#western collapse

They can't understand what the hell Trump is doing in Iran. Nobody can understand why the Europeans have chosen to Make America Great, Again, by choosing austerity, higher energy prices, deindustrialization, and instigating a losing battle with Russia > the social welfare/well-being of their domestic constituencies.

In general, there is open discussion centered upon the fact that global political elites are administering foreign/domestic policy in a manner that is summarily out of alignment with the general consensus will of their sovereign populations.

If you've read other posts, you know that I have an explanation for a great deal of what we witness and the problem isn't necessarily that these elite actors are being IR-rational; but that what is "rational" is dependent upon understanding underlying assumptions and linking those to an appropriate outcome.

We were "taught" that rational logic was the highest manifestation of human collective action potential and that we have dead Greeks to thank for giving us all the light of Reason.

This allowed the Western world to go about civilizing "backwards" older civilizations and paved the way for Larry Summers to write IMF memos on the value of dumping hazardous waste material on those same societies, as a form of utility maximization. 🥹

( 'Let Them Eat Pollution' - Memo Misfire: World Bank "Spoof" Memo on Toxic Waste Holds More Irony Than Laughs - https://archive.globalpolicy.org/socecon/bwi-wto/sumers99.htm )

That historical irony suits this discussion.

The auto assumption of rationality and superimposition of that idea onto every aspect of human social organization, from the individual, as utility maximization machine, to nation-states, as unitary actors with the best interest of the nation at 💙, has crafted the Global Political-Economy in such a way that outcomes can be labeled as "rational", even where they fly in the face of Common Sense reason and empirical History.

Western democracy has failed and America faces structural collapse, precisely, because our misplaced faith in the free marketplace for ideas has evolved a society that never had to reconcile the Cognitive Dissonance that arises from human fallibility; or, more adeptly, deal with the inconsistencies and discrepancies in evaluating "what is said" versus "what is done".

For the remainder of my thoughts, I will like to use that critical lens to address the idea that rationality begins with Europeans; and, also, how assumptions of rationality have come to dominate our politics/economics in a way that obfuscates reality and conceals the true nature of human decision-making. Particularly, where minority rational interests are routinely elevated > the General Welfare.

🔳 WHAT IS RATIONATIONALITY & WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE RATIONAL?

Turn on your digital device of choice; random sample the news; and understand that your awareness on answering that question is relevant and critical, as it has served as foundational logic, justification, and explanation for much of what you see on your screen and for a great deal of recent History.

It's never made sense, to me, that we live in a society that made Michael Jordan a billionaire from folks buying the same shoes, over and over, simply b/c he can play 🏀. Kim Kardashian is famous for having sex on camera. Yet I'm supposed to believe that the thinking behind this resource allocation methodology ceases to exist, once we form groups and mathematical elites are elevated through our ranks?

More importantly, global society has a ~500 year empirical history of White Supremacy and political-economic Class Struggle that, though their transmission effects are readily apparent, never seem to merit substantive discussion at elite analytical levels; let alone, being included as explanatory variables in assumptions of linear relationships (life is not a straight line 🚫) rational models rely upon.

So, that I historically observe the lasting impacts of Colonialism, Imperialism, Racism, and Capitalist Expansionism as real and legitimately potent ideas gets "captured" in linear logic and "baked in the cake" of final decision-making, at elite levels, held constant as a function of observation.

As an example, I'm, at best, only allowed to say that Barrack Obama was "stupid", but rational, when he led NATO in the illegal destruction of an African nation, in Libya, and assassination of their Head-of-State. Me discussing the history of Western White Supremacy and Transnational Capital has no place in that analysis🚫

Similarly, where Gen. Wesley Clarke is on CAMERA telling us these U.S. interventionist wars are pre-planned is not spoken to by, so called, scholars or political theorists. Thus, as long as there was an election and Obama had people in the room..."mistakes were made" and Libya was subject to the "law of unintended consequences" (though, those consequences were predictable, given historical deference and common sense). But, it was a rational decision.

One of my favorite historical figures, and her pre-colonial mastery of state leadership, military strategy, and international diplomacy, may be of interest.

