March 12th 2025,

Because Dief the Chief is allergic to decision making, the Cons got a minority government in 1962. It only lasted 9 months. There was a lack of defence policy, they cancelled Avro arrow production and brought US planes instead, the aerospace industry was decimated so a bunch of Canadian scientists moved to the US, and the arrow was designed to intercept Soviet bombers but since that wasn’t a threat anymore there was no point in the arrow. Bowmark missiles were adopted but this was bad timing due to the need for a nuclear payload, so now the issue of nuclear power has entered Canadian politics. This also intertwined with Diefenbaker’s anti-US sentiment while also being fondly with Eisenhower. But now Kennedy is the president and Dief hated him, which is hilarious to think about. I guess Kennedy wrote a memo of some kind that made it back to Dief which stated “what we want from Ottawa trip” and that was an issue since it reflected attitudes of American superiority.

With Kennedy comes the Cuban Missile Crisis, which brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. My professor said that the Soviets made a stupid decision by putting missiles in Cuba, he failed to mention that this was a retaliatory move because of the US putting weapons in Turkey. Ottawa was split on this issue, NORAD’s second command wants soldiers on alert but Dief say it should go to cabinet first. Green, External Affairs guy, says that going on alert will escalate the situation and does not want people to freak out over the Soviets. Dief wants to take the issue to the UN but doesn’t. Harkness, National Defence guy, puts the forces on alert anyway without permission, so it was done on the down low (Fuck Harkness, he’s an asshole). The Bowmark missiles are now ready to go but there is still no payload.

Dief finally agrees to going on alert but this was more of a formality since it was already happening. In the end the Soviets pull out and crisis was averted. Dief would make a comment in the House of Commons regarding nukes and the US would “correct” this statement, thus showing US overstep into Canadian affairs. In 1963 the polls favour the Liberals, Canadians (for some reason) wanted to be good allies of the US (gross, look where that got us). Dief campaigns around the country and turns things around, resulting in a minority Liberal government. Although Dief was a sore loser, but would stay on as Con leader until he dies in 1979 at 83 years old.

I think the only thing I liked about Dief was his anti-American attitudes, although that didn’t get us far because he capitulated to them anyway which is incredibly annoying. If you haven’t noticed already, but a lot of Canadian politics is linked to the US and UK and we get pulled between the two a lot, unfortunately many of our politicians throughout history have blundered these relations and made us far too reliant. Being so metaphorically attached to the US has messed with autonomy too much yet our current politicians continue to make this mistake, pivoting closer rather than away. Canadian citizens are also weird because I cannot tell whether they realize the US is the problem or still blame China for some reason. Sometimes I feel like this country is more sinophobic than the US, but of course it is not a contest. Let’s move on to French Revolution.

Now we are getting into the radicalization phase of the revolution, AKA ROBESPIERRE! Any fans? No? That’s fine, I have feelings about him that I cannot articulate but I will try when the time comes. Anyway, first we went over the reasons as to why radicalization happened: the King’s flight to Varrennes was the beginning. This is where the royal family attempted to escape and join the counter revolution, but this escape was thwarted by logistical errors and the postmaster. Louis was recognized due to his profile being plastered on French currency. This was a close call, what if the family succeeded? There is a book about it that my professor lowkey gushed about, it is called When the King Took Flight by Timothy Tackett. Have any of you read it? If so, is it any good?

Moving on, this escape attempt resulted in the overnight collapse of legitimacy and this people felt incredibly betrayed. The second factor into radicalizing the revolution was the wars. Within France there was guerrilla war with counter-revolutionaries, this consisted of priests, peasants, nobles, and monarchists in coalition. Across Europe France was at war with Austria and Prussia, and would after take on Britain, Spain, and Russia (those campaigns did not end well). In the colonies slaves rise up in Saint-Domingue, which was the largest and only successful slave revolt in history (starts in 1791). We do go into the Haitian revolution, but that is at the end of class, so if you’re looking forward to that then you’re going to have to wait a bit.

Lastly we have Political science where we go into the developmental state of postwar Taiwan. I am going to try my best to make this interesting to read. First he went over the “features of postwar economic miracle.” First was land reform, where Taiwan eliminated its landlord classes, this was the basis for taking up industrialization and constituted capital accumulation in agriculture. Next was industrial upgrading where the state indirectly intervenes in the market, there was also mention of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). These SMEs were 98% of businesses and had 77% of them workforce. The developmental state of Taiwan shifted from ISI (import substitution industrialization) to EOI (export oriented industrialization). The “state” would also pick winning firms and sectors which would give them “state” investment.

The US intentionally promotes industrialization in Asian to combat Communism. There was rapid growth with relative equity and the KMT were the one who initiated the Democratic transition, why? Because they thought that they could keep power due to economic development. In the 70s and 80s, development in the non-West was in crisis (the oil issues), then that became a debt crisis too. This is when he went over the world system theory which states that there is a centre and a periphery. States in the periphery cannot join the developed centre and are exploited and forever developing. He claimed that the rise of South Korea and Taiwan disproved this theory. My conclusion was that aren’t Taiwan and SK vassals of the US? More so SK than Taiwan, but still. Also, is this not just another way of doing Marxist analysis? Do we really think that SK would’ve been what it is now without the US? I am not saying it would’ve been poor by any means, they’d probably be allies with China honestly. Anyway i am rambling about nothing. Let’s keep it moving.

He then defined comparative advantage: if country A invests in high tech and gives up agriculture, but B does not, they both benefit from free market trade. Neoclassical theorists believe that comparative advantage can only be done by the free market, but Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan also disapproved this as they showed state intervention can work. In both Taiwan and SK there is embedded autonomy, which is a term that we were beat over the head with. It’s when the state is embedded in and autonomous from society. Taiwan has now developed into a place that is mainly all about the tech industry, but its economy has diversified and is also affected by China die to migrant workers and security. The end of class was hen spent going over what our second midterm would be, short answer and two essays. One of the essays could be about the Songbun system of NK but I avoided that like the plague, I hate when my exams force me to perpetuate false information just for a grade. I had to do this for a quiz in my genocide class of semester 3, one of the questions asked what the USSR did since it had no colonies like the West and the answer was “treated its republics like colonies.” How annoying. Is that even true? Because the education I have got on the USSR has been pretty much NOTHING.

Anyway class ended and I went home, no office hours to report on.