Agree with the general direction. Quibbles: (a) 1 vote per nation in the UN doesn't represent population, so would be as bad as 2 senate seats per state in the US (which sucks). (b) China only has one legitimate government, which currently sits it Taipei.
It's time we stop recognizing the legitimacy of any government which is not democratically elected. Start with the Saudis, who per the NY Times are giving Trump orders in the war on Iran, and who many suspect orchestrated 9/11. Trump's closeness to them is as treasonous as his with the Russians.
Trump is happy to accept bribes and 'investments' from countries like Saudi and Qatar, but he doesn't respect, understand, or commit to giving anything in return. I'm currently IN Saudi and I can tell you, Trump doesn't give a rat's about KSA or any of the Mid East. No way MBS is running this shit-show - why would he want the 30 odd drones we get a day? It's all Trump and Israel. But, yes if we must unpick the imagined plan, allocating votes for this notional council of nations would be problematic - as democracy itself is problematic. Should non-democratic countries get a vote? Iran has 94 million people, Tuvalu has 11,000. Should Tuvalu get a vote? Right now, the USA is supposedly democratic, but it's behaving like a dictatorship of the worst kind. Do they lose their vote? And yes, the 18 of the 19 9/11 asshats lived in Saudi, but you could argue Lee Harvey Oswald lived in America, does that make the US a terrorist sponsor?
Hmm. Oswald is suspected to have had ties to the CIA, although I'm not about to adjudicate there. Bin Laden's ties to some of the Saudi royals look better documented.
The NY Times reporting has been that MBS was not in favor of starting the war, but now that it's ongoing doesn't want it to end soon. Seems reasonable from his POV that if the Iranian regime isn't actually removed now, the drones will keep coming, and the straight kept closed for many months. And of course, MBS hardly cares about the cost in US lives and treasure. Nor does Trump, as long as the Saudis continue to enrich his family.
I couldn't agree more with this essay. The entire UN has been corrupted into a way to launder the crimes of the powerful. I will raise you one, Mike. I am adamant that the next president push for us to join the ICC so that these criminals running things are held to account. It is clear our own courts will do nothing and the world needs to see we are serious about fixing the mess the international order has become. We will need to earn back a lot of trust.
Imagining and proposing alternatives is always good even if they are infeasible. The conflicts have only existed since the 1920s at most they aren't ancient or intractable
We’ll never change if we begin with the defeated belief that alternatives aren’t feasible. Perhaps you mis-phrased your intention there, because in your second sentence you suggest that the wedge into change could be thru addressing the modern era (post WWI vs. centuries old) issues of world conflicts. I love that you are proposing another place to push the direction changes Mike Brock is writing about. New directions also need to based on the philosophy that they are transitional, and with real world mechanisms for
I might have, my thinking isn't so much for us it's for the people who will actually do the negotiating and are they going to bring up things that happened to their 400 years ago, even a hundred years ago or will it be more recent? That's what I'm getting at. Not to discount the past or even treaties but looking more at present conditions. Even in the past at the moment people were making it up as they went a long with many things contingent until they weren't
Then we're in agreement on what matters. The rest is just commentary, well mainly my commentary today. I'm on b the same page with you in that. I enjoy your writing
Banji the conflicts in the Middle East are centuries old not decades. They have changed & evolved but are deeply rooted in the various cultures that exist there. European colonialism changed things, but ultimately didn’t change the cultures.
I agree with you about cultures having as deep roots as the soil. We're on the same page about that.
There's some conflicts that are the same conflict because of geography like how France and Germany were always contesting the independence of the Low Countries.
I'm saying most conflicts don't have roots that are hundreds of years old. They will at most be 100 years.
Now because of imagined communities and the stories people tell themselves they will say it's been around for ever.
Ottomans had a rivalry with Iran, before that Rome had a rivalry with Iran but none of those are relevant now except for the borders.
Germany, Austria, and Turkey being allies isn't something anyone could have imagined in the late 1700s.
My point isn't to dismiss or erase that history. It's not even about revisionist history. The reason I learned to pushback against the ancient conflicts between peoples is that it implies they are intractable.
Also whatever conflicts come up are different and their particularities and resolutions are more interesting and tell us more.
In fact I think seeing them as more recent shows how unpredictable things can be and respect each sides agency.
Again I'm not saying there isn't a history even with some of the same peoples it's more that what's relevant is things which occurred in at most the past hundred years.
So when nations and people talk about resolving these conflicts the focus should be there reminding everyone it doesn't have to be this way and can be solved.
It's important to think big, and to feel deep. We're not escaping this maelstrom otherwise. The Overton Window has gotten too small for any resolution; we need to blow it open. Until The People get behind and push, the "leaders" are going to dick around hedging their bets.
I believe there is another step in this process that must be taken if any of the moral principles here are to be realised, and that is to enforce the proper punishment for crimes against peace.
The United States (more accurately at this time, MAGA America: https://substack.com/@dpareja/note/c-231768858) and Israel have, in my view, committed crimes against peace in waging an unprovoked war against Iran. The remedy for this is no less than what happened to Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan after they committed the same.
That remedy is threefold: punishment of the leaders, suspension of domestic autonomy, and imposition of a new constitutional order with a gradual transition back to domestic autonomy and democratic governance. The punishment of the 1940s was the death penalty (for those who had not already taken their own lives by suicide, and with the exception, for political reasons, of Emperor Hirohito). Since I personally am opposed to the death penalty, I would rather see Donald Trump celebrate his 100th birthday from Slobodan Milošević's jail cell, and so on for other leaders involved. Suspension of domestic autonomy would entail those polities being run by the international democratic community until such time as new constitutions and legal orders can be written (for instance, changes to the education curriculum to abolish the toxic myths of American exceptionalism and manifest destiny are necessary). Any new constitutional order would follow the same model that the United States itself has used when writing new constitutions for other countries (such as Japan, Iraq, and, in conjunction with the other Western Allies, the Federal Republic of Germany): a parliamentary republic (which Israel already is, but reforms would be made to ensure that religious extremism cannot become a driving force in government) or constitutional monarchy (which the United States could quite readily, on the basis of historical association, become with Charles of Windsor as head of state).
Other steps are necessary; I do not dispute the substance of what Mike lays out, and claim only that it is insufficient.
1. Do not surrender the Security Council seat until and unless the Security Council arrangement itself is done away with.
2. Agreed on Taiwan. It's not like it's the only country outside the PRC with a Chinese plurality.
3. Solution to the Middle East: Netanyahu has to fight the head of the Palestinian Authority in a steel-cage match. Loser has to pack up his people and leave the damn country.
It’s more likely the U.S. regime will expel UN HQ, seize their New York property, and quit all UN elements except the Security Council, wherever it meets next.
Shadi asks: imposed by whom, and how? The answer: the default arrangement—great powers deciding over everyone else—is itself an imposition. Moral imagination isn’t fantasy; it’s direction.
Relinquish the Security Council seat. Empower the General Assembly. Assert universal principles. Perfect mechanisms don’t exist yet—but naming what better looks like is the first step toward building it.
The world won’t change by defending the arrangements that produced Gaza, Ukraine, and a closed Strait of Hormuz. It changes by envisioning, insisting, and building institutions that align power with principle. That’s moral imagination.
Agree with the general direction. Quibbles: (a) 1 vote per nation in the UN doesn't represent population, so would be as bad as 2 senate seats per state in the US (which sucks). (b) China only has one legitimate government, which currently sits it Taipei.
It's time we stop recognizing the legitimacy of any government which is not democratically elected. Start with the Saudis, who per the NY Times are giving Trump orders in the war on Iran, and who many suspect orchestrated 9/11. Trump's closeness to them is as treasonous as his with the Russians.
Trump is happy to accept bribes and 'investments' from countries like Saudi and Qatar, but he doesn't respect, understand, or commit to giving anything in return. I'm currently IN Saudi and I can tell you, Trump doesn't give a rat's about KSA or any of the Mid East. No way MBS is running this shit-show - why would he want the 30 odd drones we get a day? It's all Trump and Israel. But, yes if we must unpick the imagined plan, allocating votes for this notional council of nations would be problematic - as democracy itself is problematic. Should non-democratic countries get a vote? Iran has 94 million people, Tuvalu has 11,000. Should Tuvalu get a vote? Right now, the USA is supposedly democratic, but it's behaving like a dictatorship of the worst kind. Do they lose their vote? And yes, the 18 of the 19 9/11 asshats lived in Saudi, but you could argue Lee Harvey Oswald lived in America, does that make the US a terrorist sponsor?
Hmm. Oswald is suspected to have had ties to the CIA, although I'm not about to adjudicate there. Bin Laden's ties to some of the Saudi royals look better documented.
The NY Times reporting has been that MBS was not in favor of starting the war, but now that it's ongoing doesn't want it to end soon. Seems reasonable from his POV that if the Iranian regime isn't actually removed now, the drones will keep coming, and the straight kept closed for many months. And of course, MBS hardly cares about the cost in US lives and treasure. Nor does Trump, as long as the Saudis continue to enrich his family.
I couldn't agree more with this essay. The entire UN has been corrupted into a way to launder the crimes of the powerful. I will raise you one, Mike. I am adamant that the next president push for us to join the ICC so that these criminals running things are held to account. It is clear our own courts will do nothing and the world needs to see we are serious about fixing the mess the international order has become. We will need to earn back a lot of trust.
Imagining and proposing alternatives is always good even if they are infeasible. The conflicts have only existed since the 1920s at most they aren't ancient or intractable
We’ll never change if we begin with the defeated belief that alternatives aren’t feasible. Perhaps you mis-phrased your intention there, because in your second sentence you suggest that the wedge into change could be thru addressing the modern era (post WWI vs. centuries old) issues of world conflicts. I love that you are proposing another place to push the direction changes Mike Brock is writing about. New directions also need to based on the philosophy that they are transitional, and with real world mechanisms for
I might have, my thinking isn't so much for us it's for the people who will actually do the negotiating and are they going to bring up things that happened to their 400 years ago, even a hundred years ago or will it be more recent? That's what I'm getting at. Not to discount the past or even treaties but looking more at present conditions. Even in the past at the moment people were making it up as they went a long with many things contingent until they weren't
I did not mean to imply that conflict in the region can not end, it can
Then we're in agreement on what matters. The rest is just commentary, well mainly my commentary today. I'm on b the same page with you in that. I enjoy your writing
Banji the conflicts in the Middle East are centuries old not decades. They have changed & evolved but are deeply rooted in the various cultures that exist there. European colonialism changed things, but ultimately didn’t change the cultures.
Hi
I agree with you about cultures having as deep roots as the soil. We're on the same page about that.
There's some conflicts that are the same conflict because of geography like how France and Germany were always contesting the independence of the Low Countries.
I'm saying most conflicts don't have roots that are hundreds of years old. They will at most be 100 years.
Now because of imagined communities and the stories people tell themselves they will say it's been around for ever.
Ottomans had a rivalry with Iran, before that Rome had a rivalry with Iran but none of those are relevant now except for the borders.
Germany, Austria, and Turkey being allies isn't something anyone could have imagined in the late 1700s.
My point isn't to dismiss or erase that history. It's not even about revisionist history. The reason I learned to pushback against the ancient conflicts between peoples is that it implies they are intractable.
Also whatever conflicts come up are different and their particularities and resolutions are more interesting and tell us more.
In fact I think seeing them as more recent shows how unpredictable things can be and respect each sides agency.
Again I'm not saying there isn't a history even with some of the same peoples it's more that what's relevant is things which occurred in at most the past hundred years.
So when nations and people talk about resolving these conflicts the focus should be there reminding everyone it doesn't have to be this way and can be solved.
Cheers
It's important to think big, and to feel deep. We're not escaping this maelstrom otherwise. The Overton Window has gotten too small for any resolution; we need to blow it open. Until The People get behind and push, the "leaders" are going to dick around hedging their bets.
Great read, thank you
I believe there is another step in this process that must be taken if any of the moral principles here are to be realised, and that is to enforce the proper punishment for crimes against peace.
The United States (more accurately at this time, MAGA America: https://substack.com/@dpareja/note/c-231768858) and Israel have, in my view, committed crimes against peace in waging an unprovoked war against Iran. The remedy for this is no less than what happened to Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan after they committed the same.
That remedy is threefold: punishment of the leaders, suspension of domestic autonomy, and imposition of a new constitutional order with a gradual transition back to domestic autonomy and democratic governance. The punishment of the 1940s was the death penalty (for those who had not already taken their own lives by suicide, and with the exception, for political reasons, of Emperor Hirohito). Since I personally am opposed to the death penalty, I would rather see Donald Trump celebrate his 100th birthday from Slobodan Milošević's jail cell, and so on for other leaders involved. Suspension of domestic autonomy would entail those polities being run by the international democratic community until such time as new constitutions and legal orders can be written (for instance, changes to the education curriculum to abolish the toxic myths of American exceptionalism and manifest destiny are necessary). Any new constitutional order would follow the same model that the United States itself has used when writing new constitutions for other countries (such as Japan, Iraq, and, in conjunction with the other Western Allies, the Federal Republic of Germany): a parliamentary republic (which Israel already is, but reforms would be made to ensure that religious extremism cannot become a driving force in government) or constitutional monarchy (which the United States could quite readily, on the basis of historical association, become with Charles of Windsor as head of state).
Other steps are necessary; I do not dispute the substance of what Mike lays out, and claim only that it is insufficient.
That is my moral imagination.
1. Do not surrender the Security Council seat until and unless the Security Council arrangement itself is done away with.
2. Agreed on Taiwan. It's not like it's the only country outside the PRC with a Chinese plurality.
3. Solution to the Middle East: Netanyahu has to fight the head of the Palestinian Authority in a steel-cage match. Loser has to pack up his people and leave the damn country.
It’s more likely the U.S. regime will expel UN HQ, seize their New York property, and quit all UN elements except the Security Council, wherever it meets next.
Love it. I think you nailed it when you said there's nothing wrong with imagining. We NEED to imagine. It's the precondition for change.
Simply: Thank you, Mike!
Yes. Are you familiar with Heba Aly and the Article 109 initiative?
Shadi asks: imposed by whom, and how? The answer: the default arrangement—great powers deciding over everyone else—is itself an imposition. Moral imagination isn’t fantasy; it’s direction.
Relinquish the Security Council seat. Empower the General Assembly. Assert universal principles. Perfect mechanisms don’t exist yet—but naming what better looks like is the first step toward building it.
The world won’t change by defending the arrangements that produced Gaza, Ukraine, and a closed Strait of Hormuz. It changes by envisioning, insisting, and building institutions that align power with principle. That’s moral imagination.