David Goldman the Prophet

This too shall pass.
Mr. Perfect
Posts: 16973
Joined: Mon Dec 12, 2011 9:35 am

David Goldman the Prophet

Post by Mr. Perfect »

Seems like our old pal Spengler is right about everything. It's very interesting. I liked him, a lot, back in the day. can't really tell you why, but once he came out I lost interest. He was a lot of fun.

But more importantly he seems to be a Prophet. His prophecies are coming to pass, a self immolating Europe succumbing to the savvier Bear, along with a self immolating ME. Now before you all say "everyone knew this was going to happen" I will say simply that no, not any of you knew that. None of you knew it at the time, most of you argued passionately against it.

But we see a childless purposeless Europe evaporating before our eyes. And Spengler saw it coming far before almost anyone else did. Now some of you will pull up an old article where he got something wrong, everyone does that, but on the meta/macro scale he was dead nuts on the nail. Very impressive.

I will say it is a privilege to be in the presence of Prophets. Thanks Dave for a look see down the road.
Censorship isn't necessary
User avatar
Typhoon
Posts: 27242
Joined: Mon Dec 12, 2011 6:42 pm
Location: 関西

Re: David Goldman the Prophet

Post by Typhoon »

A prophet in his own mind.

Halloween.
May the gods preserve and defend me from self-righteous altruists; I can defend myself from my enemies and my friends.
Mr. Perfect
Posts: 16973
Joined: Mon Dec 12, 2011 9:35 am

Re: David Goldman the Prophet

Post by Mr. Perfect »

A prophet is as a prophet does. When you foresee events before they happen, well, that's the job description. Whether YHWH was involved or not, only he knows.
Censorship isn't necessary
User avatar
Typhoon
Posts: 27242
Joined: Mon Dec 12, 2011 6:42 pm
Location: 関西

Re: David Goldman the Prophet

Post by Typhoon »

Mr. Perfect wrote:A prophet is as a prophet does. When you foresee events before they happen, well, that's the job description. Whether YHWH was involved or not, only he knows.
Such as Spenglerman's insistence that the US would invade Iran before Halloween . . . years ago?

As Mark Twain noted after reading about his demise,
it's customary for the subject in question to be actually deceased before writing an obituary.

Internet wannabe pundits with serious confirmation bias resulting in premature prognostication issues are a dime a dozen . . . million.
May the gods preserve and defend me from self-righteous altruists; I can defend myself from my enemies and my friends.
User avatar
Miss_Faucie_Fishtits
Posts: 2152
Joined: Sat Dec 17, 2011 9:58 pm

Re: David Goldman the Prophet

Post by Miss_Faucie_Fishtits »

Oh, let's post the link........'>......

and....... http://atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/C ... 00314.html

This one is tough to argue against:
Only once in the past century have we read the world aright. We got it wrong when Woodrow Wilson proposed a utopian postwar vision in 1919, when the isolationists tried to stay out of the European conflict in the late 1930s, when Roosevelt and Truman let Stalin absorb Eastern Europe, when we overextended and then turned tail in Vietnam, and when we undertook to turn Iraq and Afghanistan into Western-style democracies. Ronald Reagan got it right when he decided that it was time to roll back communism - but he also understood that we would have to live with Russia as a nation.

and........
The Obama administration is staffed by the sort of utopian liberal internationalists who attended conflict-resolution seminars at Ivy League colleges. Putin seems a throwback, and that is just what he is: he is trying to revert to Russian identity prior to the 1917 October Revolution, not without some success. To compare him to Hitler is Billingsgate. The hawks seem upset that Russia has not chosen to accept its decline with Stoic resignation. It is easier to condemn Russian brutality than to suggest an alternative path by which Russia would remain viable a century from now.
She irons her jeans, she's evil.........
Mr. Perfect
Posts: 16973
Joined: Mon Dec 12, 2011 9:35 am

Re: David Goldman the Prophet

Post by Mr. Perfect »

Typhoon wrote:
Mr. Perfect wrote:A prophet is as a prophet does. When you foresee events before they happen, well, that's the job description. Whether YHWH was involved or not, only he knows.
Such as Spenglerman's insistence that the US would invade Iran before Halloween . . . years ago?

