Pragmatically Distributed

We can’t resist this analysis given how overtly hostile Western Progressivism has become to traditional Communist principles (any tactics in common are used to achieve very, very different ends from the boys that took Red Square) now that immigration has lessened the need for them to pretend to care about a white proletariat.

As the song goes, the Progressives are not Marxists of any kind whatsoever.  When all was said and done Karl und Friedrich wanted a dictatorship of the proles free of class divisions, and where government itself would disappear as an unnecessary legacy system from history.

What Progressives are actually trying to bring about is not Marxism (defunct everywhere except a highly determined Hermit Kingdom) but something called Positivism; as a form of government it is a permanently class stratified, permanently regulating, anti-proletarian dictatorship of Sociologists and Bureaucrats.

All of Progressivism’s end states are irreconcilable with Communism.  Marx, of course, was in favor of scientific government.  But his design failed in no small part because it depended on proles figuring out how to run such a thing and because Western prole voters were too dim to tell the difference between “Communists” and  Progressives.

Considering their substantial degradation, today’s odds of proletarian rule are now as much of a total political impossibility as #NeverTrump learning how to win an election.  Their best hope is to cling to Trump’s Hamiltonian elitism for dear life.  But that Hamiltonian politics has become the prole’s one safe space just goes to show the best bet for the proles has always been to back aristocracy.

Continue reading “How Prole Was the Leadership of the Russian Revolution?”

Some historical, political, and framing considerations for handling the looming shutdown battle in Congress over wall funding .

The first thing to remember from history is that voters will forget about any ongoing government shutdown within a few weeks (or, if there is a shutdown in September, a few days given the mesmerizing acceleration rate of recent news cycles) because essential government functions that are noticed by the public will remain up and running.

Keep in mind Republicans shutdown the government in 2013 after it was left devastated in 2012 by Romney’s loss, underperformed in that year’s Senate races, and was trembling in terror at the specter of Hillary Clinton’s “inevitable” 2016 political war machine.  In 2014 the shutdown had been forgotten and the GOP soundly recaptured the US Senate with a total of 55 seats.

Furthermore, whatever short term dip in popularity the Republicans suffered in 2013 was on account of their acting as obstructionists.

This time the obstructionists will be the Democrats, and Trump would be well-advised to point out the parliamentary fact that the shutdown is the fault of the Democrats.  The holdup of the budgetary legislation would not be Trump’s fault.  It will be the fault of Democrats for blocking the bill from coming to a vote.

Continue reading “Building a Government Shutdown to Build a Wall”

Trump’s speech on Afghanistan is not the first time a military decision of his has left me with mixed feelings.

On one hand the argument for withdrawal in Afghanistan’s instance is uniquely strong among other Muslim basket cases.

My long-standing preference for occupying a Muslim society inherently incompatible with civilization (i.e. the entire Muslim world) is very similar to our Cold War era Middle East policy initiated by Eisenhower.  This was our successful tradition of backing any America friendly Islamic strongman who keeps things stable for decades in exchange for us looking the other way if they have to, as Stalin put it, break eggs to make authoritarian omelets.  To be sure Shah Pahlavi, 1980s Saddam, Jordan’s Hashemites, the House of Saud, Mubarak, the Turkish military junta, and the rest, were not models of good government.  But by keeping their people down, the Soviets out, and oil flowing they freed our military to stay out and deploy to other strategic matters.

But the condition of Afghanistan isn’t even at a level high enough for rule by a nationalist strongman – to say nothing of a stable Democracy.  Afghanistan exists in a state lower than crude 3rd world dictatorship, nomadic warlordism.  Dealing with nomadic tribes is enough to make one long for the simplicity of Arab Nationalism: when Eisenhower wanted to communicate with Egypt he merely needed to get his message to Nasser.

Afghanistan has no Nasser for us to phone who enjoys jurisdiction over the whole operation.  There is only our client government in Kabul that has limited power outside its capitol and which would collapse the moment we pulled troops out.

