The absolute inability to understand what cooperative governance would look like was actually hilarious, but also sad, because dummies like that actually tell people in power what to do.
As a scientist studying mutualism and cooperation between plants and microbes, I deal with this even in the biological sciences. We have been trained (particularly in the US) that dominance of the 'fittest' is the only way the world works, a natural order. I don't find it a coincidence that the world's largest consumer of everything, the world's largest exporter of extraction capitalism, arms, as well as 'rise and grind' side-hustle bullshit teaches everyone in school that at the evolutionary level cooperation is not an option.
The fans of wisdom are call Danny mean and rude on the stack better, Danny better apologize 😉I love American prestige and want to really listen to part two but don't want to pay to listen to wisdom.
These guys were not ready for Danny. That was an absolute massacre.
I appreciate Danny schooling their tired, overused neoliberal BS from a Marxist perspective.
The one guy's point that we should use our arms shipments to Saudi Arabia as leverage was perhaps the dumbest thing I've heard in a long time and I think Danny did a great job calling him out on it. The DC blob using arms shipments for government reform in Saudi is less likely than world communist revolution.
It's also irritating when these Brookings institute ghouls ask what his ideal world system would look like, then start condescendingly asking him how such an idealistic world would come into being. That's the point of an ideal! Glad he was able to keep his cool cause I wouldn't have.
I just hope Danny did not throw out his back or anything when he was mopping up the floor with these two. "When the Saudi Crown Prince kidnapped the Lebonese Prime Minister..." Did the PM wake up in GITMO?
Full disclosure, I haven’t listened to this whole episode yet, and don’t listen to the WoC show at all, but the host proffers that he is an economic agnostic when Danny mentions NAFTAs effects on Latin America? What prognosticating or pronouncements can you make about American foreign policy if you don’t make an even cursory effort to understand how US economic power functions globally, and has arguably been as important as US military power since 1945?
I struggled to follow the positions of your opponents here. They folded everytime Danny presented an obvious challenge or counter-argument.
Perhaps their fundamental problem is a believe that America actually has commendable "values" beyond protecting the interests of corporate power at all costs.
Based on this exchange it's difficult to understand why anyone would subscribe to Wisdom of Crowds podcast. The hosts were incoherent.
Danny was like a giant cat toying with a couple of small, blind mice.
This was incredible. To the credit of the Wisdom of the Crowds folks, it was nice to witness an intellectually honest debate between Danny and what I think can be fairly characterized as a mainstream liberal view of the “US role in foreign policy. ” But holy cow, Danny did an excellent job of exposing how shallow the mainstream liberal viewpoint is. I mean, not “knowing much about NAFTA’s economic impact on Latin America” is a pretty big blind spot for a purported “expert” on foreign policy my dude. Derek and Danny, you gotta push for them to release the full episode, I want to hear the rest but I’m not giving these guys my money
Also, and maybe this is kind of lame, but I think an important aspect of what made Danny’s approach successful was how politely he roasted them? I think engagement with mainstream liberals can be productive if it’s done in an intellectually honest way. And it can be hard to foster that environment because it is easy to be furious with someone who wants to talk about “American values” when they’ve clearly never heard of United Fruit. I’m sure some of the WOC fans may perceive Danny’s disagreements with the hosts as hostile, but I don’t think that is a fair assessment
That was a wild listen that devolved into a tragic comedy at the end.
It's insane that they're saying that not arming Saudi Arabia is unrealistic but then advocate for an American foreign policy that's based on its propagandised ideals as the realistic option.
It really illuminates that any analysis abstracted from the underlying economic motivations is utterly insufficient.
The moment of silence after Danny challenges them on whether America is a meaningful democracy says it all.
I always love when liberals are challenged on their conception of democracy and authoritarianism.
I'd love if the podcast did deep-dives on ideologies, abstracted from singular events, and frameworks within Foreign Policy circles.
On the deep-dives on ideologies...you're basically asking for psychological analysis, at that point. It's irrational at its core, which is why those two morons kept putting forth the sounds of what one hears when a deer is frozen in the headlights of on-coming traffic. It's all just rationalizations and justifications of their prior assumptions...and none of it rational. They NEED to believe certain things, facts be damned. That's why our corporate overlords don't let real "leftists" onto corporate programming. Not allowed to poke holes in the "official narrative," for that might spark new questions and allow a little light to be shined onto the shit they're brewing. Can't have that! It's that simple.
There is a reason, historically, most "liberals" and "moderates" generally side with monarchists, fascists, and right-wing psychos of all stripes, when push comes to shove. The rationalizations and abstract justifications are there so they can keep lying to themselves about that. And they don't mind lying to you, in the process. There literally is no there there. Just bullshit and fear, all the way down.
