mechanism - similar to real-life language development mechanisms - by which Doman and Hingan became separate languages, when separated by a comparatively small ocean, which is frequently crossed by traders... completely puts to bed the idea of “Eorzean and Doman-Hingan would remain the same across a barrier of thousands of miles and two thousand plus years” as a sensible or viable theory.

There is no precedence for Doman-Hingan to be the same language as Eorzean. There are now multiple pieces of evidence pointing very strongly towards the idea that they are separate languages.

The next section of the question was about localisation (emphasis is, again, mine):

Q: Would speaking Japanese in-game count as speaking "Hingan"? A: As for whether speaking Japanese in the game equates to Hingan, I mean, that one's kinda tough. I mean, Japanese users kinda already speak Japanese in the game, but that kinda equates to Eorzean, which is Japanese to the Japanese version, but then Hingan is almost indiscernible from Eorzean [in the Japanese client for the game]. And the Japanese version both being Japanese, so if a Japanese user in the English uses the Japanese, is he speaking Eorzean or is he speaking Hingan...? Whatever! Let's just say using Romajified Japanese on the English client is Hingan... or not, you decide. Hai.

Essentially, the question here is about whether Hingan is a 1:1 analogy to modern Japanese, and, therefore, could you use modern Japanese in-game to represent Hingan? And the answer is... “sort of”.

Essentially... let’s take an example character. His name is Frances and he’s a midlander hyur, born and raised in the Black Shroud. He’s never travelled abroad. And he’s roleplayed by Japanese player, playing on a Japanese server.

In-character, Frances is speaking Eorzean. But his player is speaking Japanese when they roleplay Frances. Does this mean that, because the player is speaking Japanese when they roleplay Frances, that Frances is actually speaking Hingan? No! Frances is speaking Eorzean, because Frances’ player says so.

Let’s take another example character. Her name is Sakura and she’s a raen au ra, born and raised in Hingashi. She’s never travelled abroad. And she’s roleplayed by an American player, playing on a North American server.

Sakura’s player wants to represent some of Sakura’s speech authentically. Setting aside the etiquette and/or ethics of doing so for a moment - Sakura’s player decides to learn a little Japanese, and try to portray Sakura as speaking Hingan via using/practicing their Japanese. Does this mean that, because the player is speaking Japanese when they roleplay Sakura, that Sakura is actually speaking Hingan? Yes! Because Sakura’s player says so.

Lastly, let’s take a third example character. His name is Tatane and he’s a dunesfolk lalafell, born and raised in Ul’dah. He’s never travelled abroad. And he’s roleplayed by a Japanese player, playing on a North American server.

Because the player is Japanese, they speak mostly Japanese when roleplaying Tatane. But they’re not doing it to try and make it so Tatane is speaking Hingan. They’re doing it to try and express themself in their OOC native language. So does this mean that, because the player is speaking Japanese when they roleplay Tatane, that Tatane is actually speaking Hingan? “Whatever! [...] You decide.” In other words, no; because Tatane’s player says so.

That’s the type of scenario that Koji was trying to clear up with his answer here. Essentially, not all players roleplaying in Japanese will always be roleplaying their characters as speaking Hingan, because some players are Japanese. So, no, Japanese isn’t a 1:1 to Hingan in that sense. Not every character who speaks Japanese in-game will always be doing it to represent Hingan. And since in the JPN localisation there’s no real way to differentiate between Hingan and Eorzean, you can’t look for other clues. Essentially, ask before assuming - and my personal recommendation: perhaps find clearer ways, less open to ambiguity, to represent your (presumably English-speaking self’s) character speaking Hingan.

--

TL;DR:

Doman and Hingan are two dialects of the same language. Eorzean is a separate language from both.

If you read quotes from the lore book and the recent PAX West lore panel closely and in context, then this fact about the game’s lore becomes clear.

So, please stop claiming official lore states Eorzean and Doman-Hingan are the same language. Perhaps that was an understandable interpretation in the past, but it’s not any more.

If you’re interested in being lore-accurate, then you need to at least make your content compatible with the idea of Doman-Hingan as a separate language from Eorzean. And regardless, you shouldn’t be pushing your interpretation of lore on people who didn’t ask for it. Like random roleplayers you meet in-game.

Lastly, although Romajified Japanese can be used to represent Hingan if you like, Japanese could also be being used by genuinely Japanese players to express themselves. So, you can’t necessarily assume that all characters speaking Japanese in-game are trying to roleplay as speaking Hingan. As with all roleplay: if you aren’t sure, ask the player for clarification. OOC communication is key!