Continue reading “Trump’s Speech on Afghanistan – Impressions and a Proposal for De Facto Partition”

A Tactical Retreat by North Korea

The cancellation of North Korea’s missile test is a tactical retreat on Kim’s part; but, from a game theory perspective, it does not change the different goals of Trump and Kim still pushing them towards war.

The North’s retreat does show Kim ideally does not want war, as I explained here.

Behind his apocalyptic bluster Kim’s real goal – a very rational goal – is to deter, not attack, the United States from launching a preemptive strike long enough to complete his ICBM project.  Once finished North Korea will be able to use its ICBMs as a deterrent shield against American retaliation, protecting the North from the consequences of even more hostile behavior in the future.

If diplomacy fails, Trump’s goal is to preemptively destroy the program before it is completed and grants Kim expanded freedom to create havoc.

The test’s cancellation changes the objectives of neither side pursuing two mutually exclusive goals – if Kim does not willingly and verifiably (i.e. no playing games with weapons inspectors…) dismantle his pursuit of ICBMs Trump will order a preemptive strike with all the danger of escalation that entails.

Continue reading “The End of Week Circulars for August 19, 2017”

Because 4-Dimensions wasn’t challenging enough.

May the record show I endorse keeping all Confederate monuments where they are, returning those that were removed, and flying the Confederate battle flag anywhere except at events involving official flag ceremonies.  I happily endorse the Stars and Bars if for no other reason than because I know the LARP Left will eventually resume their offensive against Alexander Hamilton:  Last year there were plans to remove our hero from the $10 bill.  Although their plan was dropped we know this respite is momentary against an enemy whose motto is “Forward!” whenever it sees a brick wall.

Back to Trump and his dimension defying chess board…

Let’s review how true or false Trump’s press conference statements actually were –

• Both sides were guilty of engaging in violence (True)
• By the “reasoning” of the Left monuments to Washington must also be taken down (True)
• There were good people on both sides (Unprovable, but statistically quite plausible because only one person on each side makes the statement true)

Nothing Trump said was remotely controversial.

Nothing controversial if one isn’t hallucinating.  Unfortunately, too many are.  There is a LARP Left just as there is a LARP Right and – if I dare risk accusations of “moral equivalency” – neither is LARPing because their minds are focused outside their respective imaginary universes.

Continue reading “After Charlottesville Trump Ramps The Chess Game Up to 10-Dimensions”

Metternich’s assessment of Napoleon I was the best there ever was.

His initially dismissive assessment of Napoleon III was off the mark – ‘Bonapartism without Bonaparte is false‘.  But even when he wrong (to be sure, a rare event), Metternich’s thinking often was on the right track; most impressively, his views contain lessons that can be applied to a surprising number of use cases from any time period.

Charlottesville is just such a use case where the old Master provided the elements to  conjur a proper political analysis.

As it turned out France under Napoleon III was Bonapartism with a Bonaparte.

But his point applies to any national leader well enough that his wrong application of that statement to Napoleon III may still be generalized into this correct scientific statement –

• Bonapartism requires a Bonaparte.

Now, the quality of political debate in Metternich’s era had not disintegrated to the point where it was necessary to point out that viable Bonapartism required implementation in France.  But I do not yet have such an advantage, at least not until the Hamiltonian jackboot has completed its inevitable takeover of the United States, achieved world domination in the name of freedom and Democracy.

In the meantime circumstances demand we add a regional constraint to Metternich’s general political equation.  Thus –

• Bonapartism requires a Bonaparte in France.

Show me the head of state and I can show you whether or not the equation is balanced – Maduroism really is in keeping with “Bolivarianism requires a Bolivar in the Andes“.

The problem, this still leaves Venezuela with Bolivarianism, and Bolivarianism leads to a wasteland with or without a real Bolivar.  But that is another article.