As Mark Twain noted after reading about his demise,
it's customary for the subject in question to be actually deceased before writing an obituary.

Internet wannabe pundits with serious confirmation bias resulting in premature prognostication issues are a dime a dozen . . . million.
This of course was already covered in the OP. You can find minor errors in anyone's writings, but Spengler's larger vision has come to fruition almost as if he saw it in vision.
Censorship isn't necessary
User avatar
Typhoon
Posts: 27242
Joined: Mon Dec 12, 2011 6:42 pm
Location: 関西

Re: David Goldman the Prophet

Post by Typhoon »

Miss_Faucie_Fishtits wrote:Oh, let's post the link........'>......

and....... http://atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/C ... 00314.html

This one is tough to argue against:
Only once in the past century have we read the world aright. We got it wrong when Woodrow Wilson proposed a utopian postwar vision in 1919, when the isolationists tried to stay out of the European conflict in the late 1930s, when Roosevelt and Truman let Stalin absorb Eastern Europe, when we overextended and then turned tail in Vietnam, and when we undertook to turn Iraq and Afghanistan into Western-style democracies. Ronald Reagan got it right when he decided that it was time to roll back communism - but he also understood that we would have to live with Russia as a nation.
Rather general and hardly original to Spenglerman. As for "tough to argue against", I would respectfully disagree:

Wilson opposed the ruinous war reparations imposed on Germany post WW1 by the European allies which lead to hyperinflation and the collapse of the democratic Weimar Republic and helped give rise to National Socialism and thus WW Part Deux. On the other hand, the post WWII Marshall Plan was probably the greatest success of US foreign policy.

After WWII, the US public had had enough of war [and so had most, if not all, of the US allies].
Stopping Stalin would have meant either a massive drawn out conventional war or nuking Moscow before 1949.

The S Vietnamese regimes were hopelessly corrupt and the US was perceived by the Vietnamese as the the new colonialists who had replaced the French.
The cost of the Vietnam War forced Nixon to unilaterally renege on the Bretton-Woods Agreement - a foundation of postwar stability, close the gold window, and gave rise to the inflation of the 1970's and the start of the national debt that the US enjoys today. Staying the course would have required a massive increase in US troops [unpopular at home] and spending even more money that the US did not have.

The former SU was done in by three factors: internal decay, the Afghanistan misadventure, and the US $15 per barrel of oil.
Okay. A fourth factor: the SU was a completely artificial construct only held together by force, terror, and repression
That the role of Reagan was a decisive factor is a self-serving Made in the USA myth.
Miss_Faucie_Fishtits wrote: and........
The Obama administration is staffed by the sort of utopian liberal internationalists who attended conflict-resolution seminars at Ivy League colleges. Putin seems a throwback, and that is just what he is: he is trying to revert to Russian identity prior to the 1917 October Revolution, not without some success. To compare him to Hitler is Billingsgate. The hawks seem upset that Russia has not chosen to accept its decline with Stoic resignation. It is easier to condemn Russian brutality than to suggest an alternative path by which Russia would remain viable a century from now.
An observation, however, where's the prescription and/or prediction?

If the US wants to put pressure on Moscow, then it would engineer a massive drop in the price of oil and nat gas, Russia's two maIn exports and source of income.

For Russia to remain a viable nation a century from now would require a massive internal cultural change:
not showing up to work drunk,
not getting drunk during work, and
not dying from drinking.
May the gods preserve and defend me from self-righteous altruists; I can defend myself from my enemies and my friends.
User avatar
Doc
Posts: 12562
Joined: Sat Nov 24, 2012 6:10 pm

Re: David Goldman the Prophet

Post by Doc »

Mr. Perfect wrote:Seems like our old pal Spengler is right about everything. It's very interesting. I liked him, a lot, back in the day. can't really tell you why, but once he came out I lost interest. He was a lot of fun.

