In any case withdrawal from Syria was a surprising and bold move on the Part of the Trump. You can criticizes Trump for not doing
more but before that he bahvaves as a typical neocon, or a typical Republican presidents (which are the same things). And he started
on this path just two month after inauguration bombing Syria under false pretences. So this is something
I think the reason of change is that Trump intuitively realized the voters are abandoning him in droves and the sizable faction
of his voters who voted for him because of his promises to end foreign wars iether already defected or is ready to defect. So this is
a move designed to keep them.
Notable quotes:
"... "America shouldn't be doing the fighting for every nation on earth, not being reimbursed in many cases at all. If they want us to do the fighting, they also have to pay a price," Trump said. ..."
President Trump's big announcement to pull US troops out of Syria and Afghanistan is now emerging less as a peace move, and more
a rationalization of American military power in the Middle East. In a surprise visit to US forces in Iraq this week, Trump
said he had no intention of withdrawing the troops in that country, who have been there for nearly 15 years since GW Bush invaded
back in 2003.
Hinting at private discussions with commanders in Iraq, Trump boasted that US forces would in the future launch attacks from there
into Syria if and when needed. Presumably that rapid force deployment would apply to other countries in the region, including Afghanistan.
In other words, in typical business-style transactional thinking, Trump sees the pullout from Syria and Afghanistan as a cost-cutting
exercise for US imperialism. Regarding Syria, he has bragged about Turkey being assigned, purportedly, to "finish off" terror
groups. That's Trump subcontracting out US interests.
Critics and supporters of Trump are confounded. After his Syria and Afghanistan pullout call, domestic critics and NATO allies
have accused him of walking from the alleged "fight against terrorism" and of ceding strategic ground to US adversaries Russia
and Iran.
Meanwhile, Trump's supporters have viewed his decision in more benign light, cheering the president for "sticking it to"
the deep state and military establishment, assuming he's delivering on electoral promises to end overseas wars.
However, neither view gets what is going on. Trump is not scaling back US military power; he is rationalizing it like a cost-benefit
analysis, as perhaps only a real-estate-wheeler-dealer-turned president would appreciate. Trump is not snubbing US militarism or
NATO allies, nor is he letting loose an inner peace spirit. He is as committed to projecting American military as ruthlessly and
as recklessly as any other past occupant of the White House. The difference is Trump wants to do it on the cheap.
Here's what he said to reporters on Air Force One before touching down in Iraq:
"The United States cannot continue to be the policeman of the world. It's not fair when the burden is all on us, the United
States We are spread out all over the world. We are in countries most people haven't even heard about. Frankly, it's ridiculous."
He added: "We're no longer the suckers, folks."
Laughably, Trump's griping about US forces "spread all over the world" unwittingly demonstrates the insatiable, monstrous
nature of American militarism. But Trump paints this vice as a virtue, which, he complains, Washington gets no thanks for from the
150-plus countries around the globe that its forces are present in.
As US troops greeted him in Iraq, the president made explicit how the new American militarism would henceforth operate.
"America shouldn't be doing the fighting for every nation on earth, not being reimbursed in many cases at all. If they want
us to do the fighting, they also have to pay a price," Trump said.
This reiterates a big bugbear for this president in which he views US allies and client regimes as "not pulling their weight"
in terms of military deployment. Trump has been browbeating European NATO members to cough up more on military budgets, and he has
berated the Saudis
and other Gulf Arab regimes to pay more for American interventions.
Notably, however, Trump has never questioned the largesse that US taxpayers fork out every year to Israel in the form of nearly
$4 billion in military aid. To be sure, that money is not a gift because much of it goes back to the Pentagon from sales of fighter
jets and missile systems.
The long-held notion that the US has served as the "world's policeman" is, of course, a travesty.
Since WWII, all presidents and the Washington establishment have constantly harped on, with self-righteousness, about America's
mythical role as guarantor of global security.
Dozens of illegal wars on almost every continent and millions of civilian deaths attest to the real, heinous conduct of American
militarism as a weapon to secure US corporate capitalism.
But with US economic power in historic decline amid a national debt now over $22 trillion, Washington can no longer afford its
imperialist conduct in the traditional mode of direct US military invasions and occupations.
Perhaps, it takes a cost-cutting, raw-toothed capitalist like Trump to best understand the historic predicament, even if only
superficially.
This gives away the real calculation behind his troop pullout from Syria and Afghanistan. Iraq is going to serve as a new regional
hub for force projection on a demand-and-supply basis. In addition, more of the dirty work can be contracted out to Washington's
clients like Turkey, Israel and Saudi Arabia, who will be buying even more US weaponry to prop the military-industrial complex.
This would explain why Trump made his hurried, unexpected visit to Iraq this week. Significantly, he
said
: "A lot of people are going to come around to my way of thinking", regarding his decision on withdrawing forces from Syria
and Afghanistan.
Since his troop pullout plan announced on December 19, there has been serious pushback from senior Pentagon figures, hawkish Republicans
and Democrats, and the anti-Trump media. The atmosphere is almost seditious against the president. Trump flying off to Iraq on Christmas
night was
reportedly his first visit to troops in an overseas combat zone since becoming president two years ago.
What Trump seemed to be doing was reassuring the Pentagon and corporate America that he is not going all soft and dovish. Not
at all. He is letting them know that he is aiming for a leaner, meaner US military power, which can save money on the number of foreign
bases by using rapid reaction forces out of places like Iraq, as well as by subcontracting operations out to regional clients.
Thus, Trump is not coming clean out of any supposed principle when he cuts back US forces overseas. He is merely applying his
knack for screwing down costs and doing things on the cheap as a capitalist tycoon overseeing US militarism.
During past decades when American capitalism was relatively robust, US politicians and media could indulge in the fantasy of their
military forces going around the world in large-scale formations to selflessly "defend freedom and democracy."
Today, US capitalism is broke. It simply can't sustain its global military empire. Enter Donald Trump with his "business solutions."
But in doing so, this president, with his cheap utilitarianism and transactional exploitative mindset, lets the cat out of the
bag. As he says, the US cannot be the world's policeman. Countries are henceforth going to have to pay for "our protection."
Inadvertently, Trump is showing up US power for what it really is: a global thug running a protection racket.
It's always been the case. Except now it's in your face. Trump is no Smedley Butler, the former Marine general who in the 1930s
condemned US militarism as a Mafia operation. This president is stupidly revealing the racket, while still thinking it is something
virtuous.
Finian Cunningham (born 1963) has written extensively on international affairs, with articles published in several languages.
Originally from Belfast, Northern Ireland, he is a Master's graduate in Agricultural Chemistry and worked as a scientific editor
for the Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, England, before pursuing a career in newspaper journalism. For over 20 years he worked
as an editor and writer in major news media organizations, including The Mirror, Irish Times and Independent. Now a freelance journalist
based in East Africa, his columns appear on RT, Sputnik, Strategic Culture Foundation and Press TV.
dnm1136
Once again, Cunningham has hit the nail on the head. Trump mistakenly conflates fear with respect. In reality, around the world,
the US is feared but generally not respected.
My guess is that the same was true about Trump as a businessman, i.e., he was not respected, only feared due to his willingness
to pursue his "deals" by any means that "worked" for him, legal or illegal, moral or immoral, seemingly gracious or mean-spirited.
William Smith
Complaining how the US gets no thanks for its foreign intervention. Kind of like a rapist claiming he should be thanked for
"pleasuring" his victim. Precisely the same sentiment expressed by those who believe the American Indians should thank the Whites
for "civilising" them.
Phoebe S,
"Washington gets no thanks for from the 150-plus countries around the globe that its forces are present in."
That might mean they don't want you there. Just saying.
ProRussiaPole
None of these wars are working out for the US strategically. All they do is sow chaos. They seem to not be gaining anything,
and are just preventing others from gaining anything as well.
Ernie For -> ProRussiaPole
i am a huge Putin fan, so is big Don. Please change your source of info Jerome, Trump is one man against Billions of people
and dollars in corruption. He has achieved more in the USA in 2 years than all 5 previous parasites together.
Truthbetold69
It could be a change for a better direction. Time will tell. 'If you do what you've always been doing, you'll get what you've
always been getting.'
At the inception of this entire RussiaGate spectacle I suggested that it was a political
distraction to take the attention away from the rejection by the people of neoliberalism which
has been embraced by the establishments of both political parties.
And that the result of the investigation would be indictments for perjury in the covering up
of illicit business deals and money laundering. But that 'collusion to sway the election' was
without substance, if not a joke.
Everything that has been revealed to date tends to support that.
One thing that Aaron overlooks is the evidence compiled by William Binney and associates
that strongly suggests the DNC hack was no hack at all, but a leak by an insider who was
appalled by the lies and double dealing at the DNC.
In general, RussiaGate is a farcical distraction from other issues as they say in the video.
And this highlights the utterly Machiavellian streak in the corporate Democrats and the Liberal
establishment under the Clintons and their ilk who care more about money and power than the
basic principles that historically sustained their party. I have lost all respect for them.
But unfortunately this does open the door for those who use this to approve of the
Republican establishment, which is 'at least honest' about being substantially corrupt servants
to Big Money who care nothing about democracy, the Constitution, or the public. The best of
them are leaving or have already left, and their party is ruined beyond repair.
This all underscores the paucity of the Red v. Blue, monopoly of two parties, 'lesser of two
evils' model of political thought which has come to dominate the discussion in the US.
We are heavily propagandized by the owners of the corporate media and influencers of the
narrative, and a professional class that has sold its soul for economic advantage and access to
money and power.
Fred C. Dobbs -> Peter K....
December 26, 2016 at 07:15 AM neopopulism: A cultural and political movement, mainly in Latin
American countries, distinct from twentieth-century populism in radically combining classically opposed
left-wing and right-wing attitudes and using electronic media as a means of dissemination. (Wiktionary)
"Trump_vs_deep_state ... is anything but populist":
Populism, Real and Phony, by Paul Krugman, NY Times : Authoritarians with an animus against
ethnic minorities are on the march across the Western world. ... But what should we call these
groups? Many reporters are using the term "populist," which seems both inadequate and misleading...,
are the other shared features of this movement - addiction to conspiracy theories, indifference
to the rule of law, a penchant for punishing critics - really captured by the "populist" label?
Still, the European members of this emerging alliance - an axis of evil? - have offered some real
benefits to workers. ... Trump_vs_deep_state is, however, different..., the emerging policy agenda is anything
but populist.
All indications are that we're looking at huge windfalls for billionaires combined with savage
cuts in programs that serve not just the poor but also the middle class. And the white working
class, which provided much of the 46 percent Trump vote share, is shaping up as the biggest loser.
...
Both his pick
as budget director and his choice to
head Health and Human Services want to dismantle the Affordable Care Act and privatize Medicare.
His
choice as labor secretary is a fast-food tycoon who has been a vociferous opponent both of
Obamacare and of minimum wage hikes. And House Republicans have already
submitted plans for drastic cuts in Social Security, including a sharp rise in the retirement
age. ...
In other words..., European populism is at least partly real, while Trumpist populism is turning
out to be entirely fake, a scam sold to working-class voters who are in for a rude awakening.
Will the new regime pay a political price?
Well, don't count on it..., you know that there will be huge efforts to shift the blame. These
will include claims that the collapse of health care is really President Obama's fault; claims
that the failure of alternatives is somehow the fault of recalcitrant Democrats; and an endless
series of attempts to distract the public.
Expect more Carrier-style stunts that don't actually help workers but dominate a news cycle. Expect
lots of fulmination against minorities. And it's worth remembering what authoritarian regimes
traditionally do to shift attention from failing policies, namely, find some foreigners to confront.
Maybe it will be a trade war with China, maybe something worse.
Opponents need to do all they can to defeat such strategies of distraction. Above all, they shouldn't
let themselves be sucked into cooperation that leaves them sharing part of the blame. The perpetrators
of this scam should be forced to own it.
It really depend on how the two sides play it out. You don't need to move the diehard sexists
and racists for things to change. But the Democrats need to have a Warren/Sanders attack team
ready on every single GOP "favor the rich and screw the rest" proposal. It would be rather easy
to get the press to pay attention to those two if they went to war with Trump/GOP. Their following
is sufficiently large to be a media market - so their comments would not be ignored. We also know
that at least Warren knows how to bait Trump into saying something stupid so you can get the kind
of firework that commercial media cannot ignore. The Dems need to learn how to bait the media
at least as effectively as Trump does.
When can we please start tuning Krugman down here? He aided and abetted the election disaster
by being one of the most prominent Very Serious People leading the offensive against Sanders and
promoting a fatally flawed candidate that was beaten resoundingly in 2008 and with irredeemable,
self-inflicted, negative baggage.
He may make good points here after-the-fact, but they're all "duh!" level bits of analysis
at this stage. And the last thing I want to hear from any of the VSPs who piloted the train over
the cliff during this election season is b*tching about the mess at the bottom of the cliff.
Aren't there ANY other voices with some remaining shred of political credibility that can be
quoted here instead of the unabashed VSPs who helped elect trump?
Since I am only noting objection to one blogger who invested much of his personal credibility
into promoting a horrible leader, I don't see the relevance of your comment at all. I enjoy pretty
much every other blogger to which Thoma links.
My issue is with highlighting a crank whose writing has cratered over the last year. If a Trump
ripping is due (and it usually is), then I'm fine with it being a feature so long as it's written
by someone who isn't channeling Niall Ferguson and with the same degree of credibility as a political
"wonk".
I think a certain amount of self-criticism and introspection is warranted at this point, no? And,
I think, there is little question that the long-term coziness of the democratic party with high
finance and the PMIC played a major role in negative perceptions of HRC.
Although I did not vote for Clinton, if I had lived in a remotely competitive state I would
have certainly voted for her. To put this in perspective, my vote for Sanders was a very reluctant
vote and Clinton is the POTUS I despise the most (Trump will change this).
"beaten resoundingly in 2008 and with irredeemable, self-inflicted, negative baggage."
Characterizing Clinton's electoral college defeat as being beaten resoundingly is exactly the
kind of irrational "bro" rhetoric that Krugman rightly criticized.
And I write this as someone who voted for Sanders and then Stein.
They're an angry lot.... and they, like the conservative "affinity fraudsters" that Krugman has
lambasted over the years, refuse to accept reality. Instead, they hunker down, shut out facts,
and surround themselves only with people and information that agrees with their flawed opinions.
All I hear from Paul -- and others -- sounds like ducking and weaving and back peddling -- in
a phrase: retreat-in-good-order to avoid defeat-in-detail.
How about a little aggression? Would it be too much to expect these top brains the potential
to rebuild labor union density (THE ONLY POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC TISSUE OF THE AVERAGE PERSON)
at state by progressive state level.
NEVER HEAR OF IT -- NO OTHER PATH (and it looks to be multi-multi-path once you start looking
through all the angles.
I'm only beginning to sort all this out -- like the angle that any group disallowed of employee
status by the Trump NLRB (student teaching and research assistants?) immediately become eligible
for full state supported conduction of NLRB-like certification process. No preemption problem.
Preemption on closer exam may not be the barrier folks think. So, so much more federal preemption/supremacy
(not the same thing!) stuff to sort through -- another reason to put off posting the full comment.
Few weeks maybe.
Where I come from, the Bronx of the 50s-70s, everybody was different, so nobody was different,
so we had more fun with your differences.
We didn't have diversity; we had assimilation; everyone was the same.
Typical 60s high school chatter: How's an Italian like a crashing airplane? Guinea, Guinea,
Guinea: Whop!
How's an Irishman like a submarine under attack? Down the hatch; down the hatch; down the hatch!
In the movie The Wanderers, portraying the 1979 Bronx with more people of color, the high school
teasing is all: nigger, spic, kike! Too much for your non-real-melting pot ears.
:-)-
********************
Be more impressed by your (plural) interest in minority dignity if it obsessed on getting everyone
one the same ECONOMIC (!) level.
You rebuild union density or you do nothing! You do it at the state by progressive state level
or you do nothing! Are you academic progressives the slightest bit interested in doing just that?
How come you are not obsessed with re-unionization?
"... Shorter Paul Krugman: nobody acted more irresponsibly in the last election than the New York Times. ..."
"... Looks like Putin recruited the NYT, the FBI and the DNC. ..."
"... Dr. Krugman is feeding this "shoot first, ask questions later" mentality. He comes across as increasingly shrill and even unhinged - it's a slide he's been taking for years IMO, which is a big shame. ..."
"... It is downright irresponsible and dangerous for a major public intellectual with so little information to cast the shadow of legitimacy on a president ("And it means not acting as if this was a normal election whose result gives the winner any kind of a mandate, or indeed any legitimacy beyond the bare legal requirements.") This kind of behavior is EXACTLY what TRUMP and other authoritarians exhibit - using pieces of information to discredit institutions and individuals. Since foreign governments have and will continue to try to influence U.S. policy through increasingly sophisticated means, this opens the door for anyone to declare our elections and policies as illegitimate in the future. ..."
"... Any influence Russian hacking had was entirely a consequence of U.S. media obsession with celebrity, gotcha and horse race trivia and two-party red state/blue state tribalism. ..."
"... Without the preceding, neither Trump nor Clinton would have been contenders in the first place. Putin didn't invent super delegates, Citizens United, Fox News, talk radio, Goldman-Sachs, etc. etc. etc. If Putin exploited vulnerabilities, it is because preserving those vulnerabilities was more important to the elites than fostering a democratic political culture. ..."
"... It's not a "coup". It's an election result that didn't go the way a lot of people want. That's it. It's probably not optimal, but I'm pretty sure that democracy isn't supposed to produce optimal results. ..."
"... All this talk about "coups" and "illegitimacy" is nuts, and -- true to Dem practice -- incredibly short-sighted. For many, voting for Trump was an available way to say to those people, "We don't believe you any more. At all." Seen in that light, it is a profoundly democratic (small 'd') response to elites that have most consistently served only themselves. ..."
"... Post Truth is Pre-Fascism. The party that thinks your loyalty is suspect unless you wear a flag pin fuels itself on Post Truth. Isnt't this absurdity the gist of Obama's Russia comments today!?! ..."
"... Unless the Russians or someone else hacked the ballot box machines, it is our own damn fault. ..."
"... The ship of neo-liberal trade sailed in the mid-2000's. That you don't get that is sad. You can only milk that so far the cow had been milked. ..."
"... The people of the United States did not have much to choose between: Either a servant of the Plutocrats or a member of the Plutocratic class. The Dems brought this on us when they refused to play fair with Bernie. (Hillary would almost certainly have won the nomination anyway.) ..."
"... The Repubs brought this on, by refusing to govern. The media brought this on: I seem to remember Hillary's misfeasances, once nominated, festering in the media, while Trump's were mentioned, and then disappeared. (Correct me if I'm wrong in this.) Also, the media downplayed Bernie until he had no real chance. ..."
"... The government brought this on, by failing to pursue justice against the bankers, and failing to represent the people, especially the majority who have been screwed by trade and the plutocratic elite and their apologists. ..."
"... The educational system brought this on, by failing to educate the people to critical thought. For instance: 1) The wealthy run the country. 2) The wealthy have been doing very well. 3) Everybody else has not. It seems most people cannot draw the obvious conclusion. ..."
"... Krugman is himself one of those most useful idiots. I do not recall his clarion call to Democrats last spring that "FBI investigation" and "party Presidential nominee" was bound to be an ugly combination. Some did; right here as I recall. Or his part in the official "don't vote for third party" week in the Clinton media machine....thanks, hundreds of thousands of Trump votes got the message. ..."
"... It's too rich to complain about Russia and Wikileaks as if those elements in anyway justified Clinton becoming President. Leaks mess with our democracy? Then for darn sure do not vote for a former Sec. of State willing to use a home server for her official business. Russia is menacing? Just who has been managing US-Russia relations the past 8 years? I voted for her anyway, but the heck if I think some tragic fate has befell the nation here. Republicans picked a better candidate to win this thing than we Democrats did. ..."
"... The truth of the matter is that Clinton was a very weak candidate with nothing to offer but narcissism ("I'm with her"). It's notable that Clinton has still not accepted responsibility for her campaign, preferring to throw the blame for the loss anywhere but herself. Sociopathy much? ..."
[ I find it terrifying, simply terrifying, to refer to people as "useful idiots" after all
the personal destruction that has followed when the expression was specifically used in the past.
To me, using such an expression is an honored economist intent on becoming Joseph McCarthy.
]
To demean a person as though the person were a communist or a fool of communists or the like,
with all the personal harm that has historically brought in this country, is cruel beyond my understanding
or imagining.
Well, not really. For example he referred to "the close relationship between Wikileaks and Russian
intelligence." But Wikileaks is a channel. They don't seek out material. They rely on people to
bring material to them. They supposedly make an effort to verify that the material is not a forgery,
but aside from that what they release is what people bring to them. Incidentally, like so many
people you seem to not care whether the material is accurate or not -- Podesta and the DNC have
not claimed that any of the emails are different from what they sent.
ZURICH - If Putin the Thug gets away with crushing Ukraine's new democratic experiment and
unilaterally redrawing the borders of Europe, every pro-Western country around Russia will be
in danger....
Yup, like the other elections, the bases stayed solvent and current events factored into the turnout
and voting patterns which spurred the independent vote.
When people were claiming Clinton was going to win big, I thought no Republican and Democratic
voters are going to pull the lever like a trained monkey as usual. Only difference in this election
was Hillary's huge negatives due entirely by her and Bill Clinton's support for moving manufacturing
jobs to Mexico and China in the 90s.
To Understand Trump, Learn Russian http://nyti.ms/2hLcrB1
NYT - Andrew Rosenthal - December 15
The Russian language has two words for truth - a linguistic quirk that seems relevant to our
current political climate, especially because of all the disturbing ties between the newly elected
president and the Kremlin.
The word for truth in Russian that most Americans know is "pravda" - the truth that seems evident
on the surface. It's subjective and infinitely malleable, which is why the Soviet Communists called
their party newspaper "Pravda." Despots, autocrats and other cynical politicians are adept at
manipulating pravda to their own ends.
But the real truth, the underlying, cosmic, unshakable truth of things is called "istina" in
Russian. You can fiddle with the pravda all you want, but you can't change the istina.
For the Trump team, the pravda of the 2016 election is that not all Trump voters are explicitly
racist. But the istina of the 2016 campaign is that Trump's base was heavily dependent on racists
and xenophobes, Trump basked in and stoked their anger and hatred, and all those who voted for
him cast a ballot for a man they knew to be a racist, sexist xenophobe. That was an act of racism.
Trump's team took to Twitter with lightning speed recently to sneer at the conclusion by all
17 intelligence agencies that the Kremlin hacked Democratic Party emails for the specific purpose
of helping Trump and hurting Hillary Clinton. Trump said the intelligence agencies got it wrong
about Iraq, and that someone else could have been responsible for the hack and that the Democrats
were just finding another excuse for losing.
The istina of this mess is that powerful evidence suggests that the Russians set out to interfere
in American politics, and that Trump, with his rejection of Western European alliances and embrace
of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, was their chosen candidate.
The pravda of Trump's selection of Rex Tillerson, head of Exxon Mobil, as secretary of state
is that by choosing an oil baron who has made billions for his company by collaborating with Russia,
Trump will make American foreign policy beholden to American corporate interests.
That's bad enough, but the istina is far worse. For one thing, American foreign policy has
been in thrall to American corporate interests since, well, since there were American corporations.
Just look at the mess this country created in Latin America, the Caribbean, Southeast Asia and
the Middle East to serve American companies.
Yes, Tillerson has ignored American interests repeatedly, including in Russia and Iraq, and
has been trying to remove sanctions imposed after Russia's seizure of Crimea because they interfered
with one of his many business deals. But take him out of the equation in the Trump cabinet and
nothing changes. Trump has made it plain, with every action he takes, that he is going to put
every facet of policy, domestic and foreign, at the service of corporate America. The istina here
is that Tillerson is just a symptom of a much bigger problem.
The pravda is that Trump was right in saying that the intelligence agencies got it wrong about
Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass destruction.
But the istina is that Trump's contempt for the intelligence services is profound and dangerous.
He's not getting daily intelligence briefings anymore, apparently because they are just too dull
to hold his attention.
And now we know that Condoleezza Rice was instrumental in bringing Tillerson to Trump's attention.
As national security adviser and then secretary of state for president George W. Bush, Rice was
not just wrong about Iraq, she helped fabricate the story that Hussein had nuclear weapons.
Trump and Tillerson clearly think they are a match for the wily and infinitely dangerous Putin,
but as they move foward with their plan to collaborate with Russia instead of opposing its imperialist
tendencies, they might keep in mind another Russian saying, this one from Lenin.
"There are no morals in politics; there is only expedience," he wrote. "A scoundrel may be
of use to us just because he is a scoundrel."
Putin has that philosophy hard-wired into his political soul. When it comes to using scoundrels
to get what he wants, he is a professional, and Trump is only an amateur. That is the istina of
the matter.
If nothing else, Russia - with a notably un-free press - has shrewdly used our own 'free press'
against US.
RUSSIA'S UNFREE PRESS
The Boston Globe - Marshall Goldman - January 29, 2001
AS THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION DEBATES ITS POLICY TOWARD RUSSIA, FREEDOM OF THE PRESS SHOULD BE
ONE OF ITS MAJOR CONCERNS. UNDER PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN THE PRESS IS FREE ONLY AS LONG AS IT
DOES NOT CRITICIZE PUTIN OR HIS POLICIES. WHEN NTV, THE TELEVISION NETWORK OF THE MEDIA GIANT
MEDIA MOST, REFUSED TO PULL ITS PUNCHES, MEDIA MOST'S OWNER, VLADIMIR GUSINSKY, FOUND HIMSELF
IN JAIL, AND GAZPROM, A COMPANY DOMINATED BY THE STATE, BEGAN TO CALL IN LOANS TO MEDIA MOST.
Unfortunately, Putin's actions are applauded by more than 70 percent of the Russian people. They
crave a strong and forceful leader; his KGB past and conditioned KGB responses are just what they
seem to want after what many regard as the social, political, and economic chaos of the last decade.
But what to the Russians is law and order (the "dictatorship of the law," as Putin has so accurately
put it) looks more and more like an old Soviet clampdown to many Western observers.
There is no complaint about Putin's promises. He tells everyone he wants freedom of the press.
But in the context of his KGB heritage, his notion of freedom of the press is something very different.
In an interview with the Toronto Globe and Mail, he said that that press freedom excludes the
"hooliganism" or "uncivilized" reporting he has to deal with in Moscow. By that he means criticism,
especially of his conduct of the war in Chechnya, his belated response to the sinking of the Kursk,
and the heavy-handed way in which he has pushed aside candidates for governor in regional elections
if they are not to Putin's liking.
He does not take well to criticism. When asked by the relatives of those lost in the Kursk
why he seemed so unresponsive, Putin tried to shift the blame for the disaster onto the media
barons, or at least those who had criticized him. They were the ones, he insisted, who had pressed
for reduced funding for the Navy while they were building villas in Spain and France. As for their
criticism of his behavior, They lie! They lie! They lie!
Our Western press has provided good coverage of the dogged way Putin and his aides have tried
to muscle Gusinsky out of the Media Most press conglomerate he created. But those on the Putin
enemies list now include even Boris Berezovsky, originally one of Putin's most enthusiastic promoters
who after the sinking of the Kursk also became a critic and thus an opponent.
Gusinsky would have a hard time winning a merit badge for trustworthiness (Berezovsky shouldn't
even apply), but in the late Yeltsin and Putin years, Gusinsky has earned enormous credit for
his consistently objective news coverage, including a spotlight on malfeasance at the very top.
More than that, he has supported his programmers when they have subjected Yeltsin and now Putin
to bitter satire on Kukly, his Sunday evening prime-time puppet show.
What we hear less of, though, is what is happening to individual reporters, especially those
engaged in investigative work. Almost monthly now there are cases of violence and intimidation.
Among those brutalized since Putin assumed power are a reporter for Radio Liberty who dared to
write negative reports about the Russian Army's role in Chechnia and four reporters for Novaya
Gazeta. Two of them were investigating misdeeds by the FSB (today's equivalent of the KGB), including
the possibility that it rather than Chechins had blown up a series of apartment buildings. Another
was pursuing reports of money-laundering by Yeltsin family members and senior staff in Switzerland.
Although these journalists were very much in the public eye, they were all physically assaulted.
Those working for provincial papers labor under even more pressure with less visibility. There
are numerous instances where regional bosses such as the governor of Vladivostok operate as little
dictators, and as a growing number of journalists have discovered, challenges are met with threats,
physical intimidation, and, if need be, murder.
True, freedom of the press in Russia is still less than 15 years old, and not all the country's
journalists or their bosses have always used that freedom responsibly. During the 1996 election
campaign, for example, the media owners, including Gusinsky conspired to denigrate or ignore every
viable candidate other than Yeltsin. But attempts to muffle if not silence criticism have multiplied
since Putin and his fellow KGB veterans have come to power. Criticism from any source, be it an
individual journalist or a corporate entity, invites retaliation.
When Media Most persisted in its criticism, Putin sat by approvingly as his subordinates sent
in masked and armed tax police and prosecutors. When that didn't work, they jailed Gusinsky on
charges that were later dropped, although they are seeking to extradite and jail him again. along
with his treasurer, on a new set of charges. Yesterday the prosecutor general summoned Tatyana
Mitkova, the anchor of NTV's evening news program, for questioning. Putin's aides are also doing
all they can to prevent Gusinsky from refinancing his debt-ridden operation with Ted Turner or
anyone else in or outside of the country.
According to one report, Putin told one official, You deal with the shares, debts, and management
and I will deal with the journalists. His goal simply is to end to independent TV coverage in
Russia. ...
"Unfortunately, Putin's actions are applauded by more than 70 percent of the Russian people"
Exactly; the majority of people are so stupid and/or lazy that they cannot be bothered understanding
what is going on; and how their hard won democracy is being subjugated. But thank God that is
in Russia not here in the US - right?
"Pravda" is etymologically derived from "prav-" which means "right" (as opposed to "left", other
connotations are "proper", "correct", "rightful", also legal right). It designates the social-construct
aspect of "righteousness/truthfulness/correctness" as opposed to "objective reality" (conceptually
independent of social standards, in reality anything but). In formal logic, "istina" is used to
designate truth. Logical falsity is designated a "lie".
It is a feature common to most European languages that rightfulness, righteousness, correctness,
and legal rights are identified with the designation for the right side. "Sinister" is Latin for
"left".
If you believe 911 was a Zionist conspiracy, so where the Paris attacks of November 2015, when
Trump was failing in the polls as the race was moving toward as you would expect, toward other
candidates. After the Paris attacks, his numbers reaccelerated.
If "ZOG" created the "false flag" of the Paris attacks to start a anti-Muslim fervor, they
succeeded, much like 911. Bastille day attacks were likewise, a false flag. This is not new, this
goes back to when the aristocracy merged with the merchant caste, creating the "bourgeois". They
have been running a parallel government in the shadows to effect what is seen.
There used to be something called Usenet News, where at the protocol level reader software could
fetch meta data (headers containing author, (stated) origin, title, etc.) independently from comment
bodies. This was largely owed to limited download bandwidth. Basically all readers had "kill files"
i.e. filters where one could configure that comments with certain header parameters should not
be downloaded, or even hidden.
The main application was that the reader would download comments in the background when headers
were already shown, or on demand when you open a comment.
Now you get the whole thing (or in units of 100) by the megabyte.
A major problem is signal extraction out of the massive amounts of noise generated by the media,
social media, parties, and pundits.
It's easy enough to highlight this thread of information here, but in real time people are
being bombarded by so many other stories.
In particular, the Clinton Foundation was also regularly being highlighted for its questionable
ties to foreign influence. And HRC's extravagant ties to Wall St. And so much more.
The media's job was to sell Trump and denounce Clinton. The mistake a lot of people make is thinking
the global elite are the "status quo". They are not. They are generally the ones that break the
status quo more often than not.
The bulk of them wanted Trump/Republican President and made damn sure it was President. Buffering
the campaign against criticism while overly focusing on Clinton's "crap". It took away from the
issues which of course would have low key'd the election.
Not much bullying has to be applied when there are "economic incentives". The media attention
economy and ratings system thrive on controversy and emotional engagement. This was known a century
ago as "only bad news is good news". As long as I have lived, the non-commercial media not subject
(or not as much) to these dynamics have always been perceived as dry and boring.
I heard from a number of people that they followed the campaign "coverage" (in particular Trump)
as gossip/entertainment, and those were people who had no sympathies for him. And even media coverage
by outlets generally critical of Trump's unbelievable scandals and outrageous performances catered
to this sentiment.
First, let me disclose that I detest TRUMP and that the Russian meddling has me deeply concerned.
Yet...
We only have assertions that the Russian hacking had some influence. We do not know whether
it likely had *material* influence that could have reasonably led to a swing state(s) going to
TRUMP that otherwise would have gone to HRC.
Dr. Krugman is feeding this "shoot first, ask questions later" mentality. He comes across
as increasingly shrill and even unhinged - it's a slide he's been taking for years IMO, which
is a big shame.
It is downright irresponsible and dangerous for a major public intellectual with so little
information to cast the shadow of legitimacy on a president ("And it means not acting as if this
was a normal election whose result gives the winner any kind of a mandate, or indeed any legitimacy
beyond the bare legal requirements.") This kind of behavior is EXACTLY what TRUMP and other authoritarians
exhibit - using pieces of information to discredit institutions and individuals. Since foreign
governments have and will continue to try to influence U.S. policy through increasingly sophisticated
means, this opens the door for anyone to declare our elections and policies as illegitimate in
the future.
It is quite clear that the Russians intervened on Trump's behalf and that this intervention had
an impact. The problem is that we cannot actually quantify that impact.
"We only have assertions that the Russian hacking had some influence."
Any influence Russian hacking had was entirely a consequence of U.S. media obsession with
celebrity, gotcha and horse race trivia and two-party red state/blue state tribalism.
Without the preceding, neither Trump nor Clinton would have been contenders in the first
place. Putin didn't invent super delegates, Citizens United, Fox News, talk radio, Goldman-Sachs,
etc. etc. etc. If Putin exploited vulnerabilities, it is because preserving those vulnerabilities
was more important to the elites than fostering a democratic political culture.
But this is how influence is exerted - by using the dynamics of the adversary's/targets organization
as an amplifier. Hierarchical organizations are approached through their management or oversight
bodies, social networks through key influencers, etc.
I see this so much and it's so right wing cheap: I hate Trump, but assertions that Russia intervened
are unproven.
First, Trump openly invited Russia to hack DNC emails. That is on its face treason and sedition.
It's freaking on video. If HRC did that there would be calls of the right for her execution.
Second, a NYT story showed that the FBI knew about the hacking but did not alert the DNC properly
- they didn't even show up, they sent a note to a help desk.
This was a serious national security breach that was not addressed properly. This is criminal
negligence.
This was a hacked election by collusion of the FBI and the Russian hackers and it totally discredits
the FBI as it throwed out chum and then denied at the last minute. Now the CIA comes in and says
PUTIN, Trump's bff, was directly involved in manipulating the timetable that the hacked emails
were released in drip drip form to cater to the media - creating story after story about emails.
It was a perfect storm for a coup. Putin played us. And he will play Trump. And God knows how
it ends. But it doesn't matter b/c we're all screwed with climate change anyway.
"It was a perfect storm for a coup. Putin played us. And he will play Trump. And God knows how
it ends. But it doesn't matter b/c we're all screwed with climate change anyway."
It's not a "coup". It's an election result that didn't go the way a lot of people want.
That's it. It's probably not optimal, but I'm pretty sure that democracy isn't supposed to produce
optimal results.
All this talk about "coups" and "illegitimacy" is nuts, and -- true to Dem practice --
incredibly short-sighted. For many, voting for Trump was an available way to say to those people,
"We don't believe you any more. At all." Seen in that light, it is a profoundly democratic (small
'd') response to elites that have most consistently served only themselves.
Trump and his gang will be deeply grateful if the left follows Krugman's "wisdom", and clings
to his ever-changing excuses. (I thought it was the evil Greens who deprived Clinton of her due?)
Post Truth is Pre-Fascism. The party that thinks your loyalty is suspect unless you wear a
flag pin fuels itself on Post Truth. Isnt't this absurdity the gist of Obama's Russia comments
today!?!
"On Wednesday an editorial in The Times described Donald Trump as a "useful idiot" serving Russian
interests." I think that is beyond the pale. Yes, I realize that Adolph Hitler was democratically
elected. I agree that Trump seems like a scary monster under the bed. That doesn't mean we have
too pee our pants, Paul. He's a bully, tough guy, maybe, the kind of kid that tortured you before
you kicked the shit out of them with your brilliance. That's not what is needed now.
What really is needed, is a watchdog, like Dean Baker, that alerts we dolts of pending bills and
their ramifications. The ship of neo-liberal trade bullshit has sailed. Hell, you don't believe
it yourself, you've said as much. Be gracious, and tell the truth. We can handle it.
The experience of voting for the Hill was painful, vs Donald Trump.
The Hill seemed like the least likely aristocrat, given two choices, to finish off all government
focus on the folks that actually built this society. Two Titans of Hubris, Hillary vs Donald,
each ridiculous in the concept of representing the interests of the common man.
At the end of the day. the American people decided that the struggle with the unknown monster
Donald was worth deposing the great deplorable, Clinton.
The real argument is whether the correct plan of action is the way of FDR, or the way of the industrialists,
the Waltons, the Kochs, the Trumps, the Bushes and the outright cowards like the Cheneys and the
Clintons, people that never spent a day defending this country in combat. What do they call it,
the Commander in Chief.
My father was awarded a silver and a bronze star for his efforts in battle during WW2. He was
shot in the face while driving a tank destroyer by a German sniper in a place called Schmitten
Germany.