[libertariantaoist]

The latest attack in London – the third to hit Britain within  seventy-five days – is once again provoking a debate about the relationship  between Islam and terrorism. On one side we have those who say Islam is inherently  violent, and is incompatible with the basic canons of Western civilization.  On the other side, we have liberals who say that this is a libel on an entire  religion, and that advocates of religious violence are a distinct minority within  the Muslim faith.

These two views have distinct policy implications: the former would impose  what amounts to a Muslim ban on travel to Western countries, and would furthermore  mandate State surveillance of mosques and other religious institutions of that  faith. The latter stance would oppose these measures, and proceed as if Muslims  posed the same danger to us as, say, Presbyterians, i.e. none at all.

Both views are simplistic nonsense. Furthermore, neither offers an effective  policy to deal with the problem as defined.

The origins of Islamic terrorism are not in dispute: the idea that “they hate  us because we’re free,” i.e. because of our secular values and Western lifestyle,  was not even worth considering, at least initially. After all, Japan, for example,  which is not exactly an exemplar of Islamic values, has never been attacked  by Islamic extremists. South America has proved similarly immune. The focus  of the Islamists’ wrath has been on the United States and Western Europe – not  coincidentally, those countries which have a long history of intervention in  the Muslim world.

Which brings us to the theory of “blowback,” the  idea that the root cause of radical Islamic terrorism is simple retaliation.  Here the writings of Chalmers Johnson, whose book, entitled Blowback;  The Costs and Consequences of American Empire, was published before  9/11, and also of Robert  Pape, who has done yeomen’s work on this issue, are very useful. Johnson  put the concept in its historical context, and Pape shows, with extensive detailed  evidence, that occupied peoples routinely adopt such tactics as suicide bombings  to fight the overwhelming presence of occupiers. And this is not limited to  Islamists, by any means: the Tamil Tigers, fighting for the “liberation” of  Sri Lanka, for example, employed these same tactics.

And so the “blowback” concept, in its pure form, avers that this isn’t about  religion, but about resistance: the resistance of a militarily weak insurgency  against an occupying power that exerts overwhelming force. Adherents of this  theory point to the statements of the terrorists themselves, principally al-Qaeda,  which declared  that the presence of US troops on the “sacred” soil of Saudi Arabia motivated  – and justified  –  the 9/11 attacks. Aside from that, they point to other examples  of Western imperialism – the invasion and occupation of Iraq, US support to  Muslim despots, and the ongoing “war on terrorism” that, from their perspective,  is a war on Islam.

So it’s all very cut and dried, simple really – but is it?

It’s been sixteen years since the 9/11 attacks, long enough for a strand of  Islam to emerge that views terrorism against Western targets as a religious  duty. Furthermore, the radical Islamist critique of Western values and lifestyle  as morally corrupt has been integrated into the purely consequentialist idea  of “blowback” as retaliation for specific actions. Because it can surely be  argued – especially by religious ideologues  –  that a society capable of killing  hundreds of thousands in, say, Iraq, is inherently depraved. Given the  theory of “blowback,” this merging of a typically anti-colonialist narrative  with a moral critique was inevitable. And to give it a religious angle wasn’t  difficult. After all, in the years since September 11, 2001, have the US and  its allies attacked any non-Muslim countries?

And it’s not as if there aren’t elements within orthodox Islam that need only  elaboration to legitimize this mutant variation. The very concept of jihad,  and the storied history of Islamic conquerors who “converted” new adherents  by force, feed into this frenzied fundamentalism, which seeks to return to a  “purer” form of Mohammed’s creed. Of course, one could point to similarly aggressive  tendencies in Christianity, as well as other faiths, and yet the missing element  here is a history of military occupation and conflict.

Religious belief, like all human concepts, isn’t static: it undergoes changes  in response to events. It adapts, it mutates, it evolves. Christianity changed  in response to the advance of science: Galileo is no longer considered a heretic.  Judaism was transformed by the Holocaust: Zionism, yesterday embraced by a tiny  minority of Jews, is dominant today. Islam is not immune to the tides of history.

Western liberals downplay this uncomfortable truth because they generally disdain  religion and fail to appreciate its power. They cannot understand how a person  could drive a truck into a crowd of pedestrians, and go on a stabbing spree,  while shouting “This is for Allah!” Allah, for them, is a delusion: religion  is a primitive throwback, a reactionary atavism that is on its way out. Yet  this is hardly true in most areas of the world outside of the Global Metropolis.

The failure of Western liberal elites to acknowledge this reality – the reality  of a newly militant strand of Islam that upholds terror as a sacred duty – is  linked to their appeasement of the Saudis. For years the Kingdom has exported  its austere version of Islam, Wahabism, which serves as the theological foundations  of the very terrorist movement we are supposedly pledged to fight.