But more importantly he seems to be a Prophet. His prophecies are coming to pass, a self immolating Europe succumbing to the savvier Bear, along with a self immolating ME. Now before you all say "everyone knew this was going to happen" I will say simply that no, not any of you knew that. None of you knew it at the time, most of you argued passionately against it.

But we see a childless purposeless Europe evaporating before our eyes. And Spengler saw it coming far before almost anyone else did. Now some of you will pull up an old article where he got something wrong, everyone does that, but on the meta/macro scale he was dead nuts on the nail. Very impressive.

I will say it is a privilege to be in the presence of Prophets. Thanks Dave for a look see down the road.
Democratic Tsunami in the ME. The "Old Europe" of Dick Rumsfeld. It was out there. Though Goldman did fill in a lot of the original details, there was a lot he did not say as well. Like France has a very healthy birthrate. Even though they for all the french or anyone else knows may be all Muslim immigrant babies. He didn't, as far as I remember, mention the rate of alcoholism in Russia. Though he did say something about Russian men not wanting to be fathers. Them and most of the men in Europe. Men tend to commit suicide when they see no possibility of hope. Not having children and drinking to much indicates suicide with a slow fuse.

An Expansive Russia could reverse that....
"I fancied myself as some kind of god....It is a sort of disease when you consider yourself some kind of god, the creator of everything, but I feel comfortable about it now since I began to live it out.” -- George Soros
User avatar
Miss_Faucie_Fishtits
Posts: 2152
Joined: Sat Dec 17, 2011 9:58 pm

Re: David Goldman the Prophet

Post by Miss_Faucie_Fishtits »

Typhoon wrote:Rather general and hardly original to Spenglerman. As for "tough to argue against", I would respectfully disagree:
It's in here somewhere...... it's an attitude, not an argument.....'>..........

Kalql-_c31I
She irons her jeans, she's evil.........
User avatar
Heracleum Persicum
Posts: 11568
Joined: Sat Dec 22, 2012 7:38 pm

Re: David Goldman the Prophet

Post by Heracleum Persicum »

Miss_Faucie_Fishtits wrote:
Typhoon wrote:Rather general and hardly original to Spenglerman. As for "tough to argue against", I would respectfully disagree:
It's in here somewhere...... it's an attitude, not an argument.....'>..........

Kalql-_c31I


:lol:


America's problem is Idi*ts and charlatans have a headlock on (naive) American Joe

Idi*ts & charlatans come in many shape and form

Obama is the most smart president America had since Franklin D. Roosevelt

Iraq war a disaster for America, Afghanistan war even worst .. and this idi*t craves America jump into another fiasco

I'm holding my view about (prophet) David for a bit later on :)
Mr. Perfect
Posts: 16973
Joined: Mon Dec 12, 2011 9:35 am

Re: David Goldman the Prophet

Post by Mr. Perfect »

Typhoon wrote: The former SU was done in by three factors: internal decay, the Afghanistan misadventure, and the US $15 per barrel of oil.
Okay. A fourth factor: the SU was a completely artificial construct only held together by force, terror, and repression
That the role of Reagan was a decisive factor is a self-serving Made in the USA myth.
Not even wrong.

ISUU2vqGdBM
For Russia to remain a viable nation a century from now would require a massive internal cultural change:
not showing up to work drunk,
not getting drunk during work, and
not dying from drinking.
Russia has survived a number of centuries living that lifestyle I'm not sure why it won't work for a few more centuries.

But it is entertaining listening to Japanese people talking about what other nations should do to stay viable.
Censorship isn't necessary
User avatar
Heracleum Persicum
Posts: 11568
Joined: Sat Dec 22, 2012 7:38 pm

Re: David Goldman the Prophet

Post by Heracleum Persicum »

Mr. Perfect wrote:
Typhoon wrote: The former SU was done in by three factors: internal decay, the Afghanistan misadventure, and the US $15 per barrel of oil.
Okay. A fourth factor: the SU was a completely artificial construct only held together by force, terror, and repression
That the role of Reagan was a decisive factor is a self-serving Made in the USA myth.
Not even wrong.

