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Being pals to the Empire means you get to do your war crimes and cleansings under cheers and applause, or at least enabling silence. Worked for Indonesia, Turkey, KSA, South Africa, Israel. Though to be fair, I never understood what the USA gets out of its conjoined twin relationship with Israel, in realpolitik terms. Natural resources? Nope. Financial extraction? Nope. A pliable local puppet? Half the time Israel is telling US government to shut up and just sign the checks. Military access? They usually close their bases to american bungling ventures in the region. It's like they venerate the country as a reminder of the US' proudest humanitarian moment (winning WW2 and saving the jewish people), and if said country is a sclerotic, dysfunctional apartheid war-colony, well, reality will have to gently caress off if it thinks it can ruin the dream.
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Oct 24, 2023 14:09
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We get nothing. It’s completely nonsensical.
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Oct 24, 2023 14:41
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Israel has a very strong IT sector, especially when it comes to security. They also have a large military hardware sector. And a world-famous/infamous intelligence service.
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Oct 24, 2023 14:48
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Sephyr posted:Being pals to the Empire means you get to do your war crimes and cleansings under cheers and applause, or at least enabling silence. Worked for Indonesia, Turkey, KSA, South Africa, Israel. During the Cold War they were strategically useful with regards to Soviet proxies in the region. Kinda.
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Oct 24, 2023 15:09
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Captain_Maclaine posted:During the Cold War they were strategically useful with regards to Soviet proxies in the region. Kinda. In the last three or four decades, when it comes to intel actions, the Israel alliance has been much closer to "With friends like these who needs enemies?" territory. I don't remember the specific ones but there were a few actions like, uhh, hackings or intel ops/spying, tech/knowledge thefts, stuff like that where the US has been targeted *BY* Israeli forces. Not in the subtle "friendly allied intel forces just keeping an eye on everyone, not you specifically" but stuff that really should have put a cramp in the alliance. Israeli support is just the baseline default in all situations political and going against that means pushing against the inertia of the entire system and making yourself the squeaky wheel target.
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Oct 24, 2023 15:18
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Sephyr posted:Being pals to the Empire means you get to do your war crimes and cleansings under cheers and applause, or at least enabling silence. Worked for Indonesia, Turkey, KSA, South Africa, Israel. They get Jewish voters. That’s all that matters. If opposing Israel wasn’t seen as a complete political death sentence in the US, we’d support it a lot less.
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Oct 24, 2023 15:22
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Sephyr posted:It's like they venerate the country as a reminder of the US' proudest humanitarian moment (winning WW2 and saving the jewish people), and if said country is a sclerotic, dysfunctional apartheid war-colony, well, reality will have to gently caress off if it thinks it can ruin the dream. Some Twitter guy - I think someone on AufheBunga Bunga - made a good point about this. For the Global North, Israel/Palestine is a reenactment of WW2, so the Palestinians are Nazis and the Israelis are necessarily heroes. Because for the Global North everything since WW2 has just been an extension or reenactment of WW2. You also have a few people who decide to flip it and say the Palestinians are the new Jews and the Israelis are the new Nazis. For the Global South there's much less interest in using WW2 as the lens through which to make sense of all world history, instead there's a focus on decolonial struggle, which maps onto Israel much more reasonably. skeleton warrior posted:They get Jewish voters. That’s all that matters. If opposing Israel wasn’t seen as a complete political death sentence in the US, we’d support it a lot less. In this case we'd expect to see much less support among Israel among people with basically no Jews in their constituencies. Do you think Ted Cruz is so pro-Israel because he needs the Jewish vote? If you're going to blame American Zionism on Jews you should at least talk about political spending, where it's possible for a highly interested minority to outweigh a disinterested majority. But the vote? Nah, trying to win/keep the Jewish vote is a practical concern for less than two dozen congressional reps. At no point has Joe Biden ever worried about losing the Jewish vote. Civilized Fishbot fucked around with this message at 15:56 on Oct 24, 2023 |
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Oct 24, 2023 15:25
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It's partially for the evangelical vote
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Oct 24, 2023 16:07
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bird food bathtub posted:In the last three or four decades, when it comes to intel actions, the Israel alliance has been much closer to "With friends like these who needs enemies?" territory. I don't remember the specific ones but there were a few actions like, uhh, hackings or intel ops/spying, tech/knowledge thefts, stuff like that where the US has been targeted *BY* Israeli forces. Not in the subtle "friendly allied intel forces just keeping an eye on everyone, not you specifically" but stuff that really should have put a cramp in the alliance. Israeli support is just the baseline default in all situations political and going against that means pushing against the inertia of the entire system and making yourself the squeaky wheel target. A big one has been selling US military technology to China. This has been going on for years and I don't think there's ever been a major backlash.
