Parallax Views w/ J.G. Michael
Society & Culture
On this edition of Parallax Views, Christopher Mott, a Research Fellow at the Institute for Peace & Diplomacy and author The Formless Empire: A Short History of Diplomacy and Warfare in Central Asia, joins Parallax Views to discuss his recent CovertAction Magazine piece "Samantha Power and the Cosmopolitan Crusaders". Applying his knowledge as someone who has worked inside the U.S. State Department, Chris explains the foreign policy thought of the diplomat and government official Samantha Power, whose influential book A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide was foundational to R2P (Responsible to Protect) doctrine. R2P, Mott explains, holds that powerful nations (ie: the U.S. and NATO-aligned states) have a duty to stop human rights abuses around the world. Although a noble cause in theory, Mott argues that R2P in practice has not always worked perfectly in practice. In this regard Mott examines the Obama-era intervention into Libya on humanitarian grounds and how Libya has turned into a chaotic failed state that's led to the return of the slave trade to North Africa. In addition to all of this Mott and I also discuss:
- Fear of another Weimar moment haunting beltway foreign policy circles and the role that plays in driving interventionist policymaking
- The question of isolationism, the specter of WWII, and Stephen Wertheim's Tomorrow, the World: The Birth of U.S. Global Supremacy
- Foreign policy realism and its variations including offensive realism and defensive realism
- Sun Tzu, the risks of war, diplomacy vs. military force, and the question of grand strategy
- The role of ideological, systemic, and economic factors in U.S. foreign policy
- Democratic Peace Theory, American exceptionalism, and Kantian liberal cosmopolitanism
- Sanctions, the potential critique of their effectiveness in achieving state policy goals, and the Iran deal/JCPOA; sanctions as a form of economic warfare
- Jihadism, cosmopolitanism, and state collapse
- U.S.-China relations, human rights rhetoric, and whataboutisms
- American exceptionalism as having a right, left, and center form
- U.S. foreign policy, puritanical morality plays, and protagonist syndrome
- Tyler Cowen's Bloomberg op-ed arguing for using "Wokeism" (a very vague term removed from its original context on Black Twitter) to rebrand American exceptionalism
- And much, much more!
Unanswered Questions: What the September Eleventh Families Asked and the 9/11 Commission Ignored w/ Ray McGinnis
No Justice, No Police?: The Politics of Protest and Social Change w/ Matt Clement
Tyranny Inc.: How Private Power Crushed American Liberty and What to Do About It (+ Opposing the Eugenicist, Nietzschean Right) w/ Sohrab Ahmari
The Maui Fires and the Grotesque Mismanagement of a Disaster w/ Journalist Albert Lanier from Hawaii
The Year That Broke Politics: Collusion and Chaos in the Presidential Election of 1968 w/ Luke A. Nichter
The Hidden History of American Democracy w/ Thom Hartmann/The Risks of Nuclear War, Oppenheimer, & Reflections on Alamogordo and Los Alamos w/ Ret. LTC. William J. Astore
The Black Poor, Class, and Affirmative Action w/ Bertrand Cooper
The Texas Mall Shooting and the Phenomena of Nazis of Color w/ Spencer Sunshine and Isaac
Seeing through the Smoke: A Cannabis Specialist Untangles the Truth about Marijuana w/ Peter Grinspoon, M.D.
The Fourth Turning Is Here: What The Seasons Of History Tell Us About How And When This Crisis Will End w/ Neil Howe
Are Business Interests Driving an AI Panic? (+ WGA Strike, ChatGPT Bias, Henry Kissinger, and More) w/ Grant M. Gallagher
Exposing SOUND OF FREEDOM, Tim Ballard, and Operation Underground Railroad w/ Damion Moore
Israel/Palestine, Violence in Jenin, Israeli Police Murder of an Autistic Man, and the Iraqi Shia Kidnapping of an Israeli-Russian National w/ Richard Silverstein
Biden Nominee Elliott Abrams, the Iran-Contra Affair, and the U.S. Foreign Policy Blob
Control: The Dark History and Troubling Present of Eugenics w/ Geneticist Adam Rutherford
The Enduring Legacy of V, the Hit Sci-Fi TV Series That Used the Alien Invasion Trope to Explore the Dangers of Fascism w/ Kenny Johnson
The Wild World of Pro Wrestling (and Some Politics Talk Too... Plus Freemasonry!?) w/ Kenny ”Starmaker” Bolin
Cultural Memory, Climate Change, and the Potential Catastrophe of a Digital Dark Age w/ Charles Henry
Media Representation, How AI Can Amplify Bias, and the Problem With The Little Mermaid w/ Marcus Ryder
Ukraine/Russia War Update + Wagner Group’s Chief Attacks Russian Military Elites w/ Anatol Lieven
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