🔳 BEFORE NATION-STATES: QUEEN AMANIRENAS & THE EMPIRE OF DESTINY

Every classroom setting that I have ever been forced to endure, from Kindergarten to modern debt slavery (Higher Education), has always reinforced the notion that all usable modern intellectual thought MIRACULOUSLY sprang up from White Southern Europeans on the Mediterranean Sea; by way of, apparent, divine inspiration...nothing was going on, anywhere else, on the planet before that 🚫😶

Besides the assumption that purely rational outcomes arise from deliberate group thought processes, there is a natural assumption that rational thought began in ancient Athens; and that rational state actors only arose when Europeans inadvertently created the modern international system, due to the fact that they have the habit of continually destroying their societies.

Thus, the older African civilizations that, ironically, twice civilized them, including helping them to remember Aristotle, and gave them their false "Renaissance"...were backwards. So, from a Geopolitics/International Relations perspective all of the THOUSANDS of years of aggregated African wisdom has no place in contemporary formal political analysis.

But, is this TRUE? This matters, b/c it is to wonder how ancient pre-colonial civilizations managed their external affairs before rational models, theoretical equilibriums, or, even, Europeans were a "thing"?

In contemporary times, we're observing the United States/Israel engage in an illegal war of choice, against Iran, that has many long tooth pundit types looking for crack pipes, attempting to make sense of Western elite thought processes, from a rational perspective. In particular, many are wondering how the United States BENEFITS from this Foreign Policy and geopolitical theater 🎭

Short Answer: There is no benefit 🚫

However, the Iranian response, in, effectively, taking up the gauntlet for the non NATO aligned 🌍, in defiance of neo colonial Western imperialism reminds me of a time when a one-eyed Black African woman punked Rome (albeit tactfully and eloquently) in a similar manner.

Her name was Amanirenas, warrior Kandake of Kush (Sudan), and I'll be as brief as possible in synthesizing the take; but this history is recommended reading and research...some of you writer/creative types might even draw inspiration.

So, the saga of the final Cleopatra (#7) of the last Egyptian (not Kemetic) Dynasty (Ptolemaic) had wrapped up and Octavious (Augustus) decided to go "up south" (upstream) of the Nile (Hapi) and start some shit, in order to consolidate power. They were the "empire of destiny", so I surmise it made sense, at the time.

Well, like many issues with post Ice Age Europeans getting into the real estate business, the problem was that the cousins of the old skool Kemetic civilization were already there and kinda liked the status-quo of not having to deal with White folks trying to tell them what the hell to do...including paying tribute 🤔

Basically, Kemet (Egypt) originated from their early civilization. They had "family matters"; but, over time, there was an understanding and mutual acknowledgement of shared ancient African origins (So, no...Europeans and Arabs had nothing to do with anything, other than colonization).

Like the United States/Israel, Rome 1). Played an away game 2). Misjudged the weather/terrain 3). Didn't realize the industrial capacity of Kush 4). Didn't take supply lines into account 5). Underestimated the resolve/fighting capability of their adversaries 6). Did not internalize that they were dealing with THE SOCIETY THAT BIRTHED ALL OTHERS.

So, as Wesley Snipes said in Blade 😎: "Some MF's always gotta swim upstream".

Augustus ended up losing and being forced to sign a Treaty on the terms of Kush. No tribute. Mutual recognition of sovereignty. Keep your shit to yourself and let's trade. This is recognized as one of the earliest forms of war/diplomacy combinations and there are interesting parallels for modern comparison.

But, how Amanirenas went about conducting her war; her justification for making war; her relationship with her people; and, ultimately, how she mobilized resources and integrated the cultural/spiritual beliefs of her society into the final reasoning calculus for her decision making is what differentiates her from modern Western leaders.

From a Kemetic perspective, Augustus was out of line, not b/c he desired conquest. It was that he was in violation of Ma'at and universal Cosmic Balance. His masculine energy went a little too far and, ironically, the Divine Feminine was there to ✅ him, as counterbalance (she also had the one Eye of Ra, as game changer).

What's more, Rome had endeavored to violate the sovereignty of a society that had, once, had to fight for that sovereignty against Kemet (Egypt); eventually, going on to rule Kemet under the 25th Dynasty. Relative to their times, Kush, even, then, was a 'Civilizational Society'. They were THAT damn old.

In fact, Amanirenas never referred to Augustus and Rome as racist, imperialist, etc. She simply said they were "arrogant" and out of line with the principles of Ma'at. So, in the minds of her people, they were not only fighting an existentialist threat...they were dutifully upholding the cosmic order, as their spiritual science mandated.

