We’re talking about 1985-2020, not 1945-70. At least I am. If you think red and blue are economically equal partners today there is no real conversation here.
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I must agree with your premise or there is no real conversation here?
Sounds reasonable. Sounds like the kind of reasonableness that would focus on one subsidy while opportunistically ignoring the other (ongoing, from 1945 to present), doesn't it?
theguardian.com/cities/2018/ju
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The defense economy bootstrapped Silicon Valley — in the 50s-70s. It is a fraction of that economy today. The Googles and Amazons have emerged from that state bootstrapping to create a thriving private sector. No similar vitalism took root in what us now Red America.
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I think part of that is that we produce product whose cost for distribution is pretty much sunk in AT&T's past; write once, run anywhere, right?
WAY different in commodities markets, which you acknowledge; a harder market, but equally if not more important to everyday living.
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You seem to be arguing 3 things:
1. Both regions were bootstrapped through state support (true)
2. Both regions are equally dependent on state support today (I believe this is false)
3. Red has a moral case for greater state support (food security), which I reject
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I’m arguing 3 things and it is not clear what part you object to
1. A big differential has emerged since 1980 for various reasons. Blue began thriving more economically.
2. It would be good if Red were to also begin thriving again economically
3. Blue can/should help
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Solely the mechanism by which 3 occurs; you believe red has an absurd caricature of blue, then proceed to make one of red; based on that caricature, you seem to think they need an understanding of shared humanity instead of job opportunities.
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I find that Red America is deeply caught up in a “decline of the west” neo-spenglerian narrative with no desire to even look for a shared new common humanity narrative. They see no place for themselves on a world that the west doesn’t unilaterally dominate.
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This is not a caricature. I’ve had red ideologues make pretty much this exact argument at me multiple times. And their relentless support for Trump and everything he’s done/tried to do dies not exactly falsify the caricature.
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I see; it's their support for Trump that tells you they don't have an understanding of shared humanity? As well as them saying so directly?
b/c Disliking Kissinger's profit-making by the deindustrialization of America (for added green PR) is not a rejection of shared humanity.
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Both. And I don’t see the deindustrialization of America as a problem. Outsourcing to China was the best thing for both countries at the time. Post-Covid the US is going to reindustrialize, but in a high-automation software-eaten robots-and-AI way that won’t help Red much.
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Profits are good. China developing rapidly in 20 years while supplying far cheaper goods to the US than it could to itself was good. Attaching Kissinger’s name to a broad historical trend is a kind of meaningless smear. Chimerica was an inevitable thing for its time.
At some level that’s shared humanity. You recognize the value of good things happening for others. If it means you sometimes have to scramble to reposition, so be it. But if “profit” and “green” are suspect terms for you, you’ll ofc see blue as irredeemably corrupted.
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