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SL Diplomacy

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Re: SL Diplomacy
Post by kzt   » Sun Sep 24, 2017 6:29 pm

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Castenea wrote:As an example from recent/current events, my understanding is that a driver of both Brexit and the current Catalan referendum is local officials implementing rules that are at best clunky, and at worst viewed as counterproductive by those expected to obey. When the populace complains to their local politicians, they get buck passing to bureaucrats who are unaccountable. Thus a big part of Brexit was an attempt to get the mid level bureaucrats to listen to those they were regulating, and to make the regulations appropriate and implementable for the locals.

The SL does not issue rules or regulations that interfere with members internal business or government. It isn't the EU, it's the UN. AKA the United Dictators.
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Re: SL Diplomacy
Post by n7axw   » Sun Sep 24, 2017 8:04 pm

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kzt wrote:
Castenea wrote:As an example from recent/current events, my understanding is that a driver of both Brexit and the current Catalan referendum is local officials implementing rules that are at best clunky, and at worst viewed as counterproductive by those expected to obey. When the populace complains to their local politicians, they get buck passing to bureaucrats who are unaccountable. Thus a big part of Brexit was an attempt to get the mid level bureaucrats to listen to those they were regulating, and to make the regulations appropriate and implementable for the locals.

The SL does not issue rules or regulations that interfere with members internal business or government. It isn't the EU, it's the UN. AKA the United Dictators.


Not quite. Unlike the UN, the League regulates interstellar commerce and has a navy. What is true is that the League has no authority over the internal affairs of its members. That does not make it an voluntary association that can be simply ignored.

Don

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When any group seeks political power in God's name, both religion and politics are instantly corrupted.
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Re: SL Diplomacy
Post by runsforcelery   » Sun Sep 24, 2017 9:07 pm

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Castenea wrote:
n7axw wrote:This is overly simplistic. There are at least three layers, perhaps more, to the League. First, there are the Core worlds who constructed the League to serve its interests by enforcing peace, promoting trade and commerce. The League is set up and structured very carefully to avoid having the League interfering in the affairs of individual worlds. Denying the League the right to levy taxes and forcing it to survive on a fee for service structure was supposed to curb the size and influence of the bureaucracy. By in large this succeeded for the Core. These worlds experience little, if any intimidation from the League. They are by in large prosperous and free. The bureaucracy by in large favors these worlds.

A second layer would be the shell who are full League members but are not as prosperous and who have seen their own interests sacrificed in favor of the Core.

Finally, we have the protectorates who are under the stewardship of the OFS. The resources of these worlds are systematicly plundered to provide a revenue stream to keep the bureaucracy afloat and enable it to expand. Man, if not most of these worlds are in the Verge which might be referred to as the outer shell. These worlds experience both economic exploitation and political tyranny. Domination of these world is shared between OFS and the trans stellar corporations.

My point is that the League is only "imperial" in its relationships to the protectorates. We could also talk about the independents where there is no official OFS presence, but who are dominated by the transstellars who can call for OFS help to retain control.

So it ends up being a quite a mix. For most of the League, the bureaucracy rules by at least tacit consent even though the political organs allowing the electorate serious input into the decision making process is largely ineffectual.

Don I find that it has taken the League this long to crack up a bit of a stretch. With the bureaucrats that are actually making decisions so isolated from those who are forced to deal with the consequences of those decisions, I am surprised that the league worked well enough that they were not shedding systems left and right centuries before this.

As an example from recent/current events, my understanding is that a driver of both Brexit and the current Catalan referendum is local officials implementing rules that are at best clunky, and at worst viewed as counterproductive by those expected to obey. When the populace complains to their local politicians, they get buck passing to bureaucrats who are unaccountable. Thus a big part of Brexit was an attempt to get the mid level bureaucrats to listen to those they were regulating, and to make the regulations appropriate and implementable for the locals.



