Yes Samuel P. Huntington & His Disciples Are Loons—Note to Self
This has surfaced again in my feed. Please, people stop ending it to me! It leads me down rabbit-holes—what a loon Samuel P. Huntington was, and how favorably citing him is a powerful sign that you are a loon unmoored from reality yourself—that I don't have time for today!
Anyone who thinks—as Gregory Mitrovich apparently does—that Great Britain in 1920 had intrinsic strengths then that enabled it to thereafter retain its global dominance is truly a total idiot. When did Britain dominate anything after 1920? Gregory Mitrovich: Beware Declinism: America Remains Poised for Greatness https://nationalinterest.org/feature/beware-declinism-america-remains-poised-greatness-163810: ‘There can be no doubting that America’s international standing has been undermined by ill-considered wars and the deadly failures of Trump’s pandemic response. However, the intrinsic strength of the United States will, like that of Britain a century ago, enable America to retain its dominance...
Maybe I am just overly annoyed by people who favorably quote Sam Huntington, in this case his "observ[ation] that in the post-World War II era there had been five occasions when U.S. leaders were convinced the end was nigh—each time to be proven wrong..."
Huntington should be remembered for his idiocy and his psychopathy, here clearly shown in his claim that Vietnamese Communism was on its last legs in 1968:
Samuel Huntington (1968): The Bases of Accommodation https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/vietnam/1968-07-01/bases-accommodation: ‘The principal reason for this massive influx of population into the urban areas is, of course, the intensification of the war following the commitment of American combat troops in 1965... 1,500,000... refugees, half still in refugee camps.... At least an equal number of people have moved into the cities without passing through refugee camps. The social costs of this change have been dramatic and often heartrending.... The immediate economic effects of urbanization are somewhat more mixed. Those who were well-off in the countryside often suffer serious losses in the move to the city. The rural poor, on the other hand, may well find life in the city more attractive and comfortable... the urban slum... for the poor peasant a gateway to a new and better way of life....
More than anything else urbanization has been responsible for the striking increase in the proportion of the population living under Government control between 1964 and 1968. The depopulation of the countryside struck directly at the strength and potential appeal of the Viet Cong.... The Viet Cong had waged a rural revolution.... The "first outstanding feature..." Of which,] Sir Robert Thompson argued... "is its immunity to the direct application of mechanical and conventional power."... [But] if the "direct application of mechanical and conventional power" takes place on such a massive scale as to produce a massive migration from countryside to city, the basic assumptions underlying the Maoist doctrine of revolutionary war no longer operate....
In an absent-minded way the United States in Viet Nam may well have stumbled upon the answer to "wars of national liberation." The effective response lies neither in the quest for conventional military victory nor in the esoteric doctrines and gimmicks of counter-insurgency warfare. It is instead forced-draft urbanization and modernization which rapidly brings the country in question out of the phase in which a rural revolutionary movement can hope to generate sufficient strength to come to power. Time in South Viet Nam is increasingly on the side of the Government…
Huntington should be remembered for his idiocy and his psychopathy, here clearly shown in his 2009 truly remarkably anti-Cuban-American racist screed:
Samuel P. Huntington (2009): The Hispanic Challenge https://foreignpolicy.com/2009/10/28/the-hispanic-challenge/: "Unlike past immigrant groups, Mexicans and other Latinos have not assimilated into mainstream U.S. culture, forming instead their own political and linguistic enclaves—from Los Angeles to Miami—and rejecting the Anglo-Protestant values that built the American dream.... The Hispanization of Miami is without precedent.... The Cuban takeover had major consequences... a Cuban-led, Hispanic city... in which assimilation and Americanization were unnecessary and in some measure undesired..... By 1999, the heads of Miami’s largest bank, largest real estate development company, and largest law firm were all Cuban-born or of Cuban descent... the mayor of Miami and the mayor, police chief, and state attorney of Miami-Dade County, plus two-thirds of Miami’s U.S. Congressional delegation and nearly one half of its state legislators.... Anglos (as well as blacks)... outside minorities that could often be ignored. Unable to communicate with government bureaucrats and discriminated against by store clerks, the Anglos... could accept their subordinat[ion]... assimilate into the Hispanic community... or... leave... their exodus reflected in a popular bumper sticker: 'Will the last American to leave Miami, please bring the flag'...
Huntington should be remembered for his idiocy and his psychopathy, here clearly shown in his
Samuel P. Huntington & al. (1973): The Crisis of Democracy http://www.trilateral.org/download/doc/crisis_of_democracy.pdf: 'The vigor of democracy in the United States in the 1960s thus contributed to a democratic distemper... the expansion of governmental activity... and the reduction of governmental authority.... Across the board, the tendency was for massive increases in government expenditures to provide cash and benefits for particular groups within society rather than in expenditures designed to serve national purposes vis-a-vis the external environment.... The beneficiaries of governmental largesse coupled with governmental employees constitute a substantial proportion of the public. Their interests clearly run counter to those groups in the public which receive relatively little in cash benefits from the government but must contribute taxes.... The imposition of 'hard' decisions imposing costs on any major economic group is... particularly difficult in the United States.... Marginal social groups, as in the case of the blacks, are now becoming full participants in the political system.... Less marginality... needs to be replaced by more self-restraint...
.#highlighted #moralresponsibility #notetoself #orangehairedbaboons #2020-09-12
