https://www.wired.com/story/big-interview-antony-blinken/
Two major wars. A rising China. Hackers everywhere. He’s the US secretary of state, and he says he’s here to help.
I gotta say
The US State Dept does a lot of good work and I'm not going to subscribe to this notion that they're some inherently evil entity; sounds like tankie pro-CCP thing to say, if I'm being honest. The state department is a tool whose use is dependent on the party that is in power. The vast majority of "imperial" criticism I have revolves around its use under Republican administrations; chiefly the neocons of the Bush era, and the Trump administration. If you'll remember:
Now to the real source of what's pissing you off:
WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU SENDING WEAPONS TO ISRAEL STILL
I'll tell you the cold, hard, honest brutal truth why:
Because the election is 62 days away. Withdrawing aid from Israel will immediately by framed by right-wing media, Republican opposition, AIPAC, Russian and Israeli troll farms as being "Antisemitic." Forget the fact that the Jewish-American group who normally votes Democrat is far larger (and sympathetic to Israel) than the vehemently Anti-Aid group.
Nuttyahoo will conveniently ignore "intelligence reports" (again) of an impending terrorist attack by Hamas, then immediately point the finger at Democrats, "Why did the evil Democrats leave us defenseless!?" — And allllllllllllll the gullible low-info voters will fall for this hook, line, and sinker. <- Hint: This would be this election's October Surprise.
It seems blatantly obvious that the second this election is over and Harris is in power that the tone is going to shift drastically both with Putin and Bibi.
Ultimately, 62 days of trying to carve the largest electorate possible to defeat Trump is more important than acting now only to lose to Trump and then have him immediately reverse and cause hell in both Ukraine and Israel for 4 years... Or more. Battles vs. Wars thinking at play, here.
Now I don't think Blinken or Biden or Harris are some evil psychopaths akin to Trump or Putin who do not care. Do you really have that impression? Hopefully not. If so, then you need to ask yourself, "Why would they support this?" Do you really think they like to be associated with Bibi's war crimes? And herein lies one's first lesson in an administration not being able to outright say the 4 points I listed above to the public and why there seems to be a disconnect between what we see and what they're doing.
(Also Blinken can actually jam pretty well and is pretty well known around DC. Yeah, he's politician first, musician third but you know... At least he's got good taste in music and at least he's got the balls to go to Kyiv in the first place unlike his predecessors.)
I sorta agree with a lot of what you're saying; not completely but I think you might have misconstrued some of what I was getting at here.
The US State Dept does a lot of good work
Agreed
There has been no "imperial" ambitions under the Biden administration; quite the opposite, really in countering imperial ambitions of Putin, while also coming down harder on Israel than quite literally any past Presidential administration in history
Agreed
Because the election is 62 days away. Withdrawing aid from Israel will immediately by framed by right-wing media, Republican opposition, AIPAC, Russian and Israeli troll farms as being "Antisemitic."
Agreed
I'm not going to subscribe to this notion that they're some inherently evil entity
I didn't say they were evil. I said they're not your friend; I think it's weird for them to be showing up with a guitar like we're gonna hang out.
Put it this way: If one of my neighbors regularly made phone calls ordering people to be killed, I wouldn't hang out with them. Like if they showed up to a party with a guitar, I wouldn't be able to get it out of my head that they might wake up the next morning and decide that a bunch of Houthis need to die, and then make it happen in the course of their working day. That's weird.
I mean it is fine. You're not wrong. And I have the luxury of sitting here in my safe little bubble protected by these wide luxury oceans with dudes staying up all night watching the satellites, making sure nothing geopolitically bad happens to anything American anywhere in the world. I definitely think that the US empire is by far the most benevolent of the big empires available in the world today. That's a pretty fuckin low bar, but sure, I accept it. I mean I'm sitting safe and happy inside it and not trying to put a stop to it or anything so I might as well.
But at the same time, there's people waking up in hell on earth right now. Like coming awake not eating for two days, hungry with their kids crying, some of their kids just gone killed by the shelling, no food, no toilets, just a big dusty hellscape with more death and misery and emptiness all around them. I get it that at this point we gotta just let that happen, I guess? It just doesn't seem like too much of a fuckin priority to make it stop. We're sort of trying, but not on the same level as if it was happening in Philly or Austin or something (or in Tel Aviv.)