He told me once, that he looked over at the guy next to him on the plane to the hospital in
England, and his intestines were splayed on his chest. It was awful.
What was he fighting for ? Freedom, America. Then the Republicans, Ronald Reagan, who spent the
war stateside began the real war, garnering the wealth of the nation to the entitled like him.
Ronald Reagan was a life guard.
Anthony Weiner
Podesta
Biden (for not running)
Tim Kaine (for accepting the nomination instead of deferring to a latino)
CNN and other TV news media (for giving trump so much coverage- even an empty podium)
Donna Brazile
etc.
The people of the United States did not have much to choose between: Either a servant of the
Plutocrats or a member of the Plutocratic class. The Dems brought this on us when they refused
to play fair with Bernie. (Hillary would almost certainly have won the nomination anyway.)
The Repubs brought this on, by refusing to govern. The media brought this on: I seem to
remember Hillary's misfeasances, once nominated, festering in the media, while Trump's were mentioned,
and then disappeared. (Correct me if I'm wrong in this.) Also, the media downplayed Bernie until
he had no real chance.
The government brought this on, by failing to pursue justice against the bankers, and failing
to represent the people, especially the majority who have been screwed by trade and the plutocratic
elite and their apologists.
The educational system brought this on, by failing to educate the people to critical thought.
For instance: 1) The wealthy run the country. 2) The wealthy have been doing very well. 3) Everybody
else has not. It seems most people cannot draw the obvious conclusion.
The wealthy brought this on. For 230 years they have, essentially run this country. They are
too stupid to be satisfied with enough, but always want more.
The economics profession brought this on, by excusing treasonous behavior as efficient, and
failing to understand the underlying principles of their profession, and the limits of their understanding.
(They don't even know what money is, or how a trade deficit destroys productive capacity, and
thus the very ability of a nation to pay back the debts it incurs.)
The people brought this on, by neglecting their duty to be informed, to be educated, and to
be thoughtful.
Anybody else care for their share of blame? I myself deserve some, but for reasons I cannot
say.
What amazes me now is, the bird having shown its feathers, there is no howl of outrage from
the people who voted for him. Do they imagine that the Plutocrats who will soon monopolize the
White House will take their interests to heart?
As far as I can tell, not one person of 'the people' has been appointed to his cabinet. Not
one. But the oppressed masses who turned to Mr Trump seem to be OK with this.
I can only wonder, how much crap will have to be rubbed in their faces, before they awaken to
the taste of what it is?
Eric377 : , -1
Krugman is himself one of those most useful idiots. I do not recall his clarion call to Democrats
last spring that "FBI investigation" and "party Presidential nominee" was bound to be an ugly
combination. Some did; right here as I recall. Or his part in the official "don't vote for third
party" week in the Clinton media machine....thanks, hundreds of thousands of Trump votes got the
message.
It's too rich to complain about Russia and Wikileaks as if those elements in anyway justified
Clinton becoming President. Leaks mess with our democracy? Then for darn sure do not vote for
a former Sec. of State willing to use a home server for her official business. Russia is menacing?
Just who has been managing US-Russia relations the past 8 years? I voted for her anyway, but the
heck if I think some tragic fate has befell the nation here. Republicans picked a better candidate
to win this thing than we Democrats did.
The truth of the matter is that Clinton was a very weak candidate with nothing to offer
but narcissism ("I'm with her"). It's notable that Clinton has still not accepted responsibility
for her campaign, preferring to throw the blame for the loss anywhere but herself. Sociopathy
much?
This has made me cynical. I used to think that at least *some* members of the US political
elite had the best interests of ordinary households in mind, but now I see that it's just ego
vs. ego, whatever the party.
As for democracy being on the edge: I believe Adam Smith over Krugman: "there is a lot of ruin
in a nation". It takes more than this to overturn an entrenched institution.
I think American democracy will survive a decade of authoritarianism, and if it does not, then
H. L. Mencken said it best: "The American people know what they want, and they deserve to get
it -- good and hard."
It has been our undertaking, since 2010, to chronicle our understanding of capitalism via our book
The Philosophy of Capitalism . We were curious
as to the underlying nature of the system which endows us, the owners of capital, with so many favours. The Saker has asked me
to explain our somewhat crude statement 'Capitalism Requires World War'.
The present showdown between West, Russia and China is the culmination of a long running saga that began with World War One. Prior
to which, Capitalism was governed by the gold standard system which was international, very solid, with clear rules and had brought
great prosperity: for banking Capital was scarce and so allocated carefully. World War One required debt-capitalism of the
FIAT kind, a bankrupt Britain began to pass the Imperial baton to the US, which had profited by financing the war and selling munitions.
The Weimar Republic, suffering a continuation of hostilities via economic means, tried to inflate away its debts in 1919-1923
with disastrous results-hyperinflation. Then, the reintroduction of the gold standard into a world poisoned by war, reparation and
debt was fated to fail and ended with a deflationary bust in the early 1930's and WW2.
The US government gained a lot of credibility after WW2 by outlawing offensive war and funding many construction projects
that helped transfer private debt to the public book. The US government's debt exploded during the war, but it also shifted
the power game away from creditors to a big debtor that had a lot of political capital. The US used her power to define the new rules
of the monetary system at Bretton Woods in 1944 and to keep physical hold of gold owned by other nations.
The US jacked up tax rates on the wealthy and had a period of elevated inflation in the late 40s and into the 1950s –
all of which wiped out creditors, but also ushered in a unique middle class era in the West. The US also reformed extraction
centric institutions in Europe and Japan to make sure an extractive-creditor class did not hobble growth, which was easy to do because
the war had wiped them out (same as in Korea).
Capital destruction in WW2 reversed the Marxist rule that the rate of profit always falls. Take any given market
– say jeans. At first, all the companies make these jeans using a great deal of human labour so all the jeans are priced around the
average of total social labour time required for production (some companies will charge more, some companies less).
One company then introduces a machine (costed at $n) that makes jeans using a lot less labour time. Each of these robot assisted
workers is paid the same hourly rate but the production process is now far more productive. This company, ignoring the capital outlay
in the machinery, will now have a much higher profit rate than the others. This will attract capital, as capital is always on the
lookout for higher rates of profit. The result will be a generalisation of this new mode of production. The robot or machine will
be adopted by all the other companies, as it is a more efficient way of producing jeans.
As a consequence the price of the jeans will fall, as there is an increased margin within which each market actor can undercut
his fellows. One company will lower prices so as to increase market share. This new price-point will become generalised as competing
companies cut their prices to defend their market share. A further n$ was invested but per unit profit margin is put under constant
downward pressure, so the rate of return in productive assets tends to fall over time in a competitive market place.
Interest rates have been falling for decades in the West because interest rates must always be below the rate of return
on productive investments. If interest rates are higher than the risk adjusted rate of return then the capitalist might
as well keep his money in a savings account. If there is real deflation his purchasing power increases for free and if there is inflation
he will park his money (plus debt) in an unproductive asset that's price inflating, E.G. Housing. Sound familiar? Sure, there has
been plenty of profit generated since 2008 but it has not been recovered from productive investments in a competitive free market
place. All that profit came from bubbles in asset classes and financial schemes abetted by money printing and zero interest
rates.
Thus, we know that the underlying rate of return is near zero in the West. The rate of return falls naturally,
due to capital accumulation and market competition. The system is called capitalism because capital accumulates: high income economies
are those with the greatest accumulation of capital per worker. The robot assisted worker enjoys a higher income as he is highly
productive, partly because the robotics made some of the workers redundant and there are fewer workers to share
the profit. All the high income economies have had near zero interest rates for seven years. Interest rates in Europe are even negative.
How has the system remained stable for so long?
All economic growth depends on energy gain. It takes energy (drilling the oil well) to gain energy. Unlike our
everyday experience whereby energy acquisition and energy expenditure can be balanced, capitalism requires an absolute net energy
gain. That gain, by way of energy exchange, takes the form of tools and machines that permit an increase in productivity per work
hour. Thus GDP increases, living standards improve and the debts can be repaid. Thus, oil is a strategic capitalistic resource.
US net energy gain production peaked in 1974, to be replaced by production from Saudi Arabia, which made the USA a net importer
of oil for the first time. US dependence on foreign oil rose from 26% to 47% between 1985 and 1989 to hit a peak of 60% in 2006.
And, tellingly, real wages peaked in 1974, levelled-off and then began to fall for most US workers. Wages have never recovered. (The
decline is more severe if you don't believe government reported inflation figures that don't count the costof housing.)
What was the economic and political result of this decline? During the 20 years 1965-85, there were 4 recessions, 2 energy
crises and wage and price controls. These were unprecedented in peacetime and The Gulf of Tonkin event led to the Vietnam
War which finally required Nixon to move away from the Gold-Exchange Standard in 1971, opening the next degenerate chapter of FIAT
finance up until 2008. Cutting this link to gold was cutting the external anchor impeding war and deficit spending. The promise of
gold for dollars was revoked.
GDP in the US increased after 1974 but a portion of end use buying power was transferred to Saudi Arabia. They
were supplying the net energy gain that was powering the US GDP increase. The working class in the US began to experience a slow
real decline in living standards, as 'their share' of the economic pie was squeezed by the ever increasing transfer of buying power
to Saudi Arabia.
The US banking and government elite responded by creating and cutting back legal and behavioral rules of a fiat based
monetary system. The Chinese appreciated the long term opportunity that this presented and agreed to play ball. The USA
over-produced credit money and China over-produced manufactured goods which cushioned the real decline in the buying power of America's
working class. Power relations between China and the US began to change: The Communist Party transferred value to the American consumer
whilst Wall Street transferred most of the US industrial base to China. They didn't ship the military industrial complex.
Large scale leverage meant that US consumers and businesses had the means to purchase increasingly with debt so the class
war was deferred. This is how over production occurs: more is produced that is paid for not with money that represents actual realized
labour time, but from future wealth, to be realised from future labour time. The Chinese labour force was producing more than it
consumed.
The system has never differed from the limits laid down by the Laws of Thermodynamics. The Real economy system can never over-produce
per se. The limit of production is absolute net energy gain. What is produced can be consumed. How did the Chinese produce such a
super massive excess and for so long? Economic slavery can achieve radical improvements in living standards for those that benefit
from ownership. Slaves don't depreciate as they are rented and are not repaired for they replicate for free. Hundreds of millions
of Chinese peasants limited their way of life and controlled their consumption in order to benefit their children. And their exploited
life raised the rate of profit!
They began their long march to modern prosperity making toys, shoes, and textiles cheaper than poor women could in South Carolina
or Honduras. Such factories are cheap to build and deferential, obedient and industrious peasant staff were a perfect match for work
that was not dissimilar to tossing fruit into a bucket. Their legacy is the initial capital formation of modern China and one of
the greatest accomplishments in human history. The Chinese didn't use net energy gain from oil to power their super massive and sustained
increase in production. They used economic slavery powered by caloric energy, exchanged from solar energy. The Chinese labour force
picked the World's low hanging fruit that didn't need many tools or machines. Slaves don't need tools for they are the tool.
Without a gold standard and capital ratios our form of over-production has grown enormously. The dotcom bubble
was reflated through a housing bubble, which has been pumped up again by sovereign debt, printing press (QE) and central bank insolvency.
The US working and middle classes have over-consumed relative to their share of the global economic pie for decades. The correction
to prices (the destruction of credit money & accumulated capital) is still yet to happen. This is what has been happening since 1971
because of the growth of financialisation or monetisation.
The application of all these economic methods was justified by the political ideology of neo-Liberalism. Neo-Liberalism
entails no or few capital controls, the destruction of trade unions, plundering state and public assets, importing peasants as domesticated
help, and entrusting society's value added production to The Communist Party of The People's Republic of China.
The Chinese have many motives but their first motivation is power. Power is more important than money. If you're rich
and weak you get robbed. Russia provides illustrating stories of such: Gorbachev had received a promise from George HW Bush
that the US would pay Russia approximately $400 billion over10 years as a "peace dividend" and as a tool to be utilized in the conversion
of their state run to a market based economic system. The Russians believe the head of the CIA at the time, George Tenet, essentially
killed the deal based on the idea that "letting the country fall apart will destroy Russia as a future military threat". The country
fell apart in 1992. Its natural assets were plundered which raised the rate of profit in the 90's until President Putin put a stop
to the robbery.
In the last analysis, the current framework of Capitalism results in labour redundancy, a falling rate of profit and ingrained
trading imbalances caused by excess capacity. Under our current monopoly state capitalism a number of temporary preventive measures
have evolved, including the expansion of university, military, and prison systems to warehouse new generations of labour.
Our problem is how to retain the "expected return rate" for us, the dominant class. Ultimately, there are only two large-scale
solutions, which are intertwined .
One is expansion of state debt to keep "the markets" moving and transfer wealth from future generations of
labour to the present dominant class.
The other is war, the consumer of last resort. Wars can burn up excess capacity, shift global markets, generate
monopoly rents, and return future labour to a state of helplessness and reduced expectations. The Spanish flu killed 50-100 million
people in 1918. As if this was not enough, it also took two World Wars across the 20th century and some 96 million dead to reduce
unemployment and stabilize the "labour problem."
Capitalism requires World War because Capitalism requires profit and cannot afford the unemployed . The point
is capitalism could afford social democracy after the rate of profit was restored thanks to the depression of the 1930's and the
physical destruction of capital during WW2. Capitalism only produces for profit and social democracy was funded by taxing profits
after WW2.
Post WW2 growth in labour productivity, due to automation, itself due to oil & gas replacing coal, meant workers could be better
off. As the economic pie was growing, workers could receive the same %, and still receive a bigger slice. Wages as a % of US GDP
actually increased in the period, 1945-1970. There was an increase in government spending which was being redirected in the form
of redistributed incomes. Inequality will only worsen, because to make profits now we have to continually cut the cost of inputs,
i.e. wages & benefits. Have we not already reached the point where large numbers of the working class can neither feed themselves
nor afford a roof over their heads?13% of the UK working age population is out of work and receiving out of work benefits. A huge
fraction is receiving in work benefits because low skill work now pays so little.
The underlying nature of Capitalism is cyclical. Here is how the political aspect of the cycle ends:
1920s/2000s – High inequality, high banker pay, low regulation, low taxes for the wealthy, robber barons (CEOs), reckless
bankers, globalisation phase
1929/2008 – Wall Street crash
1930s/2010s – Global recession, currency wars, trade wars, rising unemployment, nationalism and extremism
What comes next? – World War.
If Capitalism could speak, she would ask her older brother, Imperialism, this: "Can you solve the problem?" We
are not reliving the 1930's, the economy is now an integrated whole that encompasses the entire World. Capital has been accumulating
since 1945, so under- and unemployment is a plague everywhere. How big is the problem? Official data tells us nothing, but the 47
million Americans on food aid are suggestive. That's 1 in 7 Americans and total World population is 7 billion.
The scale of the solution is dangerous. Our probing for weakness in the South China Sea, Ukraine and Syria has
awakened them to their danger.The Chinese and Russian leadershave reacted by integrating their payment systems and real economies,
trading energy for manufactured goods for advanced weapon systems. As they are central players in the Shanghai Group we can assume
their aim is the monetary system which is the bedrock of our Imperial power. What's worse, they can avoid overt enemy action
and simply choose to undermine "confidence" in the FIAT.
Though given the calibre of their nuclear arsenal, how can they be fought let alone defeated? Appetite preceded
Reason, so Lust is hard to Reason with. But beware brother. Your Lust for Power began this saga, perhaps it's time to Reason.
That's because they don't understand the word "capitalism."
Capitalism simply means economic freedom. And economic freedom, just like freedom to breed, must be exposed to the pruning
action of cause and effect, otherwise it outgrows its container and becomes unstable and explodes. As long as it is continually
exposed to the grinding wheel of causality, it continues to hold a fine edge, as the dross is scraped away and the fine steel
stays. Reality is full of dualities, and those dualities cannot be separated without creating broken symmetry and therefore terminal
instability. Freedom and responsibility, for example. One without the other is unstable. Voting and taxation in direct proportion
to each other is another example.
Fiat currency is an attempt to create an artificial reality, one without the necessary symmetry and balance of a real system.
However, reality can not be gamed, because it will produce its own symmetry if you try to deny it. Thus the symmetry of fiat currency
is boom and bust, a sine wave that still manages to produce equilibrium, however at a huge bubbling splattering boil rather than
a fine simmer.
The folks that wrote this do not have a large enough world view. Capitalism does not require world wars because freedom does
not require world wars. Freedom tends to bleed imbalances out when they are small. On the other hand, empire does require world
war, which is why we are going to have one.
Capitalism becomes imperialism when financial sociopaths steal profits from both sides of the trade. What you're seeing is
an Imperialism of Capital, as explained very nicely in the 1889 book "The Great Red Dragon."
Wrong. Capitalism needs prolonged directionless wars without clear winners and contained destruction that utilize massive amounts
of raw materials and endless orders for weapons and logistical support. That's what makes some guys rich.
That's was a very long-winded and deliberately obtuse way of explaining how DEBT AS MONEY and The State's usurpation of sound
money destroyed efficient markets. The author then goes to call this system Capitalism.
So yeah, the deliberate destruction of capital, in all its forms, is somehow capitalism. Brilliant observation. Fuck you. There
are better terms for things like this. Perhaps....central banking? The State? Fiat debt creation? Evil? Naw, let's just contort
and abuse language instead. That's the ticket.
I've spent my adult life in 51 countries. This was financed by correctly anticipating the Great Financial Crisis in 2008. I
was studying Marx at that time. I'm presently an employee of the Chinese State. I educate the children of China's best families.
I am the author, alongside a large international team of capitalists, of Before The Collapse : The Philosophy of Capitalism.
I also have my own business; I live with my girlfriend and was born and grew up in Ireland.
===============
Why would anyone waste time to read this drivel, buttressed by the author's credentials.
The unstated thesis is that wars involve millions of actors, who produce an end-result of many hundreds of millions killed.
Absent coercion ("the Draft"), how is any government going to man hundreds of divisions of foot soldiers. That concept is passé.
Distribute some aerosol poisons via drones and kill as many people as deemed necessary. How in the hell will that action stimulate
the world economy.
Weapons of mass-destruction are smaller, cheaper and easier to deploy. War as a progenitor of growth - forget it.
The good news is that this guy is educating the children of elite in China. Possibly the Pentagon could clone him 10,000 times
and send those cyborgs to China - cripple China for another generation or two.
The term cyclical doesn't quite cover what we have being experiencing. It's more like a ragdoll being shaken by a white shark.
The euphoria of bubble is more like complete unhinged unicorn mania anymore and the lows are complete grapes of wrath. It's probably
always been that way to some extent because corruption has remained unchallenged for a great deal of time. The boom phases are
scarier than the downturns anymore, especially the last oil boom and housing boom. Complete Alfred Hitchcock stuff.
I don't think it's capitalism and that term comes across as an explanation that legitimizes this completely contrived pattern
that benefits a few and screws everybody else. Markets should not be behaving in such a violent fashion. Money should probably
be made steady and slow. And downturns shouldn't turn a country into Zimbabwe. I could be wrong but there is really no way to
know with the corruption we have.
And War requires that an enemy be created. According to American General Breedlove-head of NATO's European Command-speaking
to the US Armed Services Committee 2 days ago, "Russia and Assad are deliberately weaponizing migration to break European resolve".
"The only reason to use non-precision weapons like barrel bombs is to keep refugees on the move". "These refugees bring criminality,
foreign fighters and terrorism", and "are being used to overwhelm European structures". "Russia has chosen to be an adversary
and is a real threat." "Russia is irresponsible with nuclear weapons-always threatening to use them." And strangely, "In the past
week alone, Russia has made 450 attacks along the front lines in E. Ukraine".
Even with insanity overflowing the West, I found these comments to be the most bizarrely threatening propaganda yet. After
reading them for the first time, I had to prove to myself that I wasn't hallucinating it.
It has been our undertaking, since 2010, to chronicle our understanding of capitalism via our book
The Philosophy of Capitalism . We were curious
as to the underlying nature of the system which endows us, the owners of capital, with so many favours. The Saker has asked me
to explain our somewhat crude statement 'Capitalism Requires World War'.
The present showdown between West, Russia and China is the culmination of a long running saga that began with World War One. Prior
to which, Capitalism was governed by the gold standard system which was international, very solid, with clear rules and had brought
great prosperity: for banking Capital was scarce and so allocated carefully. World War One required debt-capitalism of the
FIAT kind, a bankrupt Britain began to pass the Imperial baton to the US, which had profited by financing the war and selling munitions.
The Weimar Republic, suffering a continuation of hostilities via economic means, tried to inflate away its debts in 1919-1923
with disastrous results-hyperinflation. Then, the reintroduction of the gold standard into a world poisoned by war, reparation and
debt was fated to fail and ended with a deflationary bust in the early 1930's and WW2.
The US government gained a lot of credibility after WW2 by outlawing offensive war and funding many construction projects
that helped transfer private debt to the public book. The US government's debt exploded during the war, but it also shifted
the power game away from creditors to a big debtor that had a lot of political capital. The US used her power to define the new rules
of the monetary system at Bretton Woods in 1944 and to keep physical hold of gold owned by other nations.
The US jacked up tax rates on the wealthy and had a period of elevated inflation in the late 40s and into the 1950s –
all of which wiped out creditors, but also ushered in a unique middle class era in the West. The US also reformed extraction
centric institutions in Europe and Japan to make sure an extractive-creditor class did not hobble growth, which was easy to do because
the war had wiped them out (same as in Korea).
Capital destruction in WW2 reversed the Marxist rule that the rate of profit always falls. Take any given market
– say jeans. At first, all the companies make these jeans using a great deal of human labour so all the jeans are priced around the
average of total social labour time required for production (some companies will charge more, some companies less).
One company then introduces a machine (costed at $n) that makes jeans using a lot less labour time. Each of these robot assisted
workers is paid the same hourly rate but the production process is now far more productive. This company, ignoring the capital outlay
in the machinery, will now have a much higher profit rate than the others. This will attract capital, as capital is always on the
lookout for higher rates of profit. The result will be a generalisation of this new mode of production. The robot or machine will
be adopted by all the other companies, as it is a more efficient way of producing jeans.
As a consequence the price of the jeans will fall, as there is an increased margin within which each market actor can undercut
his fellows. One company will lower prices so as to increase market share. This new price-point will become generalised as competing
companies cut their prices to defend their market share. A further n$ was invested but per unit profit margin is put under constant
downward pressure, so the rate of return in productive assets tends to fall over time in a competitive market place.
Interest rates have been falling for decades in the West because interest rates must always be below the rate of return
on productive investments. If interest rates are higher than the risk adjusted rate of return then the capitalist might
as well keep his money in a savings account. If there is real deflation his purchasing power increases for free and if there is inflation
he will park his money (plus debt) in an unproductive asset that's price inflating, E.G. Housing. Sound familiar? Sure, there has
been plenty of profit generated since 2008 but it has not been recovered from productive investments in a competitive free market
place. All that profit came from bubbles in asset classes and financial schemes abetted by money printing and zero interest
rates.
Thus, we know that the underlying rate of return is near zero in the West. The rate of return falls naturally,
due to capital accumulation and market competition. The system is called capitalism because capital accumulates: high income economies
are those with the greatest accumulation of capital per worker. The robot assisted worker enjoys a higher income as he is highly
productive, partly because the robotics made some of the workers redundant and there are fewer workers to share
the profit. All the high income economies have had near zero interest rates for seven years. Interest rates in Europe are even negative.
How has the system remained stable for so long?
All economic growth depends on energy gain. It takes energy (drilling the oil well) to gain energy. Unlike our
everyday experience whereby energy acquisition and energy expenditure can be balanced, capitalism requires an absolute net energy
gain. That gain, by way of energy exchange, takes the form of tools and machines that permit an increase in productivity per work
hour. Thus GDP increases, living standards improve and the debts can be repaid. Thus, oil is a strategic capitalistic resource.
US net energy gain production peaked in 1974, to be replaced by production from Saudi Arabia, which made the USA a net importer
of oil for the first time. US dependence on foreign oil rose from 26% to 47% between 1985 and 1989 to hit a peak of 60% in 2006.
And, tellingly, real wages peaked in 1974, levelled-off and then began to fall for most US workers. Wages have never recovered. (The
decline is more severe if you don't believe government reported inflation figures that don't count the costof housing.)
What was the economic and political result of this decline? During the 20 years 1965-85, there were 4 recessions, 2 energy
crises and wage and price controls. These were unprecedented in peacetime and The Gulf of Tonkin event led to the Vietnam
War which finally required Nixon to move away from the Gold-Exchange Standard in 1971, opening the next degenerate chapter of FIAT
finance up until 2008. Cutting this link to gold was cutting the external anchor impeding war and deficit spending. The promise of
gold for dollars was revoked.
GDP in the US increased after 1974 but a portion of end use buying power was transferred to Saudi Arabia. They
were supplying the net energy gain that was powering the US GDP increase. The working class in the US began to experience a slow
real decline in living standards, as 'their share' of the economic pie was squeezed by the ever increasing transfer of buying power
to Saudi Arabia.
The US banking and government elite responded by creating and cutting back legal and behavioral rules of a fiat based
monetary system. The Chinese appreciated the long term opportunity that this presented and agreed to play ball. The USA
over-produced credit money and China over-produced manufactured goods which cushioned the real decline in the buying power of America's
working class. Power relations between China and the US began to change: The Communist Party transferred value to the American consumer
whilst Wall Street transferred most of the US industrial base to China. They didn't ship the military industrial complex.
Large scale leverage meant that US consumers and businesses had the means to purchase increasingly with debt so the class
war was deferred. This is how over production occurs: more is produced that is paid for not with money that represents actual realized
labour time, but from future wealth, to be realised from future labour time. The Chinese labour force was producing more than it
consumed.
The system has never differed from the limits laid down by the Laws of Thermodynamics. The Real economy system can never over-produce
per se. The limit of production is absolute net energy gain. What is produced can be consumed. How did the Chinese produce such a
super massive excess and for so long? Economic slavery can achieve radical improvements in living standards for those that benefit
from ownership. Slaves don't depreciate as they are rented and are not repaired for they replicate for free. Hundreds of millions
of Chinese peasants limited their way of life and controlled their consumption in order to benefit their children. And their exploited
life raised the rate of profit!
They began their long march to modern prosperity making toys, shoes, and textiles cheaper than poor women could in South Carolina
or Honduras. Such factories are cheap to build and deferential, obedient and industrious peasant staff were a perfect match for work
that was not dissimilar to tossing fruit into a bucket. Their legacy is the initial capital formation of modern China and one of
the greatest accomplishments in human history. The Chinese didn't use net energy gain from oil to power their super massive and sustained
increase in production. They used economic slavery powered by caloric energy, exchanged from solar energy. The Chinese labour force
picked the World's low hanging fruit that didn't need many tools or machines. Slaves don't need tools for they are the tool.
Without a gold standard and capital ratios our form of over-production has grown enormously. The dotcom bubble
was reflated through a housing bubble, which has been pumped up again by sovereign debt, printing press (QE) and central bank insolvency.
The US working and middle classes have over-consumed relative to their share of the global economic pie for decades. The correction
to prices (the destruction of credit money & accumulated capital) is still yet to happen. This is what has been happening since 1971
because of the growth of financialisation or monetisation.
The application of all these economic methods was justified by the political ideology of neo-Liberalism. Neo-Liberalism
entails no or few capital controls, the destruction of trade unions, plundering state and public assets, importing peasants as domesticated
help, and entrusting society's value added production to The Communist Party of The People's Republic of China.
The Chinese have many motives but their first motivation is power. Power is more important than money. If you're rich
and weak you get robbed. Russia provides illustrating stories of such: Gorbachev had received a promise from George HW Bush
that the US would pay Russia approximately $400 billion over10 years as a "peace dividend" and as a tool to be utilized in the conversion
of their state run to a market based economic system. The Russians believe the head of the CIA at the time, George Tenet, essentially
killed the deal based on the idea that "letting the country fall apart will destroy Russia as a future military threat". The country
fell apart in 1992. Its natural assets were plundered which raised the rate of profit in the 90's until President Putin put a stop
to the robbery.
In the last analysis, the current framework of Capitalism results in labour redundancy, a falling rate of profit and ingrained
trading imbalances caused by excess capacity. Under our current monopoly state capitalism a number of temporary preventive measures
have evolved, including the expansion of university, military, and prison systems to warehouse new generations of labour.
Our problem is how to retain the "expected return rate" for us, the dominant class. Ultimately, there are only two large-scale
solutions, which are intertwined .
One is expansion of state debt to keep "the markets" moving and transfer wealth from future generations of
labour to the present dominant class.
The other is war, the consumer of last resort. Wars can burn up excess capacity, shift global markets, generate
monopoly rents, and return future labour to a state of helplessness and reduced expectations. The Spanish flu killed 50-100 million
people in 1918. As if this was not enough, it also took two World Wars across the 20th century and some 96 million dead to reduce
unemployment and stabilize the "labour problem."
Capitalism requires World War because Capitalism requires profit and cannot afford the unemployed . The point
is capitalism could afford social democracy after the rate of profit was restored thanks to the depression of the 1930's and the
physical destruction of capital during WW2. Capitalism only produces for profit and social democracy was funded by taxing profits
after WW2.
Post WW2 growth in labour productivity, due to automation, itself due to oil & gas replacing coal, meant workers could be better
off. As the economic pie was growing, workers could receive the same %, and still receive a bigger slice. Wages as a % of US GDP
actually increased in the period, 1945-1970. There was an increase in government spending which was being redirected in the form
of redistributed incomes. Inequality will only worsen, because to make profits now we have to continually cut the cost of inputs,
i.e. wages & benefits. Have we not already reached the point where large numbers of the working class can neither feed themselves
nor afford a roof over their heads?13% of the UK working age population is out of work and receiving out of work benefits. A huge
fraction is receiving in work benefits because low skill work now pays so little.
The underlying nature of Capitalism is cyclical. Here is how the political aspect of the cycle ends:
1920s/2000s – High inequality, high banker pay, low regulation, low taxes for the wealthy, robber barons (CEOs), reckless
bankers, globalisation phase
1929/2008 – Wall Street crash
1930s/2010s – Global recession, currency wars, trade wars, rising unemployment, nationalism and extremism
What comes next? – World War.
If Capitalism could speak, she would ask her older brother, Imperialism, this: "Can you solve the problem?" We
are not reliving the 1930's, the economy is now an integrated whole that encompasses the entire World. Capital has been accumulating
since 1945, so under- and unemployment is a plague everywhere. How big is the problem? Official data tells us nothing, but the 47
million Americans on food aid are suggestive. That's 1 in 7 Americans and total World population is 7 billion.
The scale of the solution is dangerous. Our probing for weakness in the South China Sea, Ukraine and Syria has
awakened them to their danger.The Chinese and Russian leadershave reacted by integrating their payment systems and real economies,
trading energy for manufactured goods for advanced weapon systems. As they are central players in the Shanghai Group we can assume
their aim is the monetary system which is the bedrock of our Imperial power. What's worse, they can avoid overt enemy action
and simply choose to undermine "confidence" in the FIAT.
Though given the calibre of their nuclear arsenal, how can they be fought let alone defeated? Appetite preceded
Reason, so Lust is hard to Reason with. But beware brother. Your Lust for Power began this saga, perhaps it's time to Reason.
That's because they don't understand the word "capitalism."
Capitalism simply means economic freedom. And economic freedom, just like freedom to breed, must be exposed to the pruning
action of cause and effect, otherwise it outgrows its container and becomes unstable and explodes. As long as it is continually
exposed to the grinding wheel of causality, it continues to hold a fine edge, as the dross is scraped away and the fine steel
stays. Reality is full of dualities, and those dualities cannot be separated without creating broken symmetry and therefore terminal
instability. Freedom and responsibility, for example. One without the other is unstable. Voting and taxation in direct proportion
to each other is another example.
Fiat currency is an attempt to create an artificial reality, one without the necessary symmetry and balance of a real system.
However, reality can not be gamed, because it will produce its own symmetry if you try to deny it. Thus the symmetry of fiat currency
is boom and bust, a sine wave that still manages to produce equilibrium, however at a huge bubbling splattering boil rather than
a fine simmer.
The folks that wrote this do not have a large enough world view. Capitalism does not require world wars because freedom does
not require world wars. Freedom tends to bleed imbalances out when they are small. On the other hand, empire does require world
war, which is why we are going to have one.
Capitalism becomes imperialism when financial sociopaths steal profits from both sides of the trade. What you're seeing is
an Imperialism of Capital, as explained very nicely in the 1889 book "The Great Red Dragon."
Wrong. Capitalism needs prolonged directionless wars without clear winners and contained destruction that utilize massive amounts
of raw materials and endless orders for weapons and logistical support. That's what makes some guys rich.
That's was a very long-winded and deliberately obtuse way of explaining how DEBT AS MONEY and The State's usurpation of sound
money destroyed efficient markets. The author then goes to call this system Capitalism.
So yeah, the deliberate destruction of capital, in all its forms, is somehow capitalism. Brilliant observation. Fuck you. There
are better terms for things like this. Perhaps....central banking? The State? Fiat debt creation? Evil? Naw, let's just contort
and abuse language instead. That's the ticket.
I've spent my adult life in 51 countries. This was financed by correctly anticipating the Great Financial Crisis in 2008. I
was studying Marx at that time. I'm presently an employee of the Chinese State. I educate the children of China's best families.
I am the author, alongside a large international team of capitalists, of Before The Collapse : The Philosophy of Capitalism.
I also have my own business; I live with my girlfriend and was born and grew up in Ireland.
===============
Why would anyone waste time to read this drivel, buttressed by the author's credentials.
The unstated thesis is that wars involve millions of actors, who produce an end-result of many hundreds of millions killed.
Absent coercion ("the Draft"), how is any government going to man hundreds of divisions of foot soldiers. That concept is passé.
Distribute some aerosol poisons via drones and kill as many people as deemed necessary. How in the hell will that action stimulate
the world economy.
Weapons of mass-destruction are smaller, cheaper and easier to deploy. War as a progenitor of growth - forget it.
The good news is that this guy is educating the children of elite in China. Possibly the Pentagon could clone him 10,000 times
and send those cyborgs to China - cripple China for another generation or two.
The term cyclical doesn't quite cover what we have being experiencing. It's more like a ragdoll being shaken by a white shark.
The euphoria of bubble is more like complete unhinged unicorn mania anymore and the lows are complete grapes of wrath. It's probably
always been that way to some extent because corruption has remained unchallenged for a great deal of time. The boom phases are
scarier than the downturns anymore, especially the last oil boom and housing boom. Complete Alfred Hitchcock stuff.
I don't think it's capitalism and that term comes across as an explanation that legitimizes this completely contrived pattern
that benefits a few and screws everybody else. Markets should not be behaving in such a violent fashion. Money should probably
be made steady and slow. And downturns shouldn't turn a country into Zimbabwe. I could be wrong but there is really no way to
know with the corruption we have.
And War requires that an enemy be created. According to American General Breedlove-head of NATO's European Command-speaking
to the US Armed Services Committee 2 days ago, "Russia and Assad are deliberately weaponizing migration to break European resolve".
"The only reason to use non-precision weapons like barrel bombs is to keep refugees on the move". "These refugees bring criminality,
foreign fighters and terrorism", and "are being used to overwhelm European structures". "Russia has chosen to be an adversary
and is a real threat." "Russia is irresponsible with nuclear weapons-always threatening to use them." And strangely, "In the past
week alone, Russia has made 450 attacks along the front lines in E. Ukraine".
Even with insanity overflowing the West, I found these comments to be the most bizarrely threatening propaganda yet. After
reading them for the first time, I had to prove to myself that I wasn't hallucinating it.
"... "confronted with the Pivot to Asia and the construction of new US naval and air bases to ensure Washington's control of the South China Sea, now defined as an area of American National Interests." ..."
"... "for the crisis that Washington has created in Ukraine and for its use as anti-Russian propaganda." ..."
"... "How America Was Lost" ..."
"... "aggression and blatant propaganda have convinced Russia and China that Washington intends war, and this realization has drawn the two countries into a strategic alliance." ..."
"... "vassalage status accepted by the UK, Germany, France and the rest of Europe, Canada, Japan and Australia." ..."
"... "price of world peace is the world's acceptance of Washington's hegemony." ..."
"... "On the foreign policy front, the hubris and arrogance of America's self-image as the 'exceptional, indispensable' country with hegemonic rights over other countries means that the world is primed for war," ..."
"... "unless the dollar and with it US power collapses or Europe finds the courage to break with Washington and to pursue an independent foreign policy, saying good-bye to NATO, nuclear war is our likely future." ..."
"... "historical turning point," ..."
"... "the Chinese were there in their place," ..."
"... "Russian casualties compared to the combined casualties of the US, UK, and France make it completely clear that it was Russia that defeated Hitler," ..."
"... "in the Orwellian West, the latest rewriting of history leaves out of the story the Red Army's destruction of the Wehrmacht." ..."
"... "expressed gratitude to 'the peoples of Great Britain, France and the United States of America for their contribution to the victory.'" ..."
"... "do not hear when Russia says 'don't push us this hard, we are not your enemy. We want to be your partners.'" ..."
"... "finally realized that their choice is vassalage or war," ..."
"... "made the mistake that could be fateful for humanity," ..."
The White House is determined to block the rise of the key nuclear-armed nations, Russia and China, neither of whom will join the
"world's acceptance of Washington's hegemony," says head of the Institute for Political Economy, Paul Craig Roberts.
The former
US assistant secretary of the Treasury for economic policy, Dr Paul Craig Roberts, has written on his
blog
that Beijing is currently "confronted with the Pivot to Asia and the construction of new US naval and air bases to ensure Washington's
control of the South China Sea, now defined as an area of American National Interests."