The main reason it took as long as it took is that for the first period of its existence, the permanent senior undersecretaries were just that --- undersecretaries who implemented policy directives issued by real, live elected officials. The problem was that the League's authority was essentially all regulatory, not dependent upon Assembly-enacted statutes, and so the bureaucrats started gaining ground. For quite a while, they were gaining ground only because they wanted to be more efficient/effective at doing what truly was their job. The empire building and the point at which elected officials became mere ciphers crept up on the overall administration rather slowly, really, and it wasn't until the bureaucrats discovered the Protectorates and a flow of funds that passed completely below the Assembly's radar that the true corruption set in.

Mind you, the League always had a lot more corruption than the SKM would have tolerated, but that was partly because the SKM had less than 3,000,000,000 people . . . as compared to the League in which every single core system had at least twice that many people. Lot more underbrush for the snakes to hide in in something that size. One hopes that the Manticoran traditions of accountability and rule of law have become sufficiently ingrained and robust to survive the S{i]E[/i}M's sudden growth in population.

Thanks to prolong and Queen Elizabeth, they probably are. Still, one never knows what a nefarious author might get up to, does one . . . . :twisted:


"Oh, bother!" said Pooh, as Piglet came back from the dead.
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Re: SL Diplomacy
Post by pappilon   » Mon Sep 25, 2017 4:30 am

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When The mandarins had a chance to settle diplomatically, before Second BoM, They saw little or no reason to. Just send a big enough hammer and crack the neobarb like an egg. they had two demonstrations that such was a really bad idea. And BoM, spoked the wheel of any chance of a negotiated end while the Mandarins are in power/ while this system is in place.

Now they have to convince Manticore that suing for peace is not a cynical delaying tactic. Under the current System and Regime, that will not be possible.

Elizabeth and her government would be derelict in their responsibility to even consider any overtures by Kolkotsov. And he is too smart to consider making the effort at this point.
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The imagination has to be trained into foresight and empathy.
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Re: SL Diplomacy
Post by Brigade XO   » Wed Sep 27, 2017 2:54 pm

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"democratic France."

Sure, one democraticaly elected emperor at a time after Boneapart depending on what you want to call the leadership of the French government. Republic after Republic and all with continuing colonial empire dreams.

But I digress.

The League does have a chance of settling the present war by diplomacy BUT it is going to have to both admit to a lot of problems and take effective steps to cure centuries of accumulated truly bad practices. Not the least of those problems is the lack of effective control of the bureaucracy which has been both setting the regulations and managing the enforcement of those regulations.
There is no oversight. The Assembly does NOT provide the legal direction nor control the legislateive action creating any part of how the league operates. Sure, it passes resolutions and "directs" the bureaucracy to do things- sort of- but the truth is that bureaucracy is running the show, making the rules and has the vast majority of the power to enforce the regulations it makes to both fund itself and control the League Member Systems.

So many questions!
Can any spokepersons for the League truly be trusted?

Can anyone truly make good-faith agreements and representations for the League on a diplomatic level which are going to be ratified and acted upon?

How are more than a thousand systems come to an agreement -really truly soon- of how to reform the bureaucracy AND impose formal and effective oversight on the day to day operations of the League?

Even if the "Mandarins" are removed from the system (up to and including just letting them take their fortunes and run away to hide) can another layer of the people operating the system make substantive changes to it?

From one perspective, the Alignment plan does a good job of resolving all the problems. However, that comes at the cost of essentialy "kill them all and let Alpha One sort them out". Ultimately control WILL be imposed after getting all the normals to slaughter as much of the population nessisary to destroy any competing substantive governance and the Star Lines will control with iron fists and bloody knives.
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Re: SL Diplomacy
Post by saber964   » Wed Sep 27, 2017 10:00 pm

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pappilon wrote:
Dilandu" quote="ldwechsler wrote:a. The constant discussion of health care plans has little to do with real quality of life. Cuba has one and I know doctors who've fled to report they could not even get aspirin. People didn't pay but often didn't get anything.


