Vladimir

There is a problem here, Lord Fingolfin, and it stems from the point that Comrade Sir Paul alluded to: you are viewing the matter from the perspective of power. Unfortunately this leads to an extremely narrow-minded and thus incorrect view. If all CBs are equally legitimate, then why have one at all: what is its purpose? The short answer is that a CB is an attempt to convince others that your attack is legitimate -- that it had good reason. As this implies, what makes a CB legitimate is not your personal view that might makes right -- there is no objective right or wrong -- but global social opinion. That is to say, legitimacy is not something that can be set down in stone: it is a social construct that depends on hundreds of personal moralities, each subject to change at any time (though there are constants due to the constants inherent in global politic, such as an opposition to arbitrary attacks). The purpose of a CB is to harness these personal moralities and create a consensus (both among friends and enemies) that your attack was necessary and not simply a play for power (if such is believed then your CB has failed). In turn the purpose of this is to prevent the growth of ill-will towards you, and give your actions a certain predictability by demonstrating to others that they are not at risk from your roaming armies (something necessary for long-term security). I thus reject your thesis in its entirety as the ramblings of power, completely detached from the realities of daily life outside the hegemonic bubble. Moreover, I contend that this very article argues for the [i]illegitimacy[/i] of the CB against NSO, since it rejects the line given and instead argues that the underlying goal was the removal of a competitor and the production of fear. However, I will thank you for adding yet another proof for my 2009 thesis on the inevitable degeneration of Karma.

Moonwalking through the battlefield? God damn I've got style.

[quote name='wickedj' timestamp='1281472244' post='2410112'][img]http://img843.imageshack.us/img843/6672/lolcx.png[/img][/quote] [img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v324/billie_joe34/Relax.jpg[/img] The Giant Killer Robot gives his take ([url="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v324/billie_joe34/Innocentbot-1.gif"]previous[/url] [url="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v324/billie_joe34/Robotsiganimated3.gif"]appearances[/url]). [Disclaimer: I made this to test out the concept, and was going to make a better copy if it worked. Turns out I'm too lazy to make it twice.]

When I served the glory of the Emperor. Also, the Citrus War was pretty good. That battle had been 3 years in the making.

If you are going to define 'hegemony' as 'Continuum' then discussion is quite pointless. Perhaps I should define it as 'Complaints and Grievances' and use that as justification to reject the term when applied to past blocs. Fortunately the term has a meaning beyond whatever connotations you choose to assign it, which is why we can look back and see it used even in the earliest days of 2006. The level of explicit coordination or communication is irrelevant -- there isn't a word count that one has to pass, as we often saw in the Continuum and Initiative. The blocs may not have an iron discipline, and may well pursue independent objectives here and there, but in the final analysis they will act as a single unit with no viable competitor. Edit: This is, however, wildly off-topic and should probably be brought to an end. If you don't want to be seen as an hegemonic power, perhaps you should tone down your use of power in future.

[quote name='Kalasin' timestamp='1281593008' post='2412378'] Call SuperFriends and C&G the 'new hegemony' all you like. Perhaps people will even come to believe it. But it doesn't make it true. I also suggest that you read the posts of many people in this thread. I wouldn't exactly call them pro-NPO, but they aren't claiming that you have to jump into a war where your allies ask you to stay out, either.[/quote] And a lot are (46.5% according to the poll), which is why this thread exists. That we have a new unipolar world with a new hegemony atop of it is an objective and self-evident fact. What people believe is irrelevant.

If your treaty partner has good reason to request that you stay out of the war and you enter anyway, then you are a bad ally. In some circumstances it may be just as bad as staying out when they request that you enter. In four and a half years I've never seen such transparent nonsense as the propaganda unleashed by the new hegemony over the past couple of days. They must have a very low opinion of Planet Bob's statesmen if they think that such e-lawyering is going to force an alliance into war.

I wasn't talking about reactions during the actions, of course. During the actions most of the Karma alliances were either enthusiastic cheerleaders or active participants (it is silly propaganda that came to paint it all as the lone work of the evil NPO). It was during the Karma war itself, when political interests changed, that curbstomps became universally condemned.

Your question is irrelevant except insofar as it demonstrates your ambition. I will applaud the new generation of propagandists for their daring, however. There weren't many times in history when you could claim that someone doing what their ally wants them to do makes them a bad ally, and get away with it.

[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v324/billie_joe34/FairFight.jpg[/img]

That's fair comment. However, I would say that if you look at the political field there is little question that the two blocs are at one on this. Of course, having everyone attack at once would be overkill, but if other alliances were to enter the war and SuperFriends were losing, do you for one moment believe that C&G would sit on the sidelines? Of course not, they would enter the war against NSO's friends. Just because only one part of the New Hegemony is actively engaged doesn't mean they that the other half isn't heavily involved -- they're just making up a strategic reserve instead.

