Last edited:
US US Politics General - Discussion of President Biden and other politicians
- Thread starter SeniorFuckFace
- Start date
-
🏰 The Fediverse is up. If you know, you know.
-
Want to keep track of this thread?
Accounts can bookmark posts, watch threads for updates, and jump back to where you stopped reading.
Create account
- Status
- Joined
- Dec 25, 2017
Read the thread, I not only did it, I managed to define his work better than you did and posted it before you did.
Go back to your shitty college professor who couldn’t make it as a real “intellectual” and decided to teach philosophy instead
- Joined
- Mar 30, 2023
Plus it's possible for a collapse to be largely invisible to the common people, as no more then a period of time where life is difficult.
You can argue that America has collapsed, as it no longer holds the power it used to and its operations are imploding - it's just sheer momentum keeping things going.
You can argue that America has collapsed, as it no longer holds the power it used to and its operations are imploding - it's just sheer momentum keeping things going.
- Joined
- Dec 17, 2019
What with this?
Glubb's essay is full of examples from history, especially from the Eastern Med, which would be his area of expertise.
XXVI The Mameluke Empire
The empire of the Mamelukes of Egypt provides a case in point, for it was one of the most exotic ever to be recorded in history. It is also exceptional in that it began on one fixed day and ended on another, leaving no doubt of its precise duration, which was 267 years. In the first part of the thirteenth century, Egypt and Syria were ruled by the Ayoubid sultans, the descendants of the family of Saladin. Their army consisted of Mamelukes, slaves imported as boys from the Steppes and trained as professional soldiers. On 1st May 1250, the Mamelukes mutinied, murdered Turan Shah, the Ayoubid sultan, and became the rulers of his empire. The first fifty years of the Mameluke Empire were marked by desperate fighting with the hitherto invincible Mongols, the descendants of Genghis Khan, who invaded Syria. By defeating the Mongols and driving them out of Syria, the Mamelukes saved the Mediterranean from the terrible fate which had overtaken Persia. In 1291, the Mamelukes captured Acre, and put an end to the Crusades. From 1309 to 1341, the Mameluke Empire was everywhere victorious and possessed the finest army in the world. For the ensuing hundred years the wealth of the Mameluke Empire was fabulous, slowly leading to luxury, the relaxation of discipline and to decline, with ever more bitter internal political rivalries. Finally the empire collapsed in 1517, as the result of military defeat by the Ottomans. The Mameluke government appears to us utterly illogical and fantastic. The ruling class was entirely recruited from young boys, born in what is now Southern Russia. Every one of them was enlisted as a private soldier. Even the sultans had begun life as private soldiers and had risen from the ranks. Yet this extraordinary political system resulted in an empire which passed through all the normal stages of conquest, commercialism, affluence and decline and which lasted approximately the usual period of time.
The empire of the Mamelukes of Egypt provides a case in point, for it was one of the most exotic ever to be recorded in history. It is also exceptional in that it began on one fixed day and ended on another, leaving no doubt of its precise duration, which was 267 years. In the first part of the thirteenth century, Egypt and Syria were ruled by the Ayoubid sultans, the descendants of the family of Saladin. Their army consisted of Mamelukes, slaves imported as boys from the Steppes and trained as professional soldiers. On 1st May 1250, the Mamelukes mutinied, murdered Turan Shah, the Ayoubid sultan, and became the rulers of his empire. The first fifty years of the Mameluke Empire were marked by desperate fighting with the hitherto invincible Mongols, the descendants of Genghis Khan, who invaded Syria. By defeating the Mongols and driving them out of Syria, the Mamelukes saved the Mediterranean from the terrible fate which had overtaken Persia. In 1291, the Mamelukes captured Acre, and put an end to the Crusades. From 1309 to 1341, the Mameluke Empire was everywhere victorious and possessed the finest army in the world. For the ensuing hundred years the wealth of the Mameluke Empire was fabulous, slowly leading to luxury, the relaxation of discipline and to decline, with ever more bitter internal political rivalries. Finally the empire collapsed in 1517, as the result of military defeat by the Ottomans. The Mameluke government appears to us utterly illogical and fantastic. The ruling class was entirely recruited from young boys, born in what is now Southern Russia. Every one of them was enlisted as a private soldier. Even the sultans had begun life as private soldiers and had risen from the ranks. Yet this extraordinary political system resulted in an empire which passed through all the normal stages of conquest, commercialism, affluence and decline and which lasted approximately the usual period of time.