Then there is the inexhaustible perpetual memetic motion machine known as Adolf Hitler.

As often happens when the too-famous Adolf is brought up at least one side (usually all sides) is not talking about actual Hitlerism but strawman Hitlerism bearing no resemblance to the genuine article.

Real Hitlerism with Hitler in Germany was a viable political movement.  And, even for the Germans, probably a one time experiment that got carried away with itself that will not be repeated again.

Charlottesville did not involve Hitlerism in any form.

Hitlerism without Hitler is LARP Nazism; a counterfeit, fool’s gold Nazism with no more hope of achieving serious political power than #NeverTrump.  If this conclusion were ever under any cloud of doubt to the rational observer the fiasco that just befell the LARP Nazis lifts it.

LARP Nazis have three strikes against them – their Hitlerism is not Nazism (Hitler was a German racial supremacist, not a “white nationalist”, who would have killed an extra 100 million Slavs if he had won), they have no Hitler, and even if they were adhering to real Nazism with a real Hitler they are implementing it in the wrong country.

Three strikes means LARP Nazism is a political nullity that should be treated as a non-player on the political field.

This brings me to the other toxic variable in this most ridiculous of events, the Progressives.

Logically they should dismiss LARP Nazism, but they do not because they see in it political yarn to spin into gold.

For them the perceived advantages of turning this minor event (only somewhat more significant than a deadly rock concert riot) into a second Barbarossa are multiple.

Their egos need the surge they feel by picturing themselves as heroic anti-Nazis without the substantial risks that came with fighting real Nazis.

In the absence of a real Hitler, a fake Hitler to fight is enough to splash the Progressive’s overactive (if limited) neurons with a pleasing dose of crack.

But, like all drug highs, the exhilaration of political crack is fleeting.

After the hangover is shaken off the real work is tying this event to Trump no matter how ludicrous are the connecting dots on the chalkboard to getting post-Hitler swastikas to equal Trump.

This spurious connection is also a drug-fueled hallucination.  It is also self-defeating for the same reasons – Trumpism is neither Hitlerism with Hitler nor Hitlerism without Hitler.

Only if Trump is actually a real Hitler (I’ll be generous enough to humor this hypothetical by not pointing out he serves as head of state of the wrong country) will the tag stick.

Trump clearly isn’t, but the Left will overplay this exaggerated incident anyway by not letting the matter go long after the public tunes out the argument.

My advice is to let them beat this dead Panzer because their drug fueled hallucination leads them nowhere out of the political desert they’ve wandered into.

Metternich Volume II, Metternich to the Emperor Francis, Vienna, January 17, 1811

Pages 478-479

To examine into the reasons why this alarming state of things was brought about, at a moment when we should alone consider the present and the future, would be outside the aim of the present statement. The history of the last twenty years shows an uninterrupted succession of moral, political, military, financial mistakes made by all the European Powers. Not one is free from reproach ; not one worked for her preservation with means suited to the object, or in a way likely to lead to the wished-for goal. But all the fault does not lie with the Powers themselves. The appearance of a great Power rising from her ashes in the midst of Europe, with fresh and tremendous energies, was too wide-reaching, in its daily results, to be universally grasped, and thus turned to general account. If a temporary unity of purpose in the preponderating Powers of our time should occur, their paths would speedily diverge. The unavoidable weakness of coalitions would increase and develop with each undertaking, and experience unhappily shows that France knew how to appropriate the victories of the allies. The highest triumph of French policy was the Peace of Tilsit. By it Napoleon crowned the efforts which for years he had been making without result against the Russian cabinet. That which had been undone by the death of Paul I., all that had only been touched upon in the unfortunate Franco-Russian mediation of the year 1804, was accomplished by Napoleon at Tilsit. Since the year 1807, scarcely anything stood in the way of the completion of his work. The two great Powers who united were invincible — Austria and Russia — were separated. All the events which have already taken place since Tilsit, all those which probably would develop themselves only too quickly in the future, are, and will be, nothing but the results of this system of isolation.

