So, I've been thinking....and well, maybe this is something that just bugs me, but AI is a little too much like most other political boards on forums out there. Maybe a little better, in term of content, but there's a lot of what, well, what I would consider
irrelevant crap.
I'm responsible for this as much as anyone. In fact, possibly more. What do I mean by irrelevant crap? Well the kind of "he said she said" manufactured outrage, conventional liberal/conservative baiting nonsense that passes for much of the existing political discourse.
"Stupid Republican Says Stupid Thing" is nearly "dog bites man" in terms of newsworthiness, in terms of relaying information about the world in which we live.
Look: we all accept, on an intellectual level, that party politics is 90% a sham, a show for the rubes, a distraction in short. Yet we seem to bother ourselves with it an awful lot, which suggests, at some gut level, as a site, we haven't yet quite internalized that belief.
What I would like to see, for this subforum in particular, is a focus away from the day to day events of politics, something which is almost always tied to party politics, and almost always a distraction from the long-term trends and events with which we should truly be concerning ourselves.
What should we be focusing on, instead then? What things truly matter, in a political sense?
I would say, first and foremost, the economy matters. What the large investment banks are doing, that matters. The number one threat to global stability and personal security at the moment right now is the world economy. Governments are being toppled, peoples lives are being destroyed and the underlying causes of this are rarely acknowledged, let alone actually being dealt with. Throw in secrecy to add to the political power of these major economic actors, and you have potentially very dangerous people - unaccountable, but with vast influence.
Secondly, geopolitics matters. What is geopolitics? At its most basic, the interaction of geography and politics. More usefully, however, think of it in terms of energy resources, trade routes, choke points, military basing and grand strategy. The competition between Iran and Russia on one hand, and Europe and the USA on the other, can be attributed at least in part as to who will control the routes of gas and oil into Europe. In the Congo, conflict was fuelled by the demand for certain materials in the mines there, materials vital to the burgeoning electronics and internet industry which underpins the modern global economy. Things like the establishment of new military bases, such as the Marine base in Australia as part of the "Return to the Pacific", increased Japanese naval spending, new Chinese weapons tech...stuff like that is important. Globalization is a failing model, and geography will return, with a vengeance.
Thirdly, conflict matters. Not just the mostly bloodless strategic manouvering and posturing of the Great Powers, as described above, but actual wars, insurgencies, assassinations and similar. Usually the Great Powers are involved in such conflicts, but covertly. Only through correctly discerning their actions can we come to understand their motivations, and thus their vital interests. For instance, there are constant rumours that the Sinaloa Cartel are in a tacit alliance with the Mexican and US government against the other cartels. Could this explain the Fast and Furious program the White House has authorized? Are techniques from Iraq, where the "Sunni Awakening" involved siding with former Sunni insurgents against Shiite militias (and siding with elements of Shiite militias, such as the Golden JAMs, in their internal disputes), be at play here? Why the Sinaloa, instead of other cartels?
Fourthly, internet freedom matters. We are seeing a massive, multi-party, multi-state pushback against internet freedoms lately. Not so much copyright related issues, though that is part of it, but corporate spying, disinformation, cybewarfare, hacking and so on. This kinda relates to number 2, though it can also relate to the first issue, as we saw with the HB Gary business (they were being financed by the Chamber of Commerce, recall). It can also relate to the third, as hacking can be part of the "invisible influence" of the state in supporting its proxies. Russia is especially noted for this, though of course it is not the only state to engage in such practices.
Fifthly, we should concentrate on
anything the powers that be do not want us to know. This will likely involve all of the above four, and several topics besides. This topic would run the course from covert action to funding of political parties, pressure groups and "grassroot organizations" such as the various Tea Party organizations, to lobbying and PR. The invisible webs of power, as it were. I do not want lunatic conspiracy theorizing, which should be relegated to the High Weirdness subforum, but real secrets - things like private military company personnel being arrested for being where they shouldn't be, with weapons they shouldn't have. Or historical links between intelligence agencies and terrorist organizations. Or personal links between Bush Jr and the House of Saud (Prince Bandar as Bush's informal international politics tutor, for example).
Sixthly, we need more political theory. Not the dry and drab theory I was taught in classrooms necessarily, but things like Machiavelli, Assange's "State and Terrorist Conspriacies", political psychology...heuristic models which can help us to understand political activities and actions and put them in some kind of framework.
Finally, we should also keep a close, if critical eye on resistance. By this I mean groups like Occupy, like Anonymous, like Wikileaks...people who can do things we broadly approve of. Both in order to keep ourselves informed, and to help them if possible, but also so if they start doing things which are...strategically sub-optimal, we can help advise them on how to get back on track.
So does this sound like a plan, or do we really want to talk about John Boehner's blubbering?