Roberts writes that Washington's commitment to contain Russia is the reason "for the crisis that Washington has created in
Ukraine and for its use as anti-Russian propaganda."
The author of several books, "How America Was Lost" among the latest titles, says that US "aggression and blatant
propaganda have convinced Russia and China that Washington intends war, and this realization has drawn the two countries into a strategic
alliance."
Dr Roberts believes that neither Russia, nor China will meanwhile accept the so-called "vassalage status accepted by the UK,
Germany, France and the rest of Europe, Canada, Japan and Australia." According to the political analyst, the "price of
world peace is the world's acceptance of Washington's hegemony."
"On the foreign policy front, the hubris and arrogance of America's self-image as the 'exceptional, indispensable' country
with hegemonic rights over other countries means that the world is primed for war," Roberts writes.
He gives a gloomy political forecast in his column saying that "unless the dollar and with it US power collapses or Europe
finds the courage to break with Washington and to pursue an independent foreign policy, saying good-bye to NATO, nuclear war is our
likely future."
Russia's far-reaching May 9 Victory Day celebration was meanwhile a "historical turning point," according to Roberts
who says that while Western politicians chose to boycott the 70th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany, "the Chinese were
there in their place," China's president sitting next to President Putin during the military parade on Red Square in Moscow.
A recent poll targeting over 3,000 people in France, Germany and the UK has recently revealed that as little as 13 percent of
Europeans think the Soviet Army played the leading role in liberating Europe from Nazism during WW2. The majority of respondents
– 43 percent – said the US Army played the main role in liberating Europe.
"Russian casualties compared to the combined casualties of the US, UK, and France make it completely clear that it was Russia
that defeated Hitler," Roberts points out, adding that "in the Orwellian West, the latest rewriting of history leaves out
of the story the Red Army's destruction of the Wehrmacht."
The head of the presidential administration, Sergey Ivanov, told RT earlier this month that attempts to diminish the role played
by Russia in defeating Nazi Germany through rewriting history by some Western countries are part of the ongoing campaign to isolate
and alienate Russia.
Dr Roberts has also stated in his column that while the US president only mentioned US forces in his remarks on the 70th anniversary
of the victory, President Putin in contrast "expressed gratitude to 'the peoples of Great Britain, France and the United States
of America for their contribution to the victory.'"
The political analyst notes that America along with its allies "do not hear when Russia says 'don't push us this hard, we
are not your enemy. We want to be your partners.'"
While Moscow and Beijing have "finally realized that their choice is vassalage or war," Washington "made the mistake
that could be fateful for humanity," according to Dr Roberts.
"... "confronted with the Pivot to Asia and the construction of new US naval and air bases to ensure Washington's control of the South China Sea, now defined as an area of American National Interests." ..."
"... "for the crisis that Washington has created in Ukraine and for its use as anti-Russian propaganda." ..."
"... "How America Was Lost" ..."
"... "aggression and blatant propaganda have convinced Russia and China that Washington intends war, and this realization has drawn the two countries into a strategic alliance." ..."
"... "vassalage status accepted by the UK, Germany, France and the rest of Europe, Canada, Japan and Australia." ..."
"... "price of world peace is the world's acceptance of Washington's hegemony." ..."
"... "On the foreign policy front, the hubris and arrogance of America's self-image as the 'exceptional, indispensable' country with hegemonic rights over other countries means that the world is primed for war," ..."
"... "unless the dollar and with it US power collapses or Europe finds the courage to break with Washington and to pursue an independent foreign policy, saying good-bye to NATO, nuclear war is our likely future." ..."
"... "historical turning point," ..."
"... "the Chinese were there in their place," ..."
"... "Russian casualties compared to the combined casualties of the US, UK, and France make it completely clear that it was Russia that defeated Hitler," ..."
"... "in the Orwellian West, the latest rewriting of history leaves out of the story the Red Army's destruction of the Wehrmacht." ..."
"... "expressed gratitude to 'the peoples of Great Britain, France and the United States of America for their contribution to the victory.'" ..."
"... "do not hear when Russia says 'don't push us this hard, we are not your enemy. We want to be your partners.'" ..."
"... "finally realized that their choice is vassalage or war," ..."
"... "made the mistake that could be fateful for humanity," ..."
The White House is determined to block the rise of the key nuclear-armed nations, Russia and China, neither of whom will join the
"world's acceptance of Washington's hegemony," says head of the Institute for Political Economy, Paul Craig Roberts.
The former
US assistant secretary of the Treasury for economic policy, Dr Paul Craig Roberts, has written on his
blog
that Beijing is currently "confronted with the Pivot to Asia and the construction of new US naval and air bases to ensure Washington's
control of the South China Sea, now defined as an area of American National Interests."
Roberts writes that Washington's commitment to contain Russia is the reason "for the crisis that Washington has created in
Ukraine and for its use as anti-Russian propaganda."
The author of several books, "How America Was Lost" among the latest titles, says that US "aggression and blatant
propaganda have convinced Russia and China that Washington intends war, and this realization has drawn the two countries into a strategic
alliance."
Dr Roberts believes that neither Russia, nor China will meanwhile accept the so-called "vassalage status accepted by the UK,
Germany, France and the rest of Europe, Canada, Japan and Australia." According to the political analyst, the "price of
world peace is the world's acceptance of Washington's hegemony."
"On the foreign policy front, the hubris and arrogance of America's self-image as the 'exceptional, indispensable' country
with hegemonic rights over other countries means that the world is primed for war," Roberts writes.
He gives a gloomy political forecast in his column saying that "unless the dollar and with it US power collapses or Europe
finds the courage to break with Washington and to pursue an independent foreign policy, saying good-bye to NATO, nuclear war is our
likely future."
Russia's far-reaching May 9 Victory Day celebration was meanwhile a "historical turning point," according to Roberts
who says that while Western politicians chose to boycott the 70th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany, "the Chinese were
there in their place," China's president sitting next to President Putin during the military parade on Red Square in Moscow.
A recent poll targeting over 3,000 people in France, Germany and the UK has recently revealed that as little as 13 percent of
Europeans think the Soviet Army played the leading role in liberating Europe from Nazism during WW2. The majority of respondents
– 43 percent – said the US Army played the main role in liberating Europe.
"Russian casualties compared to the combined casualties of the US, UK, and France make it completely clear that it was Russia
that defeated Hitler," Roberts points out, adding that "in the Orwellian West, the latest rewriting of history leaves out
of the story the Red Army's destruction of the Wehrmacht."
The head of the presidential administration, Sergey Ivanov, told RT earlier this month that attempts to diminish the role played
by Russia in defeating Nazi Germany through rewriting history by some Western countries are part of the ongoing campaign to isolate
and alienate Russia.
Dr Roberts has also stated in his column that while the US president only mentioned US forces in his remarks on the 70th anniversary
of the victory, President Putin in contrast "expressed gratitude to 'the peoples of Great Britain, France and the United States
of America for their contribution to the victory.'"
The political analyst notes that America along with its allies "do not hear when Russia says 'don't push us this hard, we
are not your enemy. We want to be your partners.'"
While Moscow and Beijing have "finally realized that their choice is vassalage or war," Washington "made the mistake
that could be fateful for humanity," according to Dr Roberts.
Title is pretty misleading. It is neoliberals who are snake oil sellers. In no way FDR was
a snake oil seller.
Notable quotes:
"... People aren't so much voting _for_ snake oil as _against_ the status quo. ..."
"... False analogies. Time for "change", no expectation of "hope" from the bomber* who got the Nobel peace prize. 'Snake oil'+ from both sides in 2016. Add a dash of corruption and rigged system. The corrupt snake oil sales pitch who lost to the unorganized snake oil sales pitch. ..."
"... From my prospective the donkey-s were pushing more of the same conservative party-line straight from 1928. The publicans had deep vested interest in the same failed approach to culture, society, economy, and finance. The same except for one of its hopeful candidates who saw the problem, some of the remedies, and a path towards the control tower using the popular but outdated methods of pandering to our most disgusting instincts of evil. Sure! ..."
"... Snake oil salesmen, eh? One only has to read Minsky on the neoclassical assumptions or, for that matter, Milton Friedman on why nonsense is perfectly fine to know who the big league snake oil salesmen have been. People voting for Brexit and Trump were voting for anything but the snake oil status quo. ..."
"... The Establishment isn't delivering so you get populists on the left and right. ..."
"... Make me think of the Middle East where the West destroyed the communists and socialists and so all that was left was the military-backed authoritarians and the mosques with their "snake oil." ..."
"... "Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people" ..."
"... Seems it to difficult to admit globalization damaged US workers, so the fall back is to call workers gullible and racist. ..."
Clearly Keynes and FDR were snake-oil salesmen. The Progressive New Deal Era (1932-80) being the
biggest economic muckup in the history of humanity!
Thankfully Friedman came along and made America and the world great again. (Just a slight kink
in the model: the global economy teetering on the verge of collapse into fascist revolutions and
world war. Nothing a little free-market medicine can't nip in the bud!)
False analogies.
Time for "change", no expectation of "hope" from the bomber* who got the Nobel peace prize.
'Snake oil'+ from both sides in 2016. Add a dash of corruption and rigged system. The corrupt snake oil sales pitch who lost to the unorganized snake oil sales pitch.
If the faux left don't get some logic it needs to be replaced by a leftie of the Trump brand.
have become "homogeneous", while Lebanon has not thrived as a nation
"
~~steve randy waldman~
Populist Politicians
From the steve quotation you can guess that USA has thrived thus all our long list of ethnicity-s
are mutually dissolving each into the other. As interbreeding proceeds you can see the evidence
within Gaussian distribution of each ethnic feature. We are now a nation of one people.
If it then follows that the recent election was not merely all things racism, what was the
focus of the candidates?
From my prospective the donkey-s were pushing more of the same conservative party-line straight
from 1928. The publicans had deep vested interest in the same failed approach to culture, society,
economy, and finance. The same except for one of its hopeful candidates who saw the problem, some
of the remedies, and a path towards the control tower using the popular but outdated methods of
pandering to our most disgusting instincts of evil. Sure!
His vision is incomplete. He is still searching for the answers, but he is certain that we
cannot return to the cold war of 1950. Will he rediscover deflation, full reserve banking, green
transportation, a gentler approach to the Luddites?
We need to support his search for a more sustainable USA, a more sustainable planet, a more
sustainable
Snake oil salesmen, eh?
One only has to read Minsky on the neoclassical assumptions or, for that matter, Milton Friedman
on why nonsense is perfectly fine to know who the big league snake oil salesmen have been. People
voting for Brexit and Trump were voting for anything but the snake oil status quo.
There are populists and then there are demagogues masquerading as populists. Stamp out the
populists with constant ridicule from the crackpot realists and all that will be left are the
demagogues who style themselves as populists.
As my old Bronx doctor, Seymour Tenzer, put it: "All these histories are bullshit -- I got
punched in the chest; that's why I've got a lump." [:-)]
Trump's victory is down to the disappearance of the $800 job for the $400 job. That subtracted
from the vote in the black ghettos – and added to the vote in the white ghettos -- both ghettos
being far off the radar screen of academic liberals like Hill and O.
I notice the white ghettos because that is me. My old taxi job (much too old now at 72 3/4)
was "in-sourced" all over the world to drivers who would work for remarkably less (than the not
so great incomes we native born eked out). Today's low skilled jobs go to native and foreign born
who willing to show up for $400 (e.g., since Walmart gutted supermarket contracts). Fast food
strictly to foreign born who will show up for $290 a week (min wage $400, 1968 -- when per cap
income half today's).
Don't expect the 100,000 out of maybe 200,000 Chicago gang age males to show up for a life
time of $400/wk servitude. Did I mention, manufacturing was down to 6% of employment 15 years
ago -- now 4% (disappearing like farm labor, mostly robo; look to health care for the future?)?
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/gang-wars-at-the-root-of-chicagos-high-murder-rate/
6% union density at private employers = 20/10 BP which starves every healthy process in the
social body = disappearance of collective bargaining and its institutional concomitants which
supply political funding and lobbying equal to oligarchs plus most all the votes ...
... votes: notice? 45% take 10% of overall income -- 45% earn $15/hr or less -- a lot of votes.
The Establishment isn't delivering so you get populists on the left and right. Would Dillow or
SWL call Corbyn and Sanders snake oil salesmen?
The centrists do. The corrupt corporate media makes a point to do that.
Make me think of the Middle East where the West destroyed the communists and socialists and
so all that was left was the military-backed authoritarians and the mosques with their "snake
oil."
"Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul
of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people"
"... the media is not in competition with talking about disenchantment over globalisation and de-industrialisation, but a complement to it. ..."
"... This piece is right on the money and nails the ultimate failure of our modern corporate media. ..."
"... Modern corporate media is in existence to make more money, not to serve society. Whatever makes (the collective) us more likely to pay attention to the media is what the media will serve up. With the failure of old style media we have to be concerned whether an actual informed political discourse will be possible. ..."
"... These 6 Corporations Control 90% Of The Media In America http://www.morriscreative.com/6-corporations-control-90-of-the-media-in-america/ ..."
"... People are looking for scapegoats and the corrupt corporate media are misleading them, along with politicians. Why are they looking for scapegoats? Not simply because they're wealthy racist Trump supporters who long for the good old days, as the center-left is telling us. ..."
"... The corrupt corporate media was incredibly unfair to both Bernie Sanders and Jeremby Corbyn but the Blairites and Clinton supporters were okay with that. Sanders was quite good on calling out the media. We need more of that. ..."
"... "We know that erecting trade barriers is harmful: the only question is whether in this case it will be pretty harmful or very harmful"...to whom? To the elites? Or to those who voted for Brexit? ..."
"... Instead of constantly harping on the illusory 'free trade is a free lunch for all,' 'liberal' economists need to start taking responsibility for not emphasizing or even acknowledging that free trade is not a panacea...it has real downsides for many...and real benefits mostly for elites that negotiated the deals. ..."
"... Too many were severely harmed by off shoring and illegal immigration. ..."
This could be the subtitle of the
talk
I will be giving later today. I will have more to say in later posts, plus a link to the
full text..., but I thought I would make this important point here about why I keep going on about
the media. In thinking about Brexit and Trump, talking about the media is not in competition with
talking about disenchantment over globalisation and de-industrialisation, but a complement to it.
I don't blame the media for this disenchantment, which is real enough, but for the fact that it is
leading people to make choices which are clearly bad for society as a whole, and in many cases will
actually make them worse off. They are choices which in an important sense are known to be wrong.
Modern corporate media is in existence to make more money, not to serve society. Whatever
makes (the collective) us more likely to pay attention to the media is what the media will serve
up. With the failure of old style media we have to be concerned whether an actual informed political
discourse will be possible.
Case in Point: Fake Media. As documented in the WaPo yesterday, two unemployed restaurant workers (McDonalds?) made a
fortune with their fake news website that collected ad revenue from the likes of Facebook. They
didn't bother with any facts; just published stories they knew would attract right wing extremists.
They really worked at their craft using specific language and formats to draw in eyeballs.
It worked beyond their wildest expectations and they won't even discuss how much money they made.
Something tells me there might be a bit of "fake news" creation going on in those shops, eh? But
no, let's pull out our hair over some 20-year-old with a Facebook feed. And -- censor! For the
greater good, naturally.
"In thinking about Brexit and Trump, talking about the media is not in competition with talking
about disenchantment over globalisation and de-industrialisation, but a complement to it."
People are looking for scapegoats and the corrupt corporate media are misleading them, along
with politicians. Why are they looking for scapegoats? Not simply because they're wealthy racist Trump supporters
who long for the good old days, as the center-left is telling us.
The corrupt corporate media was incredibly unfair to both Bernie Sanders and Jeremby Corbyn
but the Blairites and Clinton supporters were okay with that. Sanders was quite good on calling
out the media. We need more of that.
The SyFy Channel has a new series called Incorporated about a dystopian America set in 2074 where
global climate change has wrecked havoc on politics and society. Giant multinational corporations
have stepped in and taken over for governments as America's class divisions have sharpened between
the haves and the have-nots. You can watch the first episode online.
Globalization is not Pareto improving. Maybe it could be done in a way that is, but until then,
the "media" is correct to paint a disenchanting picture
Pareto improving assumes we compensates those who lose from globalization. This is well known.
What else is well known is we have a terrible track record on this score.
"We know that erecting trade barriers is harmful: the only question is whether in this case it
will be pretty harmful or very harmful"...to whom? To the elites? Or to those who voted for Brexit?
Instead of constantly harping on the illusory 'free trade is a free lunch for all,' 'liberal'
economists need to start taking responsibility for not emphasizing or even acknowledging that
free trade is not a panacea...it has real downsides for many...and real benefits mostly for elites
that negotiated the deals.
Why do 'liberal' economists insist on invalidating the life experience of so many?
Wisdom implies giving a good look to the consequences, and taking measures to ameliorate those
negative. Too many were severely harmed by off shoring and illegal immigration. These weren't
without consequences and maybe not even, on balance, gainful.
In the future, let those best able to make any necessary sacrifices and adjustments.
As my old Bronx doctor, Seymour Tenzer, put it: "All these histories are bullshit -- I got punched
in the chest; that's why I've got a lump."
Trump's victory is down to the disappearance of the $800 [a week] job for the $400 job. That subtracted
from the vote in the black ghettos – and added to the vote in the white ghettos -- both ghettos
being far off the radar screen of academic liberals like Hill and O.
I notice the white ghettos because that is me. My old taxi job (much too old now at 72 3/4)
was "in-sourced" all over the world to drivers who would work for remarkably less (than the not
so great incomes we native born eked out). Today's low skilled jobs go to native and foreign born
who willing to show up for $400 (e.g., since Walmart gutted supermarket contracts). Fast food
strictly to foreign born who will show up for $290 a week (min wage $400, 1968 -- when per cap
income half today's).
Don't expect the 100,000 out of maybe 200,000 Chicago gang age males to show up for a life
time of $400/wk servitude. Did I mention, manufacturing was down to 6% of employment 15 years
ago -- now 4% (disappearing like farm labor, mostly robo; look to health care for the future?)?
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/gang-wars-at-the-root-of-chicagos-high-murder-rate/
6% union density at private employers = 20/10 BP which starves every healthy process in the
social body = disappearance of collective bargaining and its institutional concomitants which
supply political funding and lobbying equal to oligarchs plus most all the votes ...
... votes: notice? 45% take 10% of overall income -- 45% earn $15/hr or less -- a lot of votes.
A crisis of legitimacy . People are fed up with politics. Do not blame globalisation for
that. Sep 27th 2001 | From the print edition. Timekeeper. Add this article to ...
Legitimacy: Legitimation Crises and Its Causes - Political Science Notes www.politicalsciencenotes.com/
legitimacy / legitimacy -legitimation- crises -and-its.../797
Causes of Legitimation Crisis : There are several causes or aspects of legitimation crisis
. Habermas and several other neo-Marxists, after studying all the aspects of capitalist
societies, have concluded that a number of factors are responsible for the legitimation crisis
The Global Crisis of Legitimacy . Geopolitical Weekly. May 4, 2010 | 08:56 GMT. Print. Text
Size. By George Friedman. Financial panics are an integral part of ...
by GE Reyes - 2010 -
Cited by 1 -
Related articles Theoretical basis of crisis of legitimacy and implications for less
developed countries: Guatemala as a case of study. TENDENCIAS. Revista de la Facultad de ...
by A Mattelaer - 2014 -
Related articles Mar 21, 2014 - generalised crisis in legitimacy , our democracies
face a crisis of legitimation: political choices are in dire need of an explanatory narrative
that.
The Legitimacy Crisis | RealClearPolitics www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2015/05/08/the_
legitimacy _ crisis _126530.html
May 8, 2015 - American government - at all levels - is losing the legitimacy it needs to
function. Or, perhaps, some segments of the government have ...
The third dimension of the crisis that I identify is the crisis of legitimacy of US hegemony.
This, I think, is as serious as the other two crises, since, as an admirer of ...
The Crisis of Legitimacy in Africa. Abiola Irele ▫ Summer 1992. A bleak picture emerges
from today's Africa. One glaring aspect is the material deprivation ...
"... With Trump, exactly the same thing has happened as with my Five Star Movement, which was born of the Internet: the media were taken aback and asked us where we were before. We gathered millions of people in public squares and they marvelled. We became the biggest movement in Italy and journalists and philosophers continued to say that we were benefitting from people's dissatisfaction. ..."
"... the amateurs are the ones conquering the world and I'm rejoicing in it because the professionals are the ones who have reduced the world to this state. Hillary Clinton, Obama and all the rest have destroyed democracy and their international policies. ..."
"... If that's the case, it signifies that the experts, economists and intellectuals have completely misunderstood everything, especially if the situation is the way it is ..."
"... Brexit and Trump are signs of a huge change. If we manage to understand that, we'll also get to face it." ..."
"... Until now, these anti-establishment movements have come face-to-face with their own limits: as soon as they come to power they seem to lose their capabilities and reason for being. Alexis Tsipras, in Greece, for example ..."
"... President Juncker suggested modifying the code of ethics and lengthening the period of abstinence from any private work for former Commission members to three years. Is that enough? ..."
"... I have serious doubts about a potential change in the code of ethics being made by a former minister of a tax haven. ..."
"... We've always maintained this idea of total autonomy in decision-making, but we united over the common idea of a different Europe, a mosaic of autonomies and sovereignties. ..."
"... If he wants to hold a referendum on the euro, he'll have our support. If he wants to leave the Fiscal Stability Treaty – the so-called Fiscal Compact – which was one of our battles, we'll be there ..."
"... Renzi's negotiating power will also depend on the outcome of the constitutional referendum in December. We'll see whether he sinks or swims. ..."
"... Neoliberal Trojan Horse Obama has quite a global legacy. ..."
"... Maybe it's time for the Europeans to stop sucking American cock. Note that we barely follow your elections. It's time to spread your wings and fly. ..."
"... "The Experts* Destroyed The World" - Beppe Grillo. Never a truer word spoken, Beppe! YOU DA MAN!!! And these "Experts" - these self-described "ELITE" - did so - and are STILL doing so WITH MALICIOUS INTENT - and lining their pockets every fking step of the way! ..."
"... As the Jason Statham character says in that great Guy Richie movie "Revolver": "If there's ONE thing I've learnt about "Experts", it's that they're expert in FUCK ALL!" ..."
"... Apart from asset-stripping the economy & robbing the populace blind that is - and giving their countries away to the invader so indigenous populations cant fight back... or PURPOSELY angling for WW3 to hide their criminality behind the ULTIMATE & FINAL smokescreen. ..."
"... It NATO collapses so will the Euro project. The project was always American from the start. In recent years it has become a mechanism by which the Poles (and other assorted Eastern Europeans) can extract war guarantees out of the USA, UK and France. It is a total mess and people like Grillo add to the confusion by their flawed analysis. ..."
Whatever the reason, we agree with the next point he makes, namely the overthrow of "experts" by
amateurs.
euronews: "Do you think appealing to people's emotions is enough to get elected?
Is that a political project?"
Beppe Grillo: "This information never ceases to make the rounds: you don't
have a political project, you're not capable, you're imbeciles, amateurs And yet, the
amateurs are the ones conquering the world and I'm rejoicing in it because the professionals are
the ones who have reduced the world to this state. Hillary Clinton, Obama and all the rest have
destroyed democracy and their international policies. If that's the case, it signifies
that the experts, economists and intellectuals have completely misunderstood everything, especially
if the situation is the way it is. If the EU is what we have today, it means the European
dream has evaporated. Brexit and Trump are signs of a huge change. If we manage to understand
that, we'll also get to face it."
Bingo, or as Nassim Taleb put its, the "Intellectual-Yet-Idiot"
class. It is the elimination of these so-called "experts", most of whom have PhDs or other letters
next to their name to cover their insecurity, and who drown every possible medium with their endless,
hollow, and constantly wrong chatter, desperate to create a self-congratulatory echo
chamber in which their errors are diluted with the errors of their "expert" peers,
that will be the biggest challenge for the world as it seeks to break away from the legacy of a fake
"expert class" which has brought the entire world to its knees, and has unleashed the biggest political
tsunami in modern history.
One thing is certain: the "experts" won't go quietly as the "amateurs" try to retake what is rightfully
theirs.
... ... ...
Beppe Grillo, Leader of the Five Star Movement
"It's an extraordinary turning point. This corn cob – we can also call Trump that in a nice way –
doesn't have particularly outstanding qualities. He was such a target for the media, with such terrifying
accusations of sexism and racism, as well as being harassed by the establishment – such as the New
York Times – but, in the end, he won.
"That is a symbol of the tragedy and the apocalypse of traditional information. The television
and newspapers are always late and they relay old information. They no longer anticipate anything
and they're only just understanding that idiots, the disadvantaged, those who are marginalised –
and there are millions of them – use alternative media, such as the Internet, which passes under
the radar of television, a medium people no longer use.
"With Trump, exactly the same thing has happened as with my Five Star Movement, which was
born of the Internet: the media were taken aback and asked us where we were before. We gathered millions
of people in public squares and they marvelled. We became the biggest movement in Italy and journalists
and philosophers continued to say that we were benefitting from people's dissatisfaction. We'll
get into government and they'll ask themselves how we did it."
euronews
"There is a gap between giving populist speeches and governing a nation."
Beppe Grillo
"We want to govern, but we don't want to simply change the power by replacing it with our own. We
want a change within civilisation, a change of world vision.
"We're talking about dematerialised industry, an end to working for money, the start of working
for other payment, a universal citizens revenue. If our society is founded on work, what will happen
if work disappears? What will we do with millions of people in flux? We have to organise and manage
all that."
euronews
"Do you think appealing to people's emotions is enough to get elected? Is that a political project?"
Beppe Grillo
"This information never ceases to make the rounds: you don't have a political project, you're
not capable, you're imbeciles, amateurs
"And yet, the amateurs are the ones conquering the world and I'm rejoicing in it because the
professionals are the ones who have reduced the world to this state. Hillary Clinton, Obama and all
the rest have destroyed democracy and their international policies.
"If that's the case, it signifies that the experts, economists and intellectuals have completely
misunderstood everything, especially if the situation is the way it is. If the EU is what we
have today, it means the European dream has evaporated. Brexit and Trump are signs of a huge
change. If we manage to understand that, we'll also get to face it."
euronews
"Until now, these anti-establishment movements have come face-to-face with their own limits:
as soon as they come to power they seem to lose their capabilities and reason for being. Alexis Tsipras,
in Greece, for example "
Beppe Grillo
"Yes, I agree."
euronews
"Let's take the example of Podemos in Spain. They came within reach of power, then had to backtrack.
Why?"
Beppe Grillo
"Because there's an outdated way of thinking. Because they think power is managed by forming coalitions
or by making agreements with others.
"From our side, we want to give the tools to the citizens. We have an information system called
Rousseau, to which every Italian citizen can subscribe for free. There they can vote in regional
and local elections and check what their local MPs are proposing. Absolutely any citizen can even
suggest laws in their own name.
"This is something never before directly seen in democracy and neither Tsipras nor Podemos have
done it."
euronews
"You said that you're not interested in breaking up the European Union, but rather in profoundly
changing it. What can a small group of MEPs do to put into motion such great change?"
Beppe Grillo
"The little group of MEPs is making its voice heard, but there are complications In parliament,
there are lobby groups and commissions. Parliament decides, but at the same time doesn't decide.
"We do what we can, in line with our vision of a world based on a circular economy. We put forward
the idea of a circular economy as the energy of the future and the proposal has been adopted by the
European parliament."
euronews
"One hot topic at the Commission at the moment is the problem of the conflicts of interest concerning
certain politicians.
"President Juncker suggested modifying the code of ethics and lengthening the period of abstinence
from any private work for former Commission members to three years. Is that enough?"
Beppe Grillo
"I have serious doubts about a potential change in the code of ethics being made by a former
minister of a tax haven."
euronews
"You don't think the Commission is legitimate?"
Beppe Grillo
"Absolutely not. Particularly because it's a Commission that no one has actually elected. That's
what brought us closer to Nigel Farage: a democracy coming from the people."
euronews "You don't regret being allied with Farage?"
Beppe Grillo
"It was an alliance of convenience, made to give us enough support to enter parliament. We've
always maintained this idea of total autonomy in decision-making, but we united over the common idea
of a different Europe, a mosaic of autonomies and sovereignties.
"I'm not against Europe, but I am against the single currency. Conversely, I am for the idea of
a common currency. The words are important: 'common' and 'single' are two different concepts.
"In any case, the UK has demonstrated something that we in Italy couldn't even dream of: organising
a clear 'yes-no' referendum."
euronews
"That is 'clear' in terms of the result and not its consequences. In reality, the population is torn.
Many people's views have done u-turns."
Beppe Grillo
"Whatever happens, the responsibility returns entirely to the British. They made the decision."
euronews
"Doesn't it bother you that Italy's Prime Minister Matteo Renzi is playing the spoilsport in Europe?
Criticising European institutions was your battle horse and now he is flexing his muscles in Brussels."
Beppe Grillo
"Renzi has to do that. But he's just copying me and in doing so, strengthens the original."
euronews
"Whatever it may be, his position at the head of the government can get him results."
Beppe Grillo
"Very well. If he wants to hold a referendum on the euro, he'll have our support. If he wants
to leave the Fiscal Stability Treaty – the so-called Fiscal Compact – which was one of our battles,
we'll be there."
euronews
"In the quarrel over the flexibility of public accounts due to the earthquake and immigration, who
are you supporting?"
Beppe Grillo "On that, I share Renzi's position. I have nothing against projects and ideas. I have preconceptions
about him. For me, he is completely undeserving of confidence."
euronews
"Renzi's negotiating power will also depend on the outcome of the constitutional referendum in
December. We'll see whether he sinks or swims."
Beppe Grillo
"It's already lost for him."
euronews
"If he doesn't win, will you ask for early elections?"
Beppe Grillo
"Whatever happens, we want elections because the government as it stands is not legitimate and, as
a consequence, neither are we.
"From this point onwards, the government moves forward simply by approving laws based on how urgent
they are. And 90 percent of laws are approved using this method. So what good will it do to reform
the Senate to make the process quicker?"
euronews
"Can you see yourself at the head of the Italian government?"
Beppe Grillo
"No, no. I was never in the race. Never."
euronews
"So, Beppe Grillo is not even a candidate to become prime minister or to take on another official
role, if one day the Five Star Movement was to win the elections?"
Beppe Grillo
"The time is fast approaching."
euronews
"Really? A projection?"
Beppe Grillo
"People just need to go and vote. We're sure to win."
BabaLooey -> Nemontel •Nov 21, 2016 6:27 AM
euronews: "You don't think the Commission is legitimate?"
Beppe Grillo: "Absolutely not. Particularly because it's a Commission that no one has
actually elected. That's what brought us closer to Nigel Farage: a democracy coming from the people."
BOILED DOWN - THAT IS ALL THAT NEEDS TO BE SAID.
Blackhawks •Nov 21, 2016 3:15 AM
Neoliberal Trojan Horse Obama has quite a global legacy. People all over the world
are voting for conmen and clowns instead of his endorsed candidates and chosen successor. Having
previously exposed the "intellectual-yet-idiot" class, Nassim Taleb unleashes his acerbic
tone in 3 painfully "real news" tweets on President Obama's legacy...
Obama:
Protected banksters (largest bonus pool in 2010)
"Helped" Libya
Served AlQaeda/SaudiBarbaria(Syria & Yemen) https://t.co/bcNMhDgmuo
Maybe it's time for the Europeans to stop sucking American cock. Note that we barely follow
your elections. It's time to spread your wings and fly.
Yen Cross -> LetThemEatRand •Nov 21, 2016 3:27 AM
Amen~ The" European Toadies" should also institute " term limits" so those Jean Paul & Draghi][JUNKERS[]-
technocratic A-Holes can be done away with!
NuYawkFrankie •Nov 21, 2016 5:07 AM
"The Experts* Destroyed The World" - Beppe Grillo. Never a truer word spoken, Beppe! YOU
DA MAN!!! And these "Experts" - these self-described "ELITE" - did so - and are STILL doing so
WITH MALICIOUS INTENT - and lining their pockets every fking step of the way!
As the Jason Statham character says in that great Guy Richie movie "Revolver": "If there's
ONE thing I've learnt about "Experts", it's that they're expert in FUCK ALL!"
Apart from asset-stripping the economy & robbing the populace blind that is - and giving
their countries away to the invader so indigenous populations cant fight back... or PURPOSELY
angling for WW3 to hide their criminality behind the ULTIMATE & FINAL smokescreen.
Yep -THAT is how F'KING sick they are. These, my friends, are your "Experts", your self-decribed
"Elite" - and Soros is at the head of the parade.
lakecity55 -> NuYawkFrankie •Nov 21, 2016 6:18 AM
You know the old saying, "an expert's a guy from more than 20 miles outside of town."
tuetenueggel •Nov 21, 2016 5:17 AM
Which experts do you mean Beppe ?
All I Kow is that those "experts" are too stupid to piss a hole in the snow.
Oettinger ( not even speaking his mother tongue halfways correct )
Jean clown Juncker ( always drunk too is a kind of well structured day )
Schulz capo (who was too stupid as mayor of a german village so they fucked him out)
Hollande ( lefts are always of lower IQ then right wing people )
Blair ( war criminal )
and thousands more not to be named her ( due to little space availlable )
caesium •Nov 21, 2016 6:35 AM
It NATO collapses so will the Euro project. The project was always American from the start.
In recent years it has become a mechanism by which the Poles (and other assorted Eastern Europeans)
can extract war guarantees out of the USA, UK and France. It is a total mess and people like Grillo
add to the confusion by their flawed analysis.
The bedrock of Italy was always the Catholic faith which the country has abandoned. "The Faith
is Europe and Europe is the Faith" said Hilaire Belloc. A reality that Grillo is unable to grasp.
Trump essentially betrayed Flynn, who tried to did the billing of Kushner and persuade Russia to abstain from anti-Israel vote.
Notable quotes:
"... The big takeaways from this book is the (1) systemic manipulation of intelligence analysts' conclusions to fit political narratives (I have personally seen my work modified to "soften" the message/conclusions for x, y, or z reasons) and (2) Radical Islam is not a new phenomenon that spawned as a response to "American imperialism" as often preached from the lecterns of western universities. ..."
"... There is no love lost between Lt Gen Flynn and President Obama, and Flynn's frustration with Obama's lack of leadership is clear throughout this work. ..."
"... General Flynn is a career Army combat intelligence officer with extensive hard experience mostly in the Middle East, a lifetime Democrat, who seems to understand and is able to clearly and concisely define the threat of Radical Islam (NOT all Islam) far better than both the Bush ("W") and Obama administrations politicos in Washington were willing to hear or accept. ..."
"... in contrast to what his detractors might opine, General Flynn is speaking of Radical Islam as a "tribal cult," and not taking aim at the religion itself. ..."
"... The general's comments on human intelligence and interrogation operations being virtually nonexistent makes one wonder if all the Lessons Learned that are written after every conflict and stored away are then never looked at again - I suspect it's true. ..."
"... My unit, the 571st MI Detachment of the 525th MI Group, ran agents (HUMINT) throughout I Corps/FRAC in Vietnam. The Easter Offensive of 1972 was actually known and reported by our unit before and during the NVA's invasion of the South. We were virtually the only intelligence source available for the first couple of weeks because of weather. Search the internet for The Easter Offensive of 1972: A Failure to Use Intelligence. ..."
"... I totally concur with Lt. General, Michael T. Flynn, US Army, (ret), that any solution to "Radical Islamic Terrorism" today has to also resolve the ideology issue, along side the other recommendations that he discusses in his book. ..."
"... Provocative, bellicose, rhetorical, and patriotic, the author leaves the reader wondering if his understanding of the enemy is hubris or sagacity. Much of that confusion can be attributed to conditioning as a an American and seeing prosecution of American wars as apolitical and astrategic. General Flynn's contribution to the way forward, "Field of Fight" is certainly political and at a minimum operational strategy. His practical experience is normative evidence to take him at his word for what he concludes is the next step to deal with radicals and reactionaries of political Islam. ..."
"... One paradox that he never solved was his deliberate attempt to frame terrorist as nothing more that organized crime, but at the same respect condemn governments that are "Islamic Republics," whom attempt to enforce the laws as an ineffective solution, and attempting to associate the with the other 1.6 billion Muslims by painting them as "Radical Islam." ..."
When I had heard
in the news that Lt Gen Flynn might be chosen by Donald Trump as his Vice Presidential nominee,
I was quick to do some research on Flynn and came across this work. Having worked in the intelligence
community myself in the past several years, I was intrigued to hear what the previous director
of the DIA had to say. I have read many books on the topic of Islam and I am glad I picked this
up.
The big takeaways from this book is the (1) systemic manipulation of intelligence analysts'
conclusions to fit political narratives (I have personally seen my work modified to "soften" the
message/conclusions for x, y, or z reasons) and (2) Radical Islam is not a new phenomenon that
spawned as a response to "American imperialism" as often preached from the lecterns of western
universities.
If you have formed your opinion of Islam and the nature of the West's fight in the Middle East
on solely what you hear in the main steam media (all sides), you would do well to read this book
as a starting point into self-education on an incredibly complex topic.
There is no love lost between Lt Gen Flynn and President Obama, and Flynn's frustration
with Obama's lack of leadership is clear throughout this work. Usually this political opining
in a work such as this is distracting, but it does add much-needed context to decisions and events.
