Nice post - and great to hear about your comic book past and read your other posts in that regard! Wow - sounds like your other super-hero choices were even edgier than Deadpool!
I don't have any spicy clever quip about Trump - just this lament.
In terms of production - China are winning. Forget Henry Ford's production line - they are building production line cities. Widget A is build in this city with 2 million people, which then goes to be fitted into widget B with 3 million people - and down the line of cities it goes! CATL have 22,000 people in R&D for new batteries alone! We cannot compete with that economically - but maybe if we are REALLY clever and create abundant free-trade across all the western economic allies and blocks, we might not be bankrupted as we try to wean off China for geopolitical reasons.
So what does Trump do in this new Cold War climate? Threaten NATO, and talk about breaking up all the "Friend-shoring" trade efforts of the Biden administration. The guy has no realpolitik - no applied economics (even though apparently we're to believe he had an economics degree - but suspiciously will not release any scores!)
Why oh why punish ALLIES with HIGHER tariffs even than China? At least Biden's IRA managed to stimulate domestic energy and clean tech and CHIPS production without punishing allies. They guy is threatening to stomp all over NATO and economic allies in the name of MAGA - but in fact will only weaken all of us! His low IQ and inherent malignant narcissism is threatening to sink this western ship!
Are you unfamiliar with Spider Jerusalem?! :) And yes, China is winning. I sometimes think that Trump's Panama ambitions will turn into his Suez crisis - which might be why he is bringing the gold back home, to try and fend off a currency crisis (or establish a part-gold part-digital new currency). I can see the overall strategy he has - sort of - but... well, words fail. My one hope - and it is a slender one - is that there are sane and rational people in the British MoD, who recognise the need for a European-led security architecture, and who still have enough levers attached to mechanisms, to create something. Starmer will do what he's told on that, as he has done before (that's a point about his personality, not about the power of the UK deep state) and there are enough serious actors in Northern and Eastern Europe to make something work. Did you see my slava ukraini post about the viking shield? But we're in a very fragile place.
I was born in the UK in 1966; from pretty early on, I knew that 'Sambo' was a bad word; often used in a degoratory sense. Growing up in Leicester, with the National Front in its ascendancy, I was well aware the racism was an issue: my friends who had arrived from Uganda were racially abused (strangely by many who have grown up & attempt the same things under a Reform banner).
You cite the Battle of Bamber Bridge: it does seem clear that in that instance what I'd call 'decent British values' did well. I'm at a loss, however as to how you seem to downplay racism: whilst the picture is undeniably complex & different to the USA , listening to many black & Asian voices, it is still there.
Btw: we are allowed to talk about what you say we aren't- a phrase like that coming from a very particular perspective, distracts somewhat from your nuanced arguments.
That's fair, I don't want to say that there is no racism in the UK, only that a) it's less crucial than class (generally, not in all cases) and b) it's very different to the US - indeed, I suspect some of our racism is strongly influenced from the US. In the end there's only one race - the human one :)
I'm in British Columbia, Canada. like you I did not ever really think of race much growing up. it was not a thing. (some of this is inter-racial familial relations; most of this is Canada's multiculturalism and history of the underground railroad, in contrast with our neighbours to the south).
how much has changed today though.
why?
well, shrinking world; internet; all that.
but I do still wonder...
having been pushed by this, and moreso by ways the modern issue has pushed into my personal life, i have read a bit more history on it a bit more broadly.
America is far darker than i ever realized before.
i do wonder,
with the African slave trade's beginnings in England before the American new world project,
i wonder if you have some light to shed on why historically England was not so racist?
Does it have to do with distance from American confederation- their throwing off of British ways (broad strokes, forgive me), which then caused a kind of counter-reformation distancing from the new American slave trade-run-amok?
i'm groping in the dark here.
but something to comfort us and align with your side thesis:
it's a bit dry but definitely worth it for the history. in particular, Mother Katherine Weston points out that there was respect and trade between Africans and the English, prior to the slave trade.
Racism seems not to be rooted in the "skin" difference and prejudice from this, but instead rooted in the later social dynamics and economic interests that were served by racism.
Nice post - and great to hear about your comic book past and read your other posts in that regard! Wow - sounds like your other super-hero choices were even edgier than Deadpool!