A few days before the attack on London Bridge, the  news broke that an investigation into the sources of terrorist funding commissioned  by the government of former Prime Minister David Cameron would probably not  be published due to its “sensitive” nature: there’s too much evidence that the  Saudis are the principal financiers of terrorist organizations.

Britain recently signed off on a series of multi-billion dollar arms  deals with the Saudis: the US has done  the same, in a deal brokered by none other than the President’s son-in-law.  Meanwhile, Donald Trump travels to the Kingdom where an “anti-terrorist center”  is inaugurated  – by the very folks who are funding radical Islamic terrorism worldwide.

The West has done everything possible to encourage the growth and development  of radical Islamic terrorism, from invading the Muslim world to succoring and  supporting the state sponsors of terrorist organizations. We armed and funded  Islamic extremists in Syria in a bid to overthrow the secular despotism of Bashar  al-Assad – and then wondered how and why returnees from that conflict took their  holy war to the streets of Europe’s cities. One wouldn’t have acted any differently  if the goal had been to deliberately create a terrorist menace.

And what is the solution offered by our rulers? British Prime Minister Theresa  May says  we must regulate the Internet, which is now supposedly a “safe space” for terrorists:

"We cannot allow this ideology the safe space it needs to breed – yet  that is precisely what the Internet, and the big companies that provide Internet-based  services provide. We need to work with allies democratic governments to reach  international agreements to regulate cyberspace to prevent the spread of extremist  and terrorism planning.”

The British government already regulates the Internet and its powers have been  used primarily to quash alleged anti-Muslim sentiment: you can be arrested  and charged with a “hate crime” for saying the wrong thing about Islam on  Twitter or in a blog post. The “Investigatory  Powers Act” was passed by Parliament in November: it requires Internet providers  to maintain a list of web sites visited by all Internet users for up to a year,  and also gives the government broad powers to intercept communications. May  wants to internationalize this regulation.

It’s hard to believe that May and her cohorts really think this will have the  least effect on terrorist activities. It’s clearly just a pretext to regulate  a phenomenon that threatens the powers-that-be. Rather than combat terrorism,  the idea is to extend the authority of government as far as they can get away  with – and, as the terrorist wave rises, there’s no telling how far they will  go.

Not only are Western governments uninterested in actually stopping terrorism,  but the terrible truth is that there is no stopping it. Some problems  have no solution, and this is one of them. We can wipe out ISIS in Syria, but  they will scatter worldwide, returning as “refugees” to the cities of their  enemies. We can restrict travel, reject Muslim immigrants: and yet the second  and third generations, already embedded in Western societies, will take up their  cause. We can spy on our own citizens, regulate the Internet within an inch  of its life, restrict “hate speech,” bomb more Muslim countries – and still  the monster’s tentacles will wriggle through the interstices and grasp at our  throats.

This is what we have unleashed on ourselves: a monster that won’t be killed.  The idea that we cannot live with this is akin to the idea that we cannot live  with our own history: it is an idea without meaning. The past is prologue: it  won’t be repealed or denied. We invaded Iraq. We invaded Afghanistan. We funded  and armed al-Qaeda during the cold war, in league with our Saudi allies, while  Riyadh spread its ideology of hate on a global scale.

In Greek mythology, the figure of Nemesis dramatizes our current  predicament: she is the goddess of retribution, whose name is “derived from the Greek words nemêsis and nemô, meaning ‘dispenser of  dues.’” She pursues her quarry relentlessly, visiting on them the consequences  of their deeds.

Her  pursuit can be ameliorated, albeit not finally and immediately ended, by reversing  our course of futile wars – in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. – and ending our  alliance with the mandarins of terror in Riyadh and the sheikdoms of the Gulf.  Yet still the monster will live: it cannot be slain by conventional means  –    it will have to die a natural death. The best we can do is to stop prolonging  its life.

[the-everqueen]

i don't know a mbti but Release The "Alexander Hamilton Is An ENFP" Essay

so for those of you unfamiliar with myers briggs, mbti is a method for determining personality types based on four dualities: Extroverted vs. Introverted, Sensing vs. Intuition, Thinking vs. Feeling, Judging vs. Perceiving. i’ll touch on aspects of each as i defend my position, but you should know there are 16 possible outcomes. since it’s a theory, the purpose is to describe basic functions of personality, not explain or determine behavior.