That said, Lt Gen Flynn did a great job addressing a complex topic in plain language. While this
is not a seminal work on
General Flynn is a career Army combat intelligence officer with extensive hard experience mostly
in the Middle East, a lifetime Democrat, who seems to understand and is able to clearly and concisely
define the threat of Radical Islam (NOT all Islam) far better than both the Bush ("W") and Obama
administrations politicos in Washington were willing to hear or accept.
He supports what he can
tell us with citations. Radical Islam has declared war on Western democracies, most of all on
the US. Its allies include Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, and others. Their war against us
is a long-term effort, and our politicians (except Trump?) don't want to hear it. We need to demand
that our politicos prepare for this assault and start taking wise, strong steps to defeat it.
Western Europe may already have been fatally infiltrated by "refugees" who will seek to Islamize
it, and current birth rates suggest that those nations will have Muslim majorities in 20 years.
General Flynn details what we must do to survive the assault. I bought the Kindle version and
began reading it, but then paid more for the audible version so that I could get through it faster.
Please buy and read this book!
Looking Inward First, is What Generates the Strategy-Shifting Process. Flynn Gets This. Few
Others Do.
To begin with, I will say that the book is not exactly what one might expect from a recently
retired General. For starters, there were numerous spelling errors, an assortment of colloquialisms
and some instances in which the prose took on a decidedly partisan tone. The means of documenting
sources was something akin to a blog-posting, in that he simply copied and pasted links to pages,
right into the body of the work. I would have liked to have seen a more thoroughly researched
and properly cited work. All of this was likely due to the fact that General Flynn released his
book in the days leading up to Donald J. Trump's announcement of his Vice Presidential pick. As
Flynn is apparently a close national security advisor to Trump, I can understand why his work
appears to be somewhat harried. Nonetheless, I think that the book's timeliness is useful, as
the information it contains might be helpful in guiding Americans' election choices. I also think
that despite the absence of academic rigor, it makes his work more accessible. No doubt, this
is probably one of Mr. Trump's qualities and one that has catapulted him to national fame and
serious consideration for the office he seeks. General Flynn makes a number of important points,
which, despite my foregoing adverse commentary, gives me the opportunity to endorse it as an essential
read.
In the introductory chapter, General Flynn lays out his credentials, defines the problem, and
proceeds to inform the reader of the politically guided element that clouds policy prescriptions.
Indeed, he is correct to call attention to the fact that the Obama administration has deliberately
exercised its commanding authority in forbidding the attachment of the term "Islam" when speaking
of the threat posed by extremists who advocate and carry out violence in the religion's name.
As one who suffered at the hands of the administration for speaking truth to power, he knows all
too well what others in the Intelligence Community (IC) must suffer in order to hold onto their
careers.
In chapter one, he discusses where he came from and how he learned valuable lessons at home
and in service to his country. He also gives the reader a sense of the geopolitical context in
which Radical Islamists have been able to form alliances with our worst enemies. This chapter
also introduces the reader to some of his personal military heroes, as he delineates how their
mentorship shaped his thinking on military and intelligence matters. A key lesson to pay attention
to in this chapter is what some, including General Flynn, call 'politicization of intelligence.'
Although he maintains that both the present and previous administration have been guilty of this,
he credits the Bush administration with its strategic reconsideration of the material facts and
a search for better answers. (He mentions this again in the next chapter on p.42, signifying this
capability as a "leadership characteristic" and later recalls the president's "insight and courage"
on p. 154.)
Chapter two of The Field of Fight features an excellent summary of what transpires in a civil
war and the manner in which Iraqis began to defect from al-Qa'ida and cooperate with U.S. forces.
In this task, he explains for the layperson what many scholars do, but in far fewer pages. Again,
this makes his work more accessible. He also works through the process of intelligence failures
that are, in his opinion, produced by a superordinate policy failure housed in the upper echelons
of the military structure. In essence, it was a misperception (willful or not) that guided thinking
about the cause of the insurgency, that forbade an ability to properly address it with a population-centric
Counterinsurgency (COIN) strategy. He pays homage to the adaptability and ingenuity of General
Stanley McChrystal's Task Force 714, but again mentions the primary barrier to its success was
bureaucratic in nature.
The main thrust of chapter 3, aptly named "The Enemy Alliance," is geared toward tying together
the earlier assertion in chapter regarding the synergy between state actors like Iran, North Korea,
Syria, and the like. It has been documented elsewhere, but the Iranian (non-Arab Shi'a) connection
to the al-Qa'ida (Arab Sunni) terrorist organization can't be denied. Flynn correctly points out
how the relationship between strange bedfellows is not new in the Middle East. He briefly discusses
how this has been the case since the 1970s, with specific reference to the PLO, Iran, Syria, Hamas,
Hezbollah, Bosnia and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's. He also references President Obama's "curious sympathy"
(p. 92) for enemies in places such as Venezuela and Cuba.
General Flynn then reminds readers of some facts that have either been forgotten, or virtually
unknown, by most Americans. Namely, the role that Saddam Hussein actually played with regard to
the recruitment of foreign terrorists, the internal policies of appeasement for Islamists in his
army and the support he lent to Islamists in other countries (e.g., Egypt, Sudan and Afghanistan).
He also reminds the readers of the totalitarian mindset that consumes Islamist groups, such as
al-Qa'ida and the Islamic State. All the while, and in contrast to what his detractors might opine,
General Flynn is speaking of Radical Islam as a "tribal cult," and not taking aim at the religion
itself. This chapter is perhaps the most robust in the book and it is the sort of reading that
every American should do before they engage in conversations about the nature of political Islam.
Chapter four is a blueprint for winning what used to be called the 'global war on terror.' Although
such a phraseology is generally laughed at in many policy circles, it is clear, as General Flynn
demonstrates, that some groups and countries are locked in combat with us and our partners in
the West. Yet, as he correctly points out, the Obama administration isn't willing to use global
American leadership in order to defeat those who see us, and treat us, as their collective enemy.
General Flynn's prescription includes four strategic objectives, which I won't recite here, as
I'm not looking to violate any copyright laws. The essence of his suggestions, however, starts
with an admission of who the enemy is, a commitment to their destruction, the abandonment of any
unholy alliances we have made over the years, and a counter-ideological program for combating
what is largely an ideologically-based enemy strong suit. He points to some of the facts that
describe the dismal state of affairs in the Arab world, the most damning of which appear on pages
127-128, and then says what many are afraid to say on page 133: "Radical Islam is a totalitarian
political ideology wrapped in the Islamic religion." Nonetheless, Flynn discusses some of the
more mundane and pecuniary sources of their strength and the means that might be tried in an effort
to undermine them.
The concluding chapter of General Flynn's work draws the reader's attention to some of the works
of others that have been overlooked. He then speaks candidly of the misguided assumptions that,
coupled with political and bureaucratic reasons, slows adaptation to the changing threat environment.
Indeed, one of the reasons that I found this book so refreshing is because that sort of bold introspection
is perhaps the requisite starting point for re-thinking bad strategies. In fact, that is the essence
of both the academic and practical work that I have been doing for years. I highly recommend this
book, especially chapter 3, for any student of the IC and the military sciences.
It's ironic that the general wrote about Pattern Analysis, when DIA in late-1971 warned that
the Ho Chi Minh Trail was unusually active using this technique.
The general's comments on human intelligence and interrogation operations being virtually nonexistent
makes one wonder if all the Lessons Learned that are written after every conflict and stored away
are then never looked at again - I suspect it's true.
My unit, the 571st MI Detachment of the 525th MI Group, ran agents (HUMINT) throughout I Corps/FRAC
in Vietnam. The Easter Offensive of 1972 was actually known and reported by our unit before and
during the NVA's invasion of the South. We were virtually the only intelligence source available
for the first couple of weeks because of weather. Search the internet for The Easter Offensive
of 1972: A Failure to Use Intelligence.
At a time when so much is hanging in the balance, General Flynn's book plainly
lays out a strategy for not only fighting ISIS/ISIL but also for preventing totalitarianism from
spreading with Russia, North Korea and Cuba now asserting themselves - again.
Sadly, because there is some mild rebuke towards President Obama, my fear is people who should
read this book to gain a better understanding of the mind of the jihadist won't because they don't
like their president being called out for inadequate leadership. But the fact remains we are at
war with not just one, but several ideologies that have a common enemy - US! But this book is
not about placing blame, it is about winning and what it will take to defeat the enemies of freedom.
We take freedom for granted in the West, to the point where, unlike our enemies, we are no
longer willing to fight hard to preserve those freedoms. General Flynn makes the complicated theatre
of fighting Radical Islam easier to understand. His experience in explaining how we can and have
won on the battlefield gives me great comfort, but also inspires me to want to help fight for
the good cause of freedom.
My sincerest hope is that both Trump and Clinton will read this book and then appoint General
Flynn as our next Defense Secretary!
I totally concur with Lt. General, Michael T. Flynn, US Army, (ret), that any solution to "Radical
Islamic Terrorism" today has to also resolve the ideology issue, along side the other recommendations
that he discusses in his book. All of the radical fighting that has taken place in the world,
ever since the beginning evolution of the Islamic religion over 1400 years ago, has revolved around
radical interpretations of the Qur'an.
Until there is an Islamic religious reformation, there
will never be a lasting resolution to the current "Radical Islamic Terrorist" problem. It is a
religious ideology interpretation issue. Until that interpretation is resolved within the Islamic
world, there will always be continuing radical interpretation outbreaks, from within the entire
Islamic world, against all other forms of non-Islamic religions and their evolving cultures.
If
you require further insight, recommend you read " Heretic, Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now"
, by Ayaan Hirisi Ali. DCC
Provocative, bellicose, rhetorical, and patriotic, the author leaves the
reader wondering if his understanding of the enemy is hubris or sagacity. Much of that confusion
can be attributed to conditioning as a an American and seeing prosecution of American wars as
apolitical and astrategic. General Flynn's contribution to the way forward, "Field of Fight" is
certainly political and at a minimum operational strategy. His practical experience is normative
evidence to take him at his word for what he concludes is the next step to deal with radicals
and reactionaries of political Islam.
One paradox that he never solved was his deliberate attempt to frame terrorist as nothing more
that organized crime, but at the same respect condemn governments that are "Islamic Republics,"
whom attempt to enforce the laws as an ineffective solution, and attempting to associate the with
the other 1.6 billion Muslims by painting them as "Radical Islam."
As if there is any relationship
to relationship to Islam other than it is the predominant religion in a majority of the area where
they commit their criminal activity. As if the political war with terrorist is a function of a
label that is of itself a oversimplification of the issues. Indeed, suggesting it is a nothing
more than 'political correctness" and ignoring the possibility that it might be a function of
setting the conditions in an otherwise polygon of political justice. This argument alone is evidence
of the his willingness to develop domestic political will for war with a simple argument. Nevertheless,
as a national strategy, it lacks the a foundational argument to motivate friendly regional actors
who's authority is founded on political Islam.
In 2008 a national election was held and the pyrrhic nature of the war in Iraq adjudicated
via the process of democratic choice that ended support for continued large scale conventional
occupation. That there is some new will to continue large scale conventional occupation seems
unlikely, and as a democratic country, leaders must find other means to reach the desired end
state, prosecuting contiguous operations to suppress, neutralize, and destroy "ALL" who use terrorism
to expand and enforce their political will with a deliberate limited wars that have methodological
end states. Lastly, sounding more like a General MacArther, the General Flynn's diffuse strategy
seems to ignore the most principles of war deduced by Von Clausewitz and Napoleon: Concentration
of force on the objective to be attacked. Instead, fighting an ideology "Radical Islam" seems
more abstract then any splatter painting of modern are in principle form it suggests a commitment
to simplicity to motivate our nation to prepare for and endure the national commitment to a long
war.
Since we can all agree there is no magical solution, then normative pragmatism of the likes
that General. Flynn's assessment provides, must be taken into account in an operation and tactical
MDMP. Ignoring and silencing Subject Matter Experts (SME's) will net nothing more than failure,
a failure that could be measured in innocent civilian lives as a statistical body count. I could
see General Flynn's suggestions and in expertise bolstering a movement to establish a CORP level
active duty unit to prepare, plan, and implemented in phases 0, IV, & V (JP 5-0) . Bear in mind,
Counter Insurgency (COIN) was never considered a National strategy but instead at tactical strategy
and at most an operational strategy.
Several times in its nearly 250 years of existence our Nation has been at
a crossroads. Looking back on our War for Independence, the Civil War, and WWII we know the decisions
made in those tumultuous times forever altered the destiny of our Republic.
We are once again at one of those crossroads where the battle lines have been drawn, only this
time in an asymmetrical war between western democracy and the radical Islamists and nation states
who nurture them. In his timely book Field of Fight, Lt. General Michael T. Flynn provides a unique
perspective on this war and what he believes are some of the steps necessary to meet this foe.
Field of Fight begins as an autobiography in which the author gives you a sense of who he is
as a man and a soldier. This background information then provides the reader with a better perspective
through which to evaluate his analysis of the challenges we face as well as the course of action
he believes we need to take to meet those challenges.
The following are a few of the guidelines General Flynn proposes for developing a winning strategy
in our war with radical Islam and other potential foes:
1. Properly assess your environment and clearly define your enemy;
2. Face reality – for politicians, this is never an easy thing to do;
3. Understand the social context and fabric of the operational environment;
4. Recognize who's in charge of the enemy's forces.
In Field of Fight General Flynn makes the case that we are losing this war with radical Islam
because our nation's leadership has failed to develop a winning strategy. Further he opines that
our current leaders lack the clarity of vision and moral certitude that understands American democracy
is a "better way", that not all forms of human government are equal, and that there are principled
reasons worth fighting for - the very basic of those being, "life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness."
I'll admit I'm concerned about the future of our country. As a husband and a father of five
I wonder about the world we leaving for our children to inherit. I fear we have lost our moral
compass thus creating a vacuum in which human depravity as exemplified by today's radical Islamists
thrives.
Equally concerning to me is what happens when the pendulum swings the other way. Will we have
the moral and principled leaders to check our indignation before it goes too far? When that heart
rending atrocity which is sure to come finally pushes the American people to white hot wrath who
will hold our own passions in check? In a nation where Judeo-Christian moral absolutes are an
outdated notion what will keep us from becoming that which we most hate?
As I stated at the start of this review, today we are at a crossroads. Once again our nation
needs principled men and women in positions of leadership who understand the Field of Fight as
described by General Flynn and have the wisdom and courage to navigate this battlefield.
* * *
In summary, although I don't agree with everything written in this book I found it to be an
educational read which will provided me with much food for thought over the coming months. As
a representative republic choosing good leadership requires that we as citizens understand the
problems and challenges we face as a nation. Today radical Islam is one of those challenges and
General Flynn's book Field of Fight: How We Can Win the Global War Against Radical Islam and Its
Allies gives a much needed perspective on the subject.
Gen Flynn has been in the news a lot lately. He apparently did not get on well in DC with his
views on fighting terrorism. That is very relevant now as we are seeking better ways to fight
ISIS and terror in general. I read his book today to learn what is on his mind. Flynn had a lot
of experience starting in the 82nd Airborne and was almost always in intelligence work. Army intelligence
is narrowly focused - where is the enemy, how many of them are there, how are they armed and what
is the best way to destroy them. Undoubtedly he was good at this. However, that is not the kind
of intelligence we need to defeat ISIS. Flynn's book shows no sign of cultural awareness, which
is the context by which we must build intelligence about our opponent. In Iraq, he did learn the
difference between who was Sunni and who was Shia but that was it. He shows no sign of any historical
knowledge about these groups and how they think and live. In looking at Afghanistan, he seems
unaware of the various clans and languages amongst different people. The 2 primary languages of
Afghanistan are Pashto and Dari. Dari is essentially the same as Farsi, so the Persian influence
has been strong in the country for a long time. Flynn seems totally unaware. Intelligence in his
world is obtained from interrogation and captured documents. They are processed fast and tell
him who their next target should be. This kind of work is not broad enough to give him a strategic
background. He sees USA's challenges in the world as a big swath of enemies that are all connected
and monolithic. North Korea, China, Iran, Russia, Syria, ISIS, and so forth. All need to be dealt
with in a forceful manner. He never seems to think about matching resources with objective.
This monlithic view of our opponents is obviously wrong. Pres George W Bush tried it that way
with the Axis of Evil. The 1950's Cold War was all built in fear of the monolithic Soviet Union
and China. All these viewpoints were failures.
Flynn does not see it though. In the book, Flynn says invading Iraq in 2003 might have been the
wrong choice. He would have invaded Iran. The full Neocon plan was for 7 countries in 5 years,
right after knocking down Iraq, then we would do the same to Iran. I hope we have lost a lot of
that hubris by now. But with poor vision by leaders like Flynn, we might get caught up again in
this craziness.
To beat ISIS and Al Qaeda type groups we need patience and allies. We have to dry up the source
of the terrorists that want to die. That will be done with a combination of cultural outreaches
as well as armed force.
I am sure the Presidential candidates will both see that Flynn does not have that recipe. Where
is a General that does? We have often made this mistake. Sixty Six years ago, we felt good that
Gen Douglas MacArthur "knew the Oriental mind" and he would guid us to victory in Korea. That
ended up as a disaster at the end of 1950. I think we are better off at working with leaders that
understand the people that are trying to terrorize us. Generals don't develop those kinds of empathic
abilities.
It is the end of neoliberalism and the start of the era of authoritarian nationalism, and we all
need to come together to stamp out the authoritarian part.
Notable quotes:
"... Neoliberalism has been disastrous for the Rust Belt, and I think we need to envision a new future for what was once the country's industrial heartland, now little more than its wasteland ..."
"... The question of what the many millions of often-unionized factory workers, SMEs which supplied them, family farmers (now fully industrialized and owned by corporations), and all those in secondary production and services who once supported them are to actually do in future to earn a decent living is what I believe should really be the subject of debate. ..."
"... two factors (or three, I guess) have contributed to this state of despair: offshoring and outsourcing, and technology. ..."
"... Medicaid, the CHIP program, the SNAP program and others (including NGOs and private charitable giving) may alleviate some of the suffering, but there is currently no substitute for jobs that would enable men and women to live lives of dignity – a decent place to live, good educations for their children, and a reasonable, secure pension in old age. Near-, at-, and below-minimum wage jobs devoid of any benefits don't allow any of these – at most, they make possible a subsistence life, one which requires continued reliance on public assistance throughout one's lifetime. ..."
"... In the U.S. (a neoliberal pioneer), poverty is closely linked with inequality and thus, a high GINI coefficient (near that of Turkey); where there is both poverty and a very unequal distribution of resources, this inevitably affects women (and children) and racial (and ethnic) minorities disproportionately. The economic system, racism, sexism, and xenophobia are not separate, stand-alone issues; they are profoundly intertwined. ..."
"... But really, if you think about it, slavery was defined as ownership, ownership of human capital (which was convertible into cash), and women in many societies throughout history were acquired as part of a financial transaction (either through purchase or through sale), and control of their capital (land, property [farmland, herds], valuables and later, money) often entrusted to a spouse or male guardian. All of these practices were economically-driven, even if the driver wasn't 21st-century capitalism. ..."
"... Let it be said at once: Trump's victory is primarily due to the explosion in economic and geographic inequality in the United States over several decades and the inability of successive governments to deal with this. ..."
"... Both the Clinton and the Obama administrations frequently went along with the market liberalization launched under Reagan and both Bush presidencies. At times they even outdid them: the financial and commercial deregulation carried out under Clinton is an example. What sealed the deal, though, was the suspicion that the Democrats were too close to Wall Street – and the inability of the Democratic media elite to learn the lessons from the Sanders vote. ..."
"... Regional inequality and globalization are the principal drivers in Japanese politics, too, along with a number of social drivers. ..."
"... The tsunami/nuclear meltdown combined with the Japanese government's uneven response is an apt metaphor for the impact of neo-liberalism/globalization on Japan; and on the US. I then explained that the income inequality in the US was far more severe than that of Japan and that many Americans did not support the export of jobs to China/Mexico. ..."
"... I contend that in some hypothetical universe the DNC and corrupt Clinton machine could have been torn out, root and branch, within months. As I noted, however, the decision to run HRC effectively unopposed was made several years, at least, before the stark evidence of the consequences of such a decision appeared in sharp relief with Brexit. ..."
"... Just as the decline of Virginia coal is due to global forces and corporate stupidity, so the decline of the rust belt is due to long (30 year plus) global forces and corporate decisions that predate the emergence of identity politics. ..."
"... It's interesting that the clear headed thinkers of the Marxist left, who pride themselves on not being distracted by identity, don't want to talk about these factors when discussing the plight of their cherished white working class. ..."
"... The construction 'white working class' is a useful governing tool that splits poor people and possible coalitions against the violence of capital. Now, discussion focuses on how some of the least powerful, most vulnerable people in the United States are the perpetrators of a great injustice against racialised and minoritised groups. Such commentary colludes in the pathologisation of the working class, of poor people. Victims are inculpated as the vectors of noxious, atavistic vices while the perpetrators get off with impunity, showing off their multihued, cosmopolitan C-suites and even proposing that their free trade agreements are a form of anti-racist solidarity. Most crucially, such analysis ignores the continuities between a Trumpian dystopia and our satisfactory present. ..."
"... Race-thinking forecloses the possibility of the coalitions that you imagine, and reproduces ideas of difference in ways that always, always privilege 'whiteness'. ..."
"... Historical examples of ethnic groups becoming 'white', how it was legal and political decision-making that defined the present racial taxonomy, suggest that groups can also lose or have their 'whiteness' threatened. CB has written here about how, in the UK at least, Eastern and Southern Europeans are racialised, and so refused 'whiteness'. JQ has written about southern white minoritisation. Many commentators have pointed that the 'white working class' vote this year looked a lot like a minority vote. ..."
"... Given the subordination of groups presently defined as 'white working class', I wonder if we could think beyond ethnic and epidermal definition to consider that the impossibility of the American Dream refuses these groups whiteness; i.e the hoped for privileges of racial superiority, much in the same way that African Americans, Latin Americans and other racialised minorities are denied whiteness. Can a poor West Virginian living in a toxified drugged out impoverished landscape really be defined as a carrier of 'white privilege'? ..."
"... I was first pointed at this by the juxtapositions of racialised working class and immigrants in Imogen Tyler's Revolting Subjects – Social Abjection and Resistance in Neoliberal Britain but this below is a useful short article that takes a historical perspective. ..."
"... In a 1990 essay, the late Yale political scientist Juan Linz observed that "aside from the United States, only Chile has managed a century and a half of relatively undisturbed constitutional continuity under presidential government - but Chilean democracy broke down in the 1970s." ..."
"... Linz offered several reasons why presidential systems are so prone to crisis. One particularly important one is the nature of the checks and balances system. Since both the president and the Congress are directly elected by the people, they can both claim to speak for the people. When they have a serious disagreement, according to Linz, "there is no democratic principle on the basis of which it can be resolved." The constitution offers no help in these cases, he wrote: "the mechanisms the constitution might provide are likely to prove too complicated and aridly legalistic to be of much force in the eyes of the electorate." ..."
"... In a parliamentary system, deadlocks get resolved. A prime minister who lacks the backing of a parliamentary majority is replaced by a new one who has it. If no such majority can be found, a new election is held and the new parliament picks a leader. It can get a little messy for a period of weeks, but there's simply no possibility of a years-long spell in which the legislative and executive branches glare at each other unproductively.' ..."
"... In any case, as I pointed out before, given that the US is increasingly an urbanised country, and the Electoral College was created to protect rural (slave) states, the grotesque electoral result we have just seen is likely to recur, which means more and more Presidents with dubious democratic legitimacy. Thanks to Bush (and Obama) these Presidents will have, at the same time, more and more power. ..."
"... To return to my original question and answer it myself: I'm forced to conclude that the Democrats did not specifically address the revitalization – rebirth of the Rust Belt in their 2016 platform. Its failure to do so carried a heavy cost that (nearly) all of us will be forced to pay. ..."
"... This sub seems to have largely fallen into the psychologically comfortable trap of declaring that everyone who voted against their preferred candidate is racist. It's a view pushed by the neoliberals, who want to maintain he stranglehold of identity politics over the DNC, and it makes upper-class 'intellectuals' feel better about themselves and their betrayal of the filthy, subhuman white underclass (or so they see it). ..."
"... You can scream 'those jobs are never coming back!' all you want, but people are never going to accept it. So either you come up with a genuine solution (instead of simply complaining that your opponents solutions won't work; you're partisan and biased, most voters won't believe you), you may as well resign yourself to fascism. Because whining that you don't know what to do won't stop people from lining up behind someone who says that they do have one, whether it'll work or not. Nobody trusts the elite enough to believe them when they say that jobs are never coming back. Nobody trusts the elite at all. ..."
"... You sound just like the Wiemar elite. No will to solve the problem, but filled with terror at the inevitable result of failing to solve the problem. ..."
"... One brutal fact tells us everything we need to know about the Democratic party in 2016: the American Nazi party is running on a platform of free health care to working class people. This means that the American Nazi Party is now running to the left of the Democratic party. ..."
"... Back in the 1930s, when the economy collapsed, fascists appeared and took power. Racists also came out of the woodwork, ditto misogynists. Fast forward 80 years, and the same thing has happened all over again. The global economy melted down in 2008 and fascists appeared promising to fix the problems that the pols in power wouldn't because they were too closely tied to the existing (failed) system. Along with the fascists, racists gained power because they were able to scapegoat minorities as the alleged cause of everyone's misery. ..."
"... None of this is surprising. We have seen it before. Whenever you get a depression in a modern industrial economy, you get scapegoating, racism, and fascists. We know what to do. The problem is that the current Democratic party isn't doing it. ..."
"... . It is the end of neoliberalism and the start of the era of authoritarian nationalism, and we all need to come together to stamp out the authoritarian part. ..."
"... This hammered people on the bottom, disproportionately African Americans and especially single AA mothers in America. It crushed the blue collar workers. It is wiping out the savings and careers of college-educated white collar workers now, at least, the ones who didn't go to the Ivy League, which is 90% of them. ..."
"... Calling Hillary an "imperfect candidate" is like calling what happened to the Titanic a "boating accident." Trump was an imperfect candidate. Why did he win? ..."
"... "The neoliberal era in the United States ended with a neofascist bang. The political triumph of Donald Trump shattered the establishments in the Democratic and Republican parties – both wedded to the rule of Big Money and to the reign of meretricious politicians." ..."
"... "It is not an exaggeration to say that the Democratic Party is in shambles as a political force. Not only did it just lose the White House to a wildly unpopular farce of a candidate despite a virtually unified establishment behind it, and not only is it the minority party in both the Senate and the House, but it is getting crushed at historical record rates on the state and local levels as well. Surveying this wreckage last week, party stalwart Matthew Yglesias of Vox minced no words: `the Obama years have created a Democratic Party that's essentially a smoking pile of rubble.' ..."
"... "One would assume that the operatives and loyalists of such a weak, defeated and wrecked political party would be eager to engage in some introspection and self-critique, and to produce a frank accounting of what they did wrong so as to alter their plight. In the case of 2016 Democrats, one would be quite mistaken." ..."
"... Foreign Affairs ..."
"... "At the end of World War II, the United States and its allies decided that sustained mass unemployment was an existential threat to capitalism and had to be avoided at all costs. In response, governments everywhere targeted full employment as the master policy variable-trying to get to, and sustain, an unemployment rate of roughly four percent. The problem with doing so, over time, is that targeting any variable long enough undermines the value of the variable itself-a phenomenon known as Goodhart's law. (..) ..."
"... " what we see [today] is a reversal of power between creditors and debtors as the anti-inflationary regime of the past 30 years undermines itself-what we might call "Goodhart's revenge." In this world, yields compress and creditors fret about their earnings, demanding repayment of debt at all costs. Macro-economically, this makes the situation worse: the debtors can't pay-but politically, and this is crucial-it empowers debtors since they can't pay, won't pay, and still have the right to vote. ..."
"... "The traditional parties of the center-left and center-right, the builders of this anti-inflationary order, get clobbered in such a world, since they are correctly identified by these debtors as the political backers of those demanding repayment in an already unequal system, and all from those with the least assets. This produces anti-creditor, pro-debtor coalitions-in-waiting that are ripe for the picking by insurgents of the left and the right, which is exactly what has happened. ..."
"... "The global revolt against elites is not just driven by revulsion and loss and racism. It's also driven by the global economy itself. This is a global phenomenon that marks one thing above all. The era of neoliberalism is over. The era of neonationalism has just begun." ..."
"... They want what their families have had which is secure, paid, benefits rich, blue collar work. ..."
"... trump's campaign empathized with that feeling just by focusing on the factory jobs as jobs and not as anachronisms that are slowly fading away for whatever reason. Clinton might have been "correct", but these voters didn't want to hear "the truth". And as much as you can complain about how stupid they are for wanting to be lied to, that is the unfortunate reality you, and the Democratic party, have to accept. ..."
"... trump was offering a "bailout" writ large. Clinton had no (good) counteroffer. It was like the tables were turned. Romney was the one talking about "change" and "restructuring" while Obama was defending keeping what was already there. ..."
"... "Without that bailout, Detroit will need to drastically restructure itself. With it, the automakers will stay the course - the suicidal course of declining market shares, insurmountable labor and retiree burdens, technology atrophy, product inferiority and never-ending job losses. Detroit needs a turnaround, not a check." http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/19/opinion/19romney.html ..."
"... Clinton toward the end offered tariffs. But the trump campaign hit back with what turned out to be a pretty strong counter attack – ""How's she going to get tough on China?" said Trump economic advisor Peter Navarro on CNN's Quest Means Business. He notes that some of Clinton's economic advisors have supported TPP or even worked on it. "" ..."
The question is no longer her neoliberalism, but yours. Keep it or throw it away?
I wish this issue was being seriously discussed. Neoliberalism has been disastrous for
the Rust Belt, and I think we need to envision a new future for what was once the country's industrial
heartland, now little more than its wasteland (cf. "flyover zone" – a pejorative term which
inhabitants of the zone are not too stupid to understand perfectly, btw).
The question of what the many millions of often-unionized factory workers, SMEs which supplied
them, family farmers (now fully industrialized and owned by corporations), and all those in secondary
production and services who once supported them are to actually do in future to earn a decent
living is what I believe should really be the subject of debate.
As noted upthread, two factors (or three, I guess) have contributed to this state of despair:
offshoring and outsourcing, and technology. The jobs that have been lost will not return,
and indeed will be lost in ever greater numbers – just consider what will happen to the trucking
sector when self-driving trucks hit the roads sometime in the next 10-20 years (3.5 million truckers;
8.7 in allied jobs).
Medicaid, the CHIP program, the SNAP program and others (including NGOs and private charitable
giving) may alleviate some of the suffering, but there is currently no substitute for jobs that
would enable men and women to live lives of dignity – a decent place to live, good educations
for their children, and a reasonable, secure pension in old age. Near-, at-, and below-minimum
wage jobs devoid of any benefits don't allow any of these – at most, they make possible a subsistence
life, one which requires continued reliance on public assistance throughout one's lifetime.
In the U.S. (a neoliberal pioneer), poverty is closely linked with inequality and thus,
a high GINI coefficient (near that of Turkey); where there is both poverty and a very unequal
distribution of resources, this inevitably affects women (and children) and racial (and ethnic)
minorities disproportionately. The economic system, racism, sexism, and xenophobia are not separate,
stand-alone issues; they are profoundly intertwined.
I appreciate and espouse the goals of identity politics in all their multiplicity, and also
understand that the institutions of slavery and sexism predated modern capitalist economies.
But really, if you think about it, slavery was defined as ownership, ownership of human capital
(which was convertible into cash), and women in many societies throughout history were acquired
as part of a financial transaction (either through purchase or through sale), and control of their
capital (land, property [farmland, herds], valuables and later, money) often entrusted to a spouse
or male guardian. All of these practices were economically-driven, even if the driver wasn't 21st-century
capitalism.
Also: Faustusnotes@100
For example Indiana took the ACA Medicaid expansion but did so with additional conditions that
make it worse than in neighboring states run by democratic governors.
And what states would those be? IL, IA, MI, OH, WI, KY, and TN have Republican governors. Were
you thinking pre-2014? pre-2012?
To conclude and return to my original point: what's to become of the Rust Belt in future? Did
the Democratic platform include a New New Deal for PA, OH, MI, WI, and IA (to name only the five
Rust Belt states Trump flipped)?
" Let it be said at once: Trump's victory is primarily due to the explosion in economic
and geographic inequality in the United States over several decades and the inability of successive
governments to deal with this.
Both the Clinton and the Obama administrations frequently went along with the market liberalization
launched under Reagan and both Bush presidencies. At times they even outdid them: the financial
and commercial deregulation carried out under Clinton is an example. What sealed the deal, though,
was the suspicion that the Democrats were too close to Wall Street – and the inability of the
Democratic media elite to learn the lessons from the Sanders vote. "
What should have been one comment came out as 4, so apologies on that front.
I spent the last week explaining the US election to my students in Japan in pretty much the
terms outlined by Lilla and PIketty, so I was delighted to discover these two articles.
Regional inequality and globalization are the principal drivers in Japanese politics, too,
along with a number of social drivers. It was therefore very easy to call for a show of hands
to identify students studying here in Tokyo who are trying to decide whether or not to return
to areas such as Tohoku to build their lives; or remain in Kanto/Tokyo – the NY/Washington/LA
of Japan put crudely.
I asked students from regions close to Tohoku how they might feel if the Japanese prime minister
decided not to visit the region following Fukushima after the disaster, or preceding an election.
The tsunami/nuclear meltdown combined with the Japanese government's uneven response is an
apt metaphor for the impact of neo-liberalism/globalization on Japan; and on the US. I then explained
that the income inequality in the US was far more severe than that of Japan and that many Americans
did not support the export of jobs to China/Mexico.
I then asked the students, particularly those from outlying regions whether they believe Japan
needed a leader who would 'bring back Japanese jobs' from Viet Nam and China, etc. Many/most agreed
wholeheartedly. I then asked whether they believed Tokyo people treated those outside Kanto as
'inferiors.' Many do.
Piketty may be right regarding Trump's long-term effects on income inequality. He is wrong,
I suggest, to argue that Democrats failed to respond to Sanders' support. I contend that in
some hypothetical universe the DNC and corrupt Clinton machine could have been torn out, root
and branch, within months. As I noted, however, the decision to run HRC effectively unopposed
was made several years, at least, before the stark evidence of the consequences of such a decision
appeared in sharp relief with Brexit.
Also worth noting is that the rust belts problems are as old as Reagan – even the term dates
from the 80s, the issue is so uncool that there is a dire straits song about it. Some portion
of the decline of manufacturing there is due to manufacturers shifting to the south, where the
anti Union states have an advantage. Also there has been new investment – there were no Japanese
car companies in the us in the 1980s, so they are new job creators, yet insufficient to make up
the losses. Just as the decline of Virginia coal is due to global forces and corporate stupidity,
so the decline of the rust belt is due to long (30 year plus) global forces and corporate decisions
that predate the emergence of identity politics.
It's interesting that the clear headed thinkers of the Marxist left, who pride themselves
on not being distracted by identity, don't want to talk about these factors when discussing the
plight of their cherished white working class. Suddenly it's not the forces of capital and
the objective facts of history, but a bunch of whiny black trannies demanding safe spaces and
protesting police violence, that drove those towns to ruin.
And what solutions do they think the dems should have proposed? It can't be welfare, since
we got the ACA (watered down by representatives of the rust belt states). Is it, seriously, tariffs?
Short of going to an election promising w revolution, what should the dems have done? Give us
a clear answer so we can see what the alternative to identity politics is.
basil 11.19.16 at 5:11 am
Did this go through?
Thinking with WLGR @15, Yan @81, engels variously above,
The construction 'white working class' is a useful governing tool that splits poor people
and possible coalitions against the violence of capital. Now, discussion focuses on how some of
the least powerful, most vulnerable people in the United States are the perpetrators of a great
injustice against racialised and minoritised groups. Such commentary colludes in the pathologisation
of the working class, of poor people. Victims are inculpated as the vectors of noxious, atavistic
vices while the perpetrators get off with impunity, showing off their multihued, cosmopolitan
C-suites and even proposing that their free trade agreements are a form of anti-racist solidarity.
Most crucially, such analysis ignores the continuities between a Trumpian dystopia and our satisfactory
present.
I get that the tropes around race are easy, and super-available. Privilege confessing is very
in vogue as a prophylactic against charges of racism. But does it threaten the structures that
produce this abjection – either as embittered, immiserated 'white working class' or as threatened
minority group? It is always *those* 'white' people, the South, the Working Class, and never the
accusers some of whom are themselves happy to vote for a party that drowns out anti-war protesters
with chants of USA! USA!
Race-thinking forecloses the possibility of the coalitions that you imagine, and reproduces
ideas of difference in ways that always, always privilege 'whiteness'.
--
Historical examples of ethnic groups becoming 'white', how it was legal and political decision-making
that defined the present racial taxonomy, suggest that groups can also lose or have their 'whiteness'
threatened. CB has written here about how, in the UK at least, Eastern and Southern Europeans
are racialised, and so refused 'whiteness'. JQ has written about southern white minoritisation.
Many commentators have pointed that the 'white working class' vote this year looked a lot like
a minority vote.
Given the subordination of groups presently defined as 'white working class', I wonder
if we could think beyond ethnic and epidermal definition to consider that the impossibility of
the American Dream refuses these groups whiteness; i.e the hoped for privileges of racial superiority,
much in the same way that African Americans, Latin Americans and other racialised minorities are
denied whiteness. Can a poor West Virginian living in a toxified drugged out impoverished landscape
really be defined as a carrier of 'white privilege'?
I was first pointed at this by the juxtapositions of racialised working class and immigrants
in Imogen Tyler's Revolting Subjects – Social Abjection and Resistance in Neoliberal Britain but
this below is a useful short article that takes a historical perspective.
