6 ms·

Most of what you actually quote, rather than what you add as commentary yourself, says that most of the United States efforts are designed to use persuasion cou

Most of what you actually quote, rather than what you add as commentary yourself, says that most of the United States efforts are designed to use persuasion counter radical movements that would sweep away freedom and democracy where those movements are active. That's a good thing, in my opinion. It would have been very good for the world, for example, if something like that were happening in German in the 1920s. That would have spared the world a lot of trouble.

xnull2guest 12y ago
If you look around the links (especially the MINERVA funded material), although also Cuba is a great example, there is plenty there in direct disruption, rather than "counter-radical" (which would mean what, exactly, when radical means democratic grass-roots self-determined ideas from a people - NOT from a regime?). There was a radical shift in American dialog around the turn of the 20th century (the first revolution of Cuba and the Spanish War) when America's principles of self-determination and representation were directly challenged and contradicted by its interests in expanding and obtaining control over certain areas of the world (Cuba, Philippines). The language of inalienable rights and of governments of people, by people for people - of rights to govern coming from the people who are governed - were morphed into republican imperalist language 'we are bringing those who do not have democracy/technology/western life what they need, even if it doesn't come with self determination.' (Neither the people of the Philippines nor Cuba wanted American rule). It was ruled by American courts that America could control these regions but did not need to give the people governed there the full porfolio of rights garunteed by the Constitution, nor the right to vote. You see this play out today where the US government will side with authoritarian regimes against democratic uprisings of their people when the regimes in question align with Western strategic and diplomatic goals and the democratic uprisings do not. It's really hard to actually point and say "yes, this is a place where America is liberating people and allowing democracy to shine." America is a soft-power imperalist and has been for around 100 years. This is justified by the narrative you mention - that America brings with it democracy, etc - but in the details America pursues its interests first and its ideals later.
- anigbrowl 12y ago
  That's how things have always worked. As far as the US goes, look at the relationship it had with the Shah of Iran prior to the Iranian theocratic revolution of 1979; reinstalling the Shah in 1953 (under Eisenhower, though the plans were presumably laid under Truman) was an overthrow of a Democratically elected government to suit US and UK oil producers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat But this isn't IMHO unique to the Anglo-American countries; nations have been doing this sort of thing for centuries going back to ancient times.
  - FeeTinesAMady 12y ago
    Why are you pointing that out? Do you think that because governments have always been so self-serving and manipulative, that it's okay? If not, then do you think that that has some relevance to the current discussion? We're talking about what Western governments are doing today, and what you're doing - saying that it's not news, and it's always been going on - is a common technique that they use for shutting down open discussion of these topics.
    - tokenadult 12y ago
      We're talking about what Western governments are doing today What do you mean, "We"? The submitted article purported to be about a worldwide phenomenon, and on a worldwide basis, what the Western countries and their democratically elected governments are doing for Internet freedom looks quite good. On a worldwide basis, regarding Internet freedom, the performance of China, North Korea, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Cuba, and a lot of other countries and their governments is much worse than that of the Western countries, and yet some participants here who enjoy Western freedom are trying to shut down the broader discussion here by pointing only to the wrongs of Western governments. We know a lot more about what the Western governments are doing than we do about what the other governments are doing precisely because we live in an environment of much more free press in the West than elsewhere. This bias in availability of information shouldn't bias all of our discussions of worldwide issues on Hacker News. (Disclosure: I speak and read languages other than English and have lived in a non-Western, non-English-speaking country before, so I don't have a narrow national perspective on this issue, but rather attempt to have a worldwide perspective on it.)
IkmoIkmo 12y ago
> most of the United States efforts are designed to use persuasion counter radical movements Reminds me of an interview with Chomsky where he talks about internal US policy: > But there was a more serious and considered answer given by the National Security Council, the highest planning agency. They pointed out that there's a perception in the Arab world that the United States supports status quo regimes which, of course, are brutal and oppressive, and does so in order to secure its own interests in obtaining oil, and then they said, well, it's hard to counter this perception because it's correct. They said it's natural for the United States to link itself up with the status quo regimes and try to sustain them and to pursue its interest in obtaining oil. So the end result is that there's a campaign of hatred against us among the people who we're basically robbing and on whom we're imposing harsh, brutal, repressive and corrupt regimes, and it's pretty difficult to counter that campaign. The notion that the US actively fights corrupt, despotic regimes and supports radical movements for democracy doesn't rhyme with US history of the past few hundred years. Look at support for Cuban Batista, or support for Chilean Pinochet, support for Iraqi Hussein, for Indonesian Suharto, Spanish Franco, Iranian Mohammed Reza etc. The list is very long. Anyway I don't want to get into too much of a political discussion. But this notion that US foreign policy (or any country's foreign policy for that matter, by the way) is dictated by good will, trying to curb radical movements that sweep away freedom, rather than geopolitics, is clearly missing something. US has practiced realpolitik for a long time now, first under the guise of fighting ideologically different communists, now under the guise of fighting ideologically different islamic extremists. It's simply the enemy of the week now, the product of the whole neoliberal clash-of-civilizations movement. The real motivation has always been geopolitics. The US isn't unique in this by the way, it's just easy to pick out as it's been the most successful at this the past 200 years and therefore it has the most stories of supporting crap regimes for its own good will.