Unfortunately your thoughts are based on two misconceptions, comrade. These are popular defence mechanisms, but critical thought demands that we overcome them. The first is the idea that what the NPO did or did not do is relevant. It has been a year and a half since the Continuum broke up and the NPO fell from power -- that's a third of all history. My posts are analyses of what is happening in the world and what it means. The constant attempts to turn this into a commentary on NPO policies from 2007 only serves to demonstrate my closing point about the New Hegemony -- that it is an entity with no positive vision or sense of self beyond a long out-dated oppositionalism to the old hegemony. In this sense it is not us who have to accept that we lost (which I accept repeatedly thoughout this very article), but the New Hegemony who have to accept that they won. Moreover, since the New Hegemony is premised on a complete rejection of everything that the NPO ever stood for, saying 'NPO did it' is a self-criticism rather than a defence. The second misconception is that criticism of the New Hegemony to be some sort of secret plot for power. I'm not sure what more there is to say about this since your argument, based not only on a misunderstanding of what I am arguing but the complete opposite of it, is essentially 'the New Hegemony is too powerful to be criticised'.

You get yourself caught in a bit of a contradiction there, Ashoka. You start off by saying that this war has nothing to do with anyone but NSO, and then you go on to argue that opposing alliances have to join it and actively complain that they don't (the first time I ever remember seeing such talk). This is your post. Two diametrically opposed halves, the first articulating the official position, the second betraying the underlying desire. This is surprising coming from you, since you have previously agreed with my points on anti-Pacificanism and the failure of Karma. Lucky you. You got more diplomatic attention than NSO did.

Did you actually read the article, Arcturus Jefferson? If you look two sentences prior to the one you quoted: "the New Hegemony [is attempting] to salvage their raison d'etre by creating their enemy on the battlefield." The existence of a collective entity that I call the 'New Hegemony' is self-evident, since and not a matter of dispute by its members, goldielax25. They are linked together by blocs and act together in the political field (such as going to war as they did today).

There is no collective. This is pretty explicit in the rest of the article.

I was speaking of a collective enemy, such as the one that used to be referred to as 'ex-Hegemony'.

With the ongoing curbstomp of NSO, many questions are no doubt whizzing through the minds of regular La Vanguardia Pacifica readers. Why is Vladimir always right? When will Bob Janova concede the victory of materialist analysis and become a Francoist? And I'm sure there are probably others too. This is a particularly interesting turn of events for two reasons: first, because curbstomps were so loudly condemned throughout Karma as the personification of the old decadent order, and secondly because so many people have attacked the idea that the new powers are essentially the same as the old on the basis that 'at least there haven't been any curbstomps' (debatable to start with, demonstrable nonsense now). 'But this curbstomp was justified!' come the cries of the New Hegemony. We must first say plainly that despite the misdirection poured on top of it this is in fact an alliance-scale war (potentially a global-scale war) over $6 million in aid to a nation. Moreover, it is a war that was rushed into operation 6 full hours before update without even attempting a diplomatic solution -- that is to say, without ever talking to the leaders of the NSO despite ample opportunity. This is extraordinary since these issues arise all the time in alliance affairs and are resolved peacefully, and indeed, alliances engaging in this attack have done exactly the same with nations going rogue on the NPO and ithers in the past. All that is to say: if this were a legitimate justification for war then we'd be having one every week. It is unquestionably a fabrication. But while ostensibly important given the current debate, this is all besides the point. When Karma was busy condemning curbstomps and justifying the great war as a way of removing them from the world, they were not condemning the content of the (often watertight) justifications used, rather they were condemning the form that the attack took -- that is, they were condemning the very concept of the curbstomp. It is not difficult to see why, since it sums up so well in a single action the power relations of the world -- the overwhelming strength of one group against the complete impotence of another. Never has this been so clear as today since this is not a normal curbstomp, but rather, as many people have already pointed out, it is meant as a provocation -- a means to the removal of all of the potential competition, no matter how weak and disjointed. This much is clear from the needless nature of the curbstomp and the needless nature of the tactics pursued. Why bring half the world to fight against an already wounded NSO, and, more importantly, why have the other half of the world sitting on standby "if [RoK] needs us" (why would they be needed?). Moreover, the not-so-subtle glimmer in the eyes of the attackers as they attempt to bait their other targets into war gives their hopes away somewhat: "Well, good stuff, but if your allies were actually your friends, they'd activate their treaties anyways, so I'll be intrigued to see what happens." This has been taken to such an extreme that several statesmen have begun to question the fact that discussion seems to revolve more around NSO's allies than NSO themselves. And all this following directly on the heels of the 'Red Raiding Safari', which was a rather explicit (if silly) attempt to force the NPO into war. It is simple enough to see that this is the logical conclusion of the old 'ex-Hegemony' theory -- the idea that there is some sort of cohesive enemy out there for the New Hegemony to fight against. Over the past month this theory has been falling increasingly out of favour as various members of the New Hegemony realise the pointlessness of it -- there is no-one to propagate against, and the more likely outcome is to see alliances treaty with the less vocal New Hegemony alliances. As such we are witnessing a last throw of the dice, as the New Hegemony attempts to salvage their raison d'etre by creating their enemy on the battlefield. But ultimately this is not a show of strength, but rather one of weakness. It is a sign that the New Hegemony is little more than a hollow husk. An entity with no positive vision, no sense of self, condemned to to try and relive past glories by beating up the corpses of long-since deceased enemies. The New Hegemony has thus betrayed two things about itself today, and neither one is cause for envy.