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Oct 24, 2023 16:32
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KozmoNaut posted:Israel has a very strong IT sector, especially when it comes to security. They also have a large military hardware sector. The brazilian crop of chuds allowed into power, the Bolsonaros, bought israeli Pegasus spy software a few years ago amd now they are being probed over using it to peek on their many rivals and enemies. But yeah, said security/intelligence sector had them bombong the USS Liberty by, um, accident, missing the largest mobilization/attack in 30+ years , having their last peace-talking PM murdered by a zealot.... I'm reminded of that Frank Miller comic from the height of his brain-rot (has he spoken out on the conflict recently? I'm afraid to check), 'Holy Terror', in which not-Batman beats Al Quaeda's nukes and fighter jets with the power of torture. One of the side characters is literally a spook with the israel flag tattoed on his face (and two ninja lover babes), who "got expelled from Mossad because his methods were too extreme". He's portrayed as being the one who was right all along, and in fact knew it was all about to go down (which normally would make him an accessory, but who's keeping track?), but was waiting for the rest of the western weakling to get serious and tough like him.
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Oct 24, 2023 17:10
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Civilized Fishbot posted:For the Global North, Israel/Palestine is a reenactment of WW2, so the Palestinians are Nazis and the Israelis are necessarily heroes. Because for the Global North everything since WW2 has just been an extension or reenactment of WW2. You also have a few people who decide to flip it and say the Palestinians are the new Jews and the Israelis are the new Nazis.
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Oct 24, 2023 17:56
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OneEightHundred posted:9/11 is probably way more relevant for the US specifically.
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Oct 24, 2023 19:07
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skeleton warrior posted:They get Jewish voters. That’s all that matters. If opposing Israel wasn’t seen as a complete political death sentence in the US, we’d support it a lot less. The Isreal Lobby and the Gun Lobby are very similar. Both are small but extremely loud and devoted interest groups. If you don't support them they can and very often will fuckin destroy you.
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Oct 24, 2023 19:24
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Sephyr posted:Though to be fair, I never understood what the USA gets out of its conjoined twin relationship with Israel, in realpolitik terms. The Second Coming. What, to these people it is real.
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Oct 24, 2023 23:31
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Ain't no business like show business! https://twitter.com/patriottakes/status/1716817871958143260?t=JA1fM2413HatIsjHUaPi6w&s=19
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Oct 25, 2023 02:03
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skeleton warrior posted:They get Jewish voters. That’s all that matters. If opposing Israel wasn’t seen as a complete political death sentence in the US, we’d support it a lot less. This isn't true. There's just not that many Jewish people in the US, many are not aligned with Israel at all, and Democrats tend to do well with them. The GOP fascination with Israel doesn't make any electoral sense, and this is why Trump feels so free to call bullshit on it. This is why pro-Israel Democrats don't make that much sense other than as a sop to identity politics for Boomers. The tail is wagging the dog here. The US has supported Israel as a colonial project modeled off the genocide of native Americans since its inception. It was useful for global Western powers to have a place to expel their Jewish populations to. It has nothing to do with any specific love for Jewish people. The US was virulently anti-semitic for decades even after World War 2. The claimed love for Jewish people in the US begins with Reagan, reaches apotheosis with Schindler's List, and then has dwindled. People will try to say that evangelicals love Israel because of scriptural arguments to do with a Jesus trap, but those post-date the US political interest in Israel. It's a post-hoc justification for the position already taken by the US foreign policy morass. Opposition to Israel is not a political death sentence because US voters care about Israel. It is one of the least salient of all low-salience issues in US politics. The issue is that lobbyists give a lot of money and Mossad is not afraid to meddle in US elections to get the outcomes they need. Israel is often described as a "client state," by some people who know about the issue. It's not clear in the modern day that Israel acts as such. Seems a lot like Israel itself controls US foreign policy toward Israel, and that very few in US government have a spine enough to care even when the issue is bankrolling genocide. And this is not directed to the person I'm quoting, but before anyone loving parachutes in to call me an anti-semite, I'm loving Jewish and American. I am so loving tired of this poo poo. It was tedious 10 years ago to argue about this poo poo online. Never again means never again. I'm not playing the game. They don't get to do it, and certainly not in my name on 2 counts. I am not self-hating. It is specifically because I abhor what happened to my family in the Holocaust and under anti-semitism in the US that I came to this point of view. ErIog fucked around with this message at 03:25 on Oct 25, 2023 |
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Oct 25, 2023 03:12
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mobby_6kl posted:Israel didn't participate in the WoT at all though edit: 
OneEightHundred fucked around with this message at 05:42 on Oct 25, 2023 |
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Oct 25, 2023 04:51
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ErIog posted:People will try to say that evangelicals love Israel because of scriptural arguments to do with a Jesus trap, but those post-date the US political interest in Israel. It's a post-hoc justification for the position already taken by the US foreign policy morass. This is true, but that post-hoc justification has become a fundamental pillar of Republican Christianity, just as much as opposition to abortion (which is of course also a manufactured outrage chosen because the evangelical private universities could no longer openly oppose desegregation).