The 'racialisation' of class in Britain has been a consequence of the weakening of 'class'
as a political idea since the 1970s – it is a new construction, not an historic one.
.
This is not to deny the existence of working-class racism, or to suggest that racism is
somehow acceptable if rooted in perceived socio-economic grievances. But it is to suggest that
the concept of a 'white working class' needs problematizing, as does the claim that the British
working-class was strongly committed to a post-war vision of 'White Britain' analogous to the
politics which sustained the idea of a 'White Australia' until the 1960s.
Yes, old, settled neighbourhoods could be profoundly distrustful of outsiders – all outsiders,
including the researchers seeking to study them – but, when it came to race, they were internally
divided. We certainly hear working-class racist voices – often echoing stock racist complaints
about over-crowding, welfare dependency or exploitative landlords and small businessmen, but
we don't hear the deep pathological racial fears laid bare in the letters sent to Enoch Powell
after his so-called 'Rivers of Blood' speech in 1968 (Whipple, 2009).
But more importantly, we also hear strong anti-racist voices loudly and clearly. At Wallsend
on Tyneside, where the researchers were gathering their data just as Powell shot to notoriety,
we find workers expressing casual racism, but we also find eloquent expressions of an internationalist,
solidaristic perspective in which, crucially, black and white are seen as sharing the same
working-class interests.
Racism is denounced as a deliberate capitalist strategy to divide workers against themselves,
weakening their ability to challenge those with power over their lives (shipbuilding had long
been a very fractious industry and its workers had plenty of experience of the dangers of internal
sectarian battles).
To be able to mobilize across across racialised divisions, to have race wither away entirely
would, for me, be the beginning of a politics that allowed humanity to deal with the inescapable
violence of climate change and corporate power.
*To add to the bibliography – David R. Roediger, Elizabeth D. Esch – The Production of Difference
– Race and the Management of Labour, and Denise Ferreira da Silva – Toward a Global Idea of Race.
And I have just been pointed at Ian Haney-López, White By Law – The Legal Construction of Race.
FWIW 'merica's constitutional democracy is going to collapse.
Some day - not tomorrow, not next year, but probably sometime before runaway climate change
forces us to seek a new life in outer-space colonies - there is going to be a collapse of the
legal and political order and its replacement by something else. If we're lucky, it won't be violent.
If we're very lucky, it will lead us to tackle the underlying problems and result in a better,
more robust, political system. If we're less lucky, well, then, something worse will happen .
In a 1990 essay, the late Yale political scientist Juan Linz observed that "aside from
the United States, only Chile has managed a century and a half of relatively undisturbed constitutional
continuity under presidential government - but Chilean democracy broke down in the 1970s."
Linz offered several reasons why presidential systems are so prone to crisis. One particularly
important one is the nature of the checks and balances system. Since both the president and the
Congress are directly elected by the people, they can both claim to speak for the people. When
they have a serious disagreement, according to Linz, "there is no democratic principle on the
basis of which it can be resolved." The constitution offers no help in these cases, he wrote:
"the mechanisms the constitution might provide are likely to prove too complicated and aridly
legalistic to be of much force in the eyes of the electorate."
In a parliamentary system, deadlocks get resolved. A prime minister who lacks the backing
of a parliamentary majority is replaced by a new one who has it. If no such majority can be found,
a new election is held and the new parliament picks a leader. It can get a little messy for a
period of weeks, but there's simply no possibility of a years-long spell in which the legislative
and executive branches glare at each other unproductively.'
Given that the basic point is polarisation (i.e. that both the President and Congress have
equally strong arguments to be the the 'voice of the people') and that under the US appalling
constitutional set up, there is no way to decide between them, one can easily imagine the so to
speak 'hyperpolarisation' of a Trump Presidency as being the straw (or anvil) that breaks the
camel's back.
In any case, as I pointed out before, given that the US is increasingly an urbanised country,
and the Electoral College was created to protect rural (slave) states, the grotesque electoral
result we have just seen is likely to recur, which means more and more Presidents with dubious
democratic legitimacy. Thanks to Bush (and Obama) these Presidents will have, at the same time,
more and more power.
nastywoman @ 150
Just study the program of the 'Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschland' or the Program of 'Die
Grünen' in Germany (take it through google translate) and you get all the answers you are looking
for.
No need to run it through google translate, it's available in English on their site. [Or one
could refer to the Green Party of the U.S. site/platform, which is very similar in scope and overall
philosophy. (www.gp.org).]
I looked at several of their topic areas (Agricultural, Global, Health, Rural) and yes, these
are general theses I would support. But they're hardly policy/project proposals for specific regions
or communities – the Greens espouse "think global, act local", so programs and projects must be
tailored to individual communities and regions.
To return to my original question and answer it myself: I'm forced to conclude that the
Democrats did not specifically address the revitalization – rebirth of the Rust Belt in their
2016 platform. Its failure to do so carried a heavy cost that (nearly) all of us will be forced
to pay.
This sub seems to have largely fallen into the psychologically comfortable trap of declaring
that everyone who voted against their preferred candidate is racist. It's a view pushed by the
neoliberals, who want to maintain he stranglehold of identity politics over the DNC, and it makes
upper-class 'intellectuals' feel better about themselves and their betrayal of the filthy, subhuman
white underclass (or so they see it).
I expect at this point that Trump will be reelected comfortably. If not only the party itself,
but also most of its activists, refuse to actually change, it's more or less inevitable.
You can scream 'those jobs are never coming back!' all you want, but people are never going
to accept it. So either you come up with a genuine solution (instead of simply complaining that
your opponents solutions won't work; you're partisan and biased, most voters won't believe you),
you may as well resign yourself to fascism. Because whining that you don't know what to do won't
stop people from lining up behind someone who says that they do have one, whether it'll work or
not. Nobody trusts the elite enough to believe them when they say that jobs are never coming back.
Nobody trusts the elite at all.
You sound just like the Wiemar elite. No will to solve the problem, but filled with terror
at the inevitable result of failing to solve the problem.
One brutal fact tells us everything we need to know about the Democratic party in 2016:
the American Nazi party is running on a platform of free health care to working class people.
This means that the American Nazi Party is now running to the left of the Democratic party.
Folks, we have seen this before. Let's not descend in backbiting and recriminations, okay?
We've got some commenters charging that other commenters are "mansplaining," meanwhile we've got
other commenters claiming that it's economics and not racism/misogyny. It's all of the above.
Back in the 1930s, when the economy collapsed, fascists appeared and took power. Racists
also came out of the woodwork, ditto misogynists. Fast forward 80 years, and the same thing has
happened all over again. The global economy melted down in 2008 and fascists appeared promising
to fix the problems that the pols in power wouldn't because they were too closely tied to the
existing (failed) system. Along with the fascists, racists gained power because they were able
to scapegoat minorities as the alleged cause of everyone's misery.
None of this is surprising. We have seen it before. Whenever you get a depression in a
modern industrial economy, you get scapegoating, racism, and fascists. We know what to do. The
problem is that the current Democratic party isn't doing it.
Instead, what we're seeing is a whirlwind of finger-pointing from the Democratic leadership
that lost this election and probably let the entire New Deal get rolled back and wiped out. Putin
is to blame! Julian Assange is to blame! The biased media are to blame! Voter suppression is to
blame! Bernie Sanders is to blame! Jill Stein is to blame! Everyone and anyone except the current
out-of-touch influence-peddling elites who currently have run the Democratic party into the ground.
We need the feminists and the black lives matter groups and we also need the green party people
and the Bernie Sanders activists. But everyone has to understand that this is not an isolated
event. Trump did not just happen by accident. First there was Greece, then there was Brexit, then
there was Trump, next it'll be Renzi losing the referendum in Italy and a constitutional crisis
there, and after that, Marine Le Pen in France is going to win the first round of elections. (Probably
not the presidency, since all the other French parties will band together to stop her, but the
National Front is currently polling at 40% of all registered French voters.) And Marine LePen
is the real deal, a genuine full-on out-and-out fascist. Not a closet fascist like Steve Bannon,
LePen is the full monty with everything but a Hugo Boss suit and the death's heads on the cap.
Does anyone notice a pattern here?
This is an international movement. It is sweeping the world . It is the end of neoliberalism
and the start of the era of authoritarian nationalism, and we all need to come together to stamp
out the authoritarian part.
Feminists, BLM, black bloc anarchiest anti-globalists, Sandernistas, and, yes, the former Hillary
supporters. Because it not just a coincidence that all these things are happening in all these
countries at the same time. The bottom 90% of the population in the developed world has been ripped
off by a managerial and financial and political class for the last 30 years and they have all
noticed that while the world GDP was skyrocketing and international trade agreements were getting
signed with zero input from the average citizen, a few people were getting very very rich but
nobody else was getting anything.
This hammered people on the bottom, disproportionately African Americans and especially
single AA mothers in America. It crushed the blue collar workers. It is wiping out the savings
and careers of college-educated white collar workers now, at least, the ones who didn't go to
the Ivy League, which is 90% of them.
And the Democratic party is so helpless and so hopeless that it is letting the American Nazi
Party run to the left of them on health care, fer cripes sake! We are now in a situation
where the American Nazi Party is advocating single-payer nationalized health care, while the former
Democratic presidential nominee who just got defeated assured everyone that single-payer "will
never, ever happen."
C'mon! Is anyone surprised that Hillary lost? Let's cut the crap with the "Hillary
was a flawed candidate" arguments. The plain fact of the matter is that Hillary was running mainly
on getting rid of the problems she and her husband created 25 years ago. Hillary promised criminal
justice reform and Black Lives Matter-friendly policing policies - and guess who started the mass
incarceration trend and gave speeches calling black kids "superpredators" 20 years ago? Hillary
promised to fix the problems with the wretched mandate law forcing everyone to buy unaffordable
for-profit private insurance with no cost controls - and guess who originally ran for president
in 2008 on a policy of health care mandates with no cost controls? Yes, Hillary (ironically, Obama's
big surge in popularity as a candidate came when he ran against Hillary from the left, ridiculing
helath care mandates). Hillary promises to reform an out-of-control deregulated financial system
run amok - and guess who signed all those laws revoking Glass-Steagal and setting up the Securities
Trading Modernization Act? Yes, Bill Clinton, and Hillary was right there with him cheering the
whole process on.
So pardon me and lots of other folks for being less than impressed by Hillary's trustworthiness
and honesty. Run for president by promising to undo the damage you did to the country 25 years
ago is (let say) a suboptimal campaign strategy, and a distinctly suboptimal choice of presidential
candidate for a party in the same sense that the Hiroshima air defense was suboptimal in 1945.
Calling Hillary an "imperfect candidate" is like calling what happened to the Titanic a
"boating accident." Trump was an imperfect candidate. Why did he win?
Because we're back in the 1930s again, the economy has crashed hard and still hasn't recovered
(maybe because we still haven't convened a Pecora Commission and jailed a bunch of the thieves,
and we also haven't set up any alphabet government job programs like the CCC) so fascists and
racists and all kinds of other bottom-feeders are crawling out of the political woodwork to promise
to fix the problems that the Democratic party establishment won't.
Rule of thumb: any social or political or economic writer virulently hated by the current Democratic
party establishment is someone we should listen to closely right now.
Cornel West is at the top of the current Democratic establishment's hate list, and he has got
a great article in The Guardian that I think is spot-on:
"The neoliberal era in the United States ended with a neofascist bang. The political triumph
of Donald Trump shattered the establishments in the Democratic and Republican parties – both wedded
to the rule of Big Money and to the reign of meretricious politicians."
Glenn Greenwald is another writer who has been showered with more hate by the Democratic establishment
recently than even Trump or Steve Bannon, so you know Greenwald is saying something important.
He has a great piece in The Intercept on the head-in-the-ground attitude of Democratic
elites toward their recent loss:
"It is not an exaggeration to say that the Democratic Party is in shambles as a political
force. Not only did it just lose the White House to a wildly unpopular farce of a candidate despite
a virtually unified establishment behind it, and not only is it the minority party in both the
Senate and the House, but it is getting crushed at historical record rates on the state and local
levels as well. Surveying this wreckage last week, party stalwart Matthew Yglesias of Vox minced
no words: `the Obama years have created a Democratic Party that's essentially a smoking pile of
rubble.'
"One would assume that the operatives and loyalists of such a weak, defeated and wrecked
political party would be eager to engage in some introspection and self-critique, and to produce
a frank accounting of what they did wrong so as to alter their plight. In the case of 2016 Democrats,
one would be quite mistaken."
Last but far from least, Scottish economist Mark Blyth has what looks to me like the single
best analysis of the entire global Trump_vs_deep_state tidal wave in Foreign Affairs magazine:
"At the end of World War II, the United States and its allies decided that sustained mass
unemployment was an existential threat to capitalism and had to be avoided at all costs. In response,
governments everywhere targeted full employment as the master policy variable-trying to get to,
and sustain, an unemployment rate of roughly four percent. The problem with doing so, over time,
is that targeting any variable long enough undermines the value of the variable itself-a phenomenon
known as Goodhart's law. (..)
" what we see [today] is a reversal of power between creditors and debtors as the anti-inflationary
regime of the past 30 years undermines itself-what we might call "Goodhart's revenge." In this
world, yields compress and creditors fret about their earnings, demanding repayment of debt at
all costs. Macro-economically, this makes the situation worse: the debtors can't pay-but politically,
and this is crucial-it empowers debtors since they can't pay, won't pay, and still have the right
to vote.
"The traditional parties of the center-left and center-right, the builders of this anti-inflationary
order, get clobbered in such a world, since they are correctly identified by these debtors as
the political backers of those demanding repayment in an already unequal system, and all from
those with the least assets. This produces anti-creditor, pro-debtor coalitions-in-waiting that
are ripe for the picking by insurgents of the left and the right, which is exactly what has happened.
"In short, to understand the election of Donald Trump we need to listen to the trumpets blowing
everywhere in the highly indebted developed countries and the people who vote for them.
"The global revolt against elites is not just driven by revulsion and loss and racism.
It's also driven by the global economy itself. This is a global phenomenon that marks one thing
above all. The era of neoliberalism is over. The era of neonationalism has just begun."
You don't live here, do you? I'm really asking a genuine question because the way you are framing
the question ("SPECIFICS!!!!!!) suggests you don't. (Just to show my background, born and raised
in Australia (In the electoral division of Kooyong, home of Menzies) but I've lived in the US
since 2000 in the midwest (MO, OH) and currently in the south (GA))
If this election has taught us anything it's no one cared about "specifics". It was a mood,
a feeling which brought trump over the top (and I'm not talking about the "average" trump voter
because that is meaningless. The average trunp voter was a republican voter in the south who the
Dems will never get so examining their motivations is immaterial to future strategy. I'm talking
about the voters in the Upper Midwest from places which voted for Obama twice then switched to
trump this year to give him his margin of victory).
trump voters have been pretty clear they don't actually care about the way trump does (or even
doesn't) do what he said he would do during the campaign. It was important to them he showed he
was "with" people like them. They way he did that was partially racialized (law and order, islamophobia)
but also a particular emphasis on blue collar work that focused on the work. Unfortunately these
voters, however much you tell them they should suck it up and accept their generations of familial
experience as relatively highly paid industrial workers (even if it is something only their fathers
and grandfathers experienced because the factories were closing when the voters came of age in
the 80s and 90s) is never coming back and they should be happy to retrain as something else, don't
want it. They want what their families have had which is secure, paid, benefits rich, blue
collar work.
trump's campaign empathized with that feeling just by focusing on the factory jobs as jobs
and not as anachronisms that are slowly fading away for whatever reason. Clinton might have been
"correct", but these voters didn't want to hear "the truth". And as much as you can complain about
how stupid they are for wanting to be lied to, that is the unfortunate reality you, and the Democratic
party, have to accept.
The idea they don't want "government help" is ridiculous. They love the government. They just
want the government to do things for them and not for other people (which unfortunately includes
blah people but also "the coasts", "sillicon valley", etc.). Obama won in 2008 and 2012 in part
due to the auto bailout.
trump was offering a "bailout" writ large. Clinton had no (good) counteroffer. It was like
the tables were turned. Romney was the one talking about "change" and "restructuring" while Obama
was defending keeping what was already there.
"Without that bailout, Detroit will need to drastically restructure itself. With it, the
automakers will stay the course - the suicidal course of declining market shares, insurmountable
labor and retiree burdens, technology atrophy, product inferiority and never-ending job losses.
Detroit needs a turnaround, not a check." http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/19/opinion/19romney.html
So yes. Clinton needed vague promises. She needed something more than retraining and "jobs
of the future" and "restructuring". She needed to show she was committed to their way of life,
however those voters saw it, and would do something, anything, to keep it alive. trump did that
even though his plan won't work. And maybe he'll be punished for it. In 4 years. But in the interim
the gop will destroy so many things we need and rely on as well as entrench their power for generations
through the Supreme Court.
But really, it was hard for Clinton to be trusted to act like she cared about these peoples'
way of life because she (through her husband fairly or unfairly) was associated with some of the
larger actions and choices which helped usher in the decline.
Clinton toward the end offered tariffs. But the trump campaign hit back with what turned
out to be a pretty strong counter attack – ""How's she going to get tough on China?" said Trump
economic advisor Peter Navarro on CNN's Quest Means Business. He notes that some of Clinton's
economic advisors have supported TPP or even worked on it. ""
"... " Like [Andrew] Jackson's populism, we're going to build an entirely new political movement ," he says. "It's everything related to jobs. The conservatives are going to go crazy. I'm the guy pushing a trillion-dollar infrastructure plan. With negative interest rates throughout the world, it's the greatest opportunity to rebuild everything. Ship yards, iron works, get them all jacked up. We're just going to throw it up against the wall and see if it sticks . It will be as exciting as the 1930s, greater than the Reagan revolution - conservatives, plus populists, in an economic nationalist movement." ..."
"... Nobody in the Democratic party listened to his speeches, so they had no idea he was delivering such a compelling and powerful economic message. He shows up 3.5 hours late in Michigan at 1 in the morning and has 35,000 people waiting in the cold. When they got [Clinton] off the donor circuit she went to Temple University and they drew 300 or 400 kids." ..."
"... Bannon on Murdoch: "Rupert is a globalist and never understood Trump" ..."
"... " The globalists gutted the American working class and created a middle class in Asia. The issue now is about Americans looking to not get f-ed over . If we deliver-" by "we" he means the Trump White House "-we'll get 60 percent of the white vote, and 40 percent of the black and Hispanic vote and we'll govern for 50 years. That's what the Democrats missed, they were talking to these people with companies with a $9 billion market cap employing nine people. It's not reality. They lost sight of what the world is about ." ..."
"... ... I'd say, IMO, Steve Bannon is more than an excellent choice for President Trump's team ... Bannon's education, business, work and military experience speaks highly of his abilities ... I wish the MSM would stop labelling him a white nationalist and concentrate on his successful accomplishments and what he could contribute to Trump's cabinet. ..."
Bannon next discusses the "battle line" inside America's great divide.
He absolutely - mockingly - rejects the idea that this is a racial line. "I'm not a white nationalist,
I'm a nationalist. I'm an economic nationalist, " he tells me. " The globalists gutted the American
working class and created a middle class in Asia. The issue now is about Americans looking to
not get f-ed over . If we deliver-" by "we" he means the Trump White House "-we'll get 60 percent
of the white vote, and 40 percent of the black and Hispanic vote and we'll govern for 50 years.
That's what the Democrats missed, they were talking to these people with companies with a $9 billion
market cap employing nine people. It's not reality. They lost sight of what the world is about
."
Bannon's vision: an "entirely new political movement", one which drives the conservatives crazy.
As to how monetary policy will coexist with fiscal stimulus, Bannon has a simple explanation: he
plans to "rebuild everything" courtesy of negative interest rates and cheap debt throughout the world.
Those rates may not be negative for too long.
" Like [Andrew] Jackson's populism, we're going to build an entirely new political movement
," he says. "It's everything related to jobs. The conservatives are going to go crazy. I'm the
guy pushing a trillion-dollar infrastructure plan. With negative interest rates throughout the
world, it's the greatest opportunity to rebuild everything. Ship yards, iron works, get them all
jacked up. We're just going to throw it up against the wall and see if it sticks . It will be
as exciting as the 1930s, greater than the Reagan revolution - conservatives, plus populists,
in an economic nationalist movement."
How Bannon describes Trump: " an ideal vessel"
It is less than obvious how Bannon, now the official strategic brains of the Trump operation,
syncs with his boss, famously not too strategic. When Bannon took over the campaign from Paul
Manafort, there were many in the Trump circle who had resigned themselves to the inevitability
of the candidate listening to no one . But here too was a Bannon insight: When the campaign seemed
most in free fall or disarray, it was perhaps most on target. While Clinton was largely absent
from the campaign trail and concentrating on courting her donors, Trump - even after the leak
of the grab-them-by-the-pussy audio - was speaking to ever-growing crowds of thirty-five or forty
thousand. "He gets it, he gets it intuitively," says Bannon, perhaps still surprised he has found
such an ideal vessel. "You have probably the greatest orator since William Jennings Bryan, coupled
with an economic populist message and two political parties that are so owned by the donors that
they don't speak to their audience. But he speaks in a non-political vernacular, he communicates
with these people in a very visceral way. Nobody in the Democratic party listened to his speeches,
so they had no idea he was delivering such a compelling and powerful economic message. He shows
up 3.5 hours late in Michigan at 1 in the morning and has 35,000 people waiting in the cold. When
they got [Clinton] off the donor circuit she went to Temple University and they drew 300 or 400
kids."
Bannon on Murdoch: "Rupert is a globalist and never understood Trump"
At that moment, as we talk, there's a knock on the door of Bannon's office, a temporary, impersonal,
middle-level executive space with a hodgepodge of chairs for constant impromptu meetings. Sen.
Ted Cruz, once the Republican firebrand, now quite a small and unassuming figure, has been waiting
patiently for a chat and Bannon excuses himself for a short while. It is clear when we return
to our conversation that it is not just the liberal establishment that Bannon feels he has triumphed
over, but the conservative one too - not least of all Fox News and its owners, the Murdochs. "They
got it more wrong than anybody," he says. " Rupert is a globalist and never understood Trump.
To him, Trump is a radical. Now they'll go centrist and build the network around Megyn Kelly."
Bannon recounts, with no small irony, that when Breitbart attacked Kelly after her challenges
to Trump in the initial Republican debate, Fox News chief Roger Ailes - whom Bannon describes
as an important mentor, and who Kelly's accusations of sexual harassment would help topple in
July - called to defend her. Bannon says he warned Ailes that Kelly would be out to get him too
.
Finally, Bannon on how he sees himself in the administration:
Bannon now becomes part of a two-headed White House political structure, with Reince Priebus
- in and out of Bannon's office as we talk - as chief of staff, in charge of making the trains
run on time, reporting to the president, and Bannon as chief strategist, in charge of vision,
goals, narrative and plan of attack, reporting to the president too. Add to this the ambitions
and whims of the president himself, and the novel circumstance of one who has never held elective
office, the agenda of his highly influential family and the end runs of a party significant parts
of which were opposed to him, and you have quite a complex court that Bannon will have to finesse
to realize his reign of the working man and a trillion dollars in new spending.
"I am," he says, with relish, "Thomas Cromwell in the court of the Tudors."
" The globalists gutted the American working class and created a middle class in Asia.
The issue now is about Americans looking to not get f-ed over . If we deliver-" by "we" he
means the Trump White House "-we'll get 60 percent of the white vote, and 40 percent of the
black and Hispanic vote and we'll govern for 50 years. That's what the Democrats missed, they
were talking to these people with companies with a $9 billion market cap employing nine people.
It's not reality. They lost sight of what the world is about ."
... I'd say, IMO, Steve Bannon is more than an excellent choice for President Trump's team
... Bannon's education, business, work and military experience speaks highly of his abilities
... I wish the MSM would stop labelling him a white nationalist and concentrate on his successful
accomplishments and what he could contribute to Trump's cabinet.
........ from wiki ...
Stephen Kevin Bannon was born on November 27, 1953, in Norfolk, Virginia into a working-class,
Irish Catholic, pro-Kennedy, pro-union family of Democrats. He graduated from Virginia Tech in
1976 and holds a master's degree in National Security Studies from Georgetown University. In 1983,
Bannon received an M.B.A. degree with honors from Harvard Business School.
Bannon was an officer in the United States Navy, serving on the destroyer USS Paul F. Foster
as a Surface Warfare Officer in the Pacific Fleet and stateside as a special assistant to the
Chief of Naval Operations at the Pentagon.
After his military service, Bannon worked at Goldman Sachs as an investment banker in the Mergers
& Acquisitions Department. In 1990, Bannon and several colleagues from Goldman Sachs launched
Bannon & Co., a boutique investment bank specializing in media. Through Bannon & Co., Bannon negotiated
the sale of Castle Rock Entertainment to Ted Turner. As payment, Bannon & Co. accepted a financial
stake in five television shows, including Seinfeld. Société Générale purchased Bannon & Co. in
1998.
In 1993, while still managing Bannon & Co., Bannon was made acting director of Earth-science
research project Biosphere 2 in Oracle, Arizona. Under Bannon, the project shifted emphasis from
researching space exploration and colonization towards pollution and global warming. He left the
project in 1995.
After the sale of Bannon & Co., Bannon became an executive producer in the film and media industry
in Hollywood, California. He was executive producer for Julie Taymor's 1999 film Titus. Bannon
became a partner with entertainment industry executive Jeff Kwatinetz at The Firm, Inc., a film
and television management company. In 2004, Bannon made a documentary about Ronald Reagan titled
In the Face of Evil. Through the making and screening of this film, Bannon was introduced to Peter
Schweizer and publisher Andrew Breitbart. He was involved in the financing and production of a
number of films, including Fire from the Heartland: The Awakening of the Conservative Woman, The
Undefeated (on Sarah Palin), and Occupy Unmasked. Bannon also hosts a radio show (Breitbart News
Daily) on a Sirius XM satellite radio channel.
Bannon is also executive chairman and co-founder of the Government Accountability Institute,
where he helped orchestrate the publication of the book Clinton Cash. In 2015, Bannon was ranked
No. 19 on Mediaite's list of the "25 Most Influential in Political News Media 2015".
Bannon convinced Goldman Sachs to invest in a company known as Internet Gaming Entertainment.
Following a lawsuit, the company rebranded as Affinity Media and Bannon took over as CEO. From
2007 through 2011, Bannon was chairman and CEO of Affinity Media.
Bannon became a member of the board of Breitbart News. In March 2012, after founder Andrew
Breitbart's death, Bannon became executive chairman of Breitbart News LLC, the parent company
of Breitbart News. Under his leadership, Breitbart took a more alt-right and nationalistic approach
towards its agenda. Bannon declared the website "the platform for the alt-right" in 2016. Bannon
identifies as a conservative. Speaking about his role at Breitbart, Bannon said: "We think of
ourselves as virulently anti-establishment, particularly 'anti-' the permanent political class."
The New York Times described Breitbart News under Bannon's leadership as a "curiosity of the
fringe right wing", with "ideologically driven journalists", that is a source of controversy "over
material that has been called misogynist, xenophobic and racist." The newspaper also noted how
Breitbart was now a "potent voice" for Donald Trump's presidential campaign.
Bannon: " The globalists gutted the American working class ..the Democrats were talking
to these people with companies with a $9 billion market cap employing nine people. It's not reality.
They lost sight of what the world is about ."
Well said. Couldn't agree more.
Bannon: " Like [Andrew] Jackson's populism, we're going to build an entirely new political
movement I'm the guy pushing a trillion-dollar infrastructure plan.
Dear Mr. Bannon, it has to be way more than $1trillion in 10 years. Obama's $831 billion American
Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) didn't make up the difference for all the job lost
in 2007/08. Manufacturing alone lost about 9 million jobs since 1979, when it peaked.
Trump needs to go Ronald Reagan 180% deficit spending. If Trump runs 100% like Obama, Trump
will fail as well.
The author mixes the notion of populism as a social protest against the excesses of the rule of
the current oligarchy, which enpoverish common people, with neofascism and far right nationalism, which are now popular forms of expression of this
protest
SANTIAGO – Many of the men and women who turned out for the annual meeting of the International
Monetary Fund in early October were saying something like this: "Imagine if the Republicans had nominated
someone with the same anti-trade views as Trump, minus the insults and the sexual harassment. A populist
protectionist would be headed to the White House."
The underlying view is that rising populism on the right and the left, both in the United States
and in Europe, is a straightforward consequence of globalization and its unwanted effects: lost jobs
and stagnant middle-class incomes. Davos men and women hate this conclusion, but they have embraced
it with all the fervor of new converts.
Yet there is an alternative – and more persuasive – view: while economic stagnation helps push
upset voters into the populist camp, bad economics is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition
for bad politics. On the contrary, argues Princeton political scientist
Jan-Werner
Mueller in his new book
: populism is a "permanent shadow" on representative democracy.
Populism is not about taxation (or jobs or income inequality). It is about representation – who
gets to speak for the people and how.
Advocates of democracy make some exalted claims on its behalf. As Abraham Lincoln put it at
Gettysburg
, it is "government of the people, by the people, for the people." But modern representative
democracy – or any democracy, for that matter – inevitably falls short of these claims. Voting in
an election every four years for candidates chosen by party machines is not exactly what Lincoln's
lofty words call to mind.
What populists offer, Mueller says, is to fulfill what the Italian democratic theorist Norberto
Bobbio calls the broken promises of democracy. Populists speak and act, claims Mueller, " as if
the people could develop a singular judgment,... as if the people were one,... as if
the people, if only they empowered the right representatives, could fully master their fates."
Populism rests on a toxic triad: denial of complexity, anti-pluralism, and a crooked version
of representation.
Most of us believe that social choices (Build more schools or hospitals? Stimulate or discourage
international trade? Liberalize or restrict abortion?) are complex, and that the existence of a plurality
of views about what to do is both natural and legitimate. Populists deny this. As
Ralf Dahrendorf
once put it, populism is simple; democracy is complex. To populists, there is only one right
view – that of the people.
If so, the complex mechanisms of liberal democracy, with its emphasis on delegation and representation,
are all unnecessary. No need for parliaments endlessly debating: the unitary will of the people can
easily be expressed in a single vote. Hence populists' love affair with plebiscites and referenda.
Brexit, anyone?
And not just anyone can represent the people. The claim is to exclusive representation. Remember
Trump's boast in his address
to the Republican National Convention: "I alone can fix it."
Politics is always about morality, Aristotle told us. But populists favor what Mueller calls a
particular moralistic interpretation of politics . Those who hold the right view about the
world are moral; the rest are immoral, lackeys of a corrupt elite. That was exactly the rhetoric
of the late Venezuelan ruler Hugo Chávez. When that failed, and when Chávez's sank his country's
economy, there was always US imperialism to blame. So populism is a kind of identity politics. It
is always us against them .
Viewed in this light, populism is not a useful corrective to a democracy captured by technocrats
and elites, as Marine Le Pen, Rafael Correa, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, or assorted Western intellectuals
want you to believe. On the contrary, it is profoundly anti-democratic, and hence a threat to democracy
itself.
What is to be done? My take (the prescription is my own, not Mueller's) is that democrats must
(and can) beat populists at their own game. The toxic triad can become salutary.
First, acknowledge complexity. The only thing that upsets voters as much as being lied to is being
treated like babies. People who lead challenging lives know that the world is complex. They do not
mind being told that. They appreciate being spoken to as the grownups they are.
Second, do not treat diversity of views and identities as a problem calling for a technocratic
solution. Rather, make respect for such diversity a profoundly moral feature of society. The fact
that we are not all the same and we can still get along is a tremendous democratic achievement. Make
the case for it. And do not fall for the tired cliché that reason is for democrats and emotion is
for populists. Make the case for pluralistic democracy in a way that inspires and stirs emotion.
Third, defend – and update – representation. Leave delegation to complex technical matters. Take
advantage of modern technologies to bring other choices – particularly those having to do with the
fabric of daily life – closer to voters. Tighten campaign finance laws, regulate lobbying better,
and enforce affirmative-action measures to ensure that representatives are of the people and work
for the people.
These measures alone will not ensure that all of democracy's broken promises are fulfilled. But
we cannot expect a single set of simple actions to solve a complex problem. Nor can we believe that
we alone can fix it.
If we believed that, we would be populists. For the sake of democracy, that is precisely what
we should not be.
Andrés Velasco, a former presidential candidate and finance minister of Chile, is Professor
of Professional Practice in International Development at Columbia University's School of International
and Public Affairs. He has taught at Harvard University and New York University, and is the author
of numerous studies on international economics and development.
Ellison is a dud, Bernie tweets support for Schumer "there's nobody I know better prepared
and more capable of leading our caucus than Chuck Schumer"!
Well there's a good chunder maker in that statement eh? Hope dashed!
There are no doubt many who are better informed, more progressive and principled, more remote
from Wall Street and oligarchic capture than Chuck Schumer and Ellison. So there you have it –
this is reform in the Democrats after a crushing defeat.
Vale democrats, and now the journey becomes arduous with these voices to smother hope. A new
party is urgently needed (I know how difficult that is) and these voices of the old machine need
to be ignored for the sake of sanity.
"... The New Deal did not seek to overthrow the plutocracy, but it did seek to side-step and disable
their dominance. ..."
"... It seems to me that while neoliberalism on the right was much the same old same old, the neoliberal
turn on the left was marked by a measured abandonment of this struggle over the distribution of income
between the classes. In the U.S., the Democrats gradually abandoned their populist commitments. In Europe,
the labour and socialist parties gradually abandoned class struggle. ..."
"... When Obama came in, in 2008 amid the unfolding GFC, one of the most remarkable features of
his economic team was the extent to which it conceded control of policy entirely to the leading money
center banks. Geithner and Bernanke continued in power with Geithner moving from the New York Federal
Reserve (where he served as I recall under a Chair from Goldman Sachs) to Treasury in the Obama Administration,
but Geithner's Treasury was staffed from Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase and Citibank. The crisis served
to concentrate banking assets in the hands of the top five banks, but it seemed also to transfer political
power entirely into their hands as well. Simon Johnson called it a coup. ..."
"... Here's the thing: the globalization and financialization of the economy from roughly 1980 drove
both increasingly extreme distribution of income and de-industrialization. ..."
"... It was characteristic of neoliberalism that the policy, policy intention and policy consequences
were hidden behind a rhetoric of markets and technological inevitability. Matt Stoller has identified
this as the statecraft of neoliberalism: the elimination of political agency and responsibility for
economic performance and outcomes. Globalization and financialization were just "forces" that just happened,
in a meteorological economics. ..."
"... This was not your grandfather's Democratic Party and it was a Democratic Party that could aid
the working class and the Rust Belt only within fairly severe and sometimes sharply conflicting constraints.
..."
"... No one in the Democratic Party had much institutional incentive to connect the dots, and draw
attention to the acute conflicts over the distribution of income and wealth involved in financialization
of the economy (including financialization as a driver of health care costs). And, that makes the political
problem that much harder, because there are no resources for rhetorical and informational clarity or
coherence. ..."
"... If Obama could not get a very big stimulus indeed thru a Democratic Congress long out of power,
Obama wasn't really trying. And, well-chosen spending on pork barrel projects is popular and gets Congressional
critters re-elected. So, again, if the stimulus is small and the Democratic Congress doesn't get re-elected,
Obama isn't really trying. ..."
"... Again, it comes down to: by 2008, the Democratic Party is not a fit vehicle for populism, because
it has become a neoliberal vehicle for giant banks. Turns out that makes a policy difference. ..."
At the center of Great Depression politics was a political struggle over the distribution of
income, a struggle that was only decisively resolved during the War, by the Great Compression.
It was at center of farm policy where policymakers struggled to find ways to support farm incomes.
It was at the center of industrial relations politics, where rapidly expanding unions were seeking
higher industrial wages. It was at the center of banking policy, where predatory financial practices
were under attack. It was at the center of efforts to regulate electric utility rates and establish
public power projects. And, everywhere, the clear subtext was a struggle between rich and poor,
the economic royalists as FDR once called them and everyone else.
FDR, an unmistakeable patrician in manner and pedigree, was leading a not-quite-revolutionary
politics, which was nevertheless hostile to and suspicious of business elites, as a source of
economic pathology. The New Deal did not seek to overthrow the plutocracy, but it did seek
to side-step and disable their dominance.
It seems to me that while neoliberalism on the right was much the same old same old, the
neoliberal turn on the left was marked by a measured abandonment of this struggle over the distribution
of income between the classes. In the U.S., the Democrats gradually abandoned their populist commitments.
In Europe, the labour and socialist parties gradually abandoned class struggle.
In retrospect, though the New Deal did use direct employment as a means of relief to good effect
economically and politically, it never undertook anything like a Keynesian stimulus on a Keynesian
scale - at least until the War.
Where the New Deal witnessed the institution of an elaborate system of financial repression,
accomplished in large part by imposing on the financial sector an explicitly mandated structure,
with types of firms and effective limits on firm size and scope, a series of regulatory reforms
and financial crises beginning with Carter and Reagan served to wipe this structure away.
When Obama came in, in 2008 amid the unfolding GFC, one of the most remarkable features
of his economic team was the extent to which it conceded control of policy entirely to the leading
money center banks. Geithner and Bernanke continued in power with Geithner moving from the New
York Federal Reserve (where he served as I recall under a Chair from Goldman Sachs) to Treasury
in the Obama Administration, but Geithner's Treasury was staffed from Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan
Chase and Citibank. The crisis served to concentrate banking assets in the hands of the top five
banks, but it seemed also to transfer political power entirely into their hands as well. Simon
Johnson called it a coup.