(obvious disclaimer here: i believe people are more complicated than can be described in four letters, and i reject the reductionist version of mbti some people propose, as though all ENFPs are exactly the same. obviously people with a similar approach to thought may demonstrate other similarities, but individuals also have infinite variation among them. also very important: myers briggs does not account for certain complicating factors. for instance, i believe historical Hamilton likely had ptsd from his multiple childhood traumas - in the musical, “Hurricane” isn’t an ENFP being “impulsive” per the stereotypes, but Hamilton reliving the two most traumatic events in his past and then taking action based on an “all or nothing” logic seen in trauma survivors. personality doesn’t always determine behavior.)

all that being said, here’s my breakdown for Hamilton being an ENFP:

Extroverted: most people won’t dispute me on this one. the idea behind Extrovert vs. Introvert is that the former get their energy from people and outside stimulation, while the latter lose energy from outside stimulation and require time alone to “recharge.” extroverts tend to come off as “people persons,” a description that applies to Hamilton. Chernow describes him as “outgoing” (… an understatement), and he made numerous friends and kept a wide social circle throughout his life (compare to James Madison, a definite introvert, who was described as shy, unassuming, quiet, scholarly, and withdrawn).

Intuitive: a lot of people label Intuition as “creativity” or “mystical insight,” which i think is utter bullshit. i would describe it as “future-oriented,” not in the sense of general goals (going to college, getting a job, going to the store on Friday), but in broader terms, i.e., envisioning what will or should happen and taking action as though that future is certain. this goes hand-in-hand with what people tend to call Hamilton’s rampant ambition: his letter to Edward Stevens at 14 shows him projecting into a possible future where he can rise above his “grovelling” life as a clerk through extraordinary events. (he’s also wildly romantic about it, a trait often ascribed to ENFPs, and seen in his later letters to Laurens and Eliza.) between staircase!gate and Yorktown, he writes the letter “that set forth a full-fledged system for shoring up American credit and creating a national bank.” (Chernow, 156): the War isn’t over but he’s thinking years ahead in terms of action that needs to be taken. same in regard to revising the Articles of Confederation - most people recognized the flaws in the system but Hamilton and Madison (another N personality) are foremost credited with seeing an overhaul would be necessary, and even that the small Annapolis Convention would lead to greater action. Hamilton’s Report on the Public Credit takes the current problem of American finances and provides a long-term solution, but more than that he uses the present issue to address potential future problems. 

(a bit of a note here: sometimes biographers credit Hamilton with a level of prescience that’s not really fair. Hamilton wasn’t the only one to see problems with the government during and after the war, and he modeled his solutions on pre-existing British and Scottish theories. what’s impressive, to me, is that he could pinpoint the larger problem behind seemingly separate incidences and adapt theories to a uniquely American context. it seems obvious in hindsight but wasn’t necessarily at the time.)

Feeler: Thinking vs. Feeling boils down to “do you make decisions based Cold Hard Logic or Emotion?” that’s an over-simplification, obviously: Thinkers can be passionate and emotive, and Feelers can be logical. but in his early articles (and more polemic essays later in his political career), Hamilton tends to appeal to general emotion. actually in all of his writings there’s a thread of personalized values underlying his arguments - his statements on Burr, leading up to the duel, come to mind: someone who has honor and beliefs, even if they’re wrong, is a better choice than someone who is “amoral,” even if that person might be more malleable to his political party. even if you argue that personal honor was a real and concrete facet of masculinity in the 18th century (which i’m not denying), Hamilton wasn’t exactly pragmatic in challenging the entire Democratic Republican party to a duel. 

Perceiving: i honestly don’t understand why the terms Judging vs. Perceiving were chosen, because they are not helpful. basically J types are supposed to be incredibly organized, and P types are go-with-the-flow and shit planners. i take issue with this, mostly because i’m an INFJ who can’t stand color-coded systems and who sucks at putting together events. in regard to Hamilton, the biggest evidence (for me) that he was a P type is his flexibility in terms of achieving his personal goals: he sought glory and legacy, but the means to achieve that changed over the course of his life. he originally went to school for medicine but ended up pursuing law studies later on; he initially encouraged reconciliation with Britain but changed his stance when it became evident a break must happen; he took on the job as Washington’s aide-de-camp rather than wait to be advanced through the ranks of artillery; he defended the Constitution despite the flaws he saw in it, because he supported the larger ideal behind it; he served in various government positions not always related to finance. so he had a broad vision for himself and the nation, and ideals he would not compromise, but the means to achieve those weren’t necessarily set in stone. 

final note: this is my opinion, based on reading multiple biographies, listening to lectures, and reading Hamilton’s own writings. thanks to Burr, Hamilton isn’t around to dispute me. you’re totally free to disagree or add your reasoning to the argument.  

[esprit-de-corps-magazine]

CHALLENGE & COMMITMENT LOST: Part 2: 1987 Defence White Paper Wish List Whacks RCN

One does not have to read far into the report to understand that, of all the services, the Royal Canadian Navy had most to gain as a direct result of the 1987 White Paper, titled Challenge and Commitment: A Defence Policy for Canada. Likewise, the Navy had the most, potentially, to lose especially when it came to procurement.