ISUU2vqGdBM
For Russia to remain a viable nation a century from now would require a massive internal cultural change:
not showing up to work drunk,
not getting drunk during work, and
not dying from drinking.
Russia has survived a number of centuries living that lifestyle I'm not sure why it won't work for a few more centuries.

But it is entertaining listening to Japanese people talking about what other nations should do to stay viable.

seconded
User avatar
Typhoon
Posts: 27242
Joined: Mon Dec 12, 2011 6:42 pm
Location: 関西

Re: David Goldman the Prophet

Post by Typhoon »

Mr. Perfect wrote:
Typhoon wrote: The former SU was done in by three factors: internal decay, the Afghanistan misadventure, and the US $15 per barrel of oil.
Okay. A fourth factor: the SU was a completely artificial construct only held together by force, terror, and repression
That the role of Reagan was a decisive factor is a self-serving Made in the USA myth.
Not even wrong.

ISUU2vqGdBM
Reagan hagiography. Too silly for words.

Good for parochial TV ratings, lousy for history: http://hnn.us/article/5569
Mr. Perfect wrote:
For Russia to remain a viable nation a century from now would require a massive internal cultural change:
not showing up to work drunk,
not getting drunk during work, and
not dying from drinking.
Russia has survived a number of centuries living that lifestyle I'm not sure why it won't work for a few more centuries.
Survived, yes. Thrived, no.

So Russia is viable for a few more centuries, while the EU is imminently doomed.

CIA Factbook: percentage population growth 2011

EU average: 0.16%
France: 0.50%
Italy: 0.42%
Denmark: 0.25%
Germany: -0.21%

Russia: -0.47%

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_E ... rowth_rate

The Russophilia of some American wannabe pundits, such as Spenglerman, and his sycophantic followers is nothing if not entertaining.
Mr. Perfect wrote:But it is entertaining listening to Japanese people talking about what other nations should do to stay viable.
By this rather puerile line of reasoning, Americans should then keep quiet on banking, crime, education, finance, health care, lifestyle, and violence.
May the gods preserve and defend me from self-righteous altruists; I can defend myself from my enemies and my friends.
User avatar
Typhoon
Posts: 27242
Joined: Mon Dec 12, 2011 6:42 pm
Location: 関西

Re: David Goldman the Prophet

Post by Typhoon »

Heracleum Persicum wrote:
Mr. Perfect wrote:
Typhoon wrote: The former SU was done in by three factors: internal decay, the Afghanistan misadventure, and the US $15 per barrel of oil.
Okay. A fourth factor: the SU was a completely artificial construct only held together by force, terror, and repression
That the role of Reagan was a decisive factor is a self-serving Made in the USA myth.
Not even wrong.

ISUU2vqGdBM
For Russia to remain a viable nation a century from now would require a massive internal cultural change:
not showing up to work drunk,
not getting drunk during work, and
not dying from drinking.
Russia has survived a number of centuries living that lifestyle I'm not sure why it won't work for a few more centuries.

But it is entertaining listening to Japanese people talking about what other nations should do to stay viable.
seconded
Why not keep it short and simple.
Just list the few, if any, dictatorships that you do not automatically and reflexively kowtow to?
May the gods preserve and defend me from self-righteous altruists; I can defend myself from my enemies and my friends.
User avatar
YMix
Posts: 4631
Joined: Mon Dec 12, 2011 4:53 am
Location: Department of Congruity - Report any outliers here

Re: David Goldman the Prophet

Post by YMix »

Typhoon wrote:By this rather puerile line of reasoning, Americans should then keep quiet on banking, crime, education, finance, health care, lifestyle, and violence.
Not going to happen. The USA is currently trying to tell the Russian Federation the old "do as we say, not as we do".
“There are a lot of killers. We’ve got a lot of killers. What, do you think our country’s so innocent? Take a look at what we’ve done, too.” - Donald J. Trump, President of the USA
The Kushner sh*t is greasy - Stevie B.
User avatar
Miss_Faucie_Fishtits
Posts: 2152
Joined: Sat Dec 17, 2011 9:58 pm

Re: David Goldman the Prophet

Post by Miss_Faucie_Fishtits »

Let's follow David's trajectory...... if possible.......'P...........

