A penitent who is loud

Yeah no. They wouldn't consider me Jewish, I'm a patrilineal Reform Jew

If it costs a little bit of their soul, their soul is sold cheaply.

This is true. I specified wipe out for a reason, not "humanitarian crisis."

Iran isn't going to be wiped out. That is simply not on anyone's radar. Trump wants very very bad and evil things but we don't need to further exaggerate it.

Fair! Academic is a bad term, I should have also included "bureaucrat."

I do think NatSec clique for good or ill is struggling with the fact that society says it's bad to be a PMC academic and good to be a cool counterculture marginal type.

The obvious challenge being that we run into "the liberal way of war is generally to throw honor in battle out the window and bury the enemy in superior military technology and numbers if possible"

I'm using them as kind of a lazy stand in for the factional disputes here, I admit

It's the Serious Foreign Policy Liberal version of the perpetual left quest for an appropriately working class coded Oaf Politician who will unite the scattered Working Classes with the sword of Vulgar Marx

I do think a lot of it is that the DSA just doesn't actually want a robust American FP though. They actually hate the NatSec blob WAY MORE than they hate almost any other faction.

Pretty sure there's a connection between that poll where the majority of Americans say most people around them are bad people and the fact that nine out of 10 phone calls in this country are from predatory scammers

I mean. Technically we can be "just powered off," it's just usually considered a crime.

Not saying Claude is conscious, it doesn't seem to be, just saying.

Not only is there not a demand, it is actively hostile to sensible foreign policy because the vocal DSA fringe doesn't want good foreign policy to begin with, they want clean hands (and free hands for foreign adversaries) because they have been convinced the alternative is cringe.

the problem is that the bluesky prog-leftist war nerd is in the position of the conservative intellectual, and the base are people whose knowledge of international affairs comes from the DSA international committee

Multipolarity is extremely bad. We're looking at it now, arguably.

I think the most logical path is a more accountable US/EU hegemon.

I am very disappointed in a bunch of people who seem to sincerely think multipolarity is the answer to Trump.

Enjoy more war I guess.

Sure but he postures as being some Big Gaming Streamer.

It is petty, but I think that it is telling for Asmongold's supposed "gamer rep" that according to his own videos (ended up in my YT list somehow) he has never played Resident Evil.

Not gonna gatekeep about being a gamer but that feels kinda telling about what he primarily is!

with love to many of my mutuals, i don't really feel this "hip progressive national security revolution" thing is going to happen. because it has the same problem that conservative intellectuals have with their base -- who don't want to be all that intellectual

A lot of people confuse "not sporting" with "war crime". They aren't the same.

With the obligatory disclaimer that I don't support ANY of this Iran war shit, people figuring out in real time that the purpose of submarines is to attack without warning and then disappear and who REALLY want to talk to the manager about it is darkly funny given...the entire history of submarines.

I keep saying this! Did we learn nothing from the momentary fever dream of Woke Kat A?!!

I dunno, if I were Jeffrey Goldberg, author of "How Did I Get Iraq Wrong?' (2008), I might pause for a moment before cheerleading another war in the same region.

not in any way harmful to actually know and actually great for providing context to the behaviour of states and militaries, but public understanding of them is so poor that you end up taking continuous psychic damage from what people think is a "war crime"

The actual real world laws of armed conflict are a sort of type ii variety of forbidden knowledge

somewhat half-cocked theory: I still think *one* of the big reasons the NatSec Blob is turning against Israel is highly motivated by the hope of a grand alliance between the DSA types and NatSec Blob, one they believe has been stymied by our ties to Israel.

This hope is, needless to say, futile.

This hits the obvious problem of "what about the perceived overlap with Israeli civil society, much of which is more liberal than its government, or with Palestinian civil society & our obligations to them under liberal ideals?"

Ok. I think there's a valid case to make there.

What I am referring to is the wholesale destruction of Palestinians, a thing which is not going to (and must not) occur.

Why? I'm certainly not able to, and I don't think my personal feelings matter that much.

I think we're honestly circling the drain at this point. I encourage you to give this stuff some thought. That's all.

By the same token, *Palestine* isn't going anywhere; you cannot evict 7 million people without genocide and horror. Therefore any solution requires a mindset of "we are going to have to live with one another," and maintaining that as a possibility involves rejecting the impulse for collective hatred