And, 30 years later, whether this generation of sailor, procurement manager or policy maker realizes it or not, the Royal Canadian Navy is still dealing with the effects of the demise of two noteworthy procurement programs that came in the wake of the 1987 White Paper.

It was the intention of the government at the time that, by 2002, the operational core of the Royal Canadian Navy was as a minimum to consist of the 12 Halifax-class patrol frigates, 4 Iroquois-class (also known as Tribal-class) destroyers and 10 to 12 nuclear-powered submarines. By 2002, the Sea Kings were supposed to be retired to the museums and replaced by 35 EH101 helicopters in a maritime role with an additional 15 variants modified to a search and rescue role.

What converted this dream to today’s Royal Canadian Navy reality?

“Defence procurement is always controversial because it is very expensive. And when you set out the numbers, you have to include the life span of at least the initial contract and that has to include maintenance, training, all that kind of stuff,” says Rt. Hon Kim Campbell, who served briefly as Prime Minister in 1993 and previously as defence minister in Brian Mulroney’s Progressive Conservative government. “But it also means that, in the political context, it is much easier for people to take this and make it a baseball bat to hit you with.”

Added to this is the historical framework within which Canadian defence white papers are typically conceived and written.

“When the ‘87 White Paper was brought out nobody expected that the Soviet Union would fall — it was two years out,” says Joel Sokolsky, professor of political science at the Royal Military College of Canada. “So this was typical of many white papers as a reflection of years preceding.”

And though territorial sovereignty was clearly emphasized in the 1987 White Paper, the context within which much of Canada framed and focused that sovereignty on was the Cold War as it existed at the time. Take away that frame and the focus, and our vision of sovereignty and the substance becomes blurred.

Added to this were the vague financial commitments in the White Paper.

“They were never committed,” says Joseph Jockel, professor and Chair of Canadian Studies at St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York. “You can see that in the White Paper itself, that incredibly namby-pamby financial commitment was a signal to the entire world that they weren’t fully behind it.”

Nonetheless, the initial buzz of the 1987 White Paper brought a flurry of debate and analysis in Canada’s major defence publications of the time. When it came to the ambitious nuclear submarine program, the assumed threat — back then as today — was Russian Arctic intrusion. However, when it came to nuclear submarines (SSN) as the optimum response, the naval defence community was not necessarily in agreement.

Writing for the Canadian Defence Quarterly (CDQ) in the winter of 1988, retired Rear-Admiral F.W. Crickard, a former deputy commander for Maritime Command, stated that “because of restrictions imposed on ASW [anti-submarine warfare] operations by geography and by the environment, only nuclear-fuelled submarines (or those not totally dependent on the atmosphere) can prosecute contacts gained by fixed sensors of an effective Canadian defence against submarine threats.”

S. Mathwin Davis, yet another retired rear-admiral writing for CDQ in the autumn of 1987, sought to remind those concerned that the RCN had been down this path before. In the late 1950s a nuclear submarine survey team had been established to assess the feasibility of nuclear submarines. Although the team found the option feasible, it nonetheless “emerged that this project was likely to be too demanding financially” and “that conventional (i.e., diesel electric) boats would be first class A/S weapons for some years to come.”

The jury certainly still seemed out as Professor R.B. Byers pointed out in the same issue that “neither the critics nor the proponents have addressed sufficiently the SSN issue within the broader contexts of Canada’s sea power requirements for the early part of the 21st century. The White Paper offers a number of rationales, but the debate has barely begun.”

But according to Jockel, there was no such debate in the U.S. Navy when it came to Canada acquiring nuclear submarines.

“The U.S. Navy was dead set against this,” states Jockel. “One of the motivations was it obliged the U.S. Navy to share information. And secondly it had enormous doubts about the capability of the Canadian Navy to maintain a nuclear submarine program.”

Meanwhile, the 1987 White Paper’s political handlers were under pressure on a variety of fronts.

“Prime Minister Mulroney did not get rid of the deficit; he had the Free Trade Agreement which was a liability,” says Sokolsky. “There wasn’t a lot of public support and people were linking the White Paper, which was pretty hawkish, as simply slavish pro-Reagan, and Mulroney’s friendship with Reagan was also a liability.”

In 1989 the SSN program was cancelled. Yet, the political and public opposition to new naval procurement programs was not restricted to those like the SSN, which might be seen as pushing the strategic boundaries.

With a generation of use and a well-known maritime search and rescue role, some might have thought that the plan to begin replacing the aging CH-124 Sea Kings and CH-113 Labradors between 1995 and 2002 was a “no brainer.” Yet, the fog of partisan politics was destined to skew logic.