Oh, maybe there is this tiny thing named "USA economical blockade" to blame, eh? ;)


Cuba sells sugar to Russia, and South America,and has several hundred if not thousand doctors scattered across Latin America, it gets oil from Venezuela and leasing fees from the US for Guantanamo. The blockade has been pretty ineffectual if the purpose was to depose Tio Fidel.[/quote]


Actually on Gitmo the US has sent the money but Cuba has not cashed the checks since 1960. IIRC the amount is some thing modest like $1500 per year. Under the provisions of the treaty that established Gitmo as long as the US makes the payments the US can keep the base pretty much forever.
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Re: SL Diplomacy
Post by ldwechsler   » Wed Sep 27, 2017 10:37 pm

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saber964 wrote:a. The constant discussion of health care plans has little to do with real quality of life. Cuba has one and I know doctors who've fled to report they could not even get aspirin. People didn't pay but often didn't get anything.


Oh, maybe there is this tiny thing named "USA economical blockade" to blame, eh? ;)[/quote]

Cuba sells sugar to Russia, and South America,and has several hundred if not thousand doctors scattered across Latin America, it gets oil from Venezuela and leasing fees from the US for Guantanamo. The blockade has been pretty ineffectual if the purpose was to depose Tio Fidel.[/quote]


Actually on Gitmo the US has sent the money but Cuba has not cashed the checks since 1960. IIRC the amount is some thing modest like $1500 per year. Under the provisions of the treaty that established Gitmo as long as the US makes the payments the US can keep the base pretty much forever.[/quote]

Cuban doctors are a useful export but the Cuban people get very little expert care when in Cuba. One of my doctors is Cuban and she told me that there was just about no medicine unless you had a hard currency...like US dollars.

The important people get very good care and there are plenty of "journalists" who love to get pictures and stories that tell, according to Julieta (my doc) and other refugees, a false story.

The idea of socialism is a love that will never die despite all experience.
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Re: SL Diplomacy
Post by Loren Pechtel   » Thu Sep 28, 2017 12:39 pm

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n7axw wrote:My point is that the League is only "imperial" in its relationships to the protectorates. We could also talk about the independents where there is no official OFS presence, but who are dominated by the transstellars who can call for OFS help to retain control.


True, but when the wheels come off there are going to be a lot of governments that are very unhappy with what the SL has become. They'll leave.

Also, when the wheels come off the Mandarins abuse of the system will become apparent and they'll be executed. It's truly life or death for them.
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Re: SL Diplomacy
Post by phillies   » Thu Sep 28, 2017 1:40 pm

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"The average soviet worker in 1970s lived in prosperity by the 1920s USA worker point of view."

Well, no. Though I have a unique source, and several rare sources.

We could skip the 'token resistance'line. As Admiral Yamamoto explained, there would be two American riflemen behind every blade of grass. And unlike the folks the USSR invaded in the 1970s, Americans have heard of aiming (which I concede is challenging with an AK-47).
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Re: SL Diplomacy
Post by phillies   » Thu Sep 28, 2017 1:42 pm

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kzt wrote:
Castenea wrote:As an example from recent/current events, my understanding is that a driver of both Brexit and the current Catalan referendum is local officials implementing rules that are at best clunky, and at worst viewed as counterproductive by those expected to obey. When the populace complains to their local politicians, they get buck passing to bureaucrats who are unaccountable. Thus a big part of Brexit was an attempt to get the mid level bureaucrats to listen to those they were regulating, and to make the regulations appropriate and implementable for the locals.

The SL does not issue rules or regulations that interfere with members internal business or government. It isn't the EU, it's the UN. AKA the United Dictators.


The SL does not...Will the Mandarins have time to make this a correctable deficiency? The ISLN may not be effective against the RMN, but it may be an effective enforcer of Solarian martial law, you know, the Martial Law no where mentioned in the SL League Constitution, but, well, there is an emergency.
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