Comments by "चतुर्वेदी हर्ष" (@hershchat) on "GZERO Media"
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@sonoftheindus3921 Pakistan, the people and history and spirituality, is a great civilization. The polity and current bromance with Islamic terrorism not so much. Hina is fortunate to have represented the first, but she makes the mistake of apologizing for the second.
The yanks have many evils to their discredit. No one should absolve them of the many failures and excesses. Dr. Chomsky does a great job of honestly and impartially taking down the establishment lies of the Americans.
But this interview was about Pakistan. Pakistan has clearly used terrorism as a tool of statecraft. That hurts its own people too. The role of military too is dubious and harmful.
I agree with Miss Khar that Pakistan needs a decade of inward focus. Instead of bleeding IOK, finding Taliban in Afghanistan, and spending egregious amounts on defense, it’d help if they focus on land reform, labor reform, bank reform, military reform, political reform.
Being a client state— of America, Saudi, and China— is not a strategy for a successful nation.
Again, call the USA an evil empire if you must. That still doesn’t address the questions about Pakistan, the polity.
The people, as I said, are amazing and to be admired.
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Dr. Bremmer, please.
India vis a vis Russia is not the same as China v. Russia. Not only has Russia given India no cause for territorial insecurity, they have actually defended and stood by India through invasions, sanctions, and HUNDREDS of USA sponsored resolutions in the UN. The USA, for the loooongest time, supported the breakup of India in Kashmir. The USA helped Pakistan, India’s neighboring enemy get nuclear weapons. (Remember the conniption the US had when USSR tried to station nuclear missiles in Cuba? Times 100). CIA “lost” billions in weapons in the north west frontier provinces, that showed up in the hands of Islamic terrorists killing Indians and attacking their soldiers. These guns were given to Sikh militants during the Khalistan militancy in the ‘80’s. And in case you want to pretend the CIA had no hand in it… just don’t. In 1971 the USA dispatched the seventh fleet to support a Muslim dictatorship, Pakistan against a secular democratic India.
So, for your words to be worth more, kindly underline the strategic reality.
China sees Russia as a bulwark against the West. China is using Russia(Crimea) just like the US used Pakistan against India— pinning down an adversary on one front to force strategic detente on another front.
I FULLY support the USA in any global conflict, without exception. And without exception want the US to win and lead the world. HOWEVER, lies and blinders are asinine. Let’s be honest. Ok?
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The super powers provided the plumbing and roofing for the blocks, and bore the capital cost of security and commerce.
As the order dissolves, smaller blocks, and individual nations will have to bear that cost. The fixed costs of being a country just went up. If you’re not energy independent, a manufacturing powerhouse, endowed with lithium or some scare resource, have a large educated young population, or some such key resources, then you’re shafted.
We will see weak nations crumbles, or taken over— either by internal, or external opportunists.
Climate change and technological revolutions, waiting in the wings, are soon to unleash their full might.
These will further increase the fixed cost of nationhood.
The new world order will wreck nations, fragment the comity, and displace millions.
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As you listen to him respond to the genocide/ war crimes question, notice that it is HE himself who chose that question as the first (of only two) to answer! Dude, that is not the most important question— not in the minds of those who are killed, those who lost family members, or us. The important questions surrounding Ukraine are: (1) Impact on Europe: is Europe, as a continent, becoming more or less liberal?
(2) European public opinion: what are the main strands of public opinion on Russia Ukraine?
(3) Are there secular, supervening trends changing power dynamics and the security climate in Europe, of which Russia-Ukraine is a symptom?
(4) What role does the US need to play, from a European perspective
(5) Is the NATO helpful or harmful to European security? Does it mainly serve US and UKs interests, turning Germany and France into vassal states?
… so many more.
… not sure why you pick unimportant questions to answer each week.
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Trump mayn’t be the last of his ilk, nor the worst...
I think he heralds a Trump 2.0, one who learns from Trumps’ failures and whose followers are better organized and more hardcore. Like Aussie cricketers.
The root of MAGA lies in the accelerating change and social dislocation of the undereducated, conservative masses. The threat arises from something fundamentally cataclysmic, and our Brexiting, MAGA brethren are the canaries in the coal mines of time. The changes threaten more than their lives however— the changes threaten the Nation State itself.
Hear me out. The Nation State, with its traditional pillars of strength is being weakened from within—
(1) with free movement of nation-agnostic Capital across national borders,
(2) with really free movement of “elites”— educated folk that can move over 100 miles away for work, and their resultant globalist attitudes (vs. MAGA views or Brexiteer views),
(3) social media freeing public opinion and rendering the power-structure unable to construct opinion (leading to Hong Kong uprising, as also in Bolivia, France, Yellow Vests, etc., etc.)
(4) financial system moving from currency based, market limited, bank-circulated monies, to include non-traditional, crypto- etc. based currency, merging of market with the World Wide Web, and delocalization of banking (think Apple Pay).
... all this is threatening the traditional “nation state”, the essential European project post reformation.
The nation state is threatened from without by MASSIVE global scale challenges... AI, Climate Change, Population Decline, emergence of “G-zero” world order, and Rising risk of nuclear weapon trafficking ...
...problems that’ll force global rules of road, resources, policing, and coordination are here before the nation state was ready.
The globalists think, “let’s remain in the Euro”, “give Hong Kong freedom”, liberate Kashmir, and impeach the MAGA MF.
But the masses aren’t blessed with a globalist consciousness. They are tied to a zip code. They want to keep those from a hundred miles out of their zip code. They want to protect their kids from the internet, their church from the state, keep their daughters virgin, and their guns loaded. Their bigger worry is Christ not suffusing Christmas and the nig***s gettin uppity. Keep the Turks and Poles outta Great Britain. Keep the models busty and the Queen white.
It’s tough when your race, your language, the flag, the neighborhood, and your job, all get threatened in one generation. Lower classes start to equalize, and generational norms breakdown.
That’s when Trump comes. Fails. Then returns. As Trump 2.0. Unless we can address the big cataclysm underway, adapt to it, and help our zip-code tied brethren, we are doomed to Trumpism.
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Dr. Bremmer, thank you for excellent content.
The biggest strategic question with AI is centralization vs. distribution. The highest influence in our societies is enjoyed by those with the best ability to anticipate and address problems. In this area, AI will dominate us mere humans soon. When that happens, the question is, does the average citizen have access to comparable predictive and prescriptive resources? If so, then we, as human citizens, shall continue to have a say over our decisions we destinies. If not, we will become like pets to the state, beloved of them, but with much diminished agency. As an AI driven world complexifies, the incomprehensibility doubling every six months, our human minds will rapidly lose control and purchase over our worlds.
As someone who informs and influences policy, it is imperative that you help push for the democratization of AI.
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Those who unconditionally oppose Russia … If your opposition is to the televised evidence of human tragedy, then please know what bombs and bullets supplied by the US (and the West) have done in Muslim countries is easily a lot worse. Just not broadcast to you like these Olympics have been. Deaths in Iraq attributable to our occupation had been estimated at 461,000 by mid last decade.
If your anger is at Russia taking out a regime, then think of all democratically elected popular regimes that have been unfavorable to the US. Somehow they all end up toppled, their leadership (if it resists) brutalized. Imran Khan (who didn’t resist) in Pakistan a recent example. Do you think the CIA runs a concierge for democracies? We BRUTALLY destroy democracies. We also prop up regimes that are brutal and autocratic, and repress human beings badly, if that is in our interest.
If your upset that Ukraine predicts other aggressions, then know that NATO expansion and Russian aggression mutually justify each other. At the fall of the Soviet Union, we could have brought Russia in. Our fear is always that Germany and Russia will join and become a rival to the US. The gas Nordstream pipeline was not just a minor issue for the US, but a major strategic threat.
Russia is doing to Ukraine, what the US would do to Mexico if the foot was on the other shoe. We are no better, and have direct culpability in this mess.
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@sonoftheindus3921 why does Pakistan perceive so many enemies— sounds like siege mentality. Politicians fool the populace into believing there are enemies all around, so as to divert good peoples from demanding good administration. This what a people who are subjected to propaganda sound like.
Indians and Pakistanis, Israel and Palestine, North South Korea, everywhere you see entrenched foes, you have to believe there is agents provocateurs at work. There is no reason why India and Pakistan don’t just make peace at the current frontiers, and quick the brainless war— EXCEPT it helps politicians and generates money for military-industrial complex.
I thought the Romanians, or the embassy in Paris, or Mr. Sainteny were all good options for the China dialogue: the Chinese wanted the contact as much as the Americans. I do agree that it was Pakistan that happened to broker the connection.
I would recommend you try and see good in your enemies, and distrust politicians a bit more than it sounds like you do. The world is going crazy as it is.
I read a biography of the Prophet, PBUH, by Sir Zaffrulah Khan, a Pakistani scholar. You find that the Prophet was a wise and peace loving man. He made war as a last resort. He built a religion of peace. Peace requires forgiveness and trust.
I try and give Mr. Putin the benefit of the doubt. It is my hope that we don’t glorify our selves and demonize “the other”.
Thanks for your note, be well!
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Let’s be clear: Mr. Bremmer is advocating a national mandate for COVID vaccination. It will apply to 100% of citizens, barring medical (and demonstrable religious?) reasons.
Where I agree with Ian, and therefore I am fully vaccinated, and yet I think we need to start this analysis with what is in the State’s interest. It is in the State’s interest to not have hospitals overwhelmed, not have significant productivity losses dues to public illness (aka pandemic), and not suffer any military or longterm constitutional harm. That is a good 80% or more of the areas of concern for the government. What is not stated, but is implied, is that we also don’t want the cure for a pandemic to bring on another health calamity, even if years down the line.
Let us stipulate that herd immunity is the desired path to securing the State’s interest in the event of a pandemic. Ian does it implicitly.
(We tried quarantining the whole society, and that didn’t work. We tried testing the economy, and that hurt us badly.)
The challenge is, we are balancing the perception of constitutional harm, against the economic and public mental-health harm of the pandemic. While unchecked COVID caused mental health and public-order issues on a large scale (I count the attack on the Congress as a symptom of both), it is also true that the perception of longterm constitutional harm too will motivate significant damage to the social order of this country.
It is not been shown what vaccination rate leads to herd immunity— which makes our understanding of the disease and medicine appear inchoate.. We also don’t know if the vaccine has any longterm efficacy or serious side effects. The medicine is clearly potent. Why is it, therefore, crazy to worry that it might cause some serious longterm harm? There are many instances where one benefit trades-off against a harm. This might very well be one of those.
Ultimately, this is more than a case of state sanctioned coercion for pressing reasons of public health.
State sanctioned coercion for public health is something I support. I personally could agree that fat-folk (I am one) should pay more on planes and for healthcare. Thankfully, however, I am not in charge.
However, coercion does suggest the risk of longterm constitutional harm. And, in this case, there is too the risk of harm to health of the vaccinated.
This makes me agree with the current approach of slowly tightening the noose, and going from voluntary, to bribed, to required by employers and local authorities, vs. a national mandate.
Mr. Bremmer is arguing for a national mandate. I believe that, given our lack of knowledge about the disease and the vaccine, and the potential for harm to social order, ghat we should take the slow road to public coercion.
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