Thus, the war with Rome was "just" and did not seek territory, wealth, or glory in exchange for the blood and treasure of the Kushite people. The dedicated purpose to conducting the military campaign was to restore balance and create a demarcation line that would keep the peace. In fact, Amanirenas said "they have their world and we have ours" (paraphrased).

And, during the entirety of the military campaign, Amanirenas routinely sought Diplomacy, where military leverage shifted and the bargaining range changed for negotiation. Where there were favorable terms, she would send favors as a gesture of peace and good will. Where these were refused, she would send arrows as a reply and communication of a willingness/ability to endure.

This should sound familiar.

The point is that a capable leader, under all reasonable applications of the idea, was behaving as a "rational actor" with the best interests of her nation at 💜

She didn't use the Kushite gold reserves to support Military Keynesianism. She wasn't willing to sacrifice her people to the last Kushite, just to destabilize Rome and create new colonies to prop up her domestic economy.

Most importantly...she keenly understood that there is a time for fighting and a time for rational discussion, in order that human decency and respect for the sanctity of life can incorporate "sustainability" into the political process. Wouldn't that be NICE to be able to trust and rely upon, in our contemporary elite driven society?

The idea is that there is responsible, competent leadership and, then, there is leadership that is only interested in that which stimulates the ego and individual self interests...but, that latter leadership is never STUPID 🚫

My point, in using Queen Amanirenas, is to demonstrate that elite driven society is our history, as collective civilization. When we're attempting to understand why rationality breaks down, we should look at the quality of leader and their rational incentives. We shouldn't assume that a deliberate process creates a rational outcome, simply because a small group of elite actors have a discussion. 

People of European dissent have been trying to penetrate into the interior of Africa since the time of Alexander and Greece. In antiquity, what we call Western Asia (Iran) would have been considered an eastern African outpost established by the ancestors of those very same Kushites. There's nothing new here.

While many are reviving discussion of the 'Crusades' and the Christian/Muslim history; the story actually goes back further. The difference is that, even the ancient Romans understood common sense reality and, eventually, came to accept the reality that unlimited expansion benefitted no one.

Today, we have a similar scenario; but there doesn't seem to be thorough discussion on evaluating who actually benefits from Western Foreign Policy in Geopolitics/International Relations. There is a reason the elite decision-making seems out of line with, both, public sentiment and the rational interests of Western nations.

Economics and Transnational Capitalism may help us understand. But, 1st, there is the issue with folks with a tan.

🔳 WHERE DO ALL OF THE RACISTS GO, WHEN THEY WIN ELECTIONS?

In the previous section, I didn't refer to the issue of "racism" as a variable for influence. In those days, the racism that says you're better by way of birth wasn't a reasoning tool. In fact, there was a considerable degree of interbreeding between humans of variable pigmentation, going back to before Greece.

Modern racism has its origins in the colonial expansionism that followed Western Roman collapse (even though they did try to "other" Cleopatra #7). So, as a general idea, you can track the modern advent of "race" with the nascent beginnings of Capitalism and all that glorious trajectory.

The racial angle we know exists and has been a prevalent influence in our societies, to this day. Yet, listen to folks talk and deliberate when they're referencing rationalism and any form of Human Social transaction; particularly, in International Relations/Geopolitics. It's as if racism has never existed in human history.

For instance, for a Black American, where are your interests reflected in U.S. Foreign Policy? By the time it gets to a level of a President and Cabinet members, are these interests cancelled out? When Barrack Obama illegal destroyed Libya, an African nation, and created an open-air slave trade and the worst humanitarian crisis, since World War II...Did he have how this would make Black people feel in mind? 🤔

Particularly, since Nelson Mandela, universally beloved by Black people, considered the Head of State for Libya "like a brother" for funding his military liberation efforts in South Africa. When Black U.S. servicemen went to fight in the Europeans Wars 1 and 2, were their interests reflected, in being burned alive in their service uniforms or having their families displaced in a series of racially motivated mob attacks?

At this point, I'm asking what does it functionally MEAN to be "American"?  Ronald Reagan imported a lot of dope into predominantly Black neighborhoods. I'm trying to understand how he checked his "bias", once he shifted to funding counter-revolutionary death squads in South America?