Nice curbstomp. Feels just like old times.

Have you any reason to suggest that they are? You can't just reject things because they don't fit with what you want to believe. There was a lot of polling done about this, and they all say generally the same things (and they were highly publicised at the time). Is there significant polling that contradicts this?

From a quick Google search it seems that a majority of Republicans think that Obama is a secret Muslim and nearly half don't think he was born in the US. Nothing about Mars, but I did find one that said: "24% [of Republicans] believe that Obama is the antichrist, a biblical figure who foretells the end of the world." If these beliefs demonstrate "idiocy", then the Republicans are doing a very good job of capturing the idiot demographic.

NpO led our side of the Unjust War insofar as they were the ones pushing for the war and thus commanded a de facto position. But it was a lesser of two evils for a lot of people. Problem was that very few were willing to work with Sponge in the long term -- beyond the defeat of a common enemy. They signed a lot of treaties (often with a lot of tiny alliances I'd never heard of, and with no prep work), but at the end of the day they had far fewer friends than they realised. Indeed, as the shift in One Vision that Moridin noted demonstrated, a lot of their allies were only their allies because we asked them to be. They'd sign with NpO, find that they couldn't work with them, and then maintain their treaty as a favour to the NPO. Consequently, when trouble arose and the NPO was no longer on their side, no one was left.

[quote name='Sir Sci' timestamp='1281101721' post='2402663'] If "honoring a treaty" and "procedural technicality" are synonymous to you, than whatever floats your boat. As people in GATO can tell you, I find not following a treaty to the exact wording is breaking it. Cancellation period clauses are there for a reason. If it's there, it MUST be honored, or the alliance in question's word is worthless.[/quote] There's a long precedent of treaties not being followed when the attack is justified, which GATO clearly felt it was (a position GATO repeated ad nauseum to justify Legion breaking their MDP with the NPO). Hence you got statements like this from the ODN who held an MDP with LUE: <CreepyLurk> I cannot believe the ODN would retaliate if NPpO moved on LUE. It was an opportunistic pile-on to destroy a political rival. Treating it as anything more honourable than that is dishonest. [quote]Ivan Moldavi posted a thread in the Council Chamber of the NPO forums asking the Alliance and War councils if they thought he should resign. I distinctly remember him saying that if Legion backed out of defending them, that he was afraid they would lose, and that he only ever planned to stay Emperor as long as it would serve Pacifica and not hurt it. I recall the exact ending, "I am not Nero." And before anyone asks, there were TWO spies in the councils during the war. One in the AC, one in the WC. Both came to me independently with this. I didn't even ask. Also, neither of them were GATOan spies, one was an independent, and one was LUE.[/quote] I'm not sure what this is meant to prove. Legion joined against us, it hurt, and then they left and we quickly recovered (leading to a lot of coaluetion alliances surrendering to us, and talks with a number of the major alliances like CDS about a separate peace). There's a reason you only got a personal apology and not the crippling reps/disbandment of NpO that you were looking for. Given the orders handed down by Manwe, people can find a full history of events [url=http://forums.cybernations.net/index.php?app=blog&module=display&section=blog&blogid=104&showentry=411]here[/url]. It was also admitted long ago that GATO spied; especially on NPO at the time. Indeed, before Legion joined against us I discovered and outed a GATO spy within their membership (Ao Wolf, if I recall). Not that they were too appreciative.

That's the first time I've heard that suggested. The Continuum was easily the dominant bloc after it was signed -- One Vision was never powerful enough to constitute a hegemonic bloc, and the two major alliance (NPO and IRON) were in the Continuum while the other two (NpO and GGA) were relatively isolated. Indeed, the Continuum was signed precisely because One Vision didn't have the power to bring the world together, and would have contained both the NpO and GGA had there not been strenuous objections from other alliances. There's also the minor note that the NpO had been trying to destroy the NPO from the Unjust War until Sponge was overthrown. There was no significant shift of power from one to the other after the War of the Coalition.

Old drama was better. You young whipper-snappers today don't know the meaning of the word. [img]http://texasviejo.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/angry_old_man_waving_his_cane1.png[/img]