Recent posts

#1

Off the Record / Re: The AI dooooooom thread

Last post by Sheilbh - Today at 06:30:08 PM

Again, I very much hope a European state is right now working out how to do whatever it takes to get Anthropic to move:

#2

Off the Record / Re: Brexit and the waning days...

Last post by Sheilbh - Today at 06:04:47 PM

The Green candidate is/was a plumber with a working class background; she made comments about how working hard doesn't work any more as most of the money is siphoned off by assorted rentiers, landlords and billionaires. I reckon that she will have cleaned up on the lefty vote.

I just want to come back to this because I think it's key. I think they chose a really good candidate and all of the panic about Muslim voters going for the Green (and I am uncomfortable with some of the Green campaign - like that campaign or going on the Five Pillars podcast) - their candidate was an atheist plumber. Their leader is gay and Jewish.

This was a rout and clearly was not because Muslims got propagandized into voting Green. The message is that Labour is failing and failing to take care of their left flank.

A couple of points on this.

On the take care of the left - it would be great if that were the extent of the government's problems. But I often find myself of Man United things with Labour at the minutes (Sir Keir Starmer - Labour's Amorim?) - and I think we're more in this territory than just do this one thing


The other thing is that as I've said this constituency is a bit weird. It was jammed together by the Boundary Commission and broadly speaking there is a bit (in Tameside) that is basically "Red Wall" - whiter, more working class, more British-born and there is another bit (in Manchester) that is basically a mix of classic Labour city seats one bit is more like other post-industrial with a large Muslim community, and the other is around university and full of students and graduates. The terrifying story for Labour is that it's vote collapsed in both of those areas (to put it in another way though - the Greens and Reform are both populist anti-establishment parties and they won 65% of the vote).

The problem is if you extrapolate from that that Labour need to turn left. Because bluntly there are a lot more seats like Tameside than Manchester. So you should never extrapolate out from a byelection. It's meaningless (for example the Tories and Lib Dems disappear in the byelection because they never stood a chance). Having said that, if you do apply put the swing in that byelection into a national calculator () then Labour collapse to under 50 seats, the Greens do very well and get about 100-150 seats - but Reform win 400+. Reform didn't win but they still did pretty well - just the Greens were really good.

But in the constituency Labour's entire pitch was that the Greens couldn't win, it was a two-horse race and Labour were the only party to keep out Reform. In fact Labour came third and I think that just blows up what - from what I can see and "strategy" here is doing a lot of work - has been Starmer's political strategy for the last six months or so. The whole message has been to try and boil everything down to Starmer v Farage because that's about the only fight Starmer can still win.

#3

Off the Record / Re: Quo Vadis GOP?

Last post by Sheilbh - Today at 05:44:58 PM

They can't be that stupid, can they?


J/K

I think there two other factors. One is a lot of them believe what they have said about the Clintons for the last forty years - and believe what they say about Democrats in general. It's a point I think is always think is relevant with what's going on in the US: if you believed what the right says, what would it give you permission to do?

The other thing is that I think for others it is exactly what they would do if Trump resisted. And I think it's human nature that we struggle to imagine ourselves into other people's shoes especially when they do something different or start from a different place or set of premises. At a more sophisticated level that was the basic mistake European intelligence agencies made in the run-up to the invasion of Ukraine: they could not believe Putin would do it, because who would? This is always framed as rationality but I think that's self-flattering nonsense - what is rational for a person is going to be contingent on who that person is and how they got there.

#4

Off the Record / Re: Iran War?

Last post by The Minsky Moment - Today at 05:39:17 PM

DJT does not want to stop Iran's oil exports. Oil is globally traded and if the Chinese get less Iranian oil, they have to bid up the price on the world market.

DJT wants to show that the killed the bad guy and then find someone to do a "deal" with.  I.e. someone who will say that they will let US oil companies in and stop the nuclear program.  It does not matter whether any of this actually happens as long as someone will get on TV and say the right words.

So the plan is to deal with the IRGC and the rest of the Iranian siloviki, right over the heads of whatever ragtag Iranian opposition might speak up, just like he has sought to deal with the PSUV and has humiliated Machado.  That fits the policy objective which is keep oil prices low no matter what and make things as smooth as possible for the kind of corrupt big business corporatism he favors.

#5

Off the Record / Re: Iran War?

