Forwarded from Joel Davis (censored)
The Jewish political scientist Daniel Ziblatt cannot be studied enough by our guys. His thesis is that it is the strength of conservative parties to bind right-wing forces to the regime underneath elitist control which is vital to the stability of liberal democracy, the greatest threat to which is the organization of populist-authoritarian forces on the Right. Of course I can't help but notice the implicit assumption that the Right cannot be allowed to actually have grassroots organization because that would be "undemocratic" - for our judeo-liberal ruling class only the Left is allowed to have democracy.
"Ziblatt documents how conservative parties have repeatedly struggled to confront radical right-wing forces that pose challenges to democracy. And he articulates a theory for how all this contributed to the breakdown of democracy in 20th-century Germany and the blossoming of democracy in 19th-century Britain. Where conservatives in Western Europe have developed strong party organizations—maintaining control over the selection of candidates, the financing of campaigns, and the mobilization of grassroots activists—democracy has historically tended to be more stable."
In the book being discussed, Conservative Parties and the Birth of Democracy, a hard comparative distinction is drawn between conservatives in Britain and Germany during the 19th and early 20th Century. The basic thesis is that in the UK conservatives adapted to "democracy" whereas in Germany they didn't and this was one of the fundamental reasons why they ended up on such different political trajectories.
"There were these intervening years in the middle of the 1920s where you had relative stability [in the Weimar Republic] and these were also the years where the successor to the Conservative Party was doing well electorally. In 1928, they had a big electoral loss. There was a grassroots rebellion of the far-right who thought that the party leadership had been making too many concessions to the democratic order, and the party was taken over by this right-wing media mogul, Alfred Hugenberg, who pushed the party far to the right and began to open the door to the much further right, and sought out alliances with Hitler and the rising Nazi Party. The question becomes: Do these parties on the right ally with the very far right that are explicitly trying to overthrow the democratic system, or do they distance themselves? In this case, they clearly made the wrong choice.
Going back to 19th-century Britain there’s a positive case where conservatives played a critical role in helping support democracy. When conservatives in the 1880s signed onto a franchise extension because they thought they could win elections—they helped negotiate the Third Reform Act. And the Conservative Party, because it was a well-organized political party, thrived in the face of democratic changes."
The key mechanism for the strength of liberal democracy for Ziblatt is this "well-organized conservative political party" - and what he means by "well-organized" is a conservative party which maintains rigid loyalty to the regime against populist and authoritarian forces on the Right, which basically means a party and media machine controlled by elite financial interests who punch harder to the Right than to the Left. Sound familiar? [cont.]
"Ziblatt documents how conservative parties have repeatedly struggled to confront radical right-wing forces that pose challenges to democracy. And he articulates a theory for how all this contributed to the breakdown of democracy in 20th-century Germany and the blossoming of democracy in 19th-century Britain. Where conservatives in Western Europe have developed strong party organizations—maintaining control over the selection of candidates, the financing of campaigns, and the mobilization of grassroots activists—democracy has historically tended to be more stable."
In the book being discussed, Conservative Parties and the Birth of Democracy, a hard comparative distinction is drawn between conservatives in Britain and Germany during the 19th and early 20th Century. The basic thesis is that in the UK conservatives adapted to "democracy" whereas in Germany they didn't and this was one of the fundamental reasons why they ended up on such different political trajectories.
"There were these intervening years in the middle of the 1920s where you had relative stability [in the Weimar Republic] and these were also the years where the successor to the Conservative Party was doing well electorally. In 1928, they had a big electoral loss. There was a grassroots rebellion of the far-right who thought that the party leadership had been making too many concessions to the democratic order, and the party was taken over by this right-wing media mogul, Alfred Hugenberg, who pushed the party far to the right and began to open the door to the much further right, and sought out alliances with Hitler and the rising Nazi Party. The question becomes: Do these parties on the right ally with the very far right that are explicitly trying to overthrow the democratic system, or do they distance themselves? In this case, they clearly made the wrong choice.
Going back to 19th-century Britain there’s a positive case where conservatives played a critical role in helping support democracy. When conservatives in the 1880s signed onto a franchise extension because they thought they could win elections—they helped negotiate the Third Reform Act. And the Conservative Party, because it was a well-organized political party, thrived in the face of democratic changes."