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Oct 25, 2023 05:22
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mobby_6kl posted:Israel didn't participate in the WoT at all though and the re-alignment from USSR happened in the 50s. Once the Soviets were supporting the Arab side mode I think it was pretty set. Which is slightly funny, because the soviets were TERRIBLE at backing local agents in the Arab and African nations, or cultivating the region at all. Often could barely be bothered to send some weapons and cash, but mistly sold them out to dictators in exchange for tepid affirmations of support that were quickly forgotten.
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Oct 25, 2023 12:38
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Civilized Fishbot posted:In this case we'd expect to see much less support among Israel among people with basically no Jews in their constituencies. Do you think Ted Cruz is so pro-Israel because he needs the Jewish vote? ErIog posted:This isn't true. There's just not that many Jewish people in the US, many are not aligned with Israel at all, and Democrats tend to do well with them. The GOP fascination with Israel doesn't make any electoral sense, and this is why Trump feels so free to call bullshit on it. This is why pro-Israel Democrats don't make that much sense other than as a sop to identity politics for Boomers. You guys are absolutely projecting your views onto politicians, and absolutely what they've said and documented with your own "no no that can't be true" because you don't want it to be true. Harry Truman was clear in his personal writings that support for Israel was based off of reparations for the Holocaust combined with the efforts of Jewish-American voters to raise the issue and the desire to work with a large voting bloc. Tip O'Neill talks in his memoirs about Congress supporting Israel because every member of Congress knew someone Jewish for whom Israel was important, and stated that when Reagan became President his first question to O'Neil in his first meeting was, "Is the Israeli lobby really as powerful as everyone says?" The fact that you don't like Israel doesn't mean that there aren't a lot of American Jews who absolutely completely suppot Israel in all things and that there are plenty of Americans for whom those people are influencers. I am not "blaming American Zionism on Jews", I'm stating that historically American politicians supported Israel from a combination of support for a post-Holocaust homeland for Jewish people and wanting Jewish voters to support them or at least not oppose them. In other words: LionYeti posted:The Isreal Lobby and the Gun Lobby are very similar. Both are small but extremely loud and devoted interest groups. If you don't support them they can and very often will fuckin destroy you. If you think Ted Cruz and Joe Biden don't care what Jewish voters think and are okay with the pro-Israeli lobby driving votes for their opponents then you are so disconnected from American politics I don't even know where to begin.
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Oct 25, 2023 14:12
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skeleton warrior posted:You guys are absolutely projecting your views onto politicians, and absolutely what they've said and documented with your own "no no that can't be true" because you don't want it to be true. This is, uh, very weird and unpleasant psychologizing. The problem is not that you are talking about Jewish people. You're right to say that Jewish Americans play an important role in maintaining American support for Israel. The problem is that your understanding of how it works is very weak and implies a backwards understanding of American political economy. skeleton warrior posted:They get Jewish voters. That’s all that matters. If opposing Israel wasn’t seen as a complete political death sentence in the US, we’d support it a lot less. The problem with this explanation, and your elaboration on it, is that you're not talking about money, just votes, as if politicians try to figure out what some significant coalition of voters wants and then just do that, and spending isn't even a significant part of this story. When you don't account for how money is power in American politics, then obviously the best explanation for "why is the Israel lobby so powerful" must be "a lot of people vote directly based on what they say." In that case it's obviously the Jews, and certainly there are many Jews who vote that way, maybe 2 or even 3 percent of the US population. Very powerful in a few congressional districts. But this is like saying "millionaires have a lot of control in Congress because politicians want the votes of millionaires" - that's not the reason and it's not the reality, because not many voters are millionaires. The power of the millionaire lobby, the oil lobby, the gun lobby, the Israel lobby, it's a financial power - not that some massive swath of the electorate in every district is directly aligned with the lobby, but that the lobby can finance the advertising that makes or breaks campaigns. Because the low number of people who care happen to care a lot, and spend accordingly. The problem is not that you're acknowledging a difficult reality, the problem is that you're describing that reality in a painfully naive way. Civilized Fishbot fucked around with this message at 19:58 on Oct 25, 2023 |
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Oct 25, 2023 19:55
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skeleton warrior posted:If you think Ted Cruz and Joe Biden don't care what Jewish voters think and are okay with the pro-Israeli lobby driving votes for their opponents then you are so disconnected from American politics I don't even know where to begin. This is a bananas vision of how US policy works. Public opinion has only a very weak relationship with policy decisions in the US. Biden’s message to American Jews about Israel is the same as his message about deportation of undocumented workers and police abolition and a million other things: “Vote for me because you have no choice. It’s me or trump. I’ll kill the hostages (metaphorically).”