I listened to this a week ago, but wanted to make sure to come back and compliment Danny here. Excellent job not falling into their chicken-shit "norms" and political correctness traps of using only the "correct" (orwellian) terms for their shitty bloodlusting ideology and policies. Took it straight to them and they couldn't handle it. Thoroughly enjoyed this.
It was this type of idiocy (and frankly, deep dishonesty and cowardice) that these two trained morons exhibited here that made me realize a while back that US academia was definitively on the downward slide...and that I should leave. Mindless morons. Or as others have put it a while ago, "Voltaire's bastards", "Excellent Sheep," etc. etc.
It was both frustrating and amusing to hear these fools run up against their political programming, the limits of their brain-dead neoliberal ideology. Loved the constant need to try to "label" everything and force everything into their neat little abstract categories. Reality and its HISTORY is evidently too much for them. They are frauds and were exposed. Such little bitches...but this is what the US populace has become now, at best. This is about as good as it gets, folks. Expect nothing good to come out of this god-forsaken country. Excellent job taking these brainwashed frauds to task! Hope they lost a lot of sleep over it. Frauds!
And just so we're clear, they're more comfortable with global nuclear holocaust than even slightly rethinking their psychopathic neoliberal/imperial ideology. That's one giant FUCK YOU...to you, dear listener. It is not "rude" to reply in kind, but basic justice. The horror! The horror! Fuck these people.
Great exchange, but I'm left curious about specifically what Bessner doubts in the polling methodology for Americans' attitudes on police funding? Maybe he meant police reform more broadly than de-funding, as in things like de-militarization? This Pew study surveyed over 25,000 Americans based on a random sampling of household addresses:
Maybe he thinks there are sociological reasons why people who are for defunding police wouldn't take part in such surveys, thereby skewing results? I'm curious as to what he thinks about the idea that the "defund-the-police" protests served to distract working class people from elites' covid profiteering, wasting their energy on the outrage hamster wheel.
And this is a Jacobin Show (with Toure Reed) that iirc gets into the BLM symbolism as distraction from material issues stuff. https://youtu.be/vaEYVlGu1ng
I'm confused about Bessner's argument about democracy; does he not think democracy exists in any meaningful sense? Every time his opponents bring up democracy, even in the most abstract terms, Bessner jumps on them saying simultaneously that:
- People in the US have a bankrupt understanding of democracy that focuses too much on voting
- US foreign policy "does not care about democracy at all"
What point is he trying to make? This point is a complete non-sequitur from the point his opponents were trying to make, which is that withdrawing US military presence from region will do nothing to improve governance in that region.
Also, Bessner states that global wealth redistribution will do more to improve governance in the global south, but that is also a non-sequitur because military presence and wealth redistribution are not mutually exclusive.
I don't think either side did a particularly good job articulating their ideas in this debate.
In many countries military presence also skews the economy toward the military presence so that prices go up for the local people as well. It can even make gathering in a cafe out of reach for some - gentrification by occupation...
This explanation does not convince me. Military spending grows in tandem with a country's overall economy. Look at China, or the US, or India. So it seems incorrect to say that military spending and regular economic spending are mutually exclusive.
Real GPD has gone up, not just stocks. China built more infrastructure in the last 20 years than the entirety of the US did in the 20th century and they are the second largest military spender. What you are saying is just false.
Look at the gap between first and second place here: For military spending, the U.S. is set at 738 billion and China at 193 billion according to the International Istitute for Strategic studies. However the U.S. percentage of GDP spent on the military is at 3.5% with China at 1.7%. and of course as you point out China far outdistances the U.S. on infrastructure spending. Then of course, there is the issue of whether or not GDP is even an adequate way to measure the overall prosperity in an economy: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/gdp-is-the-wrong-tool-for-measuring-what-matters/
GDP is barely a serious metric, and only then inside a very specific framework. That sort of Plato's Cave style ignorance towards our structural understanding was the greater point Danny was making throughout, and germane to your democracy question as well.
GDP is the best measure of economic output so its not useless. Just because it doesn't capture things like affordability of living and income inequality doesn't mean its useless.
But anyways, my broader point was that for example, there is no dichotomy between sending 'hundreds' of troops to Somalia and also sending a large investment of capital into Somalia. And in fact, those things would likely happen simultaneously like in South Korea or Japan and Western Europe during reconstruction after WWII. Heavy US military presence in those areas, and they now have some of the best economies in the world.
The absolute inability to understand what cooperative governance would look like was actually hilarious, but also sad, because dummies like that actually tell people in power what to do.
As a scientist studying mutualism and cooperation between plants and microbes, I deal with this even in the biological sciences. We have been trained (particularly in the US) that dominance of the 'fittest' is the only way the world works, a natural order. I don't find it a coincidence that the world's largest consumer of everything, the world's largest exporter of extraction capitalism, arms, as well as 'rise and grind' side-hustle bullshit teaches everyone in school that at the evolutionary level cooperation is not an option.