In the years 1808 and 1809, the Russian cabinet acted with unexampled blindness. Unmindful of the last inevitable reaction on Russia herself, Count Romanzow gave to the policy of his sovereign an entirely wrong direction. Alexander was to come forward as a conqueror by the side of the greatest conqueror who had appeared for many centuries.

NAPOLEON BONAPARTE

A PORTRAIT

BY

PRINCE METTERNICH

Reproduced in full from Metternich, Volume I, pages 269-314

The French language version of Metternich’s profile of Napoleon begins on page 277 of Volume I of the French edition

Among individuals by their position independent of this extraordinary man, there are few who have had so many points of contact and such direct relations with him as I have had.

In the different phases of these relations, my opinion of Napoleon has never varied. I have seen and studied him in the moments of his greatest success ; I have seen and followed him in those of his decline ; and though he may have attempted to induce me to form wrong conclusions about him — as it was often his interest to — he has never succeeded. I may then flatter myself with having seized the essential traits of his character, and with having formed an impartial judgment with respect to it, while the great majority of his contemporaries have seen as it were through a prism only the brilliant sides and the defective or evil sides of a man whom the force of circumstances and great personal qualities raised to a height of power unexampled in modern history.

Endeavouring with a rare sagacity and an indefatigable perseverance to make the most of what half a century of events seemed to have prepared in his favour ; animated by a spirit of domination as active as clearsighted ; skilful in appreciating every advantage which the circumstances of the moment offered to his ambition ; knowing how to turn to his own advantage with remarkable skill the faults and weaknesses of others, Bonaparte was left alone on the battlefield where blind passions and furious factions had raged and disputed for ten years. Having at last confiscated to his own advantage the whole Revolution, he seemed to me from that time to be the indivisible point on which all observations should be centred, and my appointment as Ambassador in France furnished me with peculiar facilities, which I have been careful not to neglect.

Continue reading “Napoleon Bonaparte – A Portrait by Prince Metternich”

Neither Trump or Kim may want war, but one of the interesting teachings of game theory is that a war neither side wants can be sparked easily if the war’s goals and antecedent events incentivize escalation.

At this stage the US and Kim are very close war.  To understand why we look at each side’s goals and risk & reward incentive structures.

Kim does not want a war.  If he wanted one he would have already used his existing arsenal to start it.  Kim sees an ICBM as a deterrent that minimizes the risk his hostile actions invite American attacks by increasing the risk of retaliation for America.  Shielded by the deterrent power of future ICBMs Kim can then afford to act more aggressively than ever before even if he never intends to commit suicide by launching a preemptive nuclear attack against America:  ICBMs open opportunities for nuclear blackmail against the US, Japan and South Korea in exchange for military and economic concessions and agreements to look the other way at the North’s black market criminal activities.

Trump, too, does not want war.  He could live with the Kim regime so long as it abandoned its ICBM ambitions.  But Trump’s overarching goal is to prevent Kim from being able to strike the Continental United States.  In the past the conventional and limited WMD arsenal of North Korea was dangerous enough to deter America from attacking the North’s nuclear program.  But an ICBM is so dangerous to America that now either a very bloody conventional war or a nuclear exchange becomes an acceptable risk in American risk-reward analysis.

But because the goals of the two heads of state are in direct conflict, game theory teaches both sides may end up at war.

Recent UN sanctions are unlikely to halt this march to war.  Since Kim’s motivation to acquire ICBMs is to enable him to engage in future nuclear blackmail, game theory teaches he is more likely to accept severe economic hardship in the short term to  complete his program.

Game theory also teaches that as a conflict draws closer, risk-reward calculations can change to incentivize either deescalation or further escalation.

The current trends on the Korean Peninsula are increasingly incentivizing war.