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Oct 25, 2023 20:33
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I AM GRANDO posted:This is a bananas vision of how US policy works. Public opinion has only a very weak relationship with policy decisions in the US. Biden’s message to American Jews about Israel is the same as his message about deportation of undocumented workers and police abolition and a million other things: “Vote for me because you have no choice. It’s me or trump. I’ll kill the hostages (metaphorically).” I hate to do it, but I love having to do it, because you’re right as hell. Public opinion doesn’t mean poo poo to policy; you can have the largest protests in the history of the planet (we did in the early 2000s) and it won’t change a thing. https://www.cambridge.org/core/jour...4D4893B382B992B What you or I want, whether we number just the two of us or into the millions, has little or no effect on policy, and the sooner people realize that the sooner Election Day can become a day for grilling and chilling.
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Oct 25, 2023 20:45
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So your opinion is, "what voters think has no effect on public policy" and also "there is some shadowy cabal that influences the government and makes it support Israel, I just can't say who"? Just checking.
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Oct 25, 2023 20:57
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Civilized Fishbot posted:but that the lobby can finance the advertising that makes or breaks campaigns
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Oct 25, 2023 21:03
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skeleton warrior posted:So your opinion is, "what voters think has no effect on public policy" "No effect", of course not. But if you think the opinions of voters are sufficient to totally explain any dimension of public policy, that's fantasy land. There's a very wide range of issues where the government policy, in particular foreign policy, is typically detached from voter opinion. quote:"there is some shadowy cabal that influences the government and makes it support Israel, I just can't say who"? It's no more of a "shadowy cabal" than any other political lobby. And you can say who, it's called the Israel lobby. If you want to point out that the people who run it are very disproportionately Israeli and even disproportionately Jewish, go ahead, it's the reality, what else would you expect? Just don't think it's a lobby that operates by directly promising a significant number of extremely passionate voters, like the pro-life lobby. It's a different kind of lobby, it's one that mainly dérivés power from the donations of a relatively small group of extremely invested people and firms. Comparable to industrial lobbies. Civilized Fishbot fucked around with this message at 21:24 on Oct 25, 2023 |
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Oct 25, 2023 21:16
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Civilized Fishbot posted:"No effect", of course not. But if you think the opinions of voters are sufficient to totally explain any dimension of public policy, that's fantasy land. There's a very wide range of issues where the government policy, in particular foreign policy, is typically detached from voter opinion. Except it's not, and there was a post already on this very page that pointed that out. OneEightHundred posted:It's more that the post-9/11 reflexive opposition to "Islamic terror" and Muslims generally has been very favorable to pro-Israeli framing of the conflict. Like, there's a very overwhelming popular support for Israel, and you're trying to start from a position of "well that doesn't matter harrumph harrumph harrump **blows bubbles out of pipe**" rather than listening to the stated opinions of politicians that voters like Israel and like politicians who support Israel, and popular opinion polls that show that voters overwhelmingly support Israel, and instead fighting you're like hell to uncover the secret behind the scenes plotters who actually manipulate public opinion. And yes, American support has to do in part with lobbying and very successful efforts by the Israeli government in making Israel's success part and parcel with America's success in the War On TerrorTM; but it also has to do with sympathy for the Zionist cause post-WW2 and Jewish-American support and lobbying on Israel's behalf, along with most American voters being uninterested in the point of view of Muslims and too disconnected to change their image of "plucky little Israel" fighting off enemies in the '60s and '70s.
