Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal (2004)

Brad writes: recognize that there were no "CIA-sponsored provocateurs behind the demonstrations."

And why not, pray tell? Was CIA so incompetent?

Man, Brad, you're good, terribly good!

Blind Faith can lead to the wildest rationalisations of reality. Idealogues of the world should look very long and hard at this example.

Look at how the writers of NRO approach reality with the same blinkers. So totalitarian in their thinking. So convinced that they hold THE TRUTH and any one who doesn't agree with them is EVIL.

Maybe it isn't that surprising when you condiser that many of todays conservative thinkers are marxist converts or had fathers that were marxist converts. The content of their propaganda has changed, but what made their ideas so dangerous - ideological fanaticism - hasn't changed a whit.

Neo Conservatism: Marxism of the owners.

Berthold Brecht was a devoted Stalinist, but he was also a survivor. He kept his Austrian passport active so he could travel as he pleased.

>>And why not, pray tell? Was CIA so incompetent?<<

Because a spontaneous workers' uprising could only be in the interest of the Communists, of course.

Glurk! I have thought poorly of Brecht for a very long time, and still I am shocked.

Don't Feed The Monsters.

This seems the best remaining post in which to put my more considered reactions to the decline of empire; unfortunately the main post closed to comments before it was possible to prepare considered reactions.

All right, now I'm calmer, I should add some more in the face of more recent points.

First of all, I should say that I was most annoyed by Brad De Long's condescension, particularly in his closing material. My indignation was at him and his denial, not at loss of empire as such (though I have a simmering background irritation at US undercutting and spoiling, with hypocritical picking up what it so virtuously knocked out of our hands). He was essentially suggesting that there was no price, simply because the result was not even worse than it was, and making out that glitter and tinsel compensated (Bob Briant is treading on the same toes, at one point). Yet the USA could so easily have moved into a partnership without knocking Britain down, then taken over completely while leaving Britain its money's worth; but it rejected the imperial project it was offered by Sir Lionel Curtis and others, preferring to knock down those around it.

On matters of loss of empire, it is not what Leopold and others suggest. It is not regret at that, which is foreseeable and was indeed foreseen, it is the way that the USA on the one hand condemned empire and helped ringbark it, yet on the other scooped some of the benefits up itself and po-facedly spoiled what it couldn't handle indirectly. While condemning Suez, the USA now acts on the very justifications made for Suez - and doesn't even spread any benefits that weren't there already. (The USA cannot claim credit for offsetting improvements in exploited countries that they were getting anyway.) So, much of objection to loss of empire isn't to its loss but to its hypocritical and wasteful transfer. Oh, and Leopold, choosing Brussels over Washington as a means of preserving independence is cutting off your nose to spite your face, since there isn't any anti-Americanism driving objections; the "anti-Americanism" is no more truly that than anti-Israel is truly antisemitic, it's just a misleading pattern others see in reactions to a situation.

The costs to Britain and the empire matter too, in that Britain was reworking the empire into self sustaining but interacting units, within which financial interests would still gain but the cost centres would be on their own. The harm done to Britain lay in losing this future as well as the direct loss within Britain, which is all that Brad was counting. This was harmed by 1914-18, but it is wrong to say that that war destroyed this; the downturn then didn't do the ringbarking, and even in the depression British interests were flowing back to those positions of leverage. (Rod Proctor, I had noted that war in my earlier post.) It was the post 1945 settlement that ringbarked all that, so that the economic decline between the wars didn't have any of the leverage positions to use to rebuild a generation later.

Jam, regardless of any talk of the motives of the "English upper classes", that is both a deviation from the point of whether harm was done and it doesn't happen to be true; empire mindedness crossed class barriers. Personal involvement comes from things like my own grandfather's career within the empire (going from itinerant schoolteacher in the Falkland Islands to Inspector of Schools in British Guiana). Even if that description were accurate, the fact remains that there is a question about the USA harming British interests, and even malicious motives don't guarantee false arguments. Even politicians can tell the truth if it suits them.

Steven Rogers missed one point about a possible agreement between Hitler and Britain: it would not have involved Hitler delivering on it but Britain taking advantage of an opportunity. Since Britain would have taken something during the key period while Hitler was taking, the bargain did not need Hitler's subsequent and continuing good faith. HOWEVER, unless the empire shifted its centre of gravity, it would have been vulnerable to a later war - Hitler's successors would have had no trouble doing a later invasion. For one hint of Hitler's vision for the future of Britain, see the Jupiter chapters (4 and 5, book 3) of Grimmelshausen's Simplicius Simplicissimus - it seems to have fed much of Hitler's vision across the board. I've got excerpts up at http://member.netlink.com.au/~peterl/const001.html#GRIART01 - who knows, maybe the neoconservatives have learned from it too.

Brad writes: Because a spontaneous workers' uprising could only be in the interest of the Communists, of course.

Polish Solidarity?

I didn't mean to say that it was true. I meant only that it was the 1950s CIA's view of the world...