1 - World peace is not a thing. It isn't even a valid concept, it's a five-sided square. Talking about it is rubbish.......

2 - Nations are not like individual persons. You can't ascribe individual motive and intent to them, what you can determine is by necessity, vague and imprecise.........

3 - There is no authority above national governments. Intergovernmental organisations that think they can dismiss this are a laughable conceit.......

4 - An army raised by conscription is a hammer, not a tool. Know the difference between a national existential crisis of survival and a laudable police action or intervention, and your military will work well for you.......

5 - And, of course, the popular and evergreen - any dollar borrowed, like a dollar spent, HAS to be paid. Debt is non-negotiable, whom it's owed to is irrelevant.......

Now, our DPG may be considered like a dog and there's no way he can tell you when the light is green. 'Peace' is a non-concept in his world. Values are determined teleologically and are not material. Objection to his argument is going to have to be in omnibus, because I think same is internally consistent.........
She irons her jeans, she's evil.........
User avatar
Heracleum Persicum
Posts: 11568
Joined: Sat Dec 22, 2012 7:38 pm

Re: David Goldman the Prophet

Post by Heracleum Persicum »

YMix wrote:
The USA is currently trying to tell the Russian Federation the old "do as we say, not as we do".

:lol: :lol: :D .. seconded
User avatar
monster_gardener
Posts: 5334
Joined: Fri Dec 23, 2011 12:36 am
Location: Trolla. Land of upside down trees and tomatos........

Reagan,Alpha Star of Constellation Aligned Against the Bear.

Post by monster_gardener »

Typhoon wrote:
Miss_Faucie_Fishtits wrote:Oh, let's post the link........'>......

and....... http://atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/C ... 00314.html

This one is tough to argue against:
Only once in the past century have we read the world aright. We got it wrong when Woodrow Wilson proposed a utopian postwar vision in 1919, when the isolationists tried to stay out of the European conflict in the late 1930s, when Roosevelt and Truman let Stalin absorb Eastern Europe, when we overextended and then turned tail in Vietnam, and when we undertook to turn Iraq and Afghanistan into Western-style democracies. Ronald Reagan got it right when he decided that it was time to roll back communism - but he also understood that we would have to live with Russia as a nation.
Rather general and hardly original to Spenglerman. As for "tough to argue against", I would respectfully disagree:

Wilson opposed the ruinous war reparations imposed on Germany post WW1 by the European allies which lead to hyperinflation and the collapse of the democratic Weimar Republic and helped give rise to National Socialism and thus WW Part Deux. On the other hand, the post WWII Marshall Plan was probably the greatest success of US foreign policy.

After WWII, the US public had had enough of war [and so had most, if not all, of the US allies].
Stopping Stalin would have meant either a massive drawn out conventional war or nuking Moscow before 1949.

The S Vietnamese regimes were hopelessly corrupt and the US was perceived by the Vietnamese as the the new colonialists who had replaced the French.
The cost of the Vietnam War forced Nixon to unilaterally renege on the Bretton-Woods Agreement - a foundation of postwar stability, close the gold window, and gave rise to the inflation of the 1970's and the start of the national debt that the US enjoys today. Staying the course would have required a massive increase in US troops [unpopular at home] and spending even more money that the US did not have.

The former SU was done in by three factors: internal decay, the Afghanistan misadventure, and the US $15 per barrel of oil.
Okay. A fourth factor: the SU was a completely artificial construct only held together by force, terror, and repression
That the role of Reagan was a decisive factor is a self-serving Made in the USA myth.
Miss_Faucie_Fishtits wrote: and........
The Obama administration is staffed by the sort of utopian liberal internationalists who attended conflict-resolution seminars at Ivy League colleges. Putin seems a throwback, and that is just what he is: he is trying to revert to Russian identity prior to the 1917 October Revolution, not without some success. To compare him to Hitler is Billingsgate. The hawks seem upset that Russia has not chosen to accept its decline with Stoic resignation. It is easier to condemn Russian brutality than to suggest an alternative path by which Russia would remain viable a century from now.
An observation, however, where's the prescription and/or prediction?