Get 'em Danny!
The fans of wisdom are call Danny mean and rude on the stack better, Danny better apologize 😉I love American prestige and want to really listen to part two but don't want to pay to listen to wisdom.
These guys were not ready for Danny. That was an absolute massacre.
I appreciate Danny schooling their tired, overused neoliberal BS from a Marxist perspective.
The one guy's point that we should use our arms shipments to Saudi Arabia as leverage was perhaps the dumbest thing I've heard in a long time and I think Danny did a great job calling him out on it. The DC blob using arms shipments for government reform in Saudi is less likely than world communist revolution.
It's also irritating when these Brookings institute ghouls ask what his ideal world system would look like, then start condescendingly asking him how such an idealistic world would come into being. That's the point of an ideal! Glad he was able to keep his cool cause I wouldn't have.
Would love to listen to part two.
I just hope Danny did not throw out his back or anything when he was mopping up the floor with these two. "When the Saudi Crown Prince kidnapped the Lebonese Prime Minister..." Did the PM wake up in GITMO?
Full disclosure, I haven’t listened to this whole episode yet, and don’t listen to the WoC show at all, but the host proffers that he is an economic agnostic when Danny mentions NAFTAs effects on Latin America? What prognosticating or pronouncements can you make about American foreign policy if you don’t make an even cursory effort to understand how US economic power functions globally, and has arguably been as important as US military power since 1945?
I'm a former history teacher. I replaced the basketball coach who also kinda taught history on the side.
Same here...all of mine were coaches of some sort. Complete morons, all of them.
Operator, I'd like to report a murder.
These dudes were fully out of their depth
I struggled to follow the positions of your opponents here. They folded everytime Danny presented an obvious challenge or counter-argument.
Perhaps their fundamental problem is a believe that America actually has commendable "values" beyond protecting the interests of corporate power at all costs.
Based on this exchange it's difficult to understand why anyone would subscribe to Wisdom of Crowds podcast. The hosts were incoherent.
Danny was like a giant cat toying with a couple of small, blind mice.
This was incredible. To the credit of the Wisdom of the Crowds folks, it was nice to witness an intellectually honest debate between Danny and what I think can be fairly characterized as a mainstream liberal view of the “US role in foreign policy. ” But holy cow, Danny did an excellent job of exposing how shallow the mainstream liberal viewpoint is. I mean, not “knowing much about NAFTA’s economic impact on Latin America” is a pretty big blind spot for a purported “expert” on foreign policy my dude. Derek and Danny, you gotta push for them to release the full episode, I want to hear the rest but I’m not giving these guys my money
Also, and maybe this is kind of lame, but I think an important aspect of what made Danny’s approach successful was how politely he roasted them? I think engagement with mainstream liberals can be productive if it’s done in an intellectually honest way. And it can be hard to foster that environment because it is easy to be furious with someone who wants to talk about “American values” when they’ve clearly never heard of United Fruit. I’m sure some of the WOC fans may perceive Danny’s disagreements with the hosts as hostile, but I don’t think that is a fair assessment
That was a wild listen that devolved into a tragic comedy at the end.
It's insane that they're saying that not arming Saudi Arabia is unrealistic but then advocate for an American foreign policy that's based on its propagandised ideals as the realistic option.
It really illuminates that any analysis abstracted from the underlying economic motivations is utterly insufficient.
The moment of silence after Danny challenges them on whether America is a meaningful democracy says it all.
I always love when liberals are challenged on their conception of democracy and authoritarianism.
I'd love if the podcast did deep-dives on ideologies, abstracted from singular events, and frameworks within Foreign Policy circles.
On the deep-dives on ideologies...you're basically asking for psychological analysis, at that point. It's irrational at its core, which is why those two morons kept putting forth the sounds of what one hears when a deer is frozen in the headlights of on-coming traffic. It's all just rationalizations and justifications of their prior assumptions...and none of it rational. They NEED to believe certain things, facts be damned. That's why our corporate overlords don't let real "leftists" onto corporate programming. Not allowed to poke holes in the "official narrative," for that might spark new questions and allow a little light to be shined onto the shit they're brewing. Can't have that! It's that simple.
There is a reason, historically, most "liberals" and "moderates" generally side with monarchists, fascists, and right-wing psychos of all stripes, when push comes to shove. The rationalizations and abstract justifications are there so they can keep lying to themselves about that. And they don't mind lying to you, in the process. There literally is no there there. Just bullshit and fear, all the way down.