“The decision had been made to try and use the same aircraft for both shipborne and search and rescue with the idea that that would reduce the overall cost,” says Campbell. “And the thing about the EH101 I remember when I inherited the file was that every time people would get up and start haranguing, ‘Why are we having these Cadillac aircraft?’”

What was the opposition’s definition of a flying “Cadillac” on the eve of the 1993 election?

Writing in CDQ in spring of 1988, Major M.W. Fielding of the CAF’s New Shipborne Aircraft Project Management Office listed the intended missions of shipborne aircraft as anti-submarine warfare, search and rescue, medical evacuation, vertical replenishment, and anti-ship surveillance and targeting. According to Fielding, the EH101 was a good choice based on its engine capacity, and range and operability in icy conditions. The definition phase of the intended Sea King replacement was to be complete by the end of 1989 with first flight and first delivery coming in 1992 and 1994 respectively.

The initial order to AugustaWestland, the manufacturers of the EH101, was for 35 operational EH101s and 15 search and rescue variants that, when combined, were to cost $5.8-billion.

But as the Progressive Conservative mandate came to an end, the Soviet Union was collapsing, and the economy was in a deep recession. With increasing calls for a peace dividend, the helicopter purchase consistently popped up as a political lighting rod in the House of Commons.

“I actually provided briefings to anybody who wanted to come to see the different specifications of the different aircraft that had been considered,” says Campbell. “I would say, you are perfectly entitled to that question (Why are we buying those Cadillacs); please tell me which of the specifications you consider surplus? There was never an alternative. The Liberals had a strong left-wing element to their foreign policy and one of their things was now the Cold War is over, we now have a peace dividend.”

As pressure from her own party mounted, Prime Minister Campbell reduced the procurement to 28 operational and 15 search and rescue EH101s, which brought the price down to $4.4-billion.

“This was something from within my party that people felt this issue was hurting us,” she says. “I think it was a mistake, but it was one of those things that had become a political issue.”

Almost immediately after his landslide victory in October 1993, Prime Minister Jean Chrétien cancelled the contract paying some $500-million in penalties.

Meanwhile, variants of the EH101 went on to be used by Great Britain, Italy, Denmark, Japan and eventually Canada!

Five years after its cancellation and penalty payments, the Chrétien government arranged for the purchase of 15 CH-149 Cormorants, a variation of the EH101, from AugustaWestland. In November 2004, Paul Martin’s Liberal government announced the purchase of 28 CH-148 Cyclone helicopters as the ship-borne variant to replace the aging Sea Kings, with the first delivery expected in early 2009. However, changes in the design resulted in numerous delays and changes to the contract. The CH-148 Cyclone’s initial operational capability is now expected to occur in 2018, with full operational capability not being reached until 2025.

By that year, how long will it have been since the first planned Sea King replacement aircraft was supposed to fly? Just check the age of some of the Cyclone’s experienced pilots in 2025!

Today, as with most failed procurement plans, there is flagrant, almost Orwellian disassociation among political parties for decisions taken in the past that still impact the RCN.

In June 2017, ironically on the 30th anniversary of the introduction of the White Paper, the Liberal-dominated Standing Committee on National Defence published a report entitled The Readiness of Canada’s Naval Forces. Listening to the evidence of a multitude of expert witnesses, the Liberal report concludes that “our Navy must be a national priority” and that “we must not forget that we are building today the fleet of tomorrow and this must be done right.”

First among the Commons Defence Committee’s 22 recommendations is the somewhat hawkish statement “that the Government of Canada recognize that the readiness of the Royal Canadian Navy is one of its key pillars in ensuring national sovereignty and security, while simultaneously being aware that the aggressive actions by Russia and China in the maritime domain pose a direct threat to Canada and its interests.” The Liberal-dominated Committee also recommended “Canada begin the process of replacing Canada’s submarine fleet with the intention of increasing the size of the fleet with submarines that have under-ice capability.”

Yet when some of the report’s witnesses, including retired naval officers and academics, were asked about a future nuclear submarine option, they were quick to point out that it had been considered twice before and dropped for financial reasons.

“Admirals,” says Sokolsky, “are political realists whereas the government wasn’t.”

 Next month, Part 3: Reflecting on the integration of reserve and regular force in the decade following the 1987 White Paper.

[libertariantaoist]

A few libertarians and other principled opponents of the warfare state assured us we likely would sleep easier with Donald Trump, rather than any neoconservative or humanitarian interventionist, in the White House. How’s that working out? Not so well. I’m hoarding melatonin and buying stock in Lunesta.