If the US wants to put pressure on Moscow, then it would engineer a massive drop in the price of oil and nat gas, Russia's two maIn exports and source of income.

For Russia to remain a viable nation a century from now would require a massive internal cultural change:
not showing up to work drunk,
not getting drunk during work, and
not dying from drinking.

Thank You VERY Much for your post, Col. Sun/Typhoon.
That the role of Reagan was a decisive factor is a self-serving Made in the USA myth.
It was not just Reagan...... Also Maggie Thatcher, Pope John Paul II/Lech Walesa, and Zbigniew Brzezinski out to get revenge for Katyn Forest...

But Reagan was the most prominent in a constellation of stars aligned against the Soviets........


Also the factors you listed and Western commercials getting into the drab Soviet controlled areas showing the proles in the West had it better than the AppaRATchiks :twisted: in the East........


But IMHO Regan or someone VERY like him was necessary in the US...........

Someone who would push & risk rather than just hold fast........

Someone the Soviets might think a little bit dangerous............

Rather than the luckless misery spreading Carter who stopped listening to Zee Big...........

And G_D forbid someone like the Arrogant, Incompetent, Lazy, Lying Son of a Bitch Eater we have now........... :roll:

The West won......... :D

But it was VERY risky.......... :shock:

I can recall 3 occasions when things almost went sour..... That satellite launch that the Soviets almost decided was a preemptive strike...... That Soviet submarine that sank allegedly getting ready to do an unauthorized nuke strike of its own........ And that drunk Russian general whose subordinates fortunately phoned Moscow first.......

Depraved Sinful Egotistical Chaotic Human Beings have become too dangerous to each other to live on just one planet together.........
If the US wants to put pressure on Moscow, then it would engineer a massive drop in the price of oil and nat gas, Russia's two maIn exports and source of income.
Which equals Fracking, the Keystone Pipeline and other non Green/Black Magic ;) which Arrogant, Incompetent, Lazy, Lying Son of a Bitch Eating obama is not going touch with a 10 foot pole unless maybe he is convinced he will lose the Senate otherwise.........
For the love of G_d, consider you & I may be mistaken.
Orion Must Rise: Killer Space Rocks Coming Our way
The Best Laid Plans of Men, Monkeys & Pigs Oft Go Awry
Woe to those who long for the Day of the Lord, for It is Darkness, Not Light
Mr. Perfect
Posts: 16973
Joined: Mon Dec 12, 2011 9:35 am

Re: David Goldman the Prophet

Post by Mr. Perfect »

Typhoon wrote: Reagan hagiography. Too silly for words.
I don't find truth to be silly. Morgan Freeman is not a Republican.

Sometime I would love to hear why you think the Soviets were willing to get rid of their entire arsenal in exchange for abandonment of SDI at Reykjavik in 1986.
Survived, yes. Thrived, no.
I don't know. They've managed superpower status longer than anyone other than the US in the last 100 years.
So Russia is viable for a few more centuries, while the EU is imminently doomed.

CIA Factbook: percentage population growth 2011

EU average: 0.16%
France: 0.50%
Italy: 0.42%
Denmark: 0.25%
Germany: -0.21%

Russia: -0.47%
Note necessarily. Russia is at least aware of and doing something about their problem, while EU et al continues to promote depopulation policy.
The Russophilia of some American wannabe pundits, such as Spenglerman, and his sycophantic followers is nothing if not entertaining.
This is a strawman of course, I'm not sure anyone loves Russia, just a healthy amount of professional respect as Putin appears to be the best operator of his era.
By this rather puerile line of reasoning, Americans should then keep quiet on banking, crime, education, finance, health care, lifestyle, and violence.
Why so bitter. And I would say that you're making a post hoc fallacy here. If you would have substituted "Democrats" for "Americans" then I would say you were more logical, and would agree with you. I think it's time for Democrats to go, and judging by polling we're finally getting close to that.
Censorship isn't necessary
Mr. Perfect
Posts: 16973
Joined: Mon Dec 12, 2011 9:35 am