I don't know what considerations guided Obama in choosing the size of the stimulus or its composition
(as spending and tax cuts). Larry Summers was identified at the time as a voice of caution, not
"gambling", but not much is known about his detailed reasoning in severely trimming Christina
Romer's entirely conventional calculations. (One consideration might well have been worldwide
resource shortages, which had made themselves felt in 2007-8 as an inflationary spike in commodity
prices.) I do not see a case for connecting stimulus size policy to the health care reform. At
the time the stimulus was proposed, the Administration had also been considering whether various
big banks and other financial institutions should be nationalized, forced to insolvency or otherwise
restructured as part of a regulatory reform.
Here's the thing: the globalization and financialization of the economy from roughly 1980
drove both increasingly extreme distribution of income and de-industrialization. Accelerating
the financialization of the economy from 1999 on made New York and Washington rich, but the same
economic policies and process were devastating the Rust Belt as de-industrialization. They were
two aspects of the same complex of economic trends and policies. The rise of China as a manufacturing
center was, in critical respects, a financial operation within the context of globalized trade
that made investment in new manufacturing plant in China, as part of globalized supply chains
and global brand management, (arguably artificially) low-risk and high-profit, while reinvestment
in manufacturing in the American mid-west became unattractive, except as a game of extracting
tax subsidies or ripping off workers.
It was characteristic of neoliberalism that the policy, policy intention and policy consequences
were hidden behind a rhetoric of markets and technological inevitability. Matt Stoller has identified
this as the statecraft of neoliberalism: the elimination of political agency and responsibility
for economic performance and outcomes. Globalization and financialization were just "forces" that
just happened, in a meteorological economics.
It is conceding too many good intentions to the Obama Administration to tie an inadequate stimulus
to a Rube Goldberg health care reform as the origin story for the final debacle of Democratic
neoliberal politics. There was a delicate balancing act going on, but they were not balancing
the recovery of the economy in general so much as they were balancing the recovery from insolvency
of a highly inefficient and arguably predatory financial sector, which was also not incidentally
financing the institutional core of the Democratic Party and staffing many key positions in the
Administration and in the regulatory apparatus.
This was not your grandfather's Democratic Party and it was a Democratic Party that could
aid the working class and the Rust Belt only within fairly severe and sometimes sharply conflicting
constraints.
No one in the Democratic Party had much institutional incentive to connect the dots, and
draw attention to the acute conflicts over the distribution of income and wealth involved in financialization
of the economy (including financialization as a driver of health care costs). And, that makes
the political problem that much harder, because there are no resources for rhetorical and informational
clarity or coherence.
The short version of my thinking on the Obama stimulus is this: Keynesian stimulus spending is
a free lunch; it doesn't really matter what you spend money on up to a very generous point, so
it seems ready-made for legislative log-rolling. If Obama could not get a very big stimulus
indeed thru a Democratic Congress long out of power, Obama wasn't really trying. And, well-chosen
spending on pork barrel projects is popular and gets Congressional critters re-elected. So, again,
if the stimulus is small and the Democratic Congress doesn't get re-elected, Obama isn't really
trying.
Again, it comes down to: by 2008, the Democratic Party is not a fit vehicle for populism,
because it has become a neoliberal vehicle for giant banks. Turns out that makes a policy difference.
Great comment. Simply great. Hat tip to the author !
Notable quotes:
"… The New Deal did not seek to overthrow the plutocracy, but it did seek to side-step and
disable their dominance. …"
"… It seems to me that while neoliberalism on the right was much the same old same old, the
neoliberal turn on the left was marked by a measured abandonment of this struggle over the distribution
of income between the classes. In the U.S., the Democrats gradually abandoned their populist
commitments. In Europe, the labour and socialist parties gradually abandoned class struggle. …"
"… When Obama came in, in 2008 amid the unfolding GFC, one of the most remarkable features
of his economic team was the extent to which it conceded control of policy entirely to the leading
money center banks. Geithner and Bernanke continued in power with Geithner moving from the
New York Federal Reserve (where he served as I recall under a Chair from Goldman Sachs) to Treasury
in the Obama Administration, but Geithner's Treasury was staffed from Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan
Chase and Citibank. The crisis served to concentrate banking assets in the hands of the top
five banks, but it seemed also to transfer political power entirely into their hands as well.
Simon Johnson called it a coup. … "
"… Here's the thing: the globalization and financialization of the economy from roughly 1980
drove both increasingly extreme distribution of income and de-industrialization. …"
"… It was characteristic of neoliberalism that the policy, policy intention and policy consequences
were hidden behind a rhetoric of markets and technological inevitability. Matt Stoller has identified
this as the statecraft of neoliberalism: the elimination of political agency and responsibility
for economic performance and outcomes. Globalization and financialization were just "forces"
that just happened, in a meteorological economics. …"
"… This was not your grandfather's Democratic Party and it was a Democratic Party that could
aid the working class and the Rust Belt only within fairly severe and sometimes sharply conflicting
constraints. …"
"… No one in the Democratic Party had much institutional incentive to connect the dots, and
draw attention to the acute conflicts over the distribution of income and wealth involved in financialization
of the economy (including financialization as a driver of health care costs). And, that makes
the political problem that much harder, because there are no resources for rhetorical and informational
clarity or coherence. …"
"… If Obama could not get a very big stimulus indeed thru a Democratic Congress long out of
power, Obama wasn't really trying. And, well-chosen spending on pork barrel projects is popular
and gets Congressional critters re-elected. So, again, if the stimulus is small and the Democratic
Congress doesn't get re-elected, Obama isn't really trying. …"
"… Again, it comes down to: by 2008, the Democratic Party is not a fit vehicle for populism,
because it has become a neoliberal vehicle for giant banks. Turns out that makes a policy difference.
…"
"... I can recall tales of insecure Eastern European Jewish immigrants pretending to be WASPS. ..."
"... To be blunt, Barack Obama was less "a president" than a talented actor playing at being presidential. ..."
"... Those of us who have encountered this deception are usually aware of its tell-tale signs, though, to be fair, it may have been diligently practiced for so long that it has become a "real" element of the perpetrator's core personality. For those unfamiliar with this deception, let me now offer a brief catalogue of these tactics. ..."
"... Central is the careful management of outward physical appearances. In theatrical terms, these are props and depending on circumstances, this might be a finely tailored suit, wingtip shoes, a crisp white shirt, a smart silk tie and all the rest that announce business-like competence. ..."
"... Mastering "white" language is equally critical and in the academy this includes everything from tossing around trendy terms, for example, "paradigmatic," to displaying what appears to be a mastering of disciplinary jargon. Recall how the Black Panthers seduced gullible whites with just a sprinkling of Marxist terminology. ..."
"... I recall one (white) colleague who gave a little speech praising a deeply flawed dissertation written by a black assistant professor up for tenure. He told the assembled committee that her dissertation reminded him of Newton's Principia Mathematica (can't make that stuff up). ..."
"... Obama as President repeatedly exhibits these characteristics. It is thus hardly accidental that he relies extensively on canned Teleprompter speeches. According to one compilation published in January 2013, Obama has used Teleprompters in 699 speeches during his first term in office. There is also his aversion to informal off-the-cuff discussions with the press and open mike who-knows-what-will-happen "Town Hall" meetings. Obama is also the first president I've ever seen who often favors a casual blue jacket monogrammed "President of the United States." ..."
"... I suspect that deep down Obama recognizes that almost everything is an act not unlike Eddy Murphy playing Professor Sherman Klump in The Nutty Professor . It is no wonder, then, that his academic records (particularly his SAT scores) are sealed and, perhaps even more important, many of his fellow college students and colleagues at the University of Chicago where he briefly taught constitutional law cannot recall him. It is hard to imagine Obama relishing the prospect of going head-to-head with his sharp-witted Chicago colleagues. ..."
"... As a mulatto raised by white grandparents in Hawaii, Obama is not a black American, with no cultural ties to black Americans and slavery, yet he later learned to throw out a black accent to fool the fools. As Stephen Colbert once observed, white Americans love Obama because he was raised the right way, by white people. That was intended as humor, but ..."
"... Obama has leased an ultra-expensive house in an exclusive neighborhood in DC just like the corrupt Bill Clinton prior to his multi-million dollar speaking and influence peddling efforts. Obama will not return to Chicago to help poor blacks, like Jimmy Carter did elsewhere after he left office. Obama doesn't need an Oscar, he got a Nobel Peace Prize for the same act. ..."
"... Congratulations on noticing what it takes to be a successful politician in ANY "Western" democracy. It doesn't matter if you are black, white, aquamarine or candy-striped, or whether you are a college professor, an "economist", or a "businessman". It's all bluff and acting. ..."
"... The single most critical element of a successful con is not the hucksters appearance, or mannerisms, or even the spiel, it is simply making the con something that the sucker wants to believe. ..."
"... I recognized Obama's type not from academia, but from corporate America. He was the token black higher up. He's smart enough not to obviously do something requiring termination (get drunk and harass a colleague at an office party, shred important document, etc.), and his mistakes can be blamed on team failures, so he gets "black guy's tenure"-a middle or upper management position after only a few years. ..."
"... This critique applies to almost every Presidential candidate, regardless of ethnicity. ..."
"... The most successful recent President was a former professional actor and thus well suited for the position. The latest President-elect is also a savvy media figure, and yet mocked for his obvious lack of intellectual heft. But in his case, he's not acting, it's reality TV. ..."
"... PS. Maybe some Jews around Trump are beginning to feel that China is the real danger to US power in the long run. So, what US should really do is patch things up with Russia for the time being, drive a wedge between China and Russia, and use Russia against China and then go after Russia. ..."
"... Really! Go after Russia? And how would you do that and why? What would "going after Russia" look like? What about the "horrific Rape of Russia" you spoke of? China and Russia have business to conduct, they're quite through with us, our dollar and our Fed. We'll be lucky if they allow us a piece of the action. Instead of Russia>China>Russia machinations, we might want to figure out strategies for doing some other business than patronizing our arms manufacturers. Hey, cap Jewish influence in the courts and business if you wish, but keeping the U.S. in an endless state of war, economic and otherwise is zero sum and worse for the little people. ..."
"... I've called him that for years. And Dubya was possibly our first "legacy" president: chosen entirely based on whom he's related to not on any individual qualities that would suit him for such a high office. Had Dubya been raised by regular people, he would have probably ended up as a hardware store manager. ..."
"... Amen to all. The whole deal is a fraud. All successful politicians are imposters, people who've mastered the art of deception. I'd go even further and say that the majority of "authority figures" are probably parasites and frauds to one degree or another. ..."
"... Overall, the current president has been a deception, a trivial self-absorbed person whose main concern has been himself turned outward onto issues of race and sexual orientation ..."
"... American politics at this level is fake. Everything is orchestrated, attire is handpicked, speeches are written by professionals and read off the teleprompter, questions from the public are actually from plants and rehearsed prior, armies of PR people are at work everywhere, journalists are just flunky propagandists, ..."
"... He will be the subject of future dissertations about the failure of the American political process and the influence of media and third parties like Soros. ..."
As the troubled Obama presidency winds down, the inevitable question is why so many people, including
a few smart ones were so easily fooled. How did a man with such a fine pedigree-Columbia, Harvard-who
sounded so brilliant pursue such political capital wasting and foolish policies as forcing schools
to discipline students by racial quotas? Or obsessing over allowing the transgendered to choose any
bathroom? And, of the utmost importance, how can we prevent another Obama?
I'll begin simply: Obama is an imposter, a man who has mastered the art of deception as a skilled
actor deceives an audience though in the case of Obama, most of the audience refused to accept that
this was all play-acting. Even after almost eight years of ineptitude, millions still want to believe
that he's the genuine article-an authentically super-bright guy able to fix a flawed America. Far
more is involved than awarding blacks the intellectual equivalent of diplomatic immunity.
When Obama first appeared on the political scene I immediately recognized him as an example of
the "successful" black academic who rapidly advances up the university ladder despite minimal accomplishment.
Tellingly, when I noted the paucity of accomplishment of these black academic over-achievers to trusted
professorial colleagues, they agreed with my analysis adding that they themselves had seen several
instances of this phenomenon, but admittedly failed to connect the dots.
Here's the academic version of an Obama. You encounter this black student who appears a liberal's
affirmative action dream come true -- exceptionally articulate with no trace of a ghetto accent, well-dressed,
personable (no angry "tude"), and at least superficially sufficient brain power to succeed even in
demanding subjects. Matters begin splendidly, but not for long. Almost invariably, his or her performance
on the first test or paper falls far below expectations. A research paper, for example was only "C"
work (though you generously awarded it a "B") and to make matters worse, it exhibited a convoluted
writing style, a disregard for logic, ineptly constructed references and similar defects. Nevertheless,
you accepted the usual litany of student excuses -- his claim of over-commitment, the material was unfamiliar,
and this was his first research paper and so on. A reprieve was granted.
But the unease grows stronger with the second exam or paper, often despite your helpful advice
on how to do better. Reality grows depressing -- what you see is not what you get and lacks any reasonable
feel-good explanation. The outwardly accomplished black student is not an Asian struggling with English
or a clear-cut affirmation action admittee in over his head. That this student may have actually
studied diligently and followed your advice only exacerbates the discomfort.
To repeat, the way to make sense out this troubling situation is to think of this disappointing
black student as a talented actor who has mastered the role of "smart college student." He has the
gift of mimicry, conceivably a talent rooted in evolutionary development among a people who often
had to survive by their wits (adaptive behavior captured by the phrase "acting white" or "passing").
This gift is hardly limited to blacks. I can recall tales of insecure Eastern European Jewish immigrants
pretending to be WASPS.
But what if the observer was unaware of it being only a theatrical performance and took the competence
at face value? Disaster. Russell Crowe as the Nobel Prize winning John Nash in A
Beautiful Mind
might give a stunning performance as a brilliant economist, but he would not last a minute
if he tried to pass himself off as the real thing at a Princeton economic department seminar.
To be blunt, Barack Obama was less "a president" than a talented actor playing at being presidential.
Those of us who have encountered this deception are usually aware of its tell-tale signs,
though, to be fair, it may have been diligently practiced for so long that it has become a "real"
element of the perpetrator's core personality. For those unfamiliar with this deception, let me now
offer a brief catalogue of these tactics.
Central is the careful management of outward physical appearances. In theatrical terms, these
are props and depending on circumstances, this might be a finely tailored suit, wingtip shoes, a
crisp white shirt, a smart silk tie and all the rest that announce business-like competence.
Future college or foundation president here we come (Obama has clearly mastered this sartorial ploy).
But for those seeking an appointment as a professor, this camouflage must be more casual but, whatever
the choice, there cannot be any hint of "ghetto" style, i.e., no flashy jewelry, gold chains, purple
"pimpish" suits, or anything else that even slightly hints of what blacks might consider authentic
black attire.
Mastering "white" language is equally critical and in the academy this includes everything
from tossing around trendy terms, for example, "paradigmatic," to displaying what appears to be a
mastering of disciplinary jargon. Recall how the Black Panthers seduced gullible whites with just
a sprinkling of Marxist terminology. Precisely citing a few obscure court cases or administrative
directives can also do the trick. Further add certain verbal styles common among professors or peppering
a presentation with correctly pronounced non-English words. I recall a talk by one black professor
from the University of Chicago who wowed my colleagues by just using-and correctly so-a few Yiddish
expressions.
Ironically, self-defined conservatives are especially vulnerable to these well-crafted performances.
No doubt, like all good thinking liberals, they desperately want to believe that blacks are just
as talented as whites so an Obama-like figure is merely the first installment of coming racial equality.
The arrival of this long-awaited black also provides a great opportunity to demonstrate that being
"conservative" does not certify one as a racist. Alas, this can be embarrassing and comical if over-done.
I recall one (white) colleague who gave a little speech praising a deeply flawed dissertation
written by a black assistant professor up for tenure. He told the assembled committee that her dissertation
reminded him of Newton's Principia Mathematica (can't make that stuff up).
Alas, the deception usually unravels when the imposter confronts a complicated unstructured situation
lacking a well-defined script, hardly surprising given the IQ test data indicate that blacks usually
perform better on items reflecting social norms, less well on abstract, highly "g" loaded items.
In academic job presentations, for example, a job candidate's intellectual limits often become apparent
during the Q and A when pressed to wrestle with technical or logical abstractions that go beyond
the initial well-rehearsed talk. Picture a job candidate who just finished reading a paper being
asked whether the argument is falsifiable or how causality might be established? These can be killer
questions that require ample quick footed intellectual dexterity and often bring an awkward silence
as the candidate struggles to think on his feet (these responses may rightly be judged far more important
than what is read from a paper). I recall one genuinely bewildered black job candidate who explained
a complicated measurement choice with "my Ph.D. advisor, a past president of the American Political
Science Association told me to do it this way."
Obama as President repeatedly exhibits these characteristics. It is thus hardly accidental
that he relies extensively on canned Teleprompter speeches. According to
one compilation published in January 2013, Obama has used Teleprompters in 699 speeches during
his first term in office. There is also his aversion to informal off-the-cuff discussions with the
press and open mike who-knows-what-will-happen "Town Hall" meetings. Obama is also the first president
I've ever seen who often favors a casual blue jacket monogrammed "President of the United States."
Perhaps the best illustration of these confused, often rambling moments occurs when he offers
impromptu commentary on highly charged, fast-breaking race-related incidents such as the Louis Henry
Gates
dustup
in Cambridge , Mass ("the police acted stupidly") and the Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown shootings.
You could see his pained look as he struggles with being a "good race man" while simultaneously struggling
to sort out murky legal issues. This is not the usual instances of politicians speaking evasively
to avoid controversy; he was genuinely befuddled.
Similar signs of confused thinking can also be seen in other spontaneous remarks, the most famous
example might be his comment about those Americans clinging to their guns and Bibles. What was he
thinking? Did he forget that both gun and Bible ownership are constitutionally protected and the
word "cling" in this context suggests mental illness? Woes to some impertinent reporter who challenged
the President to clarify his oft-repeated "the wrong side of history" quip or explain the precise
meaning of, "That's not who were are"? "Mr. President, can you enlighten us on how you know you are
on the Right Side of History"?
I suspect that deep down Obama recognizes that almost everything is an act not unlike Eddy Murphy
playing Professor Sherman Klump in The Nutty
Professor . It is no wonder, then, that his academic records (particularly his SAT scores)
are sealed and, perhaps even more important, many of his fellow college students and colleagues at
the University of Chicago where he briefly taught constitutional law cannot recall him. It is hard
to imagine Obama relishing the prospect of going head-to-head with his sharp-witted Chicago colleagues.
Further add his lack of a publication in the Harvard Law Review, a perk as the President
of the Law Review (not Editor) and the credible
evidence that his two autobiographies where ghost written after their initial rejection as unsuitable
for publication. All and all, a picture emerges of an individual who knows he must fake it to convince
others of his intellectual talents, and like a skilled actor he has spent years studying the role
of "President." President Obama deserves an Academy award (which, of course would also be a step
toward diversity, to boot) for his efforts.
Carlton Meyer says: • Website
November 16, 2016 at 5:31 am GMT • 300 Words
This is why I often referred to Obama as a "Pentagon spokesman." Did you know his proposed
military budgets each year were on average higher than Bush or Reagan? People forget that is
first objective as President was to close our torture camp in Cuba. He could have issued an
Executive Order and have it closed in one day. DOJ aircraft could fly all the inmates away within
two hours before any court could challenge that, if they dared. It remains open.
Yet when Congress refused to act to open borders wider, he issued an Executive Order to grant
residency to five million illegals. And under Soros direction, he sent DoJ attack dogs after any
state or city that questioned the right of men who want to use a ladies room.
As a mulatto raised by white grandparents in Hawaii, Obama is not a black American, with no
cultural ties to black Americans and slavery, yet he later learned to throw out a black accent to
fool the fools. As Stephen Colbert once observed, white Americans love Obama because he was
raised the right way, by white people. That was intended as humor, but
Obama has leased an ultra-expensive house in an exclusive neighborhood in DC just like the
corrupt Bill Clinton prior to his multi-million dollar speaking and influence peddling efforts.
Obama will not return to Chicago to help poor blacks, like Jimmy Carter did elsewhere after he
left office. Obama doesn't need an Oscar, he got a Nobel Peace Prize for the same act.
3.anon says:
November 16, 2016 at 5:34 am GMT • 100 Words
What to make of the Michael Eric Dysons and the Cornell Wests of the world ?? How do they rise up the ranks of academia , become darlings of talk shows and news panels , all
the while dressed and speaking ghetto with zero talent or interest in appearing white . And zero
academic competency ??
6.CCZ, November 16, 2016 at 6:08 am GMT
Our first affirmative action President? I have yet to hear that exact description, even in a
nation with 60 million deplorable "racist" voters.
8.Tom Welsh, November 16, 2016 at 7:00 am GMT • 100 Words
Congratulations on noticing what it takes to be a successful politician in ANY "Western"
democracy. It doesn't matter if you are black, white, aquamarine or candy-striped, or whether you
are a college professor, an "economist", or a "businessman". It's all bluff and acting.
Why does anyone still find this surprising?
11.Alfa158, November 16, 2016 at 7:56 am GMT • 100 Words
The single most critical element of a successful con is not the hucksters appearance, or
mannerisms, or even the spiel, it is simply making the con something that the sucker wants to
believe. White people were desperate for a Magic Negro and they got one. Black people ended up
suffering from deteriorating economics and exploding intramural murder rates.
12.whorefinder, November 16, 2016 at 8:02 am GMT • 300 Words
Strikes a chord with me, and with Clint Eastwood (recall the 2012 RNC, where Eastwood mocked
Obama as an "empty chair").
I recognized Obama's type not from academia, but from corporate America. He was the token black
higher up. He's smart enough not to obviously do something requiring termination (get drunk and
harass a colleague at an office party, shred important document, etc.), and his mistakes can be
blamed on team failures, so he gets "black guy's tenure"-a middle or upper management position
after only a few years.
He then makes sure he shows up every weekday at 9am, but he's out the door at 5pm-and no weekends
for him. He's there for "diversity" drives and is prominently featured on the company brochures,
and might even be given an award or honorary title every few years to cover him, but he never
brings in clients or moves business positively in anyway. But he's quick to take the boss up on
the golfing trips. In short, he's realized he's there to be the black corporate shield, and
that's all he does. He's a lazy token and fine with being lazy.
It's why Obama had little problem letting Pelosi/Reid/Bill Clinton do all the heavy lifting on
Obamacare–not only was Obama out of his depth, he was just plain ol' fine with being out of his
depth, because someone else would do it for him. So he went golfing instead.
This is also why that White House press conference where Bill Clinton took over for him halfway
speaks volumes. Obama literally had no problem simply walking away from his presidential duties
to go party-because someone else would do it for him, as they always had.
It's also why he seems so annoyed when asked about the race rioting going on as a result of his
administration's actions. Hey, why do you think I gotta do anything? I just show up and people
tell me I did a great job!
13.Ramona, November 16, 2016 at 8:04 am GMT
It's been said for years that Obama amounts to no more than a dignified talk show host. The
observation has merit. Oscar-wise, though, only for ironic value.
15.Realist, November 16, 2016 at 9:50 am GMT • 100 Words
@Anon
"I think Obama is pretty smart if not genius. His mother was no dummy, and his father seems to
have been pretty bright too, and there are smart blacks."
Ann Dunham had a PhD in anthropology from a run of the mill university where she literally
studied women textile weaving in third world countries. Pure genius .right.
16.Fran Macadam, November 16, 2016 at 9:54 am GMT • 100 Words
This critique applies to almost every Presidential candidate, regardless of ethnicity. So few of
them have been other than those playing a role assigned by their donors. The most successful
recent President was a former professional actor and thus well suited for the position. The
latest President-elect is also a savvy media figure, and yet mocked for his obvious lack of
intellectual heft. But in his case, he's not acting, it's reality TV.
17.Jim Christian says:
November 16, 2016 at 9:59 am GMT • 200 Words @Anon
PS. Maybe some Jews around Trump are beginning to feel that China is the real danger to US power
in the long run. So, what US should really do is patch things up with Russia for the time being,
drive a wedge between China and Russia, and use Russia against China and then go after Russia.
Really! Go after Russia? And how would you do that and why? What would "going after Russia" look
like? What about the "horrific Rape of Russia" you spoke of? China and Russia have business to
conduct, they're quite through with us, our dollar and our Fed. We'll be lucky if they allow us a
piece of the action. Instead of Russia>China>Russia machinations, we might want to figure out
strategies for doing some other business than patronizing our arms manufacturers. Hey, cap Jewish
influence in the courts and business if you wish, but keeping the U.S. in an endless state of
war, economic and otherwise is zero sum and worse for the little people.
20.timalex, November 16, 2016 at 11:58 am GMT
Americans voted for and elected Obama because it made them feel virtuous in their mind and in the
eyes of the world. Obama has always been a psychopath. Psychopaths are good at lying and hiding things,even when
Presidents.
21.The Alarmist , November 16, 2016 at 12:03 pm GMT
So, you're saying he was an affirmative action hire.
22.Anon, November 16, 2016 at 12:28 pm GMT
Yeah and every white person in a position of power and privilege is "authentically intelligent".
America is a society run by and for phonies.
23.War for Blair Mountain, November 16, 2016 at 12:32 pm GMT • 100 Words
Barack Obama is a creation of the Cold War. His father was imported into the US through an
anti-commie Cold War foreign student program for young Africans. Barack Obama's nonwhite Democratic Party Voting Bloc would not exist if the 1965 Immigration
Reform Act had not been passed. The 1965 Immigration Reform Act was another creation of the
anti-commie Cold War Crusade.
The anti-commie Cold War Crusade has been a Death sentence for The Historic Native Born White
American Majority.
It is now time to rethink the Cold War .very long overdue..
24.AndrewR, November 16, 2016 at 12:55 pm GMT • 100 Words
@CCZ
I've called him that for years. And Dubya was possibly our first "legacy" president: chosen entirely based on whom he's related
to not on any individual qualities that would suit him for such a high office. Had Dubya been raised by regular people, he would have probably ended up as a hardware store
manager.
25.Rehmat, November 16, 2016 at 1:36 pm GMT • 100 Words
I think after wining Nobel Peace Award without achieving peace anywhere in the world – Obama
deserve Oscar more than Nobel Prize for equating Holocaust as a religion with Christianity and
Islam in his speech at the UNGA in September 2012.
Oscar has a long tradition to award top slot for every Holocaust movie produced so far.
"There's no business like Shoah business," says YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, established
by Max Weinreich in Lithuania in 1925.
More than 70 movies and documentary on Jewish Holocaust have been produced so far to keep
Whiteman's guild alive. Holocaust Industry's main purpose is to suck trillions of dollars and
moral support for the Zionist entity. Since 1959 movie, The Diary of Anne Frank, 22 Holocaust
movies have won at least one Oscar ..
27.jacques sheete says: November 16, 2016 at 2:20 pm GMT • 200 Words
@Tom Welsh
Amen to all. The whole deal is a fraud. All successful politicians are imposters, people who've mastered the
art of deception. I'd go even further and say that the majority of "authority figures" are probably parasites and
frauds to one degree or another.
I enjoy democracy immensely. It is incomparably idiotic, and hence incomparably amusing. Does it
exalt dunderheads, cowards, trimmers, frauds, cads? Then the pain of seeing them go up is
balanced and obliterated by the joy of seeing them come down. Is it inordinately wasteful,
extravagant, dishonest? Then so is every other form of government: all alike are enemies to
laborious and virtuous men. Is rascality at the very heart of it? Well, we have borne that
rascality since 1776, and continue to survive. In the long run, it may turn out that rascality is
necessary to human government, and even to civilization itself – that civilization, at bottom, is
nothing but a colossal swindle.
- H. L. Mencken, Last Words (1926)
28.anonymous, November 16, 2016 at 2:34 pm GMT • 200 Words
The bar was set ridiculously low by his predecessor the village idiot Bush who could barely
put together a coherent sentence. After eight years of disaster people were hoping for
something different. Having a deranged person like McCain as his opposition certainly helped.
What choice did the American people have?
He received a Nobel Peace prize for absolutely nothing although I admit his reluctance to
barge into Syria was quite welcome. How many wars would we be in had the war-crazed McCain
gotten into office?
Overall, the current president has been a deception, a trivial self-absorbed person
whose main concern has been himself turned outward onto issues of race and sexual orientation.
American politics at this level is fake. Everything is orchestrated, attire is
handpicked, speeches are written by professionals and read off the teleprompter, questions
from the public are actually from plants and rehearsed prior, armies of PR people are at work
everywhere, journalists are just flunky propagandists, expressions of emotion are
calculated, the mass media is the property of the billionaire and corporate class and reflects
their interests, and so on down the line. The masses of Americans are just there to be managed
and milked. Look back at the history of the US: When haven't they been lying to us?
29.nsa, November 16, 2016 at 2:44 pm GMT • 100 Words
President is a very easy job. Almost anyone could fake it even actors, peanut farmers,
mulatto community organizers, illegitimate offspring of trailer park whores, haberdashers,
developers, soldiers, irish playboys, bicycle riding dry drunks, low rent CA shysters, daft
professors.
Play lots of golf. Hot willing young pussy available for the asking. Anyone call you a
name, have them audited. Invite pals onto the gravy train. Everyone kissing your ass and
begging for favors. Media nitwits hanging on every word. Afterwards, get filthy rich making
speeches and appearances. Tough job .
30.Anonymous, November 16, 2016 at 3:03 pm GMT • 100 Words
Manchurian Candidate, or Kenyan Candidate? Whatever he may be called, our current White
House resident is a colossal joke perpetrated on the world. Whoever covered all his tracks did
a masterful task. He will be the subject of future dissertations about the failure of the
American political process and the influence of media and third parties like Soros.
32.Lorax, November 16, 2016 at 3:17 pm GMT
Obama's grandfather, Stanley Armour Dunham, was a "furniture salesman," for which role he
deserved an Oscar as well. It takes real acting ability to
pull off a lifetime career in Intelligence Service:
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2010/08/07/obama's-cia-pedigree/
34.JoeFour, November 16, 2016 at 3:56 pm GMT
@AndrewR
"Had Dubya been raised by regular people, he would have probably ended up as a hardware
store manager."
AndrewR, I know you didn't mean it, but you have just insulted all of the thousands of
hardware store managers in this country.
"... Where the Democrats went wrong CNBC. Obama: "[O]ne of the issues that Democrats have to be clear on is that given population distribution across the country, we have to compete everywhere, we have to show up everywhere." Throwing Clinton under the bus… ..."
"... he means just showing up, telling people what they want to hear, then doing whatever the hell you want after getting elected. Not one word about actually meeting peoples needs. EFF OBAMA and the DEMOCRATIC PARTY!! ..."
"... If you didn't read this (linked yesterday), you should consider both reading and sharing far and wide. The entire system is designed to be anti-representative. ..."
"... Don't just get/stay mad, quit expecting a bunch of gangsters to function democratically. ..."
Where the Democrats went wrong CNBC. Obama: "[O]ne of the issues that Democrats have to be
clear on is that given population distribution across the country, we have to compete everywhere,
we have to show up everywhere." Throwing Clinton under the bus…
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I yelled at the radio after hearing this, because he means just showing up, telling people what
they want to hear, then doing whatever the hell you want after getting elected. Not one word about
actually meeting peoples needs. EFF OBAMA and the DEMOCRATIC PARTY!!
If you didn't
read this (linked yesterday), you should consider both reading and sharing far and wide. The
entire system is designed to be anti-representative.
Don't just get/stay mad, quit expecting a
bunch of gangsters to function democratically. Get out of their box.
"... Knowing how angry the working class has become, the deep state could not install Hillary, for that would have been a tiresome rehash of another Clinton presidency. With NAFTA, Bill launched the job offshoring that has wrecked this country, and those most affected by it, working class whites, know damn well who's responsible. The Clinton brand has become anathema to middle America. ..."
"... On the foreign front, America's belligerence will not ease up under a Trump presidency, for without a hyper kinetic military to browbeat and bomb, the world will stop lending us money. The US doesn't just wage wars to fatten the military banking complex, but to prop up the US Dollar and prevent our economy from collapsing. The empire yields tangible benefits for even the lowliest Americans. ..."
Michele
Paccione / Shutterstock.com
Universally, Trump was depicted as an anti-establishment candidate. Washington and Wall Street
hated him, and the media were deployed to vilify him endlessly. If they could not discredit Trump
enough, surely they would steal the election from him. Some even suggested Trump would be assassinated.
Acting the part, Trump charged repeatedly that the election was rigged, and he was right, of course.
During the primaries, Hillary Clinton received debate questions in advance from CNN. More seriously,
30 states used voting machines that could easily be hacked.
A leaked tape of Trump making obscene comments about groping women became further proof that the
establishment was out to get him. In spite of all this, Trump managed to win by a landslide, so what
happened?
To steal an American election, one only needs to tamper with votes in two or three critical states,
and since Hillary didn't win, we must conclude that she was never the establishment's chosen puppet.
As Trump claimed, the fix was in, all right, except that it was rigged in his favor, as born out
by the fact.
While everybody else yelped that Trump would never be allowed to win, I begged to differ. After
the Orlando false flag shooting on June 12th, 2016, I wrote:
In 2008, Obama was touted as a political outsider who will hose away all of the rot and bloody
criminality of the Bush years. He turned out to be a deft move by our ruling class. Though fools
still refuse to see it, Obama is a perfect servant of our military banking complex. Now, Trump
is being trumpeted as another political outsider.
A Trump presidency will temporarily appease restless, lower class whites, while serving as
a magnet for liberal anger. This will buy our ruling class time as they continue to wage war abroad
while impoverishing Americans back home. Like Obama, Trump won't fulfill any of his election promises,
and this, too, will be blamed on bipartisan politics.
On September 24th, I doubled down:
Mind-fucked, most Americans can't even see that an American president's only task is to disguise
the deep state's intentions. Chosen by the deep state to explain away its crimes, our president's
pronouncements are nearly always contradicted by the deep state's actions. While the president
talks of peace, democracy, racial harmony, prosperity for Main Street and going after banksters,
etc., the deep state wages endless war, stages meaningless elections, stokes racial hatred, bankrupts
nearly all Americans and enables massive Wall Street crimes, etc.
Only the infantile will imagine the president as any kind of savior or, even more hilariously,
anti-establishment. Since the deep state won't even tolerate a renegade reporter at, say, the
San Jose Mercury News, how can you expect a deep state's enemy to land in the White House?! It
cannot happen.
A presidential candidate will promise to fix all that's wrong with our government, and this
stance, this appearance, is actually very useful for the deep state, for it gives Americans hope.
Promising everything, Obama delivered nothing. So who do you think is being primed by the deep
state to be our next false savior?
Who benefits from false flag terrorist attacks blamed on Muslims? Who gains when blacks riot?
Why is the Democratic Party propping up a deeply-despised and terminally ill war criminal? More
personable Bernie Sanders was nixed by the deep state since it had another jester in mind.
The first presidential debate is Monday. Under stress, Hillary's eyes will dart in separate
directions. Coughing nonstop for 90 minutes, her highness will hack up a gazillion unsecured emails.
Her head will jerk spasmodically, plop onto the floor and, though decapitated, continue to gush
platitudes and lies. "A Very Impressive Performance," CNBC and CNN will announce. Come November,
though, Trump will be installed because his constituency needs to be temporarily pacified. The
deep state knows that white people are pissed.
The media were out to get Trump, pundits from across the political spectrum kept repeating, but
the truth is that the media made Trump. Long before the election, Trump became a household name,
thanks to the media.
Your average American can't name any other real estate developer, casino owner or even his own
senators, but he has known Trump since forever. For more than a decade, Trump was a reality TV star,
with two of his children also featured regularly on The Apprentice. Trump's "You're fired" and his
hair became iconic. Trump appeared on talk shows, had cameo roles in movies and owned the Miss Universe
pageant. In 2011, Obama joked that Trump as president would deck out the White House in garish fashion,
with his own name huge on the façade. The suave, slick prez roasted Trump again in 2016. Trump has
constantly been in the limelight.
It's true that during the presidential campaign, Trump received mostly negative press, but this
only ramped up support among his core constituency. Joe Sixpacks had long seen the media as not just
against everything they cherished, but against them as people, so the more the media attacked Trump,
the more popular he became among the white working class.
Like politicians, casinos specialize in empty promises. Trump, then, is a master hustler, just
like Obama, and with help from the media, this New York billionaire became a darling of the flyover
states. Before his sudden transformation, Trump was certainly an insider. He donated $100,000 to
the Clinton Foundation, and Bill and Hillary attended his third wedding. Golf buddies, The Donald
and Bill were also friends with one Jeffrey Epstein, owner of the infamous Lolita Express and a sex
orgy, sex slave island in the Caribbean.
In 2002, New York Magazine published "Jeffrey Epstein: International Money of Mystery." This asskissing
piece begins, "He comes with cash to burn, a fleet of airplanes, and a keen eye for the ladies-to
say nothing of a relentless brain that challenges Nobel Prize-winning scientists across the country-and
for financial markets around the world."
Trump is quoted, "I've known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy. He's a lot of fun to be with.
It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger
side. No doubt about it-Jeffrey enjoys his social life."
Bill Clinton shouts out, "Jeffrey is both a highly successful financier and a committed philanthropist
with a keen sense of global markets and an in-depth knowledge of twenty-first-century science. I
especially appreciated his insights and generosity during the recent trip to Africa to work on democratization,
empowering the poor, citizen service, and combating HIV/AIDS."
Epstein gushes back, "If you were a boxer at the downtown gymnasium at 14th Street and Mike Tyson
walked in, your face would have the same look as these foreign leaders had when Clinton entered the
room. He is the world's greatest politician."
Even during a very nasty election campaign, Trump stayed clear of Clinton's association with
Epstein because he himself had been chummy with the convicted pervert. Trump also never brought up
the Clintons' drug running in Mena or the many mysterious deaths of those whose existence inconvenienced
their hold on power.