In its opening days, the Trump administration has rattled the saber at Iran, China, and North Korea. This is hardly comforting, considering that pronouncements from Trump and his closest advisers could have come from the foreign-policy establishment he supposedly upended. If this is disruption, I’d hate to see what an embrace of The Consensus would look like. The possible appointment of Elliott Abrams, the quintessential neoconservative — architect of and apologist for mass murder in the Middle East — as deputy secretary of state is just one more sign that Peaceniks for Trump have been gulled.

What about Trump’s position on Russia? they will ask. What about it? Not taking Bill O’Reilly’s bait (transcript here) doesn’t count as being pro-peace, especially when Trump had his UN ambassador, Nikki Haley, warn that sanctions against Russia won’t be removed until Vladimir Putin relinquishes Crimea. Haley’s declaration was a reversal of Trump’s earlier, better (though flawed) position that sanctions would be tied to a mutual reduction of both countries’ nuclear arsenals. Now we’re back to the Obama position. One need not defend Russia’s move on Crimea (even if most inhabitants favored it) to see the context: the U.S.-engineered coup (backed by neo-Nazi elements) against Ukraine’s elected president in favor of a neocon favorite — not to mention the larger context, the decades-long expansion of NATO to the Russian border and incorporation of former Russian allies into the U.S-led sphere. Provocation begets counter-moves, which in the Ukrainian case were hardly surprising, considering the historical and strategic importance of Crimea to Russia. The Soviet Union is not being reconstructed.

As we’ll see, whatever good Trump has in mind regarding relations with Russia will be undercut by other attitudes he harbors, particularly his bellicosity toward Iran, Russia’s ally. When it comes time to choose between detente with Russia or confrontation with Iran, I have no confidence Trump will make the right choice.

It is fascinating, I will concede, to see the elite’s and its news media’s hysteria over Trump’s reference to America’s lack of innocence when discussing Putin’s alleged homicidal conduct. Presidents are not supposed to refer to such things (even if they are true). Unfortunately, Trump does not appear disturbed by the U.S. government’s lethal record and did not vow to change things. Moreover, “[t]he president wasn’t just suggesting that government is a morally gray business that always involves some violence and wrongdoing,” Jacob T. Levy writes. “In his comments, he seemed to give up on the idea that there is such a thing as wrongdoing at all.”

Trump’s amoralism aside, are we all really supposed to believe — or is it pretend — that government’s hands were not blood-stained from day one in America, notwithstanding sugared words? Is that what the civil religion requires — that we ignore the crimes against American Indians, Africans, Filipinos, Japanese, Germans, Koreans, Vietnamese, Latin Americans, Afghans, Iraqis, Pakistanis, Yemenis, Libyans, Somalis, and Syrians? And those are just direct victims of official U.S. atrocities. The list of atrocities merely enabled by American presidents and their henchmen is much longer. (For two examples see the cases of Bangladesh and East Timor.) The list of regime changes (Iran, 1953, most relevantly) and assassinations is also long. (I have not ventured into the government’s many domestic crimes, such as biological, chemical, and psychological experimentation on unwitting Americans.) A self-styled exceptional nation, a global empire, and the world’s arms merchant is bound to get its hands soiled.

That even hinting at this bloody history is forbidden tells us a lot about “secular” America. Trump’s blasphemy was especially egregious because he was discussing Russia, the anti-America. (For a more reasonable, realistic take on Russia, see the British conservative writer Peter Hitchens’s “The Cold War Is Over.”) The news media and the high priests of America’s civil religion could not condemn Trump’s insult to the Holy National Church — the American State — in harsh enough terms. (For details on America’s civil religion, see chapter 2 of William Cavanaugh’s The Myth of Religious Violence: Secular Ideology and the Roots of Modern Conflict.) Trump may want to strip the citizenship from and imprison those who burn the sacred flag, but that’s not enough for the defenders of the American faith, who contradictorily accuse him of endorsing both moral equivalence and moral relativism. (He can’t be doing both.) He must show he believes that America (i.e., the American State) is innocent — that all violence committed in its name was done so in a holy cause, unlike that of other nations (excluding Israel, of course, the other exceptional nation).

Not that Trump — who tries hard to look like a serious man who knows what he’s talking about — shows any sign of understanding this history (remember, he wants to make America great again) or of having any inclination to reverse course. When O’Reilly asked Trump to defend his statement that “We’ve got a lot of killers [too],” — O’Reilly had accused Putin of being a “killer” and therefore unworthy of Trump’s respect — all Trump could do was feebly name the “mistake” of the 2003 Iraq invasion (which he favored in the run-up). O’Reilly replied that mistakes are not comparable. Trump said: “A lot of mistakes, but a lot of people were killed. A lot of killers around, believe me.” Again, Trump didn’t condemn those killers. But also, Iraq was no mistake. It was a war of aggression and a violation of the Nuremberg principles. (Trump once said Americans were lied into Iraq, but then wimpily backed down when confronted by an offended veteran in South Carolina.)