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Oct 25, 2023 21:31
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skeleton warrior posted:And yes, American support has to do in part with lobbying and very successful efforts by the Israeli government in making Israel's success part and parcel with America's success in the War On TerrorTM Then you agree with my point, that it's ridiculous to ascribe America's support for Israel entirely to politicians chasing after Jewish voters. I don't know why you're arguing with me about it, or doing very weird impressions of me blowing bubbles from a pipe, or making very dumb implications that I'm doing Protocols of the Elders of Zion stuff (as it happens, I myself am ethnically and religiously Jewish). We clearly agree that American support for Israel is not totally explained by politicians trying to win over the very small Jewish slice of the electorate. What argument are you trying to have with me? Civilized Fishbot fucked around with this message at 21:41 on Oct 25, 2023 |
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Oct 25, 2023 21:38
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Civilized Fishbot posted:Then you agree with my point, that it's ridiculous to ascribe America's support for Israel entirely to politicians chasing after Jewish voters. Because you're dismissing any thought that the opinions of voters have anything to do with it. Civilized Fishbot posted:If you're going to blame American Zionism on Jews you should at least talk about political spending, where it's possible for a highly interested minority to outweigh a disinterested majority. But the vote? Nah, trying to win/keep the Jewish vote is a practical concern for less than two dozen congressional reps. At no point has Joe Biden ever worried about losing the Jewish vote. Civilized Fishbot posted:Do you think Ted Cruz is so pro-Israel because he needs the Jewish vote? quote:or doing very weird impressions of me blowing bubbles from a pipe, or making very dumb implications that I'm doing Protocols of the Elders of Zion stuff (as it happens, I myself am ethnically and religiously Jewish). I mean, dude, you absolutely started it Civilized Fishbot posted:your understanding of how it works is very weak and implies a backwards understanding of American political economy... If you want to sit in an armchair and potificate about the Global North mythologizing World War 2 while snidely deriding people who disagree with you as "painfully naive" and having "very weak and... backwards understanding" then I'm going to make fun of you as a pseudo-intellectual buffoon.
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Oct 25, 2023 22:00
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skeleton warrior posted:Because you're dismissing any thought that the opinions of voters have anything to do with it. No, just that the majority of American politicians are not up late at night worrying about the Jewish vote. This is unambiguous because very few voters are Jewish and they're distributed unevenly, often in states where their votes only pad a well-established Democratic majority. Obviously politicians are attentive to what voters want. Sometimes they even do what voters want! But to say "American support for Israel all comes down to the Jewish vote" is obviously insanely incorrect. skeleton warrior posted:If you want to sit in an armchair and potificate about the Global North mythologizing World War 2 while snidely deriding people who disagree with you as "painfully naive" and having "very weak and... backwards understanding" then I'm going to make fun of you as a pseudo-intellectual buffoon. We're in a politics thread in Debate & Discussion. Everyone here is pretending to be an intellectual unless God forbid one of us actually is one. Everyone here is gonna call out stupid ideas when they're there, especially something really stupid like "American support for Israel all comes down to the power of the Jewish vote." It is still very weird to include these vignettes of how you think I live my life. Civilized Fishbot fucked around with this message at 22:12 on Oct 25, 2023 |
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Oct 25, 2023 22:08
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I did not realize that blowing bubbles through a pipe killed your parents, and I apologize for making you relive the trauma. I withdraw the comment. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Oct 25, 2023 22:15
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It might be helpful at this point for either of you to state your explicit claim in falsifiable terms.