Re: David Goldman the Prophet

Post by Mr. Perfect »

YMix wrote: Not going to happen. obama/kerry is currently trying to tell the Russian Federation the old "do as we say, not as we do".
Fixed.
Censorship isn't necessary
User avatar
YMix
Posts: 4631
Joined: Mon Dec 12, 2011 4:53 am
Location: Department of Congruity - Report any outliers here

Re: David Goldman the Prophet

Post by YMix »

Mr. Perfect wrote:Fixed.
This has been going on since before Obama and will continue after he's gone from the WH.
“There are a lot of killers. We’ve got a lot of killers. What, do you think our country’s so innocent? Take a look at what we’ve done, too.” - Donald J. Trump, President of the USA
The Kushner sh*t is greasy - Stevie B.
User avatar
Typhoon
Posts: 27242
Joined: Mon Dec 12, 2011 6:42 pm
Location: 関西

Re: David Goldman the Prophet

Post by Typhoon »

Mr. Perfect wrote:
Typhoon wrote: Reagan hagiography. Too silly for words.
I don't find truth to be silly. Morgan Freeman is not a Republican.

Sometime I would love to hear why you think the Soviets were willing to get rid of their entire arsenal in exchange for abandonment of SDI at Reykjavik in 1986.
Unlikely, given that SDI never came anywhere close to being operational.
It was pie in the sky back then and remains so today.
Mr. Perfect wrote:
Survived, yes. Thrived, no.
I don't know. They've managed superpower status longer than anyone other than the US in the last 100 years.
The SU was a nominal superpower from ~ 1949 to ~ 1982. Not much of a run from a historical perspective.
Mr. Perfect wrote:
So Russia is viable for a few more centuries, while the EU is imminently doomed.

CIA Factbook: percentage population growth 2011

EU average: 0.16%
France: 0.50%
Italy: 0.42%
Denmark: 0.25%
Germany: -0.21%

Russia: -0.47%
Note necessarily. Russia is at least aware of and doing something about their problem, while EU et al continues to promote depopulation policy.
Youth procreation camps reminiscent of the prewar German fascists?

The Nile is not the Seine.
Mr. Perfect wrote:
The Russophilia of some American wannabe pundits, such as Spenglerman, and his sycophantic followers is nothing if not entertaining.
This is a strawman of course, I'm not sure anyone loves Russia, just a healthy amount of professional respect as Putin appears to be the best operator of his era.
That remains to be seen.
Mr. Perfect wrote: :arrow:
By this rather puerile line of reasoning, Americans should then keep quiet on banking, crime, education, finance, health care, lifestyle, and violence.
Why so bitter. And I would say that you're making a post hoc fallacy here. If you would have substituted "Democrats" for "Americans" then I would say you were more logical, and would agree with you. I think it's time for Democrats to go, and judging by polling we're finally getting close to that.
This is an example of the "if everyone would just think like me, then the world would be perfect" fallacy.
May the gods preserve and defend me from self-righteous altruists; I can defend myself from my enemies and my friends.
Mr. Perfect
Posts: 16973
Joined: Mon Dec 12, 2011 9:35 am

Re: David Goldman the Prophet

Post by Mr. Perfect »

Typhoon wrote: Unlikely, given that SDI never came anywhere close to being operational.
It was pie in the sky back then and remains so today.
Not unlikely, established fact. This is a basic fact of the cold war.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reykjav%C3%ADk_Summit

The Americans countered with a proposal to eliminate all ballistic missiles within ten years, but required the right to deploy strategic defences against remaining threats afterwards. Gorbachev then suggested eliminating all nuclear weapons within a decade. Gorbachev, however, citing a desire to strengthen the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM Treaty), added the condition that any SDI research be confined to laboratories for the ten-year period in question. Reagan argued that his proposed SDI research was allowed by any reasonable interpretation of the ABM treaty, and that he could not forget the pledge he made to Americans to investigate whether SDI was viable. He also promised to share SDI technology, a promise which Gorbachev said he doubted would be fulfilled, as the Americans would not even share oil-drilling technology.

The talks finally stalled, Reagan asking if Gorbachev would “turn down a historic opportunity because of a single word,” referring to his insistence on laboratory testing. Gorbachev asserted that it was a matter of a principle, and the summit concluded.


Whether or not SDI ever was or ever will be operational of course is completely beside the point.

So the question remains, why would Gorbachev be willing to surrender his entire nuclear arsenal just get Reagan to give up SDI.
The SU was a nominal superpower from ~ 1949 to ~ 1982. Not much of a run from a historical perspective.
2nd best run of the Century.
Youth procreation camps reminiscent of the prewar German fascists?

The Nile is not the Seine.
Something is better than nothing (the Japanese-Euro "solution").

I wouldn't go Godwin on this one.
That remains to be seen.
We're watching in real time.
This is an example of the "if everyone would just think like me, then the world would be perfect" fallacy.
Really. So fallacy for me and not for thee, ie it's ok if we use Americans as the example, but not Democrats.
Censorship isn't necessary
User avatar
Miss_Faucie_Fishtits
Posts: 2152
Joined: Sat Dec 17, 2011 9:58 pm

Re: David Goldman the Prophet

Post by Miss_Faucie_Fishtits »

okay..... and now the string section kicks in.........
Today’s American liberalism, it is often remarked, amounts to a secular religion: it has its own sacred texts and taboos, Crusades and Inquisitions. The political correctness that undergirds it, meanwhile, can be traced back to the past century’s liberal Protestantism. Conservatives, of course, routinely scoff that liberals’ ersatz religion is inferior to the genuine article.
http://www.the-american-interest.com/ar ... -religion/
Joseph Bottum, by contrast, examines post-Protestant secular religion with empathy, and contends that it gained force and staying power by recasting the old Mainline Protestantism in the form of catechistic worldly categories: anti-racism, anti-gender discrimination, anti-inequality, and so forth. What sustains the heirs of the now-defunct Protestant consensus, he concludes, is a sense of the sacred, but one that seeks the security of personal salvation through assuming the right stance on social and political issues. Precisely because the new secular religion permeates into the pores of everyday life, it sustains the certitude of salvation and a self-perpetuating spiritual aura. Secularism has succeeded on religious terms. That is an uncommon way of understanding the issue, and a powerful one.

A devout Catholic, Bottum may be America’s best writer on religion. He surely is the least predictable. A former chief editor of the conservative religious monthly First Things, he shocked many of his former colleagues by arguing in a widely-read essay for Commonweal that the Catholic Church had lost the fight against same-sex marriage and should move on to other things. By this he expressed not a heterodox view of sexuality, but a dour assessment of the Church’s waning influence on social issues. The same somber mood lurks behind the elegant prose of his present volume, which should be read with foreboding if not alarm.
She irons her jeans, she's evil.........
User avatar
Taboo
Posts: 453
Joined: Fri May 04, 2012 11:05 am

Re: David Goldman the Prophet

Post by Taboo »

Mr. Perfect wrote:Seems like our old pal Spengler is right about everything. It's very interesting. I liked him, a lot, back in the day. can't really tell you why, but once he came out I lost interest. He was a lot of fun.

But more importantly he seems to be a Prophet. His prophecies are coming to pass, a self immolating Europe succumbing to the savvier Bear, along with a self immolating ME. Now before you all say "everyone knew this was going to happen" I will say simply that no, not any of you knew that. None of you knew it at the time, most of you argued passionately against it.

But we see a childless purposeless Europe evaporating before our eyes. And Spengler saw it coming far before almost anyone else did. Now some of you will pull up an old article where he got something wrong, everyone does that, but on the meta/macro scale he was dead nuts on the nail. Very impressive.

I will say it is a privilege to be in the presence of Prophets. Thanks Dave for a look see down the road.
TFR
Russia 1.61
Belgium 1.65
Denmark 1.73
United Kingdom 1.90
United States 2.01
France 2.08

Enough said.
Post Reply