Trump’s reply to O’Reilly was so bad it destroyed what might have been a valuable teaching moment. Instead, Trump looked like an idiot. He certainly did not help his objective to “get along with Russia.”

What he should have said is that the dramatic indignation at Putin’s crimes (whatever they are; evidence of his complicity is scant, although the number of killings is ominous and his regime is hardly liberty-friendly) is highly selective, that the U.S. government has a record of embracing brutal rulers (Egypt’s al-Sisi and Turkey’s Erdogan some to mind), and that Russia has a nuclear arsenal to match America’s, so the two countries ought to cooperate in getting rid of those monstrous weapons. When O’Reilly said, “I don’t know of any [American] government leaders that are killers,” Trump might have pointed out that, to take but one recent example, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Barack Obama drew up a list of people to be killed by drones every week. Trump might have also said that the botched raid in Yemen put him in the class of “government leaders that are killers.”

As noted, after Russia, it’s all downhill with Trump. He and his closest advisers are obsessed with Iran, which represents no threat to Americans and with whom, by the way, the U.S. government is tacitly allied in Iraq against the Islamic State. Iran has no nuclear-weapons program — never had one — and not much of a military, yet it has been continually threatened and subjected to covert warfare by the United States and Israel, the Middle East’s sole nuclear power. Saudi Arabia also has missiles that could hit Iran. So Iran’s claim that the mid-range missiles it’s testing are for deterrence is credible, and they violate no UN resolution. But Trump used the missile test as an occasion for saber-rattling: once again an American president has said that for Iran “all options are on the table.” If Trump is supposed to be such a disrupter of establishment foreign policy, why doesn’t he see that his demonization of Iran is absurdly dangerous and contrary to the interests of most Americans? Is it in part because the Israeli government needs to demonize the Islamic Republic in order to divert attention from its continued usurpation of Palestinian-owned land? Does it have something to do with keeping close relations with Saudi Arabia, the cradle of “radical Islamic terrorism”?

Now Trump is carrying his anti-Iran animus over to pathetic Yemen, scene of a two-year-old U.S.-enabled Saudi onslaught and siege, which is inflicting mass starvation among other unspeakable consequences. There is no excuse for the United States’ helping Saudi Arabia and its gulf allies to pulverize the poorest country in the Middle East. While on the one hand, the United States strikes at al-Qaeda there (the recent botched raid killed many noncombatants and cost one American Navy SEAL’s life), on the other it helps al-Qaeda by enabling the Saudi war on the Houthis, who are misleadingly portrayed as Iran’s agents. (The Houthis have in fact acted contrary to Iran’s wishes.) Trump national-security adviser Michael Flynn recently described a Houthi attack on a Saudi warship as an “Iranian action,” and press secretary Sean Spicer went further by charging, until corrected, that the attack was on an American ship. What advantage does Trump see in a confrontation and perhaps war with Iran?

Isn’t the incoherent and seemingly pointless intervention in Yemen just the sort of irrational policy Trump criticized in his campaign, however inarticulately? (Maybe it’s not really pointless: see Gareth Porter’s “Trump’s Hard Line on Iran Will Give Saudis Free Hand in Yemen.”) Enabling this destruction is yet another stain on America, and it supports Trump’s statement about the country’s lack of innocence — yet he’s the one now carrying it on.

We must also wonder if he has overlooked the fact that Russia, with which he says he wants to cooperate, is Iran’s ally and benefactor and that Iran is Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s ally. Laying off Assad and concentrating on the Islamic State, which Trump says he wants to do, will benefit Iran, just as the intervention in Iraq does. Then what? Has no adviser pointed out the collision course Trump is on?

Contrary to assurances from Trump’s pro-peace cheerleaders, his narcissism, petulance, and conceit provide strong grounds to fear his conduct of foreign policy. He has vowed to make America so powerful (at what price?) that “no one will mess with us.” But rather than being reassuring, that kind of talk should make us worry about what he will do when he believes that some head of state is testing him. Russia and Iran are not the sorts of countries that take well to being assigned their place in the world by any American president.

I’m not one for quoting Madison, but among his keenest insights was that war is the gravest of all threats to liberty because it contains the germs of all the others. Or as Randolph Bourne put it, “War is the health of the State.” Therefore stripping the U.S. government’s capacity to operate a global empire and to wage war anywhere everywhere should be our priority. Trump’s taunting of the foreign-policy establishment is so far unmatched by deeds; on the contrary, his conduct to date undermines the better parts of his message. Trump provides no reason to expect anything else.