For me, it's simple. He was just another racist White man with money. I don't expect much. However, what perplexes is that serious academics simply omit this from relevant discussion, after there's been an election and people are appointed to positions of authority.

I mean, fundamentally, the United States is simply a group of countries that decided to subordinate themselves to some limited Federal Authority (originally). What was rational about the southern Jim Crow states? What is rational about racism, in general? More importantly, what is rational about pretending that a person with the nuclear codes cannot be racist and have racist motivations? 😐

Going back to Colonialism, after Amanirenas, there has been a persistent drive to subordinate the continent of Africa, in order to monopolize its resource wealth, that continues to this very day. Even after the Arab and Trans-Atlantic Slave Trades, Colonialism, and Neo Colonialism, there is, still, a Western inability to leave Black Africans to their business and let the "Free Market" and "Free Trade" make us all better off.

The United States never invaded Canada. Nobody bothers Australia. Americans have been bankrupting themselves with foreign interventions in the countries of tan folks, since before Vietnam. Did America gain anything from Afghanistan or Iraq? Libya made life worse for us all. Preserving the Petro Dollar simply doesn't cut it as an explanation 🚫

There have been plenty of times when leaders that were not liked by Western nations asked to engage diplomacy and collaborate, to work out differences and foster goodwill. Patrice Lumumba was violently murdered. Thomas Sankara was murdered. Salvador Allende was murdered. It's a long @$$ list and, where targeted violence wasn't an option, the strategy was to destabilize the economies of these tan folks, in order to destabilize their socities.

WHY? Doesn't Free Trade create the incentive to cooperate and enhance peace🕊️? Doesn't the rising tide of Capitalism raise all ships? From a rational perspective, why fight any war? It makes no rational sense. Everyone produce what they make best and just trade. 😐 But, that's not what happens.

We created a United Nations 🇺🇳 system that is good at, sometimes, mobilizing for hurricanes/earthquakes and sanctioning humanitarian intervention by deposing leadership in Uranium rich "Blackmenistan". But, we're, somehow, not very good at prosecuting their White counterparts for similar crimes. Another descrepancy is our inability to prevent a genocide when White people are not the victims. It's amazing and defies all reasonable logic.

I was always understood that, when you cannot conclude that an event occurs purely by chance observation, you MUST take steps to explain the "bias" that influenced the results that you did not expect. When we're thinking rationally, and taking time to model the individual thinking that motivates group output...Where does the bias go and how is it suppressed?

I'm sorry, not sorry; but, if you think the Iran conflict is simply about nuclear weapons, I've got a pair of Beetles Reunion tickets that I would like to sell you for a low low price. Real talk. When I look at the lineups, I can't help but think with the 🧠 of a Black person with an honest, astute sense of History.

We live in a 🌍 where economic power distributions are rapidly shifting in favor of folks that have traditionally gotten the short end of the political-economic "stick" (only to be beaten with it) over the course of the last ~500 years. Even Marco Rubio had to acknowledge it and explain that shit away, using his own rational justifications, in his "Colonialism was kinda dope" speech. Just sayin'.

When we have the same group of countries that egregiously benefitted from violent, structural, and internationalized racism voting against the overwhelming majority of the planet, where it pertains to Colonialism and the long-term transmission effects of Chattel Slavery....what gives? These are the same nations that represent the current dominant power distribution on the 🌍

When I review America, and the general West, the reality is that, as they've increased their knowledge and technological capability, they've only managed to increasingly kill more human beings. Run the numbers. It's incomprehensible and counterintuitive to what is theoretically supposed to be the case.

Then, when we examine the discriminatory characteristics of those that have been killed and the inherent nature of those doing the killing...Cognitive Dissonance must be reconciled and structural bias must be explained.

If everyone is thinking "rationally", why is it so difficult to develope a consensus awareness on historical realities and create a system that is mutually beneficial...Given that we know that we can always kill each other to the last human, irrespective to degree of pigmentation or aptitude for rational thinking?

🔳 THE ECONOMICS OF THE FEW VS THE POLITICS OF THE MANY

Are Economics the politics of elites? Yes.

What's fascinating, to me, is observing folks rationalize why rationalism is failing to explain why Western leaders fed Ukraine to the Military Industrial Complex; why they're attemptng to do the same to the remainder of Europe; or why America is trying to project hegemonic power in a world where its power is regional, at best, and rapidly fading?