The key mechanism for the strength of liberal democracy for Ziblatt is this "well-organized conservative political party" - and what he means by "well-organized" is a conservative party which maintains rigid loyalty to the regime against populist and authoritarian forces on the Right, which basically means a party and media machine controlled by elite financial interests who punch harder to the Right than to the Left. Sound familiar? [cont.]
The Atlantic
Why Conservative Parties Are Central to Democracy
The right has repeatedly acted as a “hinge of history,” one political scientist says.
/CIG/ Telegram | Counter Intelligence Global
🇬🇧 UK Reform party drops three candidates over “offensive and racist” comments. 🔶️ Leader Nigel Farage disavowed the candidates. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c727xz2kkgjo 📎 AF Post
He hopes to change that this time and gain more support for the Reform Party. But for his party to succeed, they need to win over college-educated suburbanites who waver between Labour and Conservatives.
Farage’s new media approach is extremely interesting; rather than being the firebrand populist, he’s trying to portray himself as the man who took down the “far-right” in the U.K.
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New Statesman
“I’ve done more than anyone else to defeat the far right in Britain”
Nigel Farage calls himself the “Billy Graham” of politics and believes his right English populism can destroy the Conservatives.
🇺🇸 Only 6% of federal employees are working full time in the office.
In August, the Biden administration asked them to return to work.
A union representative responds that government workers are heroes and they don't have to show up if they don't want to.
🔗 Richard Hanania
In August, the Biden administration asked them to return to work.
A union representative responds that government workers are heroes and they don't have to show up if they don't want to.
🔗 Richard Hanania
The irony that many of these minorities came to the U.K. during the Tory government’s time in power should not be lost on anyone.
🔗 Europe Elects
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🇨🇳📦➡️🇺🇸 How Chinese goods dodge American tariffs
Lovely piece here on the "Tijuana two-step" of tariff-skirting. Chinese exports arrive by ship in Mexico and go to bonded warehouses, where they are broken down into thousands of small tariff-free packages worth under $800, before entering the US. https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2024/06/27/how-chinese-goods-dodge-american-tariffs
"Khandelwal and Fajgelbaum calculate that, absent the exemption, consumers would have paid $7.8bn more in tariffs in 2021. Include fees and the fact that producers often cut prices just below the threshold to avoid tariffs, and consumers save $22bn a year, or $69 each."
🔗 Mike Bird
Lovely piece here on the "Tijuana two-step" of tariff-skirting. Chinese exports arrive by ship in Mexico and go to bonded warehouses, where they are broken down into thousands of small tariff-free packages worth under $800, before entering the US. https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2024/06/27/how-chinese-goods-dodge-american-tariffs
"Khandelwal and Fajgelbaum calculate that, absent the exemption, consumers would have paid $7.8bn more in tariffs in 2021. Include fees and the fact that producers often cut prices just below the threshold to avoid tariffs, and consumers save $22bn a year, or $69 each."
🔗 Mike Bird
🇵🇱🇱🇹🇱🇻🇪🇪🛡🇷🇺🇧🇾 Poland, Baltics plan to build 700km defense line on EU border with Russia and Belarus
Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia are going to build a 700-kilometer defense line on the border with Russia and Belarus.
It will cost €2.5 billion.
🔗 Clash Report
Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia are going to build a 700-kilometer defense line on the border with Russia and Belarus.
It will cost €2.5 billion.
🔗 Clash Report
🇨🇳♟🇺🇸🛥 Chinese strategists examining US sea lift vulnerabilities
Chinese strategists discuss weaknesses in US sea lift, including for moving oil and munitions. Jianchuan Zhishi, 6.2024. A congressional study recent revealed that the 60 ships of USN sea lift have average age of 45 years and are only 40% ready for mobilization.
🔗 Lyle Goldstein
Chinese strategists discuss weaknesses in US sea lift, including for moving oil and munitions. Jianchuan Zhishi, 6.2024. A congressional study recent revealed that the 60 ships of USN sea lift have average age of 45 years and are only 40% ready for mobilization.