I don't have any spicy clever quip about Trump - just this lament.
In terms of production - China are winning. Forget Henry Ford's production line - they are building production line cities. Widget A is build in this city with 2 million people, which then goes to be fitted into widget B with 3 million people - and down the line of cities it goes! CATL have 22,000 people in R&D for new batteries alone! We cannot compete with that economically - but maybe if we are REALLY clever and create abundant free-trade across all the western economic allies and blocks, we might not be bankrupted as we try to wean off China for geopolitical reasons.
So what does Trump do in this new Cold War climate? Threaten NATO, and talk about breaking up all the "Friend-shoring" trade efforts of the Biden administration. The guy has no realpolitik - no applied economics (even though apparently we're to believe he had an economics degree - but suspiciously will not release any scores!)
Why oh why punish ALLIES with HIGHER tariffs even than China? At least Biden's IRA managed to stimulate domestic energy and clean tech and CHIPS production without punishing allies. They guy is threatening to stomp all over NATO and economic allies in the name of MAGA - but in fact will only weaken all of us! His low IQ and inherent malignant narcissism is threatening to sink this western ship!
Are you unfamiliar with Spider Jerusalem?! :) And yes, China is winning. I sometimes think that Trump's Panama ambitions will turn into his Suez crisis - which might be why he is bringing the gold back home, to try and fend off a currency crisis (or establish a part-gold part-digital new currency). I can see the overall strategy he has - sort of - but... well, words fail. My one hope - and it is a slender one - is that there are sane and rational people in the British MoD, who recognise the need for a European-led security architecture, and who still have enough levers attached to mechanisms, to create something. Starmer will do what he's told on that, as he has done before (that's a point about his personality, not about the power of the UK deep state) and there are enough serious actors in Northern and Eastern Europe to make something work. Did you see my slava ukraini post about the viking shield? But we're in a very fragile place.
I was born in the UK in 1966; from pretty early on, I knew that 'Sambo' was a bad word; often used in a degoratory sense. Growing up in Leicester, with the National Front in its ascendancy, I was well aware the racism was an issue: my friends who had arrived from Uganda were racially abused (strangely by many who have grown up & attempt the same things under a Reform banner).
You cite the Battle of Bamber Bridge: it does seem clear that in that instance what I'd call 'decent British values' did well. I'm at a loss, however as to how you seem to downplay racism: whilst the picture is undeniably complex & different to the USA , listening to many black & Asian voices, it is still there.
Btw: we are allowed to talk about what you say we aren't- a phrase like that coming from a very particular perspective, distracts somewhat from your nuanced arguments.
That's fair, I don't want to say that there is no racism in the UK, only that a) it's less crucial than class (generally, not in all cases) and b) it's very different to the US - indeed, I suspect some of our racism is strongly influenced from the US. In the end there's only one race - the human one :)
there is much in this to weigh and consider.
I'm in British Columbia, Canada. like you I did not ever really think of race much growing up. it was not a thing. (some of this is inter-racial familial relations; most of this is Canada's multiculturalism and history of the underground railroad, in contrast with our neighbours to the south).
how much has changed today though.
why?
well, shrinking world; internet; all that.
but I do still wonder...
having been pushed by this, and moreso by ways the modern issue has pushed into my personal life, i have read a bit more history on it a bit more broadly.
America is far darker than i ever realized before.
i do wonder,
with the African slave trade's beginnings in England before the American new world project,
i wonder if you have some light to shed on why historically England was not so racist?
Does it have to do with distance from American confederation- their throwing off of British ways (broad strokes, forgive me), which then caused a kind of counter-reformation distancing from the new American slave trade-run-amok?
i'm groping in the dark here.
but something to comfort us and align with your side thesis:
https://youtu.be/Swk3e-OeR1Q
it's a bit dry but definitely worth it for the history. in particular, Mother Katherine Weston points out that there was respect and trade between Africans and the English, prior to the slave trade.
Racism seems not to be rooted in the "skin" difference and prejudice from this, but instead rooted in the later social dynamics and economic interests that were served by racism.
anyway,
with warmth, brother
-mark basil
I'll have a think