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Oct 25, 2023 22:19
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skeleton warrior posted:I did not realize that blowing bubbles through a pipe killed your parents, and I apologize for making you relive the trauma. I withdraw the comment. I have no clue what you're trying to say here. This started weird and is getting weirder. Discendo Vox posted:It might be helpful at this point for either of you to state your explicit claim in falsifiable terms. I don't think the miniscule portion of Jewish voters is a remotely complete explanation for why American politicians support Israel, I think it's backwards in relation to both voter demography (the count and distribution of Jewish voters) and how political economy works here (policy is determined by many factors behind voter opinion)
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Oct 25, 2023 22:25
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Civilized Fishbot posted:I don't think the miniscule portion of Jewish voters is a remotely complete explanation for why American politicians support Israel, I think it's backwards in relation to both voter demography (the count and distribution of Jewish voters) and how political economy works here (policy is determined by many factors behind voter opinion) Okay. What information would render that claim false? How is "policy is determined by many factors behind voter opinion" related to the voter demography argument, given that you are also arguing that support for israel is important to other demographics based on the Global North mythologization of world war 2? quote:They get Jewish voters. That’s all that matters. If opposing Israel wasn’t seen as a complete political death sentence in the US, we’d support it a lot less. is not the same as "American support for Israel all comes down to the power of the Jewish vote". edit: welp. For the record, I think that support for Israel is, in fact, predicated on a direct, non-monetary electoral calculus, but it's because the notion of support for Israel is internalized in a broader part of the population than just people who are Jewish by descent or belief (the Global North mythologizing WW2, or just internalizing that antisemitism is bad, with Israeli and zionist organizations leveraging that internalization). If you want to argue that money is the driving factor, it would be better to cite actual evidence on that front involving funding or organizational pressure than gesturing broadly at the idea that policy is detached from public preferences and in favor of money. And to save some time, the Giles and Page study is really lovely, regardless of whether it can be used to rationalize cynicism about democracy. Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 22:50 on Oct 25, 2023 |
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Oct 25, 2023 22:43
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Discendo Vox posted:Okay. What information would render that claim false? How is "policy is determined by many factors behind voter opinion" related to the voter demography argument, given that you are also arguing that support for israel is important to other demographics based on the Global North mythologization of world war 2? I don't really understand why you would be so skeptical of this. Politicians have a direct incentive to support Israel, and not just from the lobbyists for Israel. Politicians control aid packages to Israel. A lot of aid comes in the form of military financing where the money gets sent to Israel on paper to be spent with US weapons manufacturers. Israel then lobbies politicians for more of this aid in their national security interest, weapons manufacturers lobby for more of this aid from the other side says it's in US interest somehow. Money spent by politicians is being sent back to them in a feedback loop. This is not specific or special to Israel, but Israel as an issue sits at a nexus of military spending and foreign policy concerns in a way that other lobbying interests do not. The other piece of this that doesn't make sense is that the US was anti-Semitic for decades and decades even while supporting Israel in US foreign policy. This support for Israel predates the mythologization by decades.
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Oct 26, 2023 00:53
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ErIog posted:I don't really understand why you would be so skeptical of this. Politicians have a direct incentive to support Israel, and not just from the lobbyists for Israel. Sorry, the mythologization of WW2 being the animating basis was Civilized Fishbot's previous claim, not mine; I included it in contrast to the second part of that parenthetical to try to illustrate a more likely basis. Direct monetary contributions as a core basis is also a separate position from Fishbot, who had focused... quote:But this is like saying "millionaires have a lot of control in Congress because politicians want the votes of millionaires" - that's not the reason and it's not the reality, because not many voters are millionaires. The power of the millionaire lobby, the oil lobby, the gun lobby, the Israel lobby, it's a financial power - not that some massive swath of the electorate in every district is directly aligned with the lobby, but that the lobby can finance the advertising that makes or breaks campaigns. Because the low number of people who care happen to care a lot, and spend accordingly. ...on the notion that the lobby would influence advertising that "makes or breaks campaigns". I agree that there are interest-based lobbying feedback loops involved, but the nature of the messaging that Fishbot referred to would still need some basis for public appeal, and there would need to be some source for the mechanism by which that feedback loop emerged. This has the dual problems of loading back into voter decisions and not being particularly falsifiable because it would still pass through messaging regarding Israel; the claim isn't disentangled from its output; it's a general problem with claims in this space, because the vague level and direction of influence make them harder to falsify (and easier for people to talk past each other). To be clear, this applies to skeleton warrior just as much as everyone else. This whole mess was made more difficult because selec dropped an anti-democratic participation claim into the middle of this argument, and skeleton warrior's response was, I think, partly directed toward their post, which Fishbot keyed off of. The inconsistency between the claims of the different parties, and who is talking to whom, is part of why I was looking for everyone to state their claims in falsifiable terms. Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 01:19 on Oct 26, 2023 |