xnull2guest 12y ago

If you look around the links (especially the MINERVA funded material), although also Cuba is a great example, there is plenty there in direct disruption, rather than "counter-radical" (which would mean what, exactly, when radical means democratic grass-roots self-determined ideas from a people - NOT from a regime?). There was a radical shift in American dialog around the turn of the 20th century (the first revolution of Cuba and the Spanish War) when America's principles of self-determination and representation were directly challenged and contradicted by its interests in expanding and obtaining control over certain areas of the world (Cuba, Philippines). The language of inalienable rights and of governments of people, by people for people - of rights to govern coming from the people who are governed - were morphed into republican imperalist language 'we are bringing those who do not have democracy/technology/western life what they need, even if it doesn't come with self determination.' (Neither the people of the Philippines nor Cuba wanted American rule). It was ruled by American courts that America could control these regions but did not need to give the people governed there the full porfolio of rights garunteed by the Constitution, nor the right to vote. You see this play out today where the US government will side with authoritarian regimes against democratic uprisings of their people when the regimes in question align with Western strategic and diplomatic goals and the democratic uprisings do not. It's really hard to actually point and say "yes, this is a place where America is liberating people and allowing democracy to shine." America is a soft-power imperalist and has been for around 100 years. This is justified by the narrative you mention - that America brings with it democracy, etc - but in the details America pursues its interests first and its ideals later.

anigbrowl 12y ago
That's how things have always worked. As far as the US goes, look at the relationship it had with the Shah of Iran prior to the Iranian theocratic revolution of 1979; reinstalling the Shah in 1953 (under Eisenhower, though the plans were presumably laid under Truman) was an overthrow of a Democratically elected government to suit US and UK oil producers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat But this isn't IMHO unique to the Anglo-American countries; nations have been doing this sort of thing for centuries going back to ancient times.
- FeeTinesAMady 12y ago
  Why are you pointing that out? Do you think that because governments have always been so self-serving and manipulative, that it's okay? If not, then do you think that that has some relevance to the current discussion? We're talking about what Western governments are doing today, and what you're doing - saying that it's not news, and it's always been going on - is a common technique that they use for shutting down open discussion of these topics.
  - tokenadult 12y ago
    We're talking about what Western governments are doing today What do you mean, "We"? The submitted article purported to be about a worldwide phenomenon, and on a worldwide basis, what the Western countries and their democratically elected governments are doing for Internet freedom looks quite good. On a worldwide basis, regarding Internet freedom, the performance of China, North Korea, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Cuba, and a lot of other countries and their governments is much worse than that of the Western countries, and yet some participants here who enjoy Western freedom are trying to shut down the broader discussion here by pointing only to the wrongs of Western governments. We know a lot more about what the Western governments are doing than we do about what the other governments are doing precisely because we live in an environment of much more free press in the West than elsewhere. This bias in availability of information shouldn't bias all of our discussions of worldwide issues on Hacker News. (Disclosure: I speak and read languages other than English and have lived in a non-Western, non-English-speaking country before, so I don't have a narrow national perspective on this issue, but rather attempt to have a worldwide perspective on it.)

IkmoIkmo 12y ago

> most of the United States efforts are designed to use persuasion counter radical movements Reminds me of an interview with Chomsky where he talks about internal US policy: > But there was a more serious and considered answer given by the National Security Council, the highest planning agency. They pointed out that there's a perception in the Arab world that the United States supports status quo regimes which, of course, are brutal and oppressive, and does so in order to secure its own interests in obtaining oil, and then they said, well, it's hard to counter this perception because it's correct. They said it's natural for the United States to link itself up with the status quo regimes and try to sustain them and to pursue its interest in obtaining oil. So the end result is that there's a campaign of hatred against us among the people who we're basically robbing and on whom we're imposing harsh, brutal, repressive and corrupt regimes, and it's pretty difficult to counter that campaign. The notion that the US actively fights corrupt, despotic regimes and supports radical movements for democracy doesn't rhyme with US history of the past few hundred years. Look at support for Cuban Batista, or support for Chilean Pinochet, support for Iraqi Hussein, for Indonesian Suharto, Spanish Franco, Iranian Mohammed Reza etc. The list is very long. Anyway I don't want to get into too much of a political discussion. But this notion that US foreign policy (or any country's foreign policy for that matter, by the way) is dictated by good will, trying to curb radical movements that sweep away freedom, rather than geopolitics, is clearly missing something. US has practiced realpolitik for a long time now, first under the guise of fighting ideologically different communists, now under the guise of fighting ideologically different islamic extremists. It's simply the enemy of the week now, the product of the whole neoliberal clash-of-civilizations movement. The real motivation has always been geopolitics. The US isn't unique in this by the way, it's just easy to pick out as it's been the most successful at this the past 200 years and therefore it has the most stories of supporting crap regimes for its own good will.