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Saturday, Feb 18, 2023 - 20:53 SGT
Posted By: Gilbert

It's Teams All The Way Down

现在的一片天 是肮脏的一片天
星星在文明的天空里 再也看不见
天其实并不高 海其实也不远
人心其实比天高 比海更遥远

- 郑智化 《星星点灯》 (遭乱改歌词)


For those non-Mandarin-reading visitors, to save a trip to Google Translate/DeepL, the above lyrics bemoan "a polluted sky" with "the stars (and/within a) civilized sky, no longer being visible", and finally that "the human heart is actually more difficult to know than (i.e. taller than) the sky or (i.e. further than) the ocean".

This might be a familiar sentiment to the players of The Greatest Game, with mutual distrust and antagonism continuing to grow* between Team Red leaders China, and Team Blue leaders America. Xi has, for example, denounced Westernization (and, one supposes, [liberal] democracy) as the only path to modernization, with Biden then taunting Xi by name in his State of the Union address. That Biden would reiterate that the U.S. was "not looking for a New Cold War" (note wording not implying that there isn't one happening already, or that they would reject one if it "came to them", with the media duly cranking up "well China started it") was understandably hardly reassuring to more-seasoned participants, with our next PM acknowledging a very possible New Cold War, and our Defence Minister going (in Singlish) "mai liddat leh" at the Munich Security Conference.

Before proceeding with Team Blue's Headline, a brief update on the happenings of the past week or so: on the stray balloons, it seems that the three supposed-Red balloons might merely be innocent private property, though we may never know for sure with their debris possibly unrecoverable. With other reports having a bewildered ham radio hobby club from Illinois mourning their missing US$12 transmitter balloon, this might be for the best. While this does lend China's mockery of a U.S. overreaction some weight, it might not be such a bad ending to this saga, if cooling geopolitical temperatures is desired here. Still, with the Russians reportedly releasing at least six more over Kyiv, we might get to ninety-nine sooner or later.

[*For good reason actually, with foreign policy perhaps best described as "an international poker game where everyone's cheating" - which we have seen plenty of, in previous Turns.]

There's been some rumblings about Hersh's Nord Stream bombshells too, but that will have to wait with Mike Gallagher (R-WI) stepping up grimly, to reveal Team Blue's card:


Turn 13, Headline Phase (Team Blue)


Select Committee chair: Yes, prepare for New Cold War
(Original sources: twilightstrategy.com, c-span.org)


Well, this is big. Team Blue pulls out what might be the most powerful Event in the entire Twilight Struggle: New Moon arsenal, as they headline Red Scare/Purge for its Event. The precedent is of course the House Un-American Activities Committee (HCUA) as passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in 1938 (in the build-up to World War II), targeting then-Team Red fascists/communists (with an unmistakeable current parallel). This would then develop into McCarthy's Red Scare between about 1949 to 1954, which saw suspected Commies, putative left-wingers and their sympathizers denounced and sometimes purged, in America.

The contemporary revival would occur several days after the latest Insurrection Day celebrations in Washington, with the U.S. House of Representatives voting for the setup of a Select Committee on the Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party (i.e. the new Un-Americans), by a supermajority of 365 in favour, to just 65 against. A first observation is that this was a remarkably bipartisan vote in an otherwise exceedingly-polarized U.S. political climate, which has seen ballots break down by party line even on seemingly mundane propositions.

Here, we unavoidably have to recognize the fractal (and fractious, but everyone knows that already) nature of human political organization. This had been hinted in the last post with the (Red) Bloods vs. (Blue) Crips gangland comparism, with the respective U.S. and Chinese administrations hardly strangers to that terminology (The Gang of Eight and Gang of Four respectively, the former of whom are supposed to be briefed in the case of any CIA meddling). Benjamin Franklin knew of this fundamental truth - of nation as gang - well too, when he stated that "a highwayman is as much a robber when he plunders in a gang as when single; and a nation that makes an unjust war is only a great gang".


It's just reenactment of two thousand years of Western civilization by Team Green, you unlettered boors!
(Source: fortune.com)


Such use of what is essentially "gang colours" has a long and rich history in human political organization. To throw out just a few examples, ancient Rome had their Red and Blue (and White and Green) chariot factions - with political implications - with their Byzantine successors eventually trimming it down to Blue versus Green (to which we recall the rise of the Empress Theodora following an early swap deal), some centuries after a failed expansion draft by Domitian. Rioting after the Big Game was, of course, a much-loved tradition, still honoured in America to the present day. I see they are men of culture too!

The English for their part contributed Team Red versus Team White in the House Lancaster/Tudor versus House York Wars of the Roses, while the Qing Dynasty went with Red, White, Yellow and Blue in their Eight Banners system (with the Greens as the common troops and later police force). In many of these cases, the intention of the ruling elite was indisputably to fragment the cohesion of the downtrodden masses, by directing their (potentially revolutionary) energies against each other - instead of at the top of the pyramid - in a more-controllable manner. This may sound vaguely familiar given the current Team Red GOP versus Team Blue Dems situation in the states, and a pretty-convincing theory has the extant Culture Wars being stoked to shield the true elite, after Occupy Wall Street in 2011.

Because, if one thinks carefully about it, what do the average hard-up redneck (truck driver/farmer/labourer etc.) and the typical impoverished urbanite (possibly minority/LGBT/French etc.), really have against each other? Sure there may be some wider policy clashes (e.g. on abortion, but these are frankly often a lot more nuanced than the FAKE NEWS would make it), but by and large it can easily be live and let live; sure, one side might think the other side's uncool or whatever, but then the feeling's probably reciprocated. And so? Kiss already!


Literally where even (2018 battlefront situation)
[N.B. One understands why DPM Wong's instinct is to siam as far as possible]
[N.N.B. Non-Anglo Europe might have avoided the worst of it for now]
(Source: ribbonfarm.com)


For better or worse, the U.S. of A appears to have pulled their finger out on their self-destructive Culture Wars with the new anti-China House committee, and one quite suspects that their mainstream corporate media and CIA FBI social media elements will follow in lockstep, to corral American citizens' fury towards a new target (which, to be fair, is one of the oldest tricks in the book for creating unity amongst previously-divided groups). This actually makes sense even for true Culture War believers, though - if Team Red (i.e. mostly China) wins in The Greatest Game, I'd pay to watch these self-professed liberal radicals, attempt to pursue their pronoun preferences with Mandarin radicals!



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