I definitely won't disagree with you about what Trump will do or the electoral calculus of supporting Israel. I'm just saying, you can't be helping make that happen (or whatever other "lesser evil" atrocity, including the intermittency of our support for Ukraine and our weird little pussyfooting rules about how they're allowed to fight back) and then be friends and show up with a guitar like it's all cool. Yeah, I'm glad we have professionals keeping things under control. It is fine. But it would take a lot more humanity from the State Dept before I would really like something like this.
Look, I love this country. Part of why I love it is that streak of anti-authoritarianism that keeps the empire stuff in check, which leads to a lot of the good behavior you're talking about, and also a lot of the rock and roll we make. I'm just saying... play some other fuckin' song. "Rockin' in the Free World" is a song of desperation inside the inhuman system that is America. It's the homeless guy who knows it's getting colder with winter coming on and still doesn't have a place to go. It's trying to keep hope alive even when you've given up on anything you can see or interact with to ever be deserving of hopefulness. You can't be part of the system and play it unless you are actively fuckin fixing things (I'm not saying Blinken is not, you have a point about that part, but... Gaza.)
If you're in Ukraine, and you want to play a kind of dark Neil Young song you can still rock out to, play "Powderfinger" about the kid who's too young to be using a rifle but has to pick one up, all scared, because someone's coming for his family. Or just play RHCP and blow off some steam. You can bring some America stuff and everyone can have a good time. I just feel like maybe he's playing it thinking like "fuck yeah rock and roll" and I don't know whether it's occurred to him that a lot of the dark horrors that the song talks about are still going on, and for some people in the world he's the central symbol of the system that's exporting them to other countries so they can experience them too.
at least he's got the balls to go to Kyiv in the first place unlike his predecessors
Yeah. This part, I like. We need more of this.
Edit: I got curious and I watched this. JESUS CHRIST MAKE IT STOP. As with many things, George Carlin said it far more succinctly than I could.
Thanks for the good discussion.
Well I think it's pretty lighthearted. See, you put them in a damned-if-they-do, damned-if-they-don't situation. After all, how many times do you hear about how distant from the people politicians are? How unrelatable. Too little and they're not "one of us," and too much and it's, "This is inappropriate, get back to work!" To me this shows a more human aspect of a personality, and certainly this was less-than-official business — and Blinken is still human after all.
We’re sort of trying, but not on the same level as if it was happening in Philly or Austin or something (or in Tel Aviv.)
Well to be fair, it is happening in Philly and Austin. From drug addiction to childhood homelessness — maybe not to the extent of what is depicted in Gaza, naturally, but there is certainly a massive amount of dissonance at play when you juxtapose the Olympics and some rich man's 5th yacht and what our bottom 1st percentile is going through. Still, I get what you're saying. In that respect, it is indeed a duty of the people to hold their leadership to account.
From the position of Blinken, with their experience and with what intelligence reports and conversations they've had behind closed doors, I again can't say I envy their position — especially when public-facing positions cannot always give the full story on what is classified behind the scenes.
Keep in mind the intermittency of our support to Ukraine falls almost eentirely on Republican opposition; after all, it was Trump who directed Mike Johnson to block aid — and ultimately, aid to Ukraine was blocked for an entire year. So we can nitpick the low-hanging fruit of whether X system or capability should've been granted sooner, but again, I'm not the one responsible for American lives both here and abroad first and foremost. (and with that, I seriously doubt Mike Pompeo and a Trump administration would've negotiated such an impressive prisoner swap for innocent Americans). Arguably if Republicans wouldn't backstab us for eScalAtiOn and stop spreading Russian propaganda among their media outlets (having a conversation with my FIL last week, he parroted this exact shit), then we'd have complete solidarity. Not unlike Obama's Syrian red line on chemical weapons, which then Republican Congressmen refused to support a response.
Ultimately let's not let perfect be the enemy of good; especially when the alternative is evil. Nobody is perfect, and if you put yourself or me in that position I guarantee the bluster would change on a dime.
To your point on the song choice, you can look at it like that; but you can also look at it that Blinken is the type of guy who grew up listening to Neil Young; to Crosby Stills; to Buffalo Springfield; to Bruce Springsteen, etc. And that may signal exactly where he's coming from. That if you sat down with him, I suspect you'd get some poignant answers as to why he chose that song. I'm just saying, don't be so quick to judge without hearing his perspective — for just like, "Why are we still giving aid to Israel?" is far more complicated as I tried to show. I like the guy. I think he's down to earth and I'm just so thankful we have thoughtful minds in office as opposed to that shit-stain Pompeo who preceded him.
Edit: I got curious and I watched this. JESUS CHRIST MAKE IT STOP. As with many things, George Carlin said it far more succinctly than I could.
LOL. No comment.