I listened to this a week ago, but wanted to make sure to come back and compliment Danny here. Excellent job not falling into their chicken-shit "norms" and political correctness traps of using only the "correct" (orwellian) terms for their shitty bloodlusting ideology and policies. Took it straight to them and they couldn't handle it. Thoroughly enjoyed this.
It was this type of idiocy (and frankly, deep dishonesty and cowardice) that these two trained morons exhibited here that made me realize a while back that US academia was definitively on the downward slide...and that I should leave. Mindless morons. Or as others have put it a while ago, "Voltaire's bastards", "Excellent Sheep," etc. etc.
It was both frustrating and amusing to hear these fools run up against their political programming, the limits of their brain-dead neoliberal ideology. Loved the constant need to try to "label" everything and force everything into their neat little abstract categories. Reality and its HISTORY is evidently too much for them. They are frauds and were exposed. Such little bitches...but this is what the US populace has become now, at best. This is about as good as it gets, folks. Expect nothing good to come out of this god-forsaken country. Excellent job taking these brainwashed frauds to task! Hope they lost a lot of sleep over it. Frauds!
And just so we're clear, they're more comfortable with global nuclear holocaust than even slightly rethinking their psychopathic neoliberal/imperial ideology. That's one giant FUCK YOU...to you, dear listener. It is not "rude" to reply in kind, but basic justice. The horror! The horror! Fuck these people.
Great exchange, but I'm left curious about specifically what Bessner doubts in the polling methodology for Americans' attitudes on police funding? Maybe he meant police reform more broadly than de-funding, as in things like de-militarization? This Pew study surveyed over 25,000 Americans based on a random sampling of household addresses:
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/10/26/growing-share-of-americans-say-they-want-more-spending-on-police-in-their-area/
Maybe he thinks there are sociological reasons why people who are for defunding police wouldn't take part in such surveys, thereby skewing results? I'm curious as to what he thinks about the idea that the "defund-the-police" protests served to distract working class people from elites' covid profiteering, wasting their energy on the outrage hamster wheel.
This is one poll finding a large plurality in favour of "gradually redirecting police funds toward community health resources". But, yeah, Danny seemed to be saying he distrusts polling more generally. https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/2020/06/12/redirecting-police-funds-poll
And this is a Jacobin Show (with Toure Reed) that iirc gets into the BLM symbolism as distraction from material issues stuff. https://youtu.be/vaEYVlGu1ng
I'm confused about Bessner's argument about democracy; does he not think democracy exists in any meaningful sense? Every time his opponents bring up democracy, even in the most abstract terms, Bessner jumps on them saying simultaneously that:
- People in the US have a bankrupt understanding of democracy that focuses too much on voting
- US foreign policy "does not care about democracy at all"
What point is he trying to make? This point is a complete non-sequitur from the point his opponents were trying to make, which is that withdrawing US military presence from region will do nothing to improve governance in that region.
Also, Bessner states that global wealth redistribution will do more to improve governance in the global south, but that is also a non-sequitur because military presence and wealth redistribution are not mutually exclusive.
I don't think either side did a particularly good job articulating their ideas in this debate.
west wing brain
In many countries military presence also skews the economy toward the military presence so that prices go up for the local people as well. It can even make gathering in a cafe out of reach for some - gentrification by occupation...
This explanation does not convince me. Military spending grows in tandem with a country's overall economy. Look at China, or the US, or India. So it seems incorrect to say that military spending and regular economic spending are mutually exclusive.
>Military spending grows in tandem with a country's overall economy.
If this is the case than please provide the formula we can use to calc out various country's GDP to Military Spend and we'll see if its material.
Real GPD has gone up, not just stocks. China built more infrastructure in the last 20 years than the entirety of the US did in the 20th century and they are the second largest military spender. What you are saying is just false.
Look at the gap between first and second place here: For military spending, the U.S. is set at 738 billion and China at 193 billion according to the International Istitute for Strategic studies. However the U.S. percentage of GDP spent on the military is at 3.5% with China at 1.7%. and of course as you point out China far outdistances the U.S. on infrastructure spending. Then of course, there is the issue of whether or not GDP is even an adequate way to measure the overall prosperity in an economy: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/gdp-is-the-wrong-tool-for-measuring-what-matters/
GDP is barely a serious metric, and only then inside a very specific framework. That sort of Plato's Cave style ignorance towards our structural understanding was the greater point Danny was making throughout, and germane to your democracy question as well.
GDP is the best measure of economic output so its not useless. Just because it doesn't capture things like affordability of living and income inequality doesn't mean its useless.
But anyways, my broader point was that for example, there is no dichotomy between sending 'hundreds' of troops to Somalia and also sending a large investment of capital into Somalia. And in fact, those things would likely happen simultaneously like in South Korea or Japan and Western Europe during reconstruction after WWII. Heavy US military presence in those areas, and they now have some of the best economies in the world.
Explain that.