I think a part of the problem is that our majorities have been conditioned to divorce our economic awareness from our political reasoning and collective action. I don't know why this is the case. I also don't understand why we favor applying a priori rational assumptions > Common Sense/History. The concept of rationality can be used in a duplicitous manner.

I'm closing with John Maynard Keynes and Economics from a "Class" perspective. This is the shortest section, as I want to dedicate a post to Economics, exclusively, later.

Keynes is always interesting, b/c I consider him a true "elite" (numerical/technical/social); and an interesting 🌍 came about, after he started playing around with equilibriums, drawing lines, holding things constant, and assuming linear relationships. Theoretically, a very rational cat.

I would even consider him somewhat of a "man of his day", meaning that he might not typically fall down on the side of people that talk like me. Yet, his intellectual positions and personal existence might have some view him as an elite conservative with progressive tendencies (or, maybe just an ancient Roman with some damn Common Sense).

Regardless, he had a hand in a creating a great deal of the ideological and institutional mainstream thinking that still has ramifications, if not influence, to this day. I contrast him with the likes of Henry Kissinger and can't see him calling Bangladesh an economic "basketcase", after he just finished bombing them into prehistory 🤔

Still, Keynes never elected to focus on issues of Racism or Slavery in his historical analysis. He chose to take the Class approach, in attempting to devise a system that would eventually see us working less and focusing more on our spiritual/intellectual development, by the time of this discussion.

So, that didn't happen. Why that didn't happen can, partially, be explained by our overreliance on thinking real life is a straight line.

I've, personally, dealt with diametrically opposed character types, equally prone to using rationalism to convince me of a normative position they occupied. Some did not have my best interest in mind. Others attempted to offer that same rational logic, in promoting objectivity, as a way of helping me improve my negative circumstances (though they were ill-informed/misguided).

Either way, the point is that a person can be Henry Kissinger or John Maynard Keynes and, per rational assumption and corresponding conclusion, you would have no reasonable means of differentiating between the two persons. In truth, you can't really falsify their claims. How can I say racist Americans killed 20% of the Korean population, during the War, and invalidate the rational explanation that it was the result of bad aim with good intentions?

People are overtly calling American Foreign Policy the product of racists. However, the final intellectual analysis, and resulting output, for these policies are not assessed from the lens of historical racism. Similarly, people are openly criticizing billionaires using American Foreign Policy to manipulate markets.

But, there doesn't seem to be much elite intellectual scrutiny to entertain the idea that we're simply dealing with purely rational, violently racist greedy people. Could that NOT explain general Western Foreign Policy and why it's not succeeding in generating results that conform to prior expectation?

I left Class for last, intentionally. This is b/c the Class and Race stories tend to be deployed in a way that actually antagonizes the rightful critiques each has to offer; where they, ideally, should be considered together and given equal treatment.

So, a Black person that's keenly aware of the strategic importance of Class Struggle might tell another Black person, focusing exclusively on issues of Racism, "that's a good start; but don't stop at just race". This is b/c focusing exclusively on race can lead one to fall for the okie doke and the bait-and-switch that gave rise to the likes of Barack Obama/Kamala Harris.

Similarly, that same person might observe someone well versed in Class issues check the thought process of someone that assumes all nations are unitary actors that generate deliberative rational output; and remind them that Aristotle, Cicero, Edmund Burke, James Madison, JP Morgan, or John D. Rockefeller existed and none of those dudes sat idle.

However, that person would, also, miss the proverbial "boat" and fall short in a full analysis; where the "rising tide" did not "raise all boats"...b/c, the boat some of us received had a hole in it. You can't capture Class issues without discussing subclass realities 🚫 Especially, where that subclass represents the majority population.

Rationality has broken the world, b/c we've let it function as a tool that allows us to intellectually "maintain" Cognitive Dissonance, instead of focusing on its reconciliation. Thus, we end up playing ping pong, between Henry Kissinger and John Maynard Keynes, as we vacillate between blowing up a country "b/c we can" 😤 or "b/c we care" 🥹

Then, the rational elites are out telling citizens "you voted FOR this", in an attempt to convince them they're getting (D)emocracy, simply because there was a gd election.