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Oct 26, 2023 01:16
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Discendo Vox posted:Sorry, the mythologization of WW2 being the animating basis was Civilized Fishbot's previous claim, not mine; I included it in contrast to the second part of that parenthetical to try to illustrate a more likely basis. Direct monetary contributions as a core basis is also a separate position from Fishbot, who had focused... Sorry for misunderstanding. I think I see what you're saying now, though. I do still disagree. There doesn't have to be an animating force in the electorate directly connected on an issue basis for that money to keep flowing. The campaign contributions can be spent to say whatever candidates like about themselves. Super PACs can say whatever they like about candidates, completely disconnected from the interests of their actual donors. They are very capable of privately telling donors, "I will support Israel aid on every vote, but that could be bad in a primary this cycle so..." Donors care that they win in order to use their power to benefit the donors. They don't care that much about how they win. It does so happen that in the modern era that politicians have folded support for Israel into their political messaging, but that kind of comes and goes. We've seen a lot more of it since the War on Terror and GWB's explicit strategy of creating a pan-Muslim-extremist boogeyman. You see this pattern with support for Israel in campaign rhetoric over the decades where the arguments made to the electorate on it, or whether or not they're even made, shift in order to be folded in with other foreign policy aims or existing domestic issues. The GOP had strains that were popular up through the 60's and 70's that rejected the need for US involvement with Israel explicitly, much of which was animated by anti-semitism. Reagan's key victory on this issue was uniting the Bircher/Nixon/Goldwater wing of the party with the neoconservative wing that supported Israel more. This was done by careful analogizing of Israel to other foreign and domestic policy matters in a way that persists in the GOP to this day, but has also impacted Israel's role in campaign rhetoric for Democrats since then. So it does seem like Israel has always been this very durable issue among the electorate since forever, hence the support. However, that doesn't answer for the decades prior to that time. It also doesn't answer why it became such a durable issue under Reagan when it had been contentious before. I will also reiterate that this is the way many issues in US politics work. The oil lobby, for example, was attempting to get what it wanted well before the GOP decided that it would politically benefit them to deny climate change directly. Newt Gingrich, himself, was stressing the importance of recognizing climate change in the new millenium. He sings a different tune now. The money and aims of the powerful seem pretty consistent. The specific rhetoric, or whether or not there is any, shifts as-needed based on what politicians think voters may want to hear. ErIog fucked around with this message at 02:56 on Oct 26, 2023 |
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Oct 26, 2023 02:46
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There is not actually a single "the powerful" with consistent aims or policies- no, not even the collective accumulation of wealth. Plenty of well-heeled interests seek and achieve ends that work to the detriment of other, previously more powerful parties. I think that argument actually points in the other direction; individual lobbies and moneyed interests try to get what they want, but the rhetorics and positions taken by politicians are still dictated by what politicians think will get votes. Part of the reason I don't think your frame holds is that political speech and spending by third parties in this sort of form and degree is a relatively recent (and not all that consistently successful) pheonomenon. The era of super PACs as we now understand them is relatively recent, and they're not batting a thousand- nor are they all pointing in the same direction, including on Israel. also, speaking as someone who has been in the room, the number of PAC or lobby intermediaries, or moneyed interests, who are competent or sophisticated enough to do things like pull an issue for a cycle is way, way smaller than you think- and even the competent ones aren't consistently that competent. The same applies to messaging directed toward the general public. Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 03:09 on Oct 26, 2023 |
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Oct 26, 2023 03:00
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Discendo Vox posted:There is not actually a single "the powerful" with consistent aims or policies- no, not even the collective accumulation of wealth. Plenty of well-heeled interests seek and achieve ends that work to the detriment of other, previously more powerful parties. I think that argument actually points in the other direction; individual lobbies and moneyed interests try to get what they want, but the rhetorics and positions taken by politicians are still dictated by what politicians think will get votes. "the powerful," is a mass noun. I was not saying there is any singular powerful force, but thanks for playing. If I had said, "the rich," would you have pointed out that there are multiple rich people in the US? I bet not. You're off on your own tangent. Also, none of my argument rests on politicians being particularly adept or skilled. There's gerrymandering that keeps certain seats safe, and also a reason you see turnover. They're riding a bull. People come in, people go out. Weird how, despite that, certain positions taken by the vast majority of the group do not change. You get the conservative plan for climate change, Cap & Trade, adopted by Democrats and instantly denounced as socialism. You get the conservative plan for healthcare, forcing people into private insurance, adopted by Democrats and instantly denounced as socialism. You get a conversation about Israel dominated by "how much aid?" and not whether apartheid itself is something the US should fund. Tons of issues have very