Not entirely sure why you're all so damn butthurt about Glubb.
- Joined
- Dec 25, 2017
They’re not correct examples and don’t even fit his own logic when looked at with any a scrutiny.
I’m not butthurt about a literal nobody from history. I’m tired of you shitting up the thread with your liberal arts degree take on politics
- Joined
- Dec 17, 2019
Explain how the Mameluke example doesn't fit.
Given that politics and history would fall under the liberal arts, which kind of degree should I have?
- Joined
- Oct 22, 2021
Hopefully it's not just America's liberals that are the dying breed.
I'm very nervous about 2028. Donald Trump is a tough act to follow, especially considering his political heir has yet to be decided.
- Joined
- Aug 22, 2020
Because he was mediocre in every way and his theory is mediocre generalist bullshit that doesn't match literally dozens of empires throughout history, his definition of empire is retarded, and you're fucking obsessed with this mediocre British officer and his mediocre theory
- Joined
- Dec 20, 2022
The "I was left behind" types. The Trumps, the Gabbards, the Kennedy Jrs, the Vances of the world. This is a large group of people mind you. With varying degrees of beliefs, but they all amount to yesterday's liberals. When yesterday was: 2010s, 2000s, 1990s, 1980s, so on, is a matter for them to express. Some of these people may even be yesterday's progressives. The types who express support for gay marriage, but are concerned with teaching gay sex-ed to middle schoolers, while they refuse to admit the one inevitably leads to the other, for example. A type that favors their preferred end of history. For Donald J. Trump, that was the 1990s. A period of global peace and prosperity. The cold war was officially over. America was at the height of its power. Of course, what came after in the 2000s, 2010s and now the 2020s was only possible from the fruits sowed in the 90s or before. I support Trump, I've voted for him three times now. I prefer 90s over now even if I didn't exist then. However I also understand the fault/issues of the 90s. All the SJW shit we deal with now, the racial stuff, the gay stuff, the illegal stuff, the communism stuff was all present and growing then. Going back without getting rid of that is just going to bring us right back here.
I agree this is all maps really well onto America. I disagree we are at that stage. Maybe I'm just too optimistic of a motherfucker. Or I'm old stock American whose willing to sacrifice to keep it all going. I'm not sure.
Imagine trying to stiff people out of money for a killer of a bastard everyone cheered on getting killed. Lmao, Petal needs to clean house bad.
- Joined
- Dec 17, 2019
Mediocre British Officer. It's going to be generalist and broad because it's rather short essay and because it's meant to be, it was never meant as a rigorous academic analysis. It's not hard and fast holy writ or anything, it's just a slightly higher level of the Strong Men -> Good Times -> Weak Men -> Bad Times -> Strong Men cycle. Historians of all stripes have noticed that things are cyclical and history rhymes since at least the classical Greeks, so someone noticing cycles and patterns is about the least controversial thing in the field. Not sure why you're all autistically fixated on the definition of Empire anyways, since it tends to be a loose definition best summed up as a multi-ethnic state held together by force. Often autocratic, but doesn't have to be, the United States is technically one, just ask Dixie.
No, I feel you, plenty of heritage American blood flowing through my veins. I think it's separating America as a nation, the people, from America the state. The people are fine, the stock is still good, if we can get the illegals of various stripes out, we'll be fine. We're in a unique position where we don't have to seriously worry about threats from the states that border us. A "collapse" is probably just dealing with our system of government and tweaking it to deal with all the things that have popped into existence that the Founders couldn't have thought of. I'm bearish on the current state of the Republic, I'm bullish on Americans, if that makes sense.