With eight years in the White House, plus stints as a senator then secretary of state, Clinton
is considered the ultimate insider. Though a novice politician, Trump is also an insider, and it's
a grand joke of the establishment that they've managed to convince Joe Sixpacks everywhere that Trump
will save them.
Knowing how angry the working class has become, the deep state could not install Hillary,
for that would have been a tiresome rehash of another Clinton presidency. With NAFTA, Bill launched
the job offshoring that has wrecked this country, and those most affected by it, working class whites,
know damn well who's responsible. The Clinton brand has become anathema to middle America.
While Clinton says America is already great, Trump promises to make America great again, but the
decline of the US will only accelerate. Our manufacturing base is handicapped because American workers
will not put up with Chinese wages, insanely long hours or living in cramped factory dormitories.
In a global economy, those who can suck it up best get the jobs.
On the foreign front, America's belligerence will not ease up under a Trump presidency, for
without a hyper kinetic military to browbeat and bomb, the world will stop lending us money. The
US doesn't just wage wars to fatten the military banking complex, but to prop up the US Dollar and
prevent our economy from collapsing. The empire yields tangible benefits for even the lowliest Americans.
With his livelihood vaporized, the poor man does not care for LGBT rights, the glass ceiling or
climate change. Supplementing his wretched income with frequent treks to the church pantry, if not
blood bank, he needs immediate relief. It's a shame he's staking his hopes on an imposter.
The deep state ushered in Trump because he's clearly their most useful decoy. As the country hopes
in vain, the crooked men behind the curtain will go on with business as usual. Trump is simply an
Obama for a different demographic. Nothing will change for the better.
Linh Dinh is the author of two books of stories, five of poems, and a novel,
Love Like Hate
. He's tracking our deteriorating socialscape through his frequently updated photo blog,
Postcards from the End of America
.
"... the more credible explanation is: 1) Barack Obama very eloquently promised Hope and Change in 2008 and 2012. 2) Barack Obama systematically broke his promises of hope and change. ..."
"... Hillary Clinton promised to continue Obama's policies. 4) Working people who had voted for Obama in the hope that he truly would change things lost patience and got sick of Democrats who (in the words of one millenial) "promise everything and change nothing." ..."
"... Populism is the real explanation for Trump's victory. ...he talked about stopping the globalization that's destroying the American middle class and ending our crazy endless unwinnable foreign wars. By contrast, Hillary Clinton gave $225,000 speeches to Goldman Sachs hedge fund traders in which she said the "banker-bashing so popular within both parties was unproductive and indeed foolish." ..."
Raven Oathill in #145 says: "Oh, for examples of Trumpian fascism I forgot advocating torture
…"
Barack Obama continued Bush-era torture, only slightly differently. Obama restricted torture
to Appendix M of the CIA's interrogation manual - that's the manual that the CIA created by studying
the Chinese communist's Mao-era thought reform torture methods. Appendix M prohibits cutting and
beating in favor of sensory deprivation, sleep deprivation, cold, noise assault, and other methods
like the water drip method. These forms of torture leave no marks but drive people insane or destroy
their minds as surely as the standard three weeks of non-stop beatings favored in Lubyanka.
Let's not forget that the American president who began our current ride on the torture carousel
was Bill Clinton, who initiated "extraordinary rendition" (AKA fly prisoners to third world countries
in CIA chartered Lear jets and let third world dictators torture the victims for us).
The problem with the smug top-4% narrative of the Democratic elite's professional class that "It's
all about racism!" is that many of the counties in red states that went heavily for Trump in this
election went even more heavily for Bernie Sanders. A lot of states that voted for Trump in this
election voted for Obama in the last election.
What, did those Rust Belt states suddenly decide to not become racist when Obama ran, and then
became racist again when Trump ran? How does that work? "A black guy is running for president, so
I'm going to stop being a racist and vote for him. Oh, wait, now a white guy is running for president,
so I'm going to become a racist again." Does that make sense?
No, the more credible explanation is: 1) Barack Obama very eloquently promised Hope and Change
in 2008 and 2012. 2) Barack Obama systematically broke his promises of hope and change.
3) Hillary Clinton promised to continue Obama's policies. 4) Working people who had voted for
Obama in the hope that he truly would change things lost patience and got sick of Democrats who (in
the words of one millenial) "promise everything and change nothing."
Populism is the real explanation for Trump's victory. ...he talked about stopping the globalization
that's destroying the American middle class and ending our crazy endless unwinnable foreign wars.
By contrast, Hillary Clinton gave $225,000 speeches to Goldman Sachs hedge fund traders in which
she said the "banker-bashing so popular within both parties was unproductive and indeed foolish."
Meanwhile Bill Clinton dismissed the American population's rage at the bankers who crashed the
world economy with the comment: `"You could take Lloyd Blankfein in an alley and slit his throat,
and it would satisfy them for about two days," Clinton said. "Then the blood lust would rise again."'
Did I mention that Hillary's daughter Chelsea is married to former Goldman Sachs hedge fund
manager Mark Mezvinsky? They recently bought a pre-WW I ten million dollar townhouse overlooking
Madison Square Park. So much for Chelsea's "zero dollar salary." I don't know a lot of people with
a salary of zero dollars who can afford to buy 10.5 million dollar apartments in the upper West Side
of New York. Do you?
Hillary has wooed defense contractors with the love that dare not speak its name (the love
of foreign intervention, AKA burning brown babies by the bushel-load) and she has promised lots more
endless unwinnable wars around the globe, disguised as the sound-bite "America needs a more assertive
foreign policy."
`"It is clear that she is behind the use of force in anything that has gone on in this cabinet.
She is a Democratic hawk and that is her track record. That's the flag she's planted," said Gordon
Adams, a national security budget expert who was an associate director in President Bill Clinton's
Office of Management and Budget.
`Karen Kwiatkowski, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who has spent her post-service days
protesting the war policies in Iraq and Afghanistan, is more blunt.
"Interventionism is a business and it has a constituency and she is tapping into it," she
tells TAC. "She is for the military industrial complex, and she is for the neoconservatives."'
By way of contrast, here's Donald Trump giving a speech on foreign policy:
"Unfortunately, after the Cold War, our foreign policy veered badly off course. We failed to
develop a new vision for a new time. In fact, as time went on, our foreign policy began to make
less and less sense. Logic was replaced with foolishness and arrogance, and this led to one foreign
policy disaster after another. We went from mistakes in Iraq to Egypt to Libya, to President Obama's
line in the sand in Syria. Each of these actions have helped to throw the region into chaos, and
gave ISIS the space it needs to grow and prosper.
"It all began with the dangerous idea that we could make Western democracies out of countries
that had no experience or interest in becoming a Western Democracy. We tore up what institutions
they had and then were surprised at what we unleashed. Civil war, religious fanaticism; thousands
of American lives, and many trillions of dollars, were lost as a result. The vacuum was created
that ISIS would fill. Iran, too, would rush in and fill the void, much to their unjust enrichment.
Our foreign policy is a complete and total disaster. No vision, no purpose, no direction, no strategy."
Do I believe that Trump meant any of that? Of course not. Did Trump change his foreign policy
stance five minutes after he gave that speech? Probably. Is the rest of that Trump foreign policy
speech crazy and counterfactual? Obviously - especially the part where Trump claims that America's
military is underfunded (!)
But the point here is that Trump actually at least talked about these screwups. He talked about
America's mad wars around the globe. He talked about how American leaders couldn't stop getting into
endless unwinnable foreign quagmires after the Cold War ended. Every ordinary American knows this
stuff. But no one in Washington was talking about it - except Trump. Hillary, who voted for the Iraq
war of 2003 and tried to convince president Obama to bomb Iran rather than negotiate, certainly never
wanted to mention any of these inconvenient problems. And our beloved president Obama's response
was "America is already great." Torture? Endless wars? Collapsing middle class? Burgeoning poverty?
Skyrocketing child malnutrition? Bankers asset-stripping the economy? No problem, America is already
great. Enjoy!
Sanders and Trump were the only candidates who talked about American corporations shipping
jobs overseas. Sanders and Trump were the only candidates who talked about bankers looting the population
and crashing the world economy and paying themselves bonuses out of the publicly-funded bailout money.
Sanders and Trump were the only candidates who talked about how globalization is destroying the U.S.
middle class.
The professionals with advanced degrees who make $80,000 a year or more (the top 4% of the
American population) are the ones who control the Democratic party today. And they made sure
Sanders never got the nomination. These self-styled Big Brains have decided to treat ordinary working
folks and peons who have a mere bachelor's degree and no professional credential (Ma, PhD, M.D.,
LLD, JD) the same way Jim Crow Southerners used to treat black people.
Everyone without an advanced degree is now treated by the leaders of the Democratic party as
one of "those people," ungrateful curs who have the unbelievable gall to criticize their betters.
"Those people" have the insufferable temerity to question the wiser and smarter and far more wealthy
doyens of the Democratic party, the masterminds with professional credentials, the geniuses who assure
them that the TPP is spiffy and globalization is absolutely marvy-doo and global wage arbitrage is
just dreamy.
To the professional class top-4% who run the Democratic party, working people and scum with a
mere bachelor's degree are inferior creatures, not ready for self-governance. "Those people" must
be guided by a superior breed, the elites with advanced degrees, those wise enough to have gotten
things right by invading Iraq. And deregulating the banks. And making sure Bernie Sanders never got
the Democratic nomination. And writing those marvelous zero-hours work contracts that let employers
force employees to call in every morning to see if they get a shift that day.
"Those people" without advanced degrees need careful management, since they have no impulse
control, they're filthy and smelly, they're really animals who can't help drinking and carousing
and breeding. "Those people" never had the discipline to get a masters or an M.D., so they need a
firm hand, and the strict guidance of the All-Powerful Market to keep them in check. Sound familiar?
Sort of like, oh, say, Deep South slaveowners talking about their slaves circa 1840?
Populism. That's the reason why Trump won. ... he's the only one of the two presidential candidates
who sounded any genuinely populist notes during the campaign. When Hillary was asked if she wanted
to break up the too-big-to-fail banks, she said "no." When Hillary was asked about foreign wars,
she lapsed into the old "indispensable nation" crap. When Hillary was asked about single-payer health
care she called it "something that will never, ever happen."
"... It is shockingly disappointing that MOA, this otherwise intelligent incisive, a deeply intellectual and factual blog's readership exhibit a trait common to overall American anti-intellectual sheeple constituency as Gore Vidal posited decades ago, having no shame expressing their utter confusion and ignorance about one fundamental fact of reality they are facing. ..."
"... Those political puppets, stooges of oligarchy are no alternatives to the calcified imperial system itself, they never have been and they never will. They are new/old faces of the same old 240 y.o. Anglo-American imperial regime based on ancient and modern slavery and they already declared it by submitting to it via pledging to run in this farcical rigged electoral fallacy. ..."
It is shockingly disappointing that MOA, this otherwise intelligent incisive, a deeply intellectual
and factual blog's readership exhibit a trait common to overall American anti-intellectual sheeple
constituency as Gore Vidal posited decades ago, having no shame expressing their utter confusion
and ignorance about one fundamental fact of reality they are facing.
THE FACT: The US elections are a staged political farce with NO MATERIAL IMPACT on the US imperial
policies, domestic or international WHATSOEVER. And that's the fact based on rock solid empirical
evidences also MOA proliferates that only a mental patient can deny.
SO WHAT THE F.U.CK ALL OF YOU PEOPLE ARE TALKING ABOUT? "Voting" for this or that? NONSENSE;
Those political puppets, stooges of oligarchy are no alternatives to the calcified imperial
system itself, they never have been and they never will. They are new/old faces of the same old
240 y.o. Anglo-American imperial regime based on ancient and modern slavery and they already declared
it by submitting to it via pledging to run in this farcical rigged electoral fallacy.
All at the end will openly pledge unwavering support for the regime and their rotten deeply
corrupted parties while abandoning their gullible voters.
Supporters of any of these plastic puppets of oligarchy not unlike a cargo cult, are impatient,
nervous, excited and scared sitting and waiting before an impregnable curtain of political deceit,
lies and manipulation by the ruling elite in front of their wide shut eyes , turning to magic,
superstition, appeasement, making up stories, poems out of their incoherent utterances filed with
tautologies, innuendos and absurd, begging for mercy or praying for a caprice of good will to
save them ultimately in a form of fake, meaningless political turds passing as empty "political"
platform promises while blatantly abandoning their unalienable rights to independence, self-determination
and democratic system of people's rule, based on equality in the law, and one voter one vote principle,
for a role of a meddlesome spectators to their own execution.
THE FACT: The democratic electoral system worth participating does not exist in the US but
none of the candidates would utter this truth as long as they can benefit from the fraud and that
includes third parties. If this was a true change or revolution, that we desperately need, honest
leaders would not run their campaign within the corrupted system set up by and for two oligarchic
parties but they would decry and utterly reject it.
Think people, all the so-called candidates even third party candidates are just nibbling on
the behemoth of abhorrent and brutal US imperial power mostly with utterances that they never
intended to follow if they wanted to survive terror of the US security apparatus, while peddling
the lies about small incremental changes and stealing ours and our children future by asking us
to wait, be patient, and begging ruling elite for mercy and may be for some crumbs from an oligarchs'
table after they are not able to gorge themselves anymore with our blood sweat and tears.
Unfortunately, this time as well, millions of irrational, desperate and helpless in their daily
lives electoral zombies such as those, under a spell of exciting political masquerade, regrettably
also on this blog, will be aligning themselves with one or the other anointed by establishment
winner [whoever it will be] of a meaningless popularity/beauty contest, in a delusional feat of
transference of a fraction of elite's power to themselves just for a second of a thrill of illusion
of power, illusion of feelings that something depends on me, that I can make a difference, a delusion
of holding skies from falling and by that saving the world common among paranoid mental patients.
And they will continue to authorize their own suicide mission, since even baseless, continually
disproved hope of Sisyphus, of any chance of influencing of the political realm via means of begging
is the last thing that dies.
THE LOUD POLITICAL BOYCOTT OF THIS FARCE, UTTER REJECTION OF THIS FACADE OF DEMOCRATIC CHOICE,
REJECTION OF ANY POLITICAL LEGITIMACY OF THIS SORRY SPECTACLE IS THE ONLY ALTERNATIVE AVAILABLE
TO ANY DECENT PERSON, INDEPENDENT, SOVEREIGN CITIZEN WHO TAKES A MORAL STAND REJECTING ENSLAVEMENT
RIGHT HERE AND RIGHT NOW.
THE REST WILL JUST PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE TO THEIR OWN CHAINS.
"... "Yet commentators who have been ready and willing to attribute Donald Trump's success to anger, authoritarianism, or racism rather than policy issues have taken little note of the extent to which Mr. Sanders's support is concentrated not among liberal ideologues but among disaffected white men." ... ..."
"... poor pk a leader of the Stalinist press ..."
"... the surprising success of Bernie Sanders -- a Brooklyn-born, Jewish socialist -- in the primaries is solid proof that the electorate was open to a coherent argument for genuine progressive change, and that a substantial portion of that electorate is not acting on purely racist and sexist impulses, as so many progressive commentators say. ..."
"... "I will live my life calmly and my children will be just fine. I will live my life calmly and my children will be just fine." That assumes you're about 85 years old...and don't have long to live! ..."
"... Laid out by whom? By the commercial "media" hype machine that has 12-16 hours of airtime to fill every day with the as sensationalized as possible gossip (to justify the price for the paid advertisements filling the remaining hours). ..."
"... Killary Clinton got no closer than Ann Arbor this weekend, a message! ..."
"... Mr. Krugman forgot to list the collusion of the DNC and the Clinton campaign to work against Sanders. ..."
"... putting crooked in the same sentence as Clinton or DNC is duplicative wording. This mortification is brought to US by the crooked and the stalinist press that calls crooked virtue. ..."
"... Krugman did so much to help create the mass of white working class discontent that is electing Trump. Krugman and co cheering on NAFTA/PNTR/WTO etc, US deindustrialization, collapse of middle class... ..."
"... Hopefully the working class masses will convince our rulers to abandon free trade before every last factory is sold off or dismantled and the US falls to the depths of a Chad or an Armenia. ..."
The Truth About the Sanders Movement
By Paul Krugman
In short, it's complicated – not all bad, by any means, but not the pure uprising of idealists
the more enthusiastic supporters imagine.
The political scientists Christopher Achen and Larry Bartels have an illuminating discussion
of Sanders support. The key graf that will probably have Berniebros boiling is this:
"Yet commentators who have been ready and willing to attribute Donald Trump's success to
anger, authoritarianism, or racism rather than policy issues have taken little note of the extent
to which Mr. Sanders's support is concentrated not among liberal ideologues but among disaffected
white men." ...
[ Yes, I do find defaming people by speculation or stereotype to be beyond saddening. ]
The fact that Obama either won, or did so much better than Hillary appears to be doing with, the
white working-class vote in so many key battleground states, as well as the surprising success
of Bernie Sanders -- a Brooklyn-born, Jewish socialist -- in the primaries is solid proof that
the electorate was open to a coherent argument for genuine progressive change, and that a substantial
portion of that electorate is not acting on purely racist and sexist impulses, as so many progressive
commentators say.
And her opponent was/is incapable of debating on substance, as there was/is neither coherence
nor consistency in any part of his platform -- nor that of his party....
Question is, will Krugman be able to move on after the election...and talk about something useful?
Like how to get Hillary to recognize and deal with inequality...
Barbara Ehrenreich: "Forget fear and loathing. The US election inspires projectile vomiting. The
most sordid side of our democracy has been laid out for all to see. But that's only the beginning:
whoever wins, the mutual revulsion will only intensify... With either Clinton or Trump, we will
be left to choke on our mutual revulsion."
"I will live my life calmly and my children will be just fine. I will live my life calmly
and my children will be just fine." That assumes you're about 85 years old...and don't have long
to live!
Laid out by whom? By the commercial "media" hype machine that has 12-16 hours of airtime to
fill every day with the as sensationalized as possible gossip (to justify the price for the paid
advertisements filling the remaining hours).
Something interesting today.... President Obama came to Michigan. I fully expected him to speak
in Detroit with a get out the vote message. Instead he is in Ann Arbor, speaking to an overwhelmingly
white and white-collar audience. On a related note, the Dems have apparently written off
the white blue collar vote in Michigan, even much of the union vote. the union leaders are pro
Clinton, but the workers not so much. Strange year.
The real danger of serious election-rigging: electronic voting machines. How do we know the machine
*really* recorded everyone's votes correctly? (Did any Florida county ever give Al Gore negative
something votes?)
That's a big subject but you are right, that is the biggest risk of significant fraud. Not just
the voting machines, but the automatic counting systems. Other forms of possible election fraud
are tiny by comparison.
Here is the transcript from 60 Minutes about the Luntz focus group rancor. Instructive to read
about the depth of feeling in case you didn't see the angry, disgusted faces of citizens.
putting crooked in the same sentence as Clinton or DNC is duplicative wording. This mortification
is brought to US by the crooked and the stalinist press that calls crooked virtue.
Before the 1970s the US was both rich and protectionist - no look at our horrible roads and hopeless
people - the miracle of free trade! : ,
November 07, 2016 at 07:13 PM
Krugman did so much to help create the mass of white working class discontent that is electing
Trump. Krugman and co cheering on NAFTA/PNTR/WTO etc, US deindustrialization, collapse of
middle class...
Hopefully the working class masses will convince our rulers to abandon free trade before
every last factory is sold off or dismantled and the US falls to the depths of a Chad or an Armenia.
"... We don't want World War 3 with Russia. We want our factories and jobs back, we would like to spend $1 trillion a year on infrastructure instead of blowing up yet another Middle Eastern nation. ..."
"... Fuck Hillary, Fuck the neolibcons, Fuck al-CIAda, Fuck the fascist banksters who eat our children for breakfast. ..."
"... Vote Trump in swing states. Vote Jill everywhere else. ..."
The heartland of the US is RED, solid RED.
The neolibcons are printing up their Newsweek mags with Madam President on the cover.
They don't have a clue about how pissed off the people in the "flyover states" are.
Fuck their rigged polls and lying news.
Sure Trump is behind or neck-and-neck . . . Just like we have 5% unemployment.
As long as you don't count the 1/3 of working age people who DON"T HAVE A JOB.
The deplorables can think of 650,000 reasons why Hillary should be in PRISON, even if the FBI
can't.
We don't want World War 3 with Russia. We want our factories and jobs back, we would like
to spend $1 trillion a year on infrastructure instead of blowing up yet another Middle Eastern
nation.
Fuck Hillary, Fuck the neolibcons, Fuck al-CIAda, Fuck the fascist banksters who eat our
children for breakfast.
Do not blow shit up, like the political system, without a clear idea where the pieces will
land and how you will put them back together. Crisis would benefit the right, not the left, given
the current correlation of class and political forces.
The best result. sadly, would be a resounding win for Mrs. Clinton. As the comment at 11 shows,
anything less than a crushing defeat will enable the alt-right and embolden the most reactionary
and nativist elements in society.
The notion that worsening conditions will automatically produce progressive revolution is a
pipe-dream. Beaten-down folks struggling to survive don't have the time or energy to organize.
Vote your conscience, your hopes. Takingg the long view, I am again voting, as I have for years,
for the Socialist Workers Party.
After all, Clinton is not going to make it into the Oval Office unless she can secure the votes of
those who backed the far-more progressive Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primaries.
Clinton's camp have wielded various sticks to beat these voters into submission. Not least they
have claimed that a refusal to vote for Clinton is an indication of one's
misogyny . But it has not been an easy task. Actor Susan Sarandon, for example, has
stated that she is not going to "vote with my vagina". As she notes, if the issue is simply about
proving one is not anti-women, there is a much worthier candidate for president who also happens
to be female: Jill Stein, of the Green Party.
Sarandon, who supported Sanders in the primaries, spoke for a vast swath of voters excluded by
the two-party system when she told BBC Newsnight:
I am worried about the wars, I am worried about Syria, I am worried about all of these things
that actually exist. TTP [Trans-Pacific Partnership] and I'm worried about fracking. I'm worrying
about the environment. No matter who gets in they don't address these things because money has
taken over our system.
Given that both Donald Trump and Clinton represent big money – and big money only – Clinton's
supporters have been forced to find another stick. And that has been the "lesser evil" argument.
Clinton may be bad, but Trump would be far worse. Voting for a non-evil candidate like Jill Stein
– who has no hope of winning – would split the progressive camp and ensure Trump, the more evil candidate,
triumphs. Therefore, there is a moral obligation on progressive voters to back Clinton, however bad
her track record as a senator and as secretary of state.
There is nothing new about this argument. It had been around for decades, and has been corralling
progressives into voting for Democratic presidents who have still advanced US neoconservative policy
goals abroad and neoliberal ones at home.
America's pseudo-democracy
So is it true that Clinton is the lesser-evil candidate? To answer that question, we need to examine
those "policy differences" with Trump.
On the negative side, Trump's platform poses a genuine threat to civil liberties. His bigoted,
"blame the immigrants" style of politics will harm many families in the US in very tangible ways.
Even if the inertia of the political system reins in his worst excesses, as is almost certain, his
inflammatory rhetoric is sure to damage the façade of democratic discourse in the US – a development
not to be dismissed lightly. Americans may be living in a pseudo-democracy, one run more like a plutocracy,
but destroying the politics of respect, and civil discourse, could quickly result in the normalisation
of political violence and intimidation.
On the plus side, Trump is an isolationist, with little appetite for foreign entanglements. Again,
the Washington policy elites may force him to engage abroad in ways he would prefer not to, but his
instincts to limit the projection of US military power on the international stage are likely to be
an overall good for the world's population outside the US. Any diminishment of US imperialism is
going to have real practical benefits for billions of people around the globe. His refusal to demonise
Vladimir Putin, for example, may be significant enough to halt the gradual slide towards a nuclear
confrontation with Russia, either in Ukraine or in the Middle East.
Clinton is the mirror image of Trump. Domestically, she largely abides by the rules of civil politics
– not least because respectful discourse benefits her as the candidate with plenty of political experience.
The US is likely to be a more stable, more predictable place under a Clinton presidency, even as
the plutocratic elite entrenches its power and the wealth gap grows relentlessly.
Abroad, however, the picture looks worse under Clinton. She has been an enthusiastic supporter
of all the many recent wars of aggression launched by the US, some declared and some covert. Personally,
as secretary of state, she helped engineer the overthrow of Col Muammar Gaddafi. That policy led
to an outcome – one that was entirely foreseeable – of Libya's reinvention as a failed state, with
jihadists of every stripe sucked into the resulting vacuum. Large parts of Gadaffi's arsenal followed
the jihadists as they exported their struggles across the Middle East, creating more bloodshed and
heightening the refugee crisis. Now Clinton wants to intensify US involvement in Syria, including
by imposing a no-fly zone – or rather, a US and allies-only fly zone – that would thrust the US into
a direct confrontation with another nuclear-armed power, Russia.
In the cost-benefit calculus of who to vote for in a two-party contest, the answer seems to be:
vote for Clinton if you are interested only in what happens in the narrow sphere of US domestic politics
(assuming Clinton does not push the US into a nuclear war); while if you are a global citizen worried
about the future of the planet, Trump may be the marginally better of two terribly evil choices.
(Neither, of course, cares a jot about the most pressing problem facing mankind: runaway climate
change.)
So even on the extremely blinkered logic of Clinton's supporters, Clinton might not be the winner
in a lesser-evil presidential contest.
Mounting disillusion
But there is a second, more important reason to reject the lesser-evil argument as grounds for
voting for Clinton.
Trump's popularity is a direct consequence of several decades of American progressives voting
for the lesser-evil candidate. Most Americans have never heard of Jill Stein, or the other three
candidates who are not running on behalf of the Republican and Democratic parties. These candidates
have received no mainstream media coverage – or the chance to appear in the candidate debates – because
their share of the vote is so minuscule. It remains minuscule precisely because progressives have
spent decades voting for the lesser-evil candidate. And nothing is going to change so long as progressives
keep responding to the electoral dog-whistle that they have to keep the Republican candidate out
at all costs, even at the price of their own consciences.
Growing numbers of Americans understand that their country was "stolen from them", to use a popular
slogan. They sense that the US no longer even aspires to its founding ideals, that it has become
a society run for the exclusive benefit of a tiny wealthy elite. Many are looking for someone to
articulate their frustration, their powerlessness, their hopelessness.
Two opposed antidotes for the mounting disillusionment with "normal politics" emerged during the
presidential race: a progressive one, in the form of Sanders, who suggested he was ready to hold
the plutocrats to account; and a populist one, in the form of Trump, determined to deflect anger
away from the plutocrats towards easy targets like immigrants. As we now know from Wikileaks' release
of Clinton campaign chair John Podesta's emails, the Democats worked hard to rig their own primaries
to make sure the progressive option, Sanders, was eliminated. The Republicans, by contrast, were
overwhelmed by the insurrection within their own party.
The wave of disaffection Sanders and Trump have been riding is not going away. In fact, a President
Clinton, the embodiment of the self-serving, self-aggrandising politics of the plutocrats, will only
fuel the disenchantment. The fixing of the Democratic primaries did not strengthen Clinton's moral
authority, it fuelled the kind of doubts about the system that bolster Trump. Trump's accusations
of a corrupt elite and a rigged political and media system are not merely figments of his imagination;
they are rooted in the realities of US politics.
Trump, however, is not the man to offer solutions. His interests are too close aligned to those
of the plutocrats for him to make meaningful changes.
Trump may lose this time, but someone like him will do better next time – unless ordinary Americans
are exposed to a different kind of politician, one who can articulate progressive, rather regressive,
remedies for the necrosis that is rotting the US body politic. Sanders began that process, but a
progressive challenge to "politics as normal" has to be sustained and extended if Trump and his ilk
are not to triumph eventually.
The battle cannot be delayed another few years, on the basis that one day a genuinely non-evil
candidate will emerge from nowhere to fix this rotten system. It won't happen of its own. Unless
progressive Americans show they are prepared to vote out of conviction, not out of necessity, the
Democratic party will never have to take account of their views. It will keep throwing up leaders
– in different colours and different sexes – to front the tiny elite that runs the US and seeks to
rule the world.
"... Well, two can play at tendentiousness. I'd say that American populism, in its various guises, has been distinguished by three basic beliefs: ..."
"... Concentrated wealth and power are pernicious, so widespread distribution of both is the proper condition; ..."
"... War and militarism are ruinous to the republic and to the character (not to mention physical health) of the people; and ..."
"... Ordinary people can be trusted to make their own decisions. ..."
"... The Democratic candidate this time around is the most hawkish nominee of her party since LBJ in 1964 and its most pro-Wall Street standard bearer since John W. Davis in 1924. She is, in every way, including her "the peasants are revolting" shtick, the compleat anti-populist. ..."
"... Place-based populism, seeded in love, defends a people against the powerful external forces that would crush or corrupt or subjugate them. It's Jane Jacobs and her "bunch of mothers" fighting Robert Moses on behalf of Greenwich Village. It's the people of Poletown, assisted by Ralph Nader, defending their homes and churches against the depredations of General Motors and the execrable Detroit Mayor Coleman Young. It's parents-whether in South Boston, Brooklyn, or rural America-championing their local schools against berobed bussers, education bureaucrats, and Cold War consolidators. ..."
With every generational populist efflorescence (those who disapprove call it a "recrudescence")
two things are guaranteed:
First, the prosy men with leaden eyes of the New York Times will rouse themselves from
complacent torpor into a Cerberus-like defense of the ruling class against the intruder. The Times
of 1896 on William Jennings Bryan (a "cheap and shallow … blatherskite" with an "unbalanced and
unsound mind," though whether or not Bryan was "insane," the Times editorialist of 1896 conceded,
"is a question for expert alienists") is no different than the Times in 2016 on Donald Trump.
For his part, Trump probably thinks Bryan's Cross of Gold would make a classy adornment to the Mar-a-Lago
Club chapel.
The second certainty is that middlebrow thumb-suckers and chin-pullers will invoke midcentury
historian Richard Hofstadter, whose 1964 essay that refuses to die, "The Paranoid Style in American
Politics," ascribed dissent from the Cold War Vital Center consensus to mental illness. In your guts,
as LBJ backers said of Barry Goldwater, you know he's nuts.
Or they'll quote Hofstadter's The Age of Reform , winner of the Pulitzer Prize-always a
bad sign-in which populism is merely "the simple virtues and unmitigated villainies of a rural melodrama"
writ large, and it ulcerates with "nativist phobias," "hatred of Europe and Europeans," and resentment
of big business, intellectuals, the Eastern seaboard, the other bulwarks of Time-Life culture,
circa 1955. (Only a Vital Centurion could believe that wishing to refrain from killing Europeans
in wars is evidence of "hatred of Europe and Europeans.")
Well, two can play at tendentiousness. I'd say that American populism, in its various guises,
has been distinguished by three basic beliefs:
Concentrated wealth and power are pernicious, so
widespread distribution of both is the proper condition;
War and militarism are ruinous to the
republic and to the character (not to mention physical health) of the people; and
Ordinary people
can be trusted to make their own decisions.
The Democratic candidate this time around is the most hawkish nominee of her party since LBJ in
1964 and its most pro-Wall Street standard bearer since John W. Davis in 1924. She is, in every way,
including her "the peasants are revolting" shtick, the compleat anti-populist.
But Hillary's awfulness should not obscure the truth that a healthy populism requires anchorage.
It must be grounded in a love of the particular-one's block, one's town, one's neighbors (of all
shapes and sizes and colors)-or else it is just a grab bag of resentments, however valid they may
be.
An unmoored populism leads to scapegoating and the sputtering fury of the impotent. Breeding with
nationalism, it submerges local loyalties and begets a blustering USA! USA! twister of nothingness.
From out of that whirlwind spin the faux-populists of the Beltway Right: placeless mountebanks
banking the widow's mite in Occupied Northern Virginia. To a man they are praying for a Hillary Clinton
victory, which would be the Clampetts' oil strike and the winning Powerball ticket all rolled into
one. President Clinton the Second would be the most lucrative hobgoblin for the ersatz populists
of Birther Nation since Teddy Kennedy crossed his last bridge.
Place-based populism, seeded in love, defends a people against the powerful external forces that
would crush or corrupt or subjugate them. It's Jane Jacobs and her "bunch of mothers" fighting Robert
Moses on behalf of Greenwich Village. It's the people of Poletown, assisted by Ralph Nader, defending
their homes and churches against the depredations of General Motors and the execrable Detroit Mayor
Coleman Young. It's parents-whether in South Boston, Brooklyn, or rural America-championing their
local schools against berobed bussers, education bureaucrats, and Cold War consolidators.
For a span in the early 1990s, Jerry Brown dabbled in populism. Alas, the protean Brown, once
returned to California's governorship, became his father, the numbingly conventional liberal hack
Pat Brown, though the chameleonic Jesuit may have one final act left him, perhaps as a nonagenarian
desert ascetic.
A quarter-century ago, Brown spoke of the populists' struggle against "a global focus over which
we have virtually no control. We have to force larger institutions to operate in the interest of
local autonomy and local power. Localism, if you really take it seriously, is going to interrupt
certain patterns of modern growth and globalism."
The harder they come, the harder they fall, as Jimmy Cliff sang.
The two self-styled populists who made 2016 interesting never so much as glanced at, let alone
picked up, the localist tool recommended by Jerry Brown in one of his previous lives. Their populism,
dismissive of the local, is hollow. It's all fury and no love. But tomorrow, as a Georgia lady once
wrote, is another day.
"... An awful lot of people out there think we live in a one-party state-that we're ruled by what is coming to be called the "Uniparty." ..."
"... There is a dawning realization, ever more widespread among ordinary Americans, that our national politics is not Left versus Right or Republican versus Democrat; it's we the people versus the politicians. ..."
"... Donald Trump is no nut. If he were a nut, he would not have amassed the fortune he has, nor nurtured the capable and affectionate family he has. ..."
"... To be conservative, then, is to prefer the familiar to the unknown, to prefer the tried to the untried, fact to mystery, the actual to the possible, the limited to the unbounded, the near to the distant, the sufficient to the superabundant, the convenient to the perfect, present laughter to utopian bliss. ..."
"... Trump has all the right instincts. And he's had the guts and courage-and, just as important, the money -to do a thing that has badly needed doing for twenty years: to smash the power of the real nuts in the GOP Establishment. ..."
A couple of remarks in
Professor Susan
McWillams' recent Modern Age piece celebrating the 25th anniversary of Christopher Lasch's
1991 book
The True and Only Heaven , which analyzed the cult of progress in its American manifestation,
have stuck in my mind. Here's the first one:
McWilliams adds a footnote to that: The 19 percent figure is from 2012, she says. Then she tells
us that in 1964, 64 percent of Americans agreed with the same statement.
Wow. You have to think that those two numbers, from 64 percent down to 19 percent in two generations,
tell us something important and disturbing about our political life.
Second McWilliams quote:
In 2016 if you type the words "Democrats and Republicans" or "Republicans and Democrats" into
Google, the algorithms predict your next words will be "are the same".
I just tried this, and she's right. These guesses are of course based on the frequency with which
complete sentences show up all over the internet. An awful lot of people out there think we live
in a one-party state-that we're ruled by what is
coming to be called the "Uniparty."
There is a dawning realization, ever more widespread among ordinary Americans, that our national
politics is not Left versus Right or Republican versus Democrat; it's we the people
versus the politicians.
Which leads me to a different lady commentator: Peggy Noonan, in her October 20th Wall Street
Journal column.
The title of Peggy's piece was:
Imagine
a Sane Donald Trump . [
Alternate link ]Its gravamen:
Donald Trump has shown up the Republican Party Establishment as totally out of touch with their base,
which is good; but that he's bat-poop crazy, which is bad. If a sane Donald Trump had done
the good thing, the showing-up, we'd be on course to a major beneficial correction in our national
politics.
It's a good clever piece. A couple of months ago on Radio Derb I offered up one and a half cheers
for Peggy, who gets a lot right in spite of being a longtime Establishment Insider. So it
was here. Sample of what she got right last week:
Mr. Trump's great historical role was to reveal to the Republican Party what half of its
own base really thinks about the big issues. The party's leaders didn't know! They were shocked,
so much that they indulged in sheer denial and made believe it wasn't happening.
The party's leaders accept more or less open borders and like big trade deals. Half the base
does not! It is longtime GOP doctrine to cut entitlement spending. Half the base doesn't want
to, not right now! Republican leaders have what might be called assertive foreign-policy impulses.
When Mr. Trump insulted George W. Bush and nation-building and said he'd opposed the Iraq invasion,
the crowds, taking him at his word, cheered. He was, as they say, declaring that he didn't want
to invade the world and invite the world. Not only did half the base cheer him, at least half
the remaining half joined in when the primaries ended.
End of pause. OK, so Peggy got some things right there. She got a lot wrong, though
Start with the notion that Trump is crazy. He's a nut, she says, five times. His brain is "a TV
funhouse."
Well, Trump has some colorful quirks of personality, to be sure, as we all do. But he's no nut.
A nut can't be as successful in business as Trump has been.
I spent 32 years as an employee or contractor, mostly in private businesses but for two years
in a government department. Private businesses are intensely rational, as human affairs go-much more
rational than government departments. The price of irrationality in business is immediate and plainly
financial. Sanity-wise, Trump is a better bet than most people in high government positions.
Sure, politicians talk a good rational game. They present as sober and thoughtful on the Sunday
morning shows.