clear solutions that most often involve the federal government itself not violating the laws of the US, and weird how no matter who is in the White House or controls congress it doesn't happen. On every lobbyist backed issue there is a sane, fairly simple, often economically-efficient or moral solution, that is never part of the conversation. The function of the lobbying is sometimes not just specific outcomes, but the movement in the conversation such that every candidate is advancing some flavor of preferred policy in a way that tries to meet what they think the US electorate wants to hear or can handle. It is exactly your "experience in the room," that anchors you to the dismal world of, "the politically possible," and to the importance of specific candidates. Donors define "politically possible," and not voters. The way this works is very clear. There are some insurgent candidates who end up winning. Almost all of them, unless they have a reason not to that involves a primary, end up moderating their views toward donor preferences before their re-election. You see this dynamic in the history of US support for Israel. From 1948 to 1967 there was a lot of concern by the powerful about impeding the flow of oil by supporting Israel, provoking responses from nations with Arabs. You then have a direct warning about the military industrial complex. Then you have Kennedy switching to selling Israel arms, reversing a previous arms-sales ban. This decision predates popular support for Israel in the public by 2 decades. Then you have a shift in rhetoric, but not in policy later with Reagan. There's a specific point where it was clear the people selling weapons saw it as a benefit for that region to be an eternal battlefield with the US selling weapons to all sides. At every point you have policy changing while rhetoric hasn't along with rhetoric changing when policy hasn't. You come to the conclusion that the rhetoric does not track with policy in a meaningful way, and that makes you ask the question, "what purpose does the rhetoric serve?" ErIog fucked around with this message at 04:44 on Oct 26, 2023 |
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Oct 26, 2023 04:24
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ErIog posted:"the powerful," is a mass noun. I was not saying there is any singular powerful force, but thanks for playing. If I had said, "the rich," would you have pointed out that there are multiple rich people in the US? I bet not. You're off on your own tangent. You're now pretty clearly articulating why I also asked for claims to be falsifiable; by this framing it is unclear what possible situation would not support your position. As you have already articulated, both positions and the rhetorics involved do actually shift, and shift in reflection of what large parts of the electorate believe. My statement was that lobbyists and the interested parties which seek to influence politics either through direct funding, as you've previously articulated, or through funding campaigns, as Fishbot claimed, are not sophisticated; using your example of deliberately pausing messaging for a cycle, that's not something many of them are capable of. ErIog posted:You get the conservative plan for climate change, Cap & Trade, adopted by Democrats and instantly denounced as socialism. You get the conservative plan for healthcare, forcing people into private insurance, adopted by Democrats and instantly denounced as socialism. You get a conversation about Israel dominated by "how much aid?" and not whether apartheid itself is something the US should fund. How much "a conversation" is "dominated" seems similarly ambiguous. That there is not a sufficient amount of support for your position on this issue does not reflect the dominance of "the powerful" or money to the exclusion of the democratic process. More broadly, you're defining your rule by the cases which have not occurred; your argument automatically finds support in any policy on any subject that you disagree with. It's useless. ErIog posted:Tons of issues have very clear solutions that most often involve the federal government itself not violating the laws of the US, and weird how no matter who is in the White House it doesn't happen. I don't think either part of this statement is particularly fair either; first, even where I think longstanding issues have very clear solutions, I don't know that a lot of them involve "the federal government itself not violating the laws of the US", and second, who is in the White House is rarely the determining factor on what policy is. The President is not an absolute power and, indeed, has limited control over even executive agencies...which is itself a good thing. ErIog posted:On every lobbyist backed issue there is a sane, fairly simple, often economically-efficient or moral solution, that is never part of the conversation. Again, there are lobbyists, and power, and money, on multiple sides of virtually all issues. There are lobbyists- multiple, competent, sophisticated- in favor of, for example, greater taxation, or funding for IRS, or increased regulation of various industries. In some cases, depending on a broader network of factors (most strongly how much control the Democrats have over the federal government), they get varying levels of success, even contrary to the goals of the often wealthier or more powerful lobbies in opposition to such a cause. ErIog posted:The function of the lobbying is sometimes not just specific outcomes, but the movement in the conversation such that every candidate is advancing some flavor of preferred policy in a way that tries to meet what they think the US electorate wants to hear or can handle. Again, falsifiability is a question here; either you're referring to the goals and methods of lobbyists, and arguing for a level of sophistication and success in lobbying that just is not the case, or you're talking about "the lobbying" as a collective set of systemic effects, in which case it's both completely unfalsifiable and reflecting the basic functioning of a representative democracy. A general explanation of all politics that's so falsification-resistant is closer to a just-so story, and it occludes, rather than clarifies, the more complex and subject-specific interactions that are how both public and officeholder positions are formed. Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 04:48 on Oct 26, 2023 |
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Oct 26, 2023 04:42
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