🔗 Lyle Goldstein
🌊🚢 Bigger Ships, Bigger Risks: Navigating the Challenges of Modern Maritime Safety
Larger vessels require careful consideration when navigating in restricted waters, especially when it comes to stopping distance. Ultimately, larger vessels on the seas are not resulting in a higher frequency of accidents but when something does go wrong, the scale of the damage is likely to be much more severe because of their size and the fact that surrounding civil infrastructure did not anticipate such behemoths. Back in the 1970s, when the Francis Scott Key Bridge was built, container ships would have been less than half the size of the Dali
The incidents in 2023 have coincided with the ongoing debate about the fire risks of transporting electric vehicles (EVs) powered by lithium-ion batteries.
While the maritime industry continues to benefit from the efficiencies of larger vessels, addressing the safety challenges they pose remains crucial.
🔗 gCaptain
Larger vessels require careful consideration when navigating in restricted waters, especially when it comes to stopping distance. Ultimately, larger vessels on the seas are not resulting in a higher frequency of accidents but when something does go wrong, the scale of the damage is likely to be much more severe because of their size and the fact that surrounding civil infrastructure did not anticipate such behemoths. Back in the 1970s, when the Francis Scott Key Bridge was built, container ships would have been less than half the size of the Dali
The incidents in 2023 have coincided with the ongoing debate about the fire risks of transporting electric vehicles (EVs) powered by lithium-ion batteries.
While the maritime industry continues to benefit from the efficiencies of larger vessels, addressing the safety challenges they pose remains crucial.
🔗 gCaptain
🇨🇳🏗↔️ The sea passage between Shenzhen and Zhongshan will be opened soon. The journey from 2.5 hours was shortened to 0.5 hours.
🔗 Sharing Travel
🔗 Sharing Travel
In European Parliament elections this month, voters in most of the European Union’s 27 countries rallied to parties that hold the union in contempt. Analysts have leaped to the conclusion that the European Union must have done something wrong.
It didn’t. The specific policy grievances that drove the election results were national, not continental.
Such local complaints, to be sure, occasionally echo frustrations with corresponding E.U. policies on immigration and energy. But the European Union’s governing machinery in Brussels is never where voters’ hearts and hopes are. Indeed, that is the real problem with the union: not what it does but what it is.
Founded in the wake of the Cold War to meld Europe’s nation-states into an “ever closer union” and to form a continental government that would practice a new kind of politics, the European Union has wound up more outdated than the nation-states it was meant to supplant. Imposing common rules and laws on nations that had for decades or centuries viewed lawmaking as their own democratic business was harder than it seemed. The union is looking more and more like one of those 19th- and 20th-century projects to universalize the un-universalizable, like Esperanto.
One way to look at the E.U. project, in fact, was as a codification of the values that had won the Cold War. That values win wars is a bold assertion, but back then, the West was in a self-confident mood. The prime minister of Luxembourg (and later, European Commission president) Jean-Claude Juncker was soon crediting European integration with having brought “50 years of peace,” even though the European Union had not yet been founded when the Berlin Wall fell. A more sober analysis would credit that peace to American occupation, NATO vigilance and Russian caution.
There was only one way to get the power required to build a European superpower: by usurping the prerogatives of the continent’s existing nation-states. Tasks delegated to Brussels were considered to have been delegated to it permanently. An Orwellian vocabulary emerged. European Union leaders, widely viewed as politicians who had failed on their own national scenes, referred to themselves as “Europe,” and to anyone who opposed their state-building schemes as “anti-European.” Soon “anti-European” joined the list of intolerances that were grounds for ostracism and censure.
Starting a form of government at the close of an era, as the founders of the European Union tried to do, is not necessarily a doomed project. The United States may be called the last nation that was established before the onset of the Industrial Revolution. But you cannot really have an overarching federal government, such as the United States has, unless people are content to see the states lose power to the capital over the long term. Americans have made their peace with this, although it required a civil war and a good deal of other violence to bring consensus.
Europe is different. Europeans are mostly not aware that they have been enlisted in a project that has as its end point the extinction of France, Germany, Italy and the rest of Europe’s historic nations as meaningful political units. Brussels has been able to win assent to its project only by concealing its nature. Europe’s younger generation appears to have seen through the dissembling. We are only at the beginning of the consequences.
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