Look at the stuff they believe, though. Was it rational to respond to the collapse of the U.S.S.R.
by moving NATO right up to Russia's borders? Was it rational to expect that post-Saddam Iraq would
turn into a constitutional democracy? Was it rational to order insurance companies to sell healthcare
policies to people who are already sick? Was the Vietnam War a rational enterprise? Was it rational
to respond to the 9/11 attacks by massively increasing Muslim immigration?
Make your own list.
Donald Trump displays good healthy patriotic instincts. I'll take that, with the personality quirks
and all, over some earnest, careful, sober-sided guy whose head contains fantasies of putting the
world to rights, or flooding our country with unassimilable foreigners.
I'd add the point, made by many commentators, that belongs under the general heading: "You don't
have to be crazy to work here, but it helps." If Donald Trump was not so very different from run-of-the-mill
politicians-which I suspect is a big part of what Peggy means by calling him a nut-would he have
entered into the political adventure he's on?
Thor Heyerdahl sailed across the Pacific on a hand-built wooden raft to prove a point, which
is not the kind of thing your average ethnographer would do. Was he crazy? No, he wasn't. It was
only that some feature of his personality drove him to use that way to prove the point he
hoped to prove.
And then there is Peggy's assertion that the Republican Party's leaders didn't know that half
the party's base were at odds with them.
Did they really not? Didn't they get a clue when the GOP lost in 2012, mainly because millions
of Republican voters didn't turn out for Mitt Romney? Didn't they, come to think of it, get the glimmering
of a clue back in 1996, when Pat Buchanan won the New Hampshire primary?
Pat Buchanan is in fact a living counter-argument to Peggy's thesis-the "sane Donald Trump" that
she claims would win the hearts of GOP managers. Pat is Trump without the personality quirks. How
has the Republican Party treated him ?
Our own
Brad Griffin , here at VDARE.com on October 24th, offered a couple more "sane Donald Trumps":
Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee. How did they fare with the GOP Establishment?
Donald Trump is no nut. If he were a nut, he would not have amassed the fortune he
has, nor nurtured the capable and affectionate family he has. Probably he's less well-informed
about the world than the average pol. I doubt he could tell you what
the capital of Burkina Faso is. That's secondary, though. A President has people to look up that
stuff for him. The question that's been asked more than any other about Donald Trump is not, pace
Peggy Noonan, "Is he nuts?" but, "
Is he conservative? "
I'm sure he is. But my definition of "conservative" is temperamental, not political. My touchstone
here is the sketch of the conservative temperament given to us by the English political philosopher
Michael Oakeshott :
To be conservative, then, is to prefer the familiar to the unknown, to prefer the tried
to the untried, fact to mystery, the actual to the possible, the limited to the unbounded, the
near to the distant, the sufficient to the superabundant, the convenient to the perfect, present
laughter to utopian bliss.
That fits Trump better than it fits any liberal you can think of-better also than many senior
Republicans.
For example, it was one of George W. Bush's senior associates-probably Karl Rove-who scoffed at opponents
of Bush's delusional foreign policy as "the reality-based community." It would be hard to think of
a more un -Oakeshottian turn of phrase.
Trump has all the right instincts. And he's had the guts and courage-and, just as important,
the money -to do a thing that has badly needed doing for twenty years: to smash the power
of the real nuts in the GOP Establishment.
I thank him for that, and look forward to his Presidency.
Pretty good Trump ad tying together his themes of Hillary's corruption and globalism. Rather than
just attack Hillary over idiosyncratic scandals, he's pulling together the threads of how Hillary's
ideology and self-interest support each other.
It's funny how Trump is developing a more coherent big picture framework.
My recollection of Romney's campaign is that he generally lacked an intellectual framework for
tying together his a la carte issues.
With McCain, he had Invade the World / Invite the World. Sure, it doesn't make much sense, but
at least it's an ethos.
Romney, though, was a more reasonable man than McCain, so he was kind of stuck in nowhere land
in the middle.
In contrast to the remarkable spectacle of Donald Trump, of all people, evolving into an insightful
critic of the conventional wisdom of the zeitgeist , Hillary's big intellectual breakthrough
in 2016 was realizing how much she really hates people who don't vote for her due to their
irredeemable deplorableness.
That doesn't mean, however, the details will necessarily work together for Trump. For example,
industrial protectionism was likely pretty good for America on the whole during the "infant industries"
era (to quote the non-rap Alexander Hamilton). But you didn't really want to see how the sausage
is made. Tariff battles in Congress tended to gross out everybody who wasn't a hired lobbyist or
wardheeler.
Jerry Pournelle has proposed a modest tariff (e.g., 10%) on everything, no exceptions, as a way
around the corruption problem. Of course, that's the opposite approach to Trump's Art of the Deal
inclinations.
"... With the reopening of the FBI investigation of Hillary and related scandals exploding all around her, election theft is not only more risky but also less likely to serve the Oligarchy's own interests. ..."
"... A Hillary presidency could put our country into chaos. I doubt the oligarchs are sufficiently stupid to think that once she is sworn in, Hillary can fire FBI Director Comey and shut down the investigation. The last president that tried that was Richard Nixon, and look where that got him. ..."
"... If you were an oligarch, would you want your agent under this kind of scrutiny? If you were Hillary, would you want to be under this kind of pressure? ..."
"... "Clinton's presence aboard Jeffrey Epstein's Boeing 727 on 11 occasions has been reported, but flight logs show the number is more than double that, and trips between 2001 and 2003 included extended junkets around the world with Epstein and fellow passengers identified on manifests by their initials or first names, including "Tatiana." The tricked-out jet earned its Nabakov-inspired nickname because it was reportedly outfitted with a bed where passengers had group sex with young girls." ..."
Yes they can ;-). that's how two party system is functioning by default. Rank-and-file are typically
screwed. the only exception is so called "revolutionary situation", when the elite lost legitimacy
and can't dictate its will on the people below.
November 4, 2016
The election was set up to be stolen from Trump. That was the purpose of the polls rigged by overweighting
Hillary supporters in the samples. After weeks of hearing poll results that Hillary was in the
lead, the public would discount a theft claim. Electronic voting makes elections easy to steal,
and I have posted explanations by election fraud experts of how it is done.
Clearly the Oligarchy does not want Donald Trump in the White House as they are unsure that
they could control him, and Hillary is their agent.
With the reopening of the FBI investigation of Hillary and related scandals exploding all
around her, election theft is not only more risky but also less likely to serve the Oligarchy's
own interests.
Image as well as money is part of Oligarchic power. The image of America takes a big hit if
the American people elect a president who is currently under felony investigation.
Moreover, a President Hillary would be under investigation for years. With so much spotlight
on her, she would not be able to serve the Oligarchy's interests. She would be worthless to them,
and, indeed, investigations that unearthed various connections between Hillary and oligarchs could
damage the oligarchs.
In other words, for the Oligarchy Hillary has moved from an asset to a liability.
A Hillary presidency could put our country into chaos. I doubt the oligarchs are sufficiently
stupid to think that once she is sworn in, Hillary can fire FBI Director Comey and shut down the
investigation. The last president that tried that was Richard Nixon, and look where that got him.
Moreover, the Republicans in the House and Senate would not stand for it. House Committee
on oversight and Government Reform chairman Jason Chaffetz has already declared Hillary to be
"a target-rich environment. Even before we get to day one, we've got two years worth of material
already lined up." House Speaker Paul Ryan said investigation will follow the evidence.
If you were an oligarch, would you want your agent under this kind of scrutiny? If you
were Hillary, would you want to be under this kind of pressure?
What happens if the FBI recommends the indictment of the president? Even insouciant Americans
would see the cover-up if the attorney general refused to prosecute the case. Americans would
lose all confidence in the government. Chaos would rule. Chaos can be revolutionary, and that
is not good for oligarchs.
Moreover, if reports can be believed, salacious scandals appear to be waiting their time on
stage. For example, last May Fox News reported:
"Former President Bill Clinton was a much more frequent flyer on a registered sex offender's
infamous jet than previously reported, with flight logs showing the former president taking at
least 26 trips aboard the "Lolita Express" - even apparently ditching his Secret Service detail
for at least five of the flights, according to records obtained by FoxNews.com.
"Clinton's presence aboard Jeffrey Epstein's Boeing 727 on 11 occasions has been reported,
but flight logs show the number is more than double that, and trips between 2001 and 2003 included
extended junkets around the world with Epstein and fellow passengers identified on manifests by
their initials or first names, including "Tatiana." The tricked-out jet earned its Nabakov-inspired
nickname because it was reportedly outfitted with a bed where passengers had group sex with young
girls."
Fox News reports that Epstein served time in prison for "solicitation and procurement of minors
for prostitution. He allegedly had a team of traffickers who procured girls as young as 12 to
service his friends on 'Orgy Island,' an estate on Epstein's 72-acre island, called Little St.
James, in the U.S. Virgin Islands."
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/05/13/flight-logs-show-bill-clinton-flew-on-sex-offenders-jet-much-more-than-previously-known.html
Some Internet sites, the credibility of which is unknown to me, have linked Hillary to these flights.
http
Thomas Frank
writes in The Guardian that the WikiLeaks emails to and from Hillary Clinton's campaign manager
John Podesta "offer an unprecedented view into the workings of the elite, and how it looks after
itself." They provide "a window into the soul of the Democratic party and into the dreams and thoughts
of the class to whom the party answers."
This genre of Podesta email, in which people try to arrange jobs for themselves or their kids,
points us toward the most fundamental thing we know about the people at the top of this class: their
loyalty to one another and the way it overrides everything else. Of course Hillary Clinton staffed
her state department with investment bankers and then did speaking engagements for investment banks
as soon as she was done at the state department. Of course she
appears to think that any kind of
bank reform should "come from the industry itself". And of course no elite bankers were ever prosecuted
by the Obama administration. Read these emails and you understand, with a start, that the people
at the top tier of American life all know each other. They are all engaged in promoting one another's
careers, constantly.
Everything blurs into everything else in this world. The state department, the banks, Silicon
Valley, the nonprofits, the "Global CEO Advisory Firm"
that
appears to have solicited donations for the Clinton Foundation. Executives here go from foundation
to government to thinktank to startup. There are honors. Venture capital. Foundation grants. Endowed
chairs. Advanced degrees. For them the door revolves. The friends all succeed. They break every boundary.But
the One Big Boundary remains. Yes, it's all supposed to be a meritocracy. But if you aren't part
of this happy, prosperous in-group – if you don't have John Podesta's email address – you're out.
"... The emails currently roiling the US presidential campaign are part of some unknown digital collection amassed by the troublesome Anthony Weiner, but if your purpose is to understand the clique of people who dominate Washington today, the emails that really matter are the ones being slowly released by WikiLeaks from the hacked account of Hillary Clinton's campaign chair John Podesta. ..."
"... "What is remarkable is that, in the party of Jackson and Bryan and Roosevelt, smiling financiers now seem to stand on every corner, constantly proffering advice about this and that". ..."
"... Do they want more of the same + the Clinton's insatiable appetite for self-enrichmentand that permanent insincere smile? If not, why not give Trump a chance. If they don't like him, kick him out in four years' time. ..."
"... My feeling is this sort of behaviour has its equivalents throughout history and that when it peaks we have upheaval and decline. ..."
"... "Yes, it's all supposed to be a meritocracy. But if you aren't part of this happy, prosperous in-group – if you don't have John Podesta's email address – you're out." ..."
"... Of course you are quite correct, the Democratic Party is a fraud for working people and a collection of self serving elitist. If you have a solution to solve why people keep voting for them I would love to hear it. ..."
"... I am sure the people of Syria and Libya are grateful to these amazing people for destroying their countries and stealing their resources. ..."
"... What's left is a pretty ugly, self-righteous and corrupt crowd. Their attacks on Comey have been despicable, beneath contempt and absurd. I think they're going to lose and they will deserve to. ..."
"... "Former National Endowment for the Arts chairman Bill Ivey says a leaked e-mail to Clinton deputy John Podesta did not reveal a 'master plan' for maintaining political power via 'an unaware and compliant citizenry.'" ..."
"... I use work in these circles and the soul crushing thing is that elites look out for themselves and their careers and have no real personality, morals, values, character, backbone and certainly no interest in the people. They have personalities of wet fish and are generally cowardice and an embarrassment to mankind. In sort a waste of space ..."
The emails currently roiling the US presidential campaign are part of some unknown digital
collection amassed by the troublesome Anthony Weiner, but if your purpose is to understand the clique
of people who dominate Washington today, the emails that really matter are the ones being slowly
released by WikiLeaks from the hacked account of Hillary Clinton's campaign chair John Podesta.
They are last week's scandal in a year running over with scandals, but in truth their significance
goes far beyond mere scandal: they are a window into the soul of the Democratic party and into the
dreams and thoughts of the class to whom the party answers.
The class to which I refer is not rising in angry protest; they are by and large pretty satisfied,
pretty contented. Nobody takes road trips to exotic West Virginia to see what the members of this
class looks like or how they live; on the contrary, they are the ones for whom such stories are written.
This bunch doesn't have to make do with a comb-over TV mountebank for a leader; for this class, the
choices are always pretty good, and this year they happen to be excellent.
They are the comfortable and well-educated mainstay of our modern Democratic party. They are also
the grandees of our national media; the architects of our software; the designers of our streets;
the high officials of our banking system; the authors of just about every plan to fix social security
or fine-tune the Middle East with precision droning. They are, they think, not a class at all but
rather the enlightened ones, the people who must be answered to but who need never explain themselves.
...I think the WikiLeaks releases furnish us with an opportunity to observe the upper reaches
of the American status hierarchy in all its righteousness and majesty.
The dramatis personae of the liberal class are all present in this amazing body of work: financial
innovators. High-achieving colleagues attempting to get jobs for their high-achieving children. Foundation
executives doing fine and noble things. Prizes, of course, and high academic achievement.
...Hillary's ingratiating speeches to Wall Street are well known of course, but what is remarkable
is that, in the party of Jackson and Bryan and Roosevelt, smiling financiers now seem to stand on
every corner, constantly proffering advice about this and that. In one now-famous email chain, for
example, the reader can watch current US trade representative Michael Froman, writing from a Citibank
email address in 2008, appear to name President Obama's cabinet even before the great hope-and-change
election was decided (incidentally, an important clue to understanding why that greatest of zombie
banks was never put out of its misery).
The far-sighted innovators of Silicon Valley are also here in force, interacting all the time
with the leaders of the party of the people. We watch as Podesta appears to email Sheryl Sandberg.
He makes plans to visit Mark Zuckerberg (who, according to one missive, wants to "learn more about
next steps for his philanthropy and social action"). Podesta exchanges emails with an entrepreneur
about an ugly race now unfolding for Silicon Valley's seat in Congress; this man, in turn, appears
to forward to Podesta the remarks of yet another Silicon Valley grandee, who complains that one of
the Democratic combatants in that fight was criticizing billionaires who give to Democrats. Specifically,
the miscreant Dem in question was said to be:
"… spinning (and attacking) donors who have supported Democrats. John Arnold and Marc Leder
have both given to Cory Booker, Joe Kennedy, and others. He is also attacking every billionaire
that donates to [Congressional candidate] Ro [Khanna], many whom support other Democrats as well."
Attacking billionaires! In the year 2015! It was, one of the correspondents appears to write,
"madness and political malpractice of the party to allow this to continue".
There are wonderful things to be found in this treasure trove when you search the gilded words
"Davos" or "Tahoe".
... ... ...
Then there is the apparent nepotism, the dozens if not hundreds of mundane emails in which petitioners
for this or that plum Washington job or high-profile academic appointment politely appeal to Podesta
– the ward-heeler of the meritocratic elite – for a solicitous word whispered in the ear of a powerful
crony.
This genre of Podesta email, in which people try to arrange jobs for themselves or their kids,
points us toward the most fundamental thing we know about the people at the top of this class: their
loyalty to one another and the way it overrides everything else. Of course Hillary Clinton staffed
her state department with investment bankers and then did speaking engagements for investment banks
as soon as she was done at the state department. Of course she appears to think that any kind of
bank reform should "come from the industry itself". And of course no elite bankers were ever prosecuted
by the Obama administration. Read these emails and you understand, with a start, that the people
at the top tier of American life all know each other. They are all engaged in promoting one another's
careers, constantly.
Everything blurs into everything else in this world. The state department, the banks, Silicon
Valley, the nonprofits, the "Global CEO Advisory Firm" that appears to have solicited donations for
the Clinton Foundation. Executives here go from foundation to government to thinktank to startup.
There are honors. Venture capital. Foundation grants. Endowed chairs. Advanced degrees. For them
the door revolves. The friends all succeed. They break every boundary.
But the One Big Boundary remains. Yes, it's all supposed to be a meritocracy. But if you aren't
part of this happy, prosperous in-group – if you don't have John Podesta's email address – you're
out.
It's all polyarchy,plutocracy and powerful lobbyists for the arms and finance industries. The
average US citizen counts for nothing. The higher up on the socio-economic scale you are, the
more you count. Except for a brainwashed vote once every 4 years.
From today's Guardian…
"US politics tends to be portrayed as driven by geopolitical interests rather than personalities,
and so most ordinary Russians assume that little will change, whoever wins."
"And nothing will change for the average US citizen, just like in Britain. Looks like most ordinary
Russians have got it spot on.
And as if that were not enough, the elections are 'rigged' in various ways.
Americans have a great responsibility not only to their country but to other so-called advanced
western democracies which follow they US model. A radical change in US politics to bring it in line
with genuine concern for the interests of the average citizen would greatly assist efforts here on
the other side of the Atlantic to do the same.
Astonishing that registered Democrats rejected one of the cleanest politicians in modern US
history in order to nominate the Queen of Wall St. What do they hope to gain from expanded corporate
globalism and entrenchment of the corporate coup d'etat at home?
Except that it was the same party grandees (Super-delegates - the very word sticks in your
throat no?) who all but confirmed Clinton's appointment before a single ballot was cast by the
party rank and file.
"What is remarkable is that, in the party of Jackson and Bryan and Roosevelt, smiling financiers
now seem to stand on every corner, constantly proffering advice about this and that".
Spot on. There's amnesia today about where the Democratic party historically stood in regard
to Wall Street and its interests.
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Real issues - like economic well-being for all - have been replaced by Democrats with mindless
identity politics. Clinton is literally running on "I will spend half a billion to reduce bullying",
on unisex bathrooms, and more women of color everywhere.
Is that what democracy should be all about? FDR and other real Democrats would die laughing
if they would see these current "progressive liberals" - they stand for nothing, they are a total
waste of time, as Obama so amply demonstrated.
The warning signals were screaming months ago and the mass media concocted a smear campaign against
Sanders because he wasn't owned and he was the wrong gender.
Sanders would have destroyed Trump in this election.
Yes he did endorse her. Because it is customary for the losing candidate(s) in the nomination
race to do so. He said he would endorse her if she won, right from the start of the process. For
the patently obvious reason, which he repeated again and again, that even a compromised HRC is
far better than Donald Trump.
And he kept his word, but not before he did his level best during the convention to get some
decent policies jammed into the Democratic Party platform.
And if the same sort of leakage had come from the Republicans you'd see exactly the same patronage
and influence peddling. If there's one area of politics that remains truly bipartisan it's the
gravitational pull of large sums of money.
We even read the pleadings of a man who wants to be invited to a state dinner at the White
House and who offers, as one of several exhibits in his favor, the fact that he "joined the DSCC
Majority Trust in Martha's Vineyard (contributing over $32,400 to Democratic senators) in July
2014".
Then there is the apparent nepotism, the dozens if not hundreds of mundane emails in which
petitioners for this or that plum Washington job or high-profile academic appointment politely
appeal to Podesta – the ward-heeler of the meritocratic elite – for a solicitous word whispered
in the ear of a powerful crony.
Something timeless about it all, isn't there? Like reading an account of court life in the
era of Charles II.
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There's nothing revelatory in the fact that this is happening among the Democrats, there is surely
a carbon copy going on with the Republicans! But somehow I don't think Wikileaks will be releasing
anything about that, until the GoP happens to do something that steps on Putin's toes...
We'll find out the truth about how Wikileaks operates one day. The alignment between Wikileaks
releases and interests of Russian foreign policy became suspicious a long time before you read
on Breitbart that Clinton made it up. And I wasn't in any way denying or diminishing the activities
described in the article. There are just better articles out there, which consider corruption
in "the system" from all sides - which is exactly how it should be viewed, not more of this divide
and conquer bullshit.
It is clear that rigging had taken place in the Democrat primaries, Bernie Sanders was more popular
with a big chunk of the electorate including the young, here in the Guardian few people had a
bad word to say about him, compare that to Hillary who's only strong point seems to be that she
is a safer choice than Trump.
I'm not so sure anymore either. For the world, maybe Trump is better in the end (ofc Clinton is
by far better for the US). I knew what a hawk Clinton is but seeing her "obliterate Iran" comments
made me think she might be even more dangerous than I thought.
The corollary is, Trump is the only candidate that Hillary can beat. That bares some thinking
over, I believe, especially in the light of the way we know the political system and the Democrats
in particular work. Oh well . . .
It didn't matter so much when the right-wing parties were puppets of billionaires.
The political crisis arrived when the supposedly "left-wing" parties sold out to them too.
At which point, democratic choice evaporated.
Financial interests have today captured the entire body-politic of Britain and America, and
it really doesn't matter which party you vote for - Goldman Sachs will call the shots regardless.
And they see you as simply a cash-cow to be milked for the benefit of the very rich, themselves
included.
Your general point is broadly accurate - however I would have second thoughts before singling
out Goldman Sachs any more than say Morgan Stanley , Citigroup or Bank of America.
I think he meant Goldman Sachs as a term for the larger banking group of interests (as you listed).
Some call them the 'white shoe boys'. Everyone knows the banks control everything now.
you've got it the wrong way round....it's the groups you mention that plead NOT speak with politicians.
Please don't include those running hospitals and universities with the worldwide business and
finance mafia.
"This genre of Podesta email, in which people try to arrange jobs for themselves or their kids,
points us toward the most fundamental thing we know about the people at the top of this class:
their loyalty to one another and the way it overrides everything else."
This is quite a mundane observation. To which social group does a tendency for in-group loyalty
NOT apply? I think what it actually shows is that high status people mix together and are more
confident in using such forms of communication with powerful people (with whom they assume a connection)
for personal gain. Hardly surprising. And also only applies to the sample - those who emailed
- rather than the general class. That is, it's a bad sample because it is self selecting, and
therefore says something more about people who are willing to communicate in this way, rather
than their broader class.
So to be clear, I don't think the two are mutually exclusive. One is about how often you are loyal
to your group, and the other is about the nature of loyalty itself.
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That the people at the very top of their industry and professions know each other and communicate
with each other is hardly a surprise. Nor is it bad - it helps the world to function. Nor is it
necessarily corrupt provided they operate within the law. What is important is that getting to
the top of these professions is an opportunity open to everyone with the ability and the drive.
That, sadly, is not the case. Nepotism does not help either.
These people at the top of their professions have a track-record of abysmal failure. Goldman Sachs,
Citigroup and the other banks should have been allowed to collapse in 2008, as fitting punishment
for their greed and incompetence. Instead, they used their paid-for access to the Bush White House
to demand and acquire a trillion-dollar bailout.
[neo]Liberal may be a dirty word to call someone in America but the author of this piece seems
unaware it doesn't work quite the same way the other side of the Atlantic. May I suggest panty-waisted
pointy-head instead?
Better yet: Globalist. Its an underlying theme that we have seen unite the Clintons and Bush/Romney
families in this election cycle...we now know who the enemy is, and they have infiltrated both
the Democrats and the Republicans. They have a secret badge they wear pledging an allegiance to
a higher power: the Clinton/Bush/Romney families are the jack-booted thugs of the American globalists.
The more the administrative class' borderless "humanism" aligns with the oligarchy's desire for
cheap labor, the less objectionable those cuddly persons become.
It's very easy to make a case that HRC is unfit for the presidency... Except for the fact the
alternative is Trump. A clique arranges matters for themselves and the electorate is basically
told to go to hell.
What is over there is on it's way over here if it hasn't happened already. You can build big
corporations with a flourishing financial sector or you can build a nation. I would say choose
but you don't get a choice.
Good job in presenting Hillary as the poor victim, when she has the whole weight of the neo-liberal
media-banking system behind her... Next up in Orwell land...
"Along with the concept of American Dream runs the notion that every man and woman is entitled
to an opinion and to one vote, no matter how ridiculous that opinion might be or how uninformed
the vote. It could be that the Borderer Presbyterian tradition of "stand up and say your rightful
piece" contributed to the American notion that our gut-level but uninformed opinions are some
sort of unvarnished foundational political truths.
I have been told that this is because we redneck working-class Scots Irish suffer from what
psychiatrists call "no insight".
Consequently, we will never agree with anyone outside our zone of ignorance because our belligerent
Borderer pride insists on the right to be dangerously wrong about everything while telling those
who are more educated to "bite my ass!"
― Joe Bageant, Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America's Class War
A meritocracy always crashes and crushes its actors and puppet masters whenever merit is neither
exhibited nor warranted ...... for then is it too much alike a fraudulent ponzi to be anything
else.
What Americans need to ask themselves is: Are they happy with things as they are after 8 years
of Obama? Do they want more of the same + the Clinton's insatiable appetite for self-enrichmentand
that permanent insincere smile? If not, why not give Trump a chance. If they don't like him, kick
him out in four years' time.
Are Americans happy with things as they are after 8 years of a Republican Congress stonewalling
every attempt to improve things for ordinary people, even shutting down the whole government in
pursuit of their partisan agenda? The childish antics of our 'democratic representatives' have
diminished the ideals of democracy and would sink even further with Trump, who could do a lot
of damage in four years.
Bit ironic, given your user name "noteasilyfooled". You are aware that Donald Trump (in spite
of several attempts to lose his fortune) is a billionaire?
It has been ongoing through out history, ancient Greece and the beginning of democracy, Romans,
Kings, Queens, courts and courtiers. Is it really a surprise that if you do not have a Harvard
MBA, you won't rise through the ranks of Goldman's and McKinsey? It's no different here in England,
Ł50,000 and up to dine with Dave and George last year.
Most of the population trusts who they elect to do the jobs they themselves would not do or
could not do, it's steeped in history that the well educated take the helm. Politics is nepotism
and money has always played a very large part, for every party, not just the democrats. Let's
not pretend the republicans are innocent saints in all of this, if Wikileaks were to delve into
their actions there would be a shit storm, remember the NRA is part and parcel of the Republican
party.
Most of the population trusts who they elect to do the jobs they themselves would not do or
could not do
Not sure we do .. We're totally apathetic and cynical in regards to politics, and certainly
those who put themselves forward mostly aren't up to the job but are seemingly unemployable elsewhere;
look no further than the last PM and his idiot chum, and now the current PM and her front bench.
Would you employ 'em?..
Ehm, sorry, no. Remember there is a word, democracy , which is taken to mean that governments
act according to the wishes of the people who elected them. Your petty partisanship is blinding
you.
They are the comfortable and well-educated mainstay of our modern Democratic party. They
are also the grandees of our national media; the architects of our software; the designers
of our streets; the high officials of our banking system; the authors of just about every plan
to fix social security or fine-tune the Middle East with precision droning. They are, they
think, not a class at all but rather the enlightened ones, the people who must be answered
to but who need never explain themselves.
This is across the WHOLE of the West no matter whether right leaning or left leaning.
The really interesting question is whether it has always been like this (and we just don't have
the emails to prove it) or whether this is a fairly new phenomenon. My feeling is this sort
of behaviour has its equivalents throughout history and that when it peaks we have upheaval and
decline.
The current malaise goes back a long way but was catalysed by the end of the Cold War. Because
the West 'won' with a system of liberal capitalist democracy, politics took a back seat to business
interests. The Clintonian and Blairite 'third way' was billed as a practical compromise but the
reality was an abdication of politics. Into this vacuum stepped the kind of self-serving elite
the Podesta emails reveal. Arrangements are starting to break down and Michael Gove's much derided
statement that people have 'had enough of experts' is actually the most insightful thing that
has been said about 21st Century politics so far.
Yes, yes, Thomas. But one click on your name reveals an approach to these elections which about
as unbiased against Clinton as Comley's - it's pretty clear who you want to win.
Among other things, if Trump wins, though, there will be war in Europe within 2 years, as Putin
grabs the Baltic states and the USA sits back, arms folded - you heard it here first.
And by electing Trump, we are trying to fuck up all of the people you mention in your article
above. We can't completely, but through things like term limits we can make Washington a city
full of strangers to them. It is much more difficult to deal with strangers in the "back room"
as you can't trust them.
We need to make Washington as inaccessible to those folks as it is to Main Street America.
We have to break America for these globalist elites before America will work for Main Street
again.
Because the American oligarchy has now turned globalist, their goals are now contrary to those
of the American people, and that's why all Hillary has is empty slogans like "I'll fight for you"
while Trump is saying tangible things like "I'll build a wall" and "I'll renegotiate or tear up
NAFTA."
We are done with them, and this is just getting started.
"Yes, it's all supposed to be a meritocracy. But if you aren't part of this happy, prosperous
in-group – if you don't have John Podesta's email address – you're out."
What's particularly interesting is to contrast the main-chance sleaziness of their internal jockeying
with the overwhelming self-righteousness of their pronouncements on public issues. No wonder the
voters want revenge.
Of course you are quite correct, the Democratic Party is a fraud for working people and a
collection of self serving elitist. If you have a solution to solve why people keep voting for
them I would love to hear it.
I think the point is that all politics is the same, democrat or republican. These people are self
serving leeches on the rest of society and they have us thanking them for it......well in the
USA they have you mindlessly chanting USA USA USA over and over again but you get my drift.
Wikileaks doesn't get 'directed'. It's very likely the leaks are from the inside of the Clinton
campaign. They've been very sloppy and not very tech savvy by all accounts.
That such a state of affairs exists is no surprise at all, especially as the whole proclaimed
basis of society in America is designed to produce it exactly.
They may couch it in different terms and dress it up to look like 'democracy and freedom',
but it is a selfish, greedy stampede where only the lucky or the nasty succeed.
We are forever told that anyone can achieve the 'American dream', but it is a complete myth.
The idea that if everyone just puts in the effort they could all live in limitless luxury is such
a false illusion you wonder why it hasn't been buried along with believing the world is flat and
the sun is a god.
no they don't! The freedom and democracy is just bullshot that cons the populace to not see that
it's really "nick all your stuff under the threat of violence". They're gangsters. That's all
they do.
Seriously? Your story is powerful people associate with each other and do each other favours?
Absent a pure dictatorship, that's how power works. Even then, I happen to know you're inferring
too much design in some of the events you describe.
This genre of Podesta email, in which people try to arrange jobs for themselves or their
kids, points us toward the most fundamental thing we know about the people at the top of this
class: their loyalty to one another and the way it overrides everything else.
We all know how people in power act in their own interests and that goes for both Parties, not
only the one singled out in this article.
What is less clear is how all this hysteria about personalities makes any difference to ordinary
people whose interests have been entirely sidelined in this election circus. Where is the discussion
about how Americans can get affordable healthcare, or a job that pays more than the minimum, or
how to respond to climate change, for instance?
The US presidential race signifies the way the political process has become irrevocably debased.
The e-mails merely highlight the cynicism of politicians who long ago ceded power to the financial
and corporate world.
Politicians don't really understand the complexities of finance, in the same way they are unable
to fathom the Middle east, or even what life has become like for huge swathes of the American
population. At the same time politicians have long ceased to be the engine of social progress,
in fact more often than not their policies are more likely to do great harm rather than good.
If anybody is surprised by the general tenor of these e-mails I assume they must have been
the sort of children who were heartbroken when one day their parents gently sat them down to break
it to them that Santa was actually Daddy in an oversized red suit.
" The dramatis personae of the liberal class are all present in this amazing body of work:
financial innovators. High-achieving colleagues attempting to get jobs for their high-achieving
children. Foundation executives doing fine and noble things. Prizes, of course, and high academic
achievement."
I am sure the people of Syria and Libya are grateful to these amazing people for destroying
their countries and stealing their resources.
Just look over here as former politicians get on the gravy train as they lose their seats or retire.
As for the Eton alumni - closer than the mafia ....
Yes ...just look at thsi stunning revent incisive Guardian journam=lism that has helped break
this open
"But if she wins, what an added bonus that, as the first woman to enter the White House, she
will also step through the door as by far the most qualified and experienced arrival there for
generations."
"Forget the FBI cache; the Podesta emails show how America is run"
First, no, no one in his right mind should forget the FBI cache which very likely contains
evidence of serious crimes by Clinton.
At the very least, they can prove she did not comply with subpoenas and destroyed evidence
and lied to the FBI.
Second, yes, the Podesta e-mails do show us something of how America is run, but the picture
is far from complete.
We've not had a enough look into the Clinton Foundation and its intertwining with the affairs
of a very senior official and the President himself.
One very much suspects Hillary of playing "pay for play" with foreign governments, much the
kind of corruption the US loves to accuse less-developed countries of.
After all, when the Clintons were in the White House, fund-raising gimmicks reached unprecedented
levels. President Bill came up with the offer of a sleep-over in the Lincoln Bedroom for rich
supporters who coughed up a $250,000 campaign contribution.
There are many indications, but no hard proof, of just how corrupt this foundation is. One
analyst who has spent some time studying it has called it a huge criminal scheme.
Let's not forget that Julian Assange, the man who gave us the Podesta material, has promised
revelations "which could put Hillary in jail" before the election.
You're right of course. All of politics is about doing favors for people high and low, you scratch
my back and I'll scratch yours. In the entire article the one real scandalous thing is that it
quotes from hacked personal emails that no on but those who wrote them have a right to see.
If anyone thinks that the immediate solution to not backing this type of behavior from one of
the major political parties is to elect a huckster riding the wave of righteous revulsion to all
of this, then they deserve everything that they will get when said huckster gets to the pinnacle
of power.
The solution does not lie with the other major political party either, boy would I love to
see a release of emails detailing how that organization is run. It is already in collapse due
to the eroding corruption resulting in downright robbery of the people, and on-going bigotry and
constant war-mongering to rob the world of its assets.
Nothing will happen to change any of this unless a realistic third party based on true service
to the people of this country gains national acceptance. The best thing that could come from these
emails and the fracturing of the Republican party would be that all disillusioned and disgruntled
citizens unite to form this third party. This will take the emergence of some genuine, selfless
leadership, but I have hopes that this can and will happen.
Otherwise, the future is not rosy, and one day we may look back at this hateful campaign with
nostalgia.
We have our own elite clubs in this country some of which have been here for centuries. All members
regardless of Party are connected through elite school networks and by of course the class system
which is copper fastened to keep the great unwashed out. Corruption, nepotism and cronyism are
all present here too even if concealed by the veil of respectability and having the right postcode.
From the comfort of their clubs, their marble homes and granite banks they rob the people of Britain
and the world.
I'd recommend reading "The Unwinding - An Inner History of the new America" by George Packer who
dissects this very well via potted biographies of several real people. The book also covers it's
opposite - the rising unemployment, de-industrialisation, repossessions and other themes. A very
useful background for understanding this election and whatever comes after. And a good read too
which can't always be said about such books.
Trump supporters say that Trump is not a politician or part of the Washington "establishment"
but he has built his empire by buying politicians for years. His flock is so fooled.
As someone who started in poverty and rose to do well through lots of hard work and lots of good
luck, the "revelation" that this country is controlled by a smug elite is not news. I may be liberal
but I have no illusions about the elitism and exclusionism that ruling cadres always exhibit.
And if I could achieve one thing, politically, in this lifetime it would be to break the back
of privilege in this country and on this planet forever, and make true meritocracy -- not cronyism,
not nepotism, not herdeitary wealth and power -- the ONLY determinant of success.
Then setup/ join a grassroots party.
I would like to see a pan-European, non-ideological party which will focus on getting people out
of the debt economy into economic and financial freedom. The price of housing and transportation
and education needs to be addressed. There needs to be less government, fewer MPs and more room
for people who create value and employment. There is a lot of innovation out there online for
example, but the mass of people are not being exposed to these options. A
This is how the rich, powerful and landed interest in all societies work. Constitutional democracy
was supposed to counter it`s worst excesses.
Voters everywhere understand how their governments have been subverted and that is why politicians
are mistrusted.
I was confused by your spelling for a second - David Icke.
One theory states that society would have had to crate a similar model if Icke hadn't provided
us with one. It is also, probably, better to blame alien overlords to human ones.
This is a pretty tame assessment. The more I see about HRC (who I once respected, not that long
ago) the more angry and saddened I feel. The Dems have lost their connection with the people they
were meant to represent. What's left is a pretty ugly, self-righteous and corrupt crowd. Their
attacks on Comey have been despicable, beneath contempt and absurd. I think they're going to lose
and they will deserve to.
The funniest thing about the comments of this article is the people who claim that electing Trump
will be different somehow. Trump will demolish the system, Trump will shake things up! Please!
Trump IS a part of this system, a system that has two clubs, A and B. Each club has its interests
and each club wants to elect a figure that would represent its interests. Moreover, clubs A and
B really work together, they are two groups of shareholders that are sometimes in disagreement
in the distribution of profit, but at the bottom line they are working for the same goal, the
enrichment of themselves and their associates. You have to be very naive to believe that POTUS,
a mere public relations figure, would be allowed to make any significiant executive decisions
in this company. That's not what a public relations officer does. The real decisions are with
the executives of the club, and they are not elected, they are admitted into the club. The real
question, however, is if it can be otherwise, if it has ever been otherwise, can we conceive of
a system that would be different. This should be the concern of all political experts, scientists
and journalists.
Yeah but he's going to build a wall, lock her up, tear up trade agreements with the neighbours,
bar Muslims from coming to the USA, create millions of well-paid jobs, open up loads of coal mines,
have a trade war with China, end lobbying, establish limited terms (if only a president could
have a third term) