Developing a mutually beneficial relationship with China will not be easy. But we can do better than a new Cold War.
There's some dumb stuff in this piece, but I'm glad SOMEONE in Washington with influence is speaking out against the emerging consensus. Hooray for Succdem Grampa
This piece just reminds me of how depressing it is that Bernie was/is the best we've got in the US as far as elected officials go. You can't even advocate for tepid anti-imperialism lite without paragraphs devoted to how "the Big Official Bad Guy is actually Very Bad" as caveats. And some of what he seems to advocate here (pressuring China to be less aUtHoRiTaRiAn through nebulous diplomacy?) is still a hugely problematic application of soft power that is only made possible by way of the US being a hegemonic empire. Not even really a knock on Bernie's personal morality or anything lib like that - just a sad fact of who you have to become in order to participate in bourg imperial core electoralism.
It's also frustrating because no State is above criticism (China very much included) and all of them do some level of harmful shit. But you can't even have that conversation when almost all of the populace at large's "criticisms" (more like comical demonizations) are just them regurgitating bogus State Dept propaganda - at least, you can't really have that conversation outside of dedicated socialist/communist spaces like this one.
This piece just reminds me of how depressing it is that Bernie was/is the best we've got in the US as far as elected officials go. You can't even advocate for tepid anti-imperialism lite without paragraphs devoted to how "the Big Official Bad Guy is actually Very Bad" as caveats. And some of what he seems to advocate here (pressuring China to be less aUtHoRiTaRiAn through nebulous diplomacy?) is still a hugely problematic application of soft power that is only made possible by way of the US being a hegemonic empire. Not even really a knock on Bernie's personal morality or anything lib like that - just a sad fact of who you have to become in order to participate in bourg imperial core electoralism.
It's also frustrating because no State is above criticism (China very much included) and all of them do some level of harmful shit. But you can't even have that conversation when almost all of the populace at large's "criticisms" (more like comical demonizations) are just them regurgitating bogus State Dept propaganda - at least, you can't really have that conversation outside of dedicated socialist/communist spaces like this one.
:traingang:
My bad, *as far as federal level elected officials go