Darius Guppy is the most interesting of characters about whom I will have more to say later. But this piece of his, which appeared today in the Spectator, is one that I really enjoyed. This piece is at once pro and anti Brexit, but my main attraction for this piece has nothing to do with Brexit at all. https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2019/08/what-britain-can-learn-from-iran-about-sovereignty/ What Britain can learn from Iran about sovereignty
The Brits have done incalculable damage around the world, to see them on their knees in front of America gives me no pleasure, I'm not a spiteful person, but certainly there's no sympathy either. I like this part he wrote below, it is very relevant to most of us around the world... in the drive for liberalism and the crushing of those who deny it... I admit it does on occasion amuse me how vehemently the Conservatives are now fighting the same movement they partook in to destroy millions of people... knowing what their future holds if they succumb.
I am one of a very few Iranians who wouldn't be as harsh on the Brits as you seem to be! I think, in their own way, they have contributed a lot. Even if a good portion of that lot is not anything good! There is still plenty that is good that came from them too.
The only "authority" that Darius Guppy would probably want to submit to is his maker, if any. As I said earlier, he is quite a character. If you don't know of him, you can learn more about him from this article which appeared a few years back in the Independent. And the issue of "sovereignty" is ultimately an issue of whose authority you want to follow and accept? The authority exercised on behalf of a national collective, a foreign power or some other non-national or international one? Otherwise, much of the rest is a mirage and all even remotely competent modern governments, regardless of the authority they follow or assume, will be able to provide enough openings and trappings for the 'average Joe' to not notice their authoritarianism as much! For me, and from where I stand, the most odious authorities that need to be resisted are those which follow the script laid down by the neocons and their Israeli partners on their march to a Project for a New American Century. There are others who feel more threatened by globalization and the forces behind the world's global financial institutions and their elites. The interesting thing about Iran, and why it serves lessons for anyone who seeks to resist either or both, is that it is basically at war with both those segments and sectors of authoritarian and hegemonic power in the world. And, although its image is quite tarnished by decades of western propaganda to make sure no one looks Iran's way for any lessons, those who actually do look and look carefully, find that its not such a bad place to look at, at all. It could be better, for sure, but who couldn't?
Yeah the average Brit I get on very well with, but their ruling elite scum of the earth...I really dislike them but I have good reason
There's something to that. On the other hand... The UK itself is a smaller country than Iran is, and has traditionally (for the last 200-400 years) been reliant on trade (a world trade that they dominated and controlled). Iran also has its own oil supply, plenty to meet its own needs. So the hypothetical situation of the UK being economically independent is not exactly the same as with Iran. The UK was traditionally a manufacturing powerhouse, in fact the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, and a large pillar upon which the British Empire was based on. That ebbed away after WW2 when American manufacturing replaced British manufacturing in the world.
Obviously, I just used the name "UK" to refer to England and Scotland, which are the continuous legacy to the modern UK.
There was no Union of England and Scotland 400 years ago Bye the way Scotland was always much more in relationship with Europe and England fighting them!
Scotland was controlled by England 400 years ago. Your statement is completely irrelevant to my point. Stop it.
I am not derailing the thread. You made comments on the UK which were not accurate.. These comments were speaking about my own country. You even declared Scotland was 'controlled' by England 400 years ago. Scotland was an Independent country 400 years ago. They then formed a Union along with Wales and occupied Ireland and joined England in its Imperialism. That basically was the base of the Union - get rich together. From before WW1 along with Ireland we were looking at Home Rule or Independence which Ireland achieved after WW1 apart from the North. After WW2 with the introduction of the Welfare State we again had something holding us together but with neo liberalism we started to move politically apart. Now if there is Brexit and particularly a No Deal Scotland will almost certainly become Independent and Ireland Unified. The difference between the attitude of Scotland and England towards Europe is historical. Scotland has never been controlled. If you write things which are not true and someone sees who knows the truth do not be surprised if they answer. If you reply, OK, my mistake, then the situation will be resolved quickly.
I gather you didn't like, or at least you didn't agree, with the article. The article to me was about 2 different issues. On Iran, Darius Guppy both knows the subject (having been born to an Iranian mother and spending a good bit of time in Iran for his businesses) and (as some who was once quite close to the British elite) knows the mentality that he needs to address. I basically have no qualm with anything he had to say about Iran. Indeed, it was a rare occasion where I didn't have the urge to edit at least something somewhere in a piece about Iran. On Britain and Brexit, he is also well versed and knows the trends and sentiments behind it. And what he mentions about the potential of Brexit to help Britain build more things on its own again, isn't something to rule out either. For the past few decades, Britain has been copying the American model of producing less and less, and only relying on "other things" to find and fund their prosperity. Except the Americans do control the US dollar, which is still the instrument for international trade and which basically allows them to draw unearned tributes from other nations every time they engage in trade. The Brits don't have that leverage. And, therefore, cannot in the long run afford to produce so little of substance. On the subject of sovereignty, moreover, Guppy is right on the money and if anything he has pulled some punches! Or, used his most colorful language against a still rather feeble "Brussels", when in fact that weight of everything he wrote would have justified greater emphasis on the ultimate warning: that it makes no sense really for the Brits to fret over losing their sovereignty to Brussels, only to line up to hand it over whole cloth to the Americans! Unlike Brussels, which reserved a good seat in the room for the UK to have its views heard, and which wasn't nearly as "dictatorial" as its detractors (including Guppy) pretend, the Americans neither have much room for anyone else (except the Israelis) to tell them how things should be done. Nor, certainly, they are interested in poodles who don't do the tricks they want them to.
Every notice how stench stinks to the high heavens, while a flower caresses the air? Iran overthrew a bicycle thief in favor a psychotic religious fanatic. The European Union is nothing but a tax and spend scheme to bamboozle the unenlightened into filling the pockets of the statists. And what England needs is free trade, not EU whimsical grants and favors. And more: a free market is what whole damn planet needs. So all this nonsense about Khommeni saving Iran from Western Imperialism, about how the tax and spend EU can save Britain’s economy, and about England being America’s waterboy is far, far, bloody away from the reality of a blooming rose. So again, I say, Bollocks.
Labels come to you easily, but where is the beef in whatever you meant to say? For now, my response to some of your labels: 1- No individual can save Iran from western imperialism. That is a job for the Iranian nation as a whole and if they fail or succeed, it will be a collective failure or success. In that endeavor, of course, some individuals leave a larger imprint than others. Neither was a Shah a "bicycle thieve", but rather a monarch who was ultimately a victim of forces larger than himself (even if he himself helped unleash some of those forces), nor Khomeini a "psychotic religious fanatic". Indeed, the failure to understand both the Shah and Khomeini, and the role they played in the age-old quest for Iran to retain its independence and separate identity, is what ultimately makes so many westerners (and Iranians who borrow their entire 'thinking' from them) so out of touch with the currents that have guided Iran in its history, including since the revolution up to the present. 2- The piece you are arguing about had absolutely nothing about the "tax and spend EU" saving Britain's economy. In fact, it was written by someone who appears quite sympathetic to Brexit, never mind that I believe that sympathy is misplaced. Precisely because Brexit is actually making the Brits trade their special seat in the corridors of power in Brussels, mostly based on their so-called "special relationship" with the US I must add, and instead now occupy a place on floor in the corner of a room where those who are sitting at the table view them as their pet animals. Worse still for Britain, these are folks aren't even good keeping pets and often neglect them to boot. But, alas, what choice do you have now with Brexit: you are no longer part of a larger EU that had hopes of standing up for itself. And you certainly aren't producing anything worthwhile nor are you the ones who control the paper instruments (specifically the US dollar) behind the ponzi scheme that is the global international economy. 3- Britain being "America's waterboy" is quite clearly becoming ever more true. For the reasons I mention above, what do you have to offer, what do you actually produce, to be anything more? You are lucky that the language which we are using on this board, the English language, gives you enough of a leverage to be allowed to play the role of waterboy. But for that, you wouldn't even be allowed in the room. But for that and this common heritage bit, these folks who control the levers of real power in America, and are marching on their Project for a New American Century, wouldn't even make you their waterboys. Even with that, however, these aren't folks who are driven by nostalgia or loyalty. Ultimately if you don't have much to offer, even serving as a waterboy maybe seen by them a drain.
1) I don't want to save them from Western Imperialism, I want them to embrace it as if their lives depended upon it; it does. And of course any individual can save Iran from the psychotic religious madmen murdering her--all one need to do is think, i.e., practice the fundamental principle of upon which Western Civilization is based, Reason. 2) That's not the gist of his take that I understood, but maybe I read it too fast...but I could have sworn he wrote that the EU could do more for Great Britain sovereignty than any independent trade deal with America. Again I say, Bollocks. 3) Paying tribute to America for her greatness is not subservience, it's admiration for a kindred spirit.
Reason does not need to employ bombs and bullets to show its strength! And this reason you feel is a fundamental principle on which Western Civilization is based is actually something that is a pillar of Iranian Shia Islam, where alongside the Koran, and the sayings of the Prophet, it is reason that is also considered a source of law. I am not religious and don't find any religion to be ultimately based on "reason", but the religious tradition of Iran is intertwined with something that resembles your "natural law". Shia Islamic jurisprudence not only sees 'reason' as a source of law, but "justice" as the main objective in discerning God's will. Of course, Iranian philosophers long predating Descartes and Hume and others had already discovered what they discovered. That ultimately reason actually doesn't get you that far! Indeed, Descartes is widely believed to have been influenced by the Persian jurist and philosopher, Ghazali, and his attempt to show the limits of reason. While a Persian, who after a period of becoming agnostic, wrote to attack philosophy and regrettably is quite influential in the fundamentalist strain of Islam, he was a sunni. Which is why in Sunni Islam, under influence of people like Ghazali, reason doesn't play the same role as in Shia Islam. As for the rest of your comments paying homage to American "greatness", to each his own. We in Iran have been faced with others who thought they were great, such as Rome, and put them in their place too.
The Shah of Iran and the White Revolution https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/shah-flees-iran
The Americans can't afford to either, and have been running chronic long-term trade deficits, gradually draining off their wealth. It's basically one of the reasons those in the decisive Rust Belt region states threw their support to Trump in the election. But it's a very ideologically, economically, and now politicized contentious issue.
Its not the trade deficits stealing American's wealth, its government spending--Taxing John and Mary Didwell, to support Harry and Helen Helpless.
Yes, but America's situation is a bit different. In a sense, they can afford to run a huge national debt, and these trade deficits, as long as people are willing to purchase their IOUs which are redeemable in US dollars. With US Dollars valuable, not because of what America itself produces, but because it can be used in international trade to purchase goods that other nations produce. Others can play into this ponzi scheme, but only the Americans ultimately can call its shots. That is until people around the world begin to say we don't want your paper money or paper IOUs -- what of anything of value do you have to offer instead.
That has slowly been starting to end. At one point the Federal Reserve Bank was buying up more than half of those IOUs. (which is basically like printing new money to pay for the budget deficit) China has enough of them already and isn't very interested in buying more.
I would love to see the day when the domination of the US dollar as the currency of international trade comes to an end. And hopefully that is happening. But until it does, ultimately, everyone outside the US who sells their products in USD or buys products from elsewhere in that currency, is giving the US dollar a value that allows room for the US to have trade deficits and budget deficits that it can cover by selling its bonds. Which is another paper instrument that being redeemable in US dollar is ultimately akin to printing US dollars as you mentioned. When other countries print money above their productive capacities, they suffer huge inflation. That has not happened in the US in the past, ultimately because the overall demand for the US Dollar internationally (as opposed to what would be the case merely looking at the use of the currency in trade in products and services from the US) has kept pace with the IOUs being printed. But if you had a situation where various countries stopped accepting the US dollar for the goods they produce, the American economy would certainly come crashing down. In that case, the value of the dollar would basically be determined by the forces of supply and demand in the US (and in trade with the US), which would then make its value far less than it is now. And that would mean huge inflation, making the dollar plummet in value to something close to its real worth. So what props up this ponzi scheme which allows the US to purchase things of genuine value from outside and give the seller its own paper in quantities that far exceed anything that the US itself produces that anyone would want? The simple answer: America's empire. As long as that empire has dominion over large parts of the world, which are also doing their trade in the US dollar, and as long as that dominion is over parts which are productive and producing things of real value, Americans can live way beyond their own real productive capacity and means. At least in theory, though, it is not just ruling over vast territories and dominating them that acts as a prop for the US dollar. The territories you rule over need to be productive and have something to buy and sell in the US dollar too. Which is ultimately why the neocons and their project for a new American Century will actually (in time) help see the American dollar collapse. Especially now that the idea in America is for American air power to vandalize nations, but not have actual responsibility to build those nations back up. This form of vandalism is not going to help the overall productive capacities of various states in the Middle East, nor are the trade wars with China and the like helpful to keeping the faith in the US dollar or making the Chinese and others more willing to accept this paper money for what they have to produce. In this mix, if you are from those factions in Iran who are interested in defeating US hegemony in all its facets --, neither beholden to the "international financial system" that has worked diligently to help prop up actual American hegemony through increasing the demand for the US dollar (even if the products being produced are produced in places like Japan and Germany or China or S.Korea or wherever), nor interested in seeing Americans vandalize the Middle East and, especially Iran -- then your focus and aim will be on both the global economic power centers (the villains in the world of Trump and some of his supporters) as well as the Project for a New American Century (the blue print that ties Israeli interests to those of the American military industrial complex). And what you do is chart a path independent of both. If you are a faction in Iran that is willing to participate in the ponzi scheme known as the "global international economic system", and willing to pay (what they would regard) Iran's fair share of tribute to American hegemony and empire, then you would be fighting US sanctions to be let in the world economic order, while still not wanting to have anything to do with any PNAC. The same would apply to the Brits. Unless they want to be American poodles and tie their future to those of their masters, those are the two options they ultimately have in front of them.
