President Trump gets something right
Trump generally screws things up, makes them worse, or creates whole new problems.
But like a broken clock, on a rare occasion he gets it right, and we should acknowledge him when he does.
This is one of those times.
Global commerce will lose its ultimate umpire Tuesday, leaving countries unable to reach a final resolution of disputes at the World Trade Organization and instead facing what critics call “the law of the jungle.’’
The United States, under a president who favors a go-it-alone approach to economics and diplomacy, appears to prefer it that way.
The terms of two of the last three judges on the WTO’s appellate body end Tuesday. Their departure will deprive the de facto Supreme Court of world trade of its ability to issue rulings.
Recall that this is the same extra-judicial court that multinational companies use to sue countries for doing stuff like trying to enforce labor laws and environmental protection regulations.
IOW, Trump just shut down Public Enemy #1 for leftists on roughly the 20th Anniversary of this.
Comments
20th Anniversary of......
...... what?
Lots of scenes of tear gas and masks in the past 20 years!!
But which one were you referring to?
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
The battle in Seattle
eom
molto grazie! :-) /nt
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
Have the corporate dems already criticized Trump for this?
If not, it will not be long. Is it just me or do others see the Democratic party as a persuasive example of the Hegelian dialectic?
Had to go look up
what that meant. If thesis is that the GOP is insane and antithesis is that the Democrats are insane and synthesis is that both parties are rabid maniacs that need to be muzzled - yeah, I can see that.
The smaller the mind the greater the conceit. --Aesop
I was thinking of a once progressive Democratic Party
turning into its opposite (synthesis yet to come), but I like your example.
Hegel & dialectics
In philosophy generally, the dialectical method or dialectics is more of a way of understanding concepts than it is a description of things. It's a very old philosophical tradition, going at least back to Plato, and different thinkers have different takes on it. The triad of thesis-antithesis-synthesis doesn't describe a thing turning into its opposite; rather, it describes a method of understanding ideas and resolving contradictions within/among them.
Hegel was writing about an entire system of thought, he was going whole hog on ontology and espistemology, and part of that necessitated answering what Kant had written about thesis and antithesis, and that's where a lot of the oft-quoted internet stuff up this alley comes from. Hegel is difficult and I think a lot of the internet gets him wrong; some of this is because his ideas were legit complicated but some of it is that Hegel's use of language was sort-of specialized and it's easy to misunderstand what he means if you don't know when he's using a special term.
I don't understand that
Whose WTO is it anyway?
and
The press I read and listen to in Germany basically says that the US blockade of the WTO means that they want the law of the fittest to rule. I don't understand why the "one country, one vote" is not helping to prevent the rule of the fittest, which seems (to me as a lay person) is not an acceptable democratic procedure or process to support. May be because the power of multinational corporations can' be controlled anymore by votes of individual nation states.?
I don't understand why what Trump supports is the right thing to do this time around. Sorry to come back here so late, I always fall asleep while writing a comment ... may be that's the reason I don't get it.
https://www.euronews.com/live
It's like the Senate
The USA has one vote. China has one vote. Jamaica has one vote. Zimbabwe has one vote.
The whole EU has only one vote?
Trump is right to leave these fraud in which nations a tenth or hundreth of our side get to dictate to the powerful nations. One country one vote can only be fair if all arties are roughly equivalent in population and economic strength.
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
but wouldn't that mean that the
most populous and largest nations in size dictate their will on the smaller nations? What would you think, if you lived in a small nation and can all but lose against the larger more populous nations?.
I understand the mechanism (I think). But a state within the nation of the USA is not the same as an individual nations within Europe.
So, one nation one vote, or one state (within the US) one vote, both fail to be fair then.
The most populous and larger nation has the right to dictate the less populous and smaller nations. Trade is done between nations. I don't see why it would be fair to allow the more populous nation to dictate the less populous nations. Trade is not like a right for each human being, like human rights are, given to each individual human being, trade is given to an individual nation as a whole, not to each individual person of a nation.
The US states within the US are equivalent with 'Länder' in Germany. Is there trade between 'Länder' or not? I think there isn't. How would it be if 'NRW' (a populous 'land' within Germany) could dictate trade sanctions to 'SH-Schleswig Holstein' (a less populous Land within Germany). Seems to me that would be a recipe to civil war in between the 'Länder' of Germany.
I guess I can't see the fairness in it. I simply don't get it and can't express what I don't get And feel embarrassed to ask more questions and therefore shut up now.
https://www.euronews.com/live
Surely the WTO isn't the only venue.
Aren't investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) courts in place elsewhere? I'd expect them to be already existing in connection with various treaties, and waiting impatiently for TPP and TTIP to establish even more. (If I'm wrong, I'd welcome clarification).
Good Ridance
The WTO wasn't a good thing for American workers anyway, well, except Wall Street maybe, or movies. If we are selling a value added product to another country good. If we ae simply selling raw materials such as we are now, (wheat, corn, beef, lumber, minerals, oil, natural gas) not so good. Importing any value added product hurts our workers though we all get inexpensive "stuff". I'm of the protectionist bent, I don't like trade in general. Buy less "stuff" means less carbon.