Last post by Sheilbh - Today at 05:38:34 PM

Has the US positioned assets for putting boots on the ground? I haven't followed things closely, but my assumption is they haven't.

I've no idea if this is the case now but I saw something last week comparing the amount of resources the US had moved ino the region. It is vast. But it is comparable with what Clinton used to bomb Saddam in the 90s, not the Gulf Wars or the like.

This whole assassination/kidnapping strategy with world leader or other state actors seems a significant shift. Obviously Israel and the US (and other states) have conducted military assassinations in the past but they have generally been of terrorists or dissidents or similar, but all non-state actors. With Soleimani, this attack, Caracas it seems the taboo against striking leaders and significant officials from other states (and particularly "sovereigns") has gone. I'm not sure where that leads us but it strikes me as a risky shift in world politics - not least because I suspect one of the reasons to avoid it in the past is possibly what OvB is pointing out - who succeeds? What comes next sems highly unpredictable and while I think there were forces in the regime in Venezuela in the know, I'm far less sure that'll be the case here.

I'd add from a European perspective this is not good - but there's nothing Europe can do to actually influence things becaue no power. But we should at least prepare for it - as an energy poor neighbouring region whose politics has already been destabilised by refugee flows (we my be depending more than ever on the good graces and effectiveness of Ankara).

Edit: I should add on the killing heads of state etc point - my assumption there is that this shift doesn't reflect a change in capability/capacity but self-imposed restraint. That this is the sort of thing the US (and perhaps some others) would have been able to do for various heads of state at various points in the past but have chosen not to. It is possible, but it seems unlikely to me, that it's only something they're able to do now for some reason.

#6

Off the Record / Re: Iran War?

Last post by Bauer - Today at 05:35:34 PM

Remember he said they were going to run Venezuela though 

What I'm really wondering about now is if terrorism starts rekindling.  Any chance Iran has sleeper cells ?

#7

Off the Record / Re: Iran War?

Last post by The Minsky Moment - Today at 05:21:52 PM

"Hopefully, the IRGC and Police will peacefully merge with the Iranian Patriots, and work together as a unit to bring back the Country to the Greatness it deserves"

-Donald J. Trump

Well folks that's the "plan" 

From the same people that brought you the "Let's grab Maduro and Then What?" plan for Venezuela.

#8

Off the Record / Re: Iran War?

Last post by OttoVonBismarck - Today at 05:18:31 PM

I guess the question one has—is the reason Iran is so hostile to the West because they have a theocratic form of government or is it because they have a revolutionary government founded in opposition to the West?

There's a whole clerical caste in Iran, and they have a process for naming a new Ayatollah. Finding a replacement in that sense is easy. However, the only other time Iran had this transition, they named Khamenei who had long clearly been the successor and who was deeply entrenched in leadership in the revolutionary movement and had been President of Iran.

As in all such regimes the real power are the guys with weapons, they are not likely to make a random cleric who isn't already a significant leader of the regime into the Grand Ayatollah—-a position of considerable constitutional power.

Seems like you may see some sort of military leader explicitly in charge for a while.

#9

Off the Record / Re: Iran War?

Last post by The Minsky Moment - Today at 05:12:07 PM

If the objective was to strengthen the internal opposition, then the strikes should have been US only and back in early January.  It could have made a difference then, and validated Trump's pledge to protect the protestors.

Striking now and with the Israelis in the apparent lead, delegitimizes any internal force that would align with the US or use the strikes as a basis for anti-regime action.

#10

Off the Record / Re: Iran War?

Last post by Hansmeister - Today at 04:26:26 PM

Khamenei was/is also 86...they probably already had a guy or three in mind as his successor.

The intended successor died two years ago in a helicopter crash.  Pretty much any other potential successor, Khameni's son, the head of the IRGC, the head of their intelligence service, and another 10 senior leaders are dead.

Iranians are overwhelmingly secular, and even amongst the shias, the regime represented a fringe millennial cult. Iran's economy had totally collapsed over the last year, mainly because they ran out of water due to mismanagement. This is why the protest had gotten so strong in the last few months. Heck, the President of Iran admitted that they didn't have any solutions to the problem and that Tehran might have to be abandoned.

The oil export money to pay off their supporters was the only real source of revenue left and with that gone they're pretty much done.