P.M.Lawrence wrote: Oh, and Leopold, choosing Brussels over Washington as a means of preserving independence is cutting off your nose to spite your face, since there isn't any anti-Americanism driving objections; the "anti-Americanism" is no more truly that than anti-Israel is truly antisemitic, it's just a misleading pattern others see in reactions to a situation

Kinda complex for simple me. Glad we agree anti-Israel is not anti-semitic. I assume Britain (or a significant part of British establishment) beleive the partnership with US is unequal. If they just want to complain about it, well, that is what freedom of speech is for. If they want to do something about it, I thought equal partnership with Germans and French would be preferrable. If they don't want that either, well, why not kick US troops out and do everything on your own? Britain is much better off than in 1945, Soviet danger is gone - what stops you guys?

P. M. Lawrence writes: "Steven Rogers missed one point about a possible agreement between Hitler and Britain: it would not have involved Hitler delivering on it but Britain taking advantage of an opportunity. Since Britain would have taken something during the key period while Hitler was taking, the bargain did not need Hitler's subsequent and continuing good faith. HOWEVER, unless the empire shifted its centre of gravity, it would have been vulnerable to a later war - Hitler's successors would have had no trouble doing a later invasion."

I'm not sure this contradicts my point that the British Empire could not afford to trust the Nazis with control of Europe. Particularly since preventing one power from dominating Europe was a centerpiece of Empire foreign policy.

Much like the prevention of a single power from dominating the Eurasian landmass appers to be a current feature of US foreign policy, of course.

Brad writes: I didn't mean to say that it was true. I meant only that it was the 1950s CIA's view of the world...

Not really - take a look at http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB50/doc74.pdf . The willingness to use the upraising is clear - the question is simply if CIA managed to play the role in starting it.

Brecht hardly "kept his Austrian passport active" -- he acquired it in 1950, two years after he moved to East Berlin. he was born in Augsburg.

I appreciate your tenacity, Zarkov, I really do. you never let facts stand in the way of a good story.

Leopold writes:

"Polish Solidarity?"

It wasn't all that spontenous. It grew out, partly
at least, out of KOR - Committee for Protection of
Workers, which was formed in the mid 70's.

And anyway, I always thought that the thing
about CIA involvment is a red herring. Yes,
a red red herring. I mean, so what? Does it
justify brutal repression? That's like saying
that McCarthy was alright because there were
actually a few Communists in US who took money
from Moscow.

Radek,

Solidarity is an counter-example to an argument that the German upraising benefitted only the Communists. An author clarified his argument in the later post. I am sure you are not going to make that argument.

Whether CIA involvement is a read hearing. If you take a look at http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB50/doc74.pdf , you'll see that the plan after upraising started was to use it. The only question is whether CIA helped to start it.

Radek: I mean, so what? Does it justify brutal repression?

Who said that? My point was the opposite: if CIA did not help to start it, why?

Radek: That's like saying that McCarthy was alright because there were actually a few Communists in US who took money from Moscow.

As it happens I think that McCarthyism was a reaction of the nation betrayed and that while not alright, he was not half as bad as the Communists he rallied against.

For another (less than heroic) view of Brecht, see the short play by Gunter Grass, "The Plebians Rehearse the Uprising".

Leopold - thanks for clarifying. I was referring
to the word "spontaneous". (Otherwise the fact
that a sucessful uprising was not beneficial
to "those risen up against" is sort of obvious)

Everything else was not direct comment on your
post, just a general observation. And I generally
agree with you.

Radek

>>As it happens I think that McCarthyism was a reaction of the nation betrayed and that while not alright, he was not half as bad as the Communists he rallied against.<<

That would be a good point--if any of the people whom McCarthy railed against were Communists, that is. Dean Acheson? George Marshall?

Brad writes: That would be a good point--if any of the people whom McCarthy railed against were Communists, that is. Dean Acheson? George Marshall?

First, 'any of the people'? You are not claiming that _all_ McCarthy targets were innocent, right?

Second, McCarthy called Acheson "a pompous diplomat in striped pants". That is not quite the same as treason. You called George W worse.

Take a look at http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1951mccarthy-marshall.html ...

Brad:

Never said he was a nice guy. Remember, reaction of the nation betrayed. However you'll notice that he never comes out and accuses Marshall of treason (the strongest comes as "If Marshall is innocent of guilty intention, how could he be trusted to guide the defense of this country further?"). And you know what - after the failures of Marshall and Achenson in the foreign policy area (for example, China - the Communist victory of the generation) many presidents would have them out on their ass.

Leopold, Britain - or, better, the empire - is only better off than in 1945 on measures that suit measuring comfort, not freedom of action. Most of the ringbarking was post 1945, and Britain is now less capable in the sense of having less resource base to work with that way. The 1945 situation - like 1918 only more so - was having a sound structure with cash flow problems and a recent history of enforced lack of maintenance. To keep going as before was possible as far as background resources went, but not without the replacement of immediate resources, and those got ringbarked instead. Some things were tried along these lines anyway, in Africa in the 1950s, but fell over. Now Britain has the immediate resources, but nothing to work on.

It's a lot like hitting cash flow difficulties, then having competitors aggravate them deliberately.