Kim is incentivized to not back down with every threat he makes because the more he vows to proceed until the end the weaker he will look to his generals if he ultimately backs down.  Weakness and loss of faith could invite a coup (although, at least a coup is one threat facing Kim that Trump can sympathize with).  Thus the chances of a retreat on his part are diminishing rapidly.

Meanwhile, the speed with which the ICBM program is advancing greatly incentivizes Trump to favor preemptive war.

With tensions higher than ever, a new possibility comes into play:  Kim’s generals are incentivized to mount a coup (even if Kim at this point has backed himself too far into a corner to back down)  the more likely war becomes.

Previously, North Korean generals were hugely dissuaded  from mounting a coup against the ruling dynasty by a prisoner’s dilemma – even if their best collective option was to cooperate and plot an overthrow, the great individual risks and uncertainty to each general of getting caught (How would a sincere plotter know there are no informants within the small circle of coup plotters?  How would a sincere plotter know another sincere plotter wouldn’t be caught or change their mind at a key moment?) greatly discouraged such cooperation.

Now that they face a real chance of a nuclear war that will destroy them the risk of organizing a coup becomes more less risky, though by no means a statistical certainty.

To increase the odds the generals turn on Kim and enter serious peace talks, Trump should move advanced American reinforcements to the Korean Peninsula and vicinity to make clear he is serious about waging war.

With the arrival of more American warships, nuclear weapons, submarines, F-22s and other aircraft, and missiles Trump increases his last remaining (if still long shot) chance to end the Korean ICBM project without firing a shot.

And if the generals still do not turn, American forces will be in theater to eliminate Kim’s ICBM project for them.

For a systems perspective on the Russia “investigation” we turn to Stalin.

And by “Russia investigation” I do not mean its surface justification but its actual purpose to serve as a political show trial.

If it’s a show trial we’re discussing, Uncle Joe is the ideal subject matter expert to call on.

How would Stalin judge of this kangaroo court as a kangaroo court and nothing else.

Continue reading “Joseph Stalin Puts Anti-Trump on Show Trial”

To force recalcitrant Senators to pass a some sort of repeal of Obamacare Trump has hinted he may end subsidies for the exchanges.  If the payments are withdrawn, as I have recommended Trump do, premiums will skyrocket and force the Senate to pass subsidy funds since the House never appropriated money for those subsidies as the Constitution requires them to do before money is spent (to those of you who are not members of Congress, this means the subsidies were and are completely illegal budget expenditures).

The argument against Trump following this strategy is that he will be blamed for the collapse of the exchanges.

But this battle is quite winnable if one looks at what would happen in Congress after Trump cancels the payments.

The key for this gambit to work is that Senate Majority Leader McConnell (probably using the House bill as vehicle legislation to smuggle the new bill through using reconciliation’s rules) insists on attaching a partial repeal of Obamacare to whatever legislation is sure to be written immediately to revive the subsidies in response to Trump’s executive order.

If McConnell holds to this course (and the Trump White House can give him extra motivation by making it clear he will veto any subsidy fix that does lacks a partial repeal) there will be in existence a budgetary fix – and, for once, this budget fix would be Constitutional! – to “save” the exchanges waiting to move off the Senate floor.  The only way the fix does not reach Trump’s desk is if Democrats, or moderate Republican Senators, who shot down the bill last week do not vote it out of the Senate.

If Senate Democrats refuse to vote for the fix because it is conditional on a partial repeal also becoming law, Trump will be able to say it is the Democrats who are destroying the exchanges, not him, because they are either voting against the bill or holding it up with procedural motions.

McConnell could be bring up the joint fix and repeal bill numerous times until at least one Democrat or moderate Republican finally caves and votes to send the bill to the House.  Until one of those votes succeed, the burden will be on the Democrats to stop blocking the fix and Trump will no doubt enjoy pointing out repeatedly what the holdup is.

I imagine enough Democrats will eventually cave if they have no choice but to vote for partial repeal.

The House could then vote only on the Senate bill and send it to Trump’s desk.