- Joined
- Aug 22, 2020
Yes that's right mediocre. Glubb's WWI career was fine, and then he was sent to the second-most backwaterest backwater command for Britain interwar and during the war - the Levant/Mesopatamia. Where he spent several years failing to stop Bedouin bandit raids until he basically gave in to their demands at the negotiating table to get them to stop. Then he went on to train the Arab Legion (Jordanian Army), which despite a huge advantage in materiel, the best training any Arab army had, and British officers commanding it in 1948 (not him, he was in overall command but not field command), couldn't defeat a much less well-equipped and much less experienced bunch of Jews. It marched into the West Bank before the Jews could organize forces to move in first, then failed to push them out of Jerusalem, and finally found a victory because the Jews didn't have the stuff to break the fortifications at Latrun. This was after 10 years of him commanding and training it, and their results were decidedly meh. Like the results of his post-WWI military career in general
And now of course no his theory is just a fun thing to think about don't take it too seriously. Dude did you forget where you're posting, fun things to think about and not take too seriously are the absolute worst things to post on the internet and especially the parts of it more filled with political autists than usual
I'm not going to go through the entirety of his essay but I am going to quote most of the introduction, because it's emblematic of what's wrong with his analysis:
And now of course no his theory is just a fun thing to think about don't take it too seriously. Dude did you forget where you're posting, fun things to think about and not take too seriously are the absolute worst things to post on the internet and especially the parts of it more filled with political autists than usual
I'm not going to go through the entirety of his essay but I am going to quote most of the introduction, because it's emblematic of what's wrong with his analysis:
For an autodidact (surely that's the only way he could have acquired his knowledge of these historical empires, since he asserts they just didn't teach it in British schools!), he comes off very poorly with this statement. It ignores that at the time he wrote the two essays that were combined into the one titled Fate of Empires and Search For Survival, we had Gibbon's Decline and Fall, we had Britain dominating the field of Egyptology, we had Britain dominating the field of Mesopotamian studies, we had numerous commentaries like this one, all part of a Western European archaeological and historiographical tradition that started with the Renaissance and exploded in the 19th century. Glubb's conceit that you know we here in Britain just really don't study anything but our own history is plain wrong, and the essay doesn't improve much from there
Last edited:
- Joined
- Jul 12, 2019
I'm a little late, but I'd like to point out that the Age of Conquest is what is the majority of an empire's life cycle according to Glubb's observations (in the example of the US, that would be Manifest Destiny), and many figures from this time become historical "heroes" people look back on later on (this would be like Grant and Lee to us). Yeah, Glubb's eyes were mainly on Europe and the Muslim world (he himself was an admirer of Islamic cultures).
Would also briefly like to talk about other "empires" that did not go through the full cycle, such as the Aztecs as well as the Japanese Empire during WW2 and possibly add on to Glubb's work here. These could have possibly been in their own Age of Conquests (or a little beyond that like the Aztecs), and they were growing regional powers in their parts of the world, but they got taken out by other more powerful empires (the Aztecs by the Spanish and the Japanese by the Americans).
If you want people to engage with the whole work rather than a zingy snippet, perhaps posting only a zingy snippet isn't the best way to do that.
Would you do the same for troons? You get roped into a gay definition war where they win because nothing makes sense. "What is a woman?"
You should stop double posting.
Fourth degree.
Can we talk about AMERICAN politics, not ancient Assyrian politics, please? I'm sure there's a history sperging thread for you reprobates.
Space Faring Marsupial
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Jan 27, 2023
Seconded.
- Joined
- Mar 24, 2019
But sir, the world belongs to America. Therefore, all of history on planet Earth prior to 1776 is relevant to the thread because it culminated in the only thing that matters, which is the USA.
It makes sense if you think about it.
- Joined
- Nov 12, 2019
- Joined
- Dec 25, 2017
The irony is that you, and by extension Glubb? Are the only one miss using them. You can’t create your own definition of a word just to win an argument, which is exactly what Glubb did and exactly what trannies do. So no, not apples to screw drivers. It’s calling a spade a spade
- Joined
- Apr 28, 2021
And here are some unfunny "comedians" still coping about Trump.
- Joined
- May 8, 2020
Could be wrong, but if I recall it usually goes down on average during winter due to lower demand from less people driving on snowy roads.
It really is hilarious that pretty much any big scary "dictatorship" gets the absolute shit kicked out of them when Western countries fund their opponents and provides them with weapons that haven't been sitting in cosmoline since the 70s/been sold to an African warlord.
I'd be getting really nervous if I was the leader of any oppressive regime in whatever shithole country because Russia floundering in Ukraine has sent a fairly clear message that anyone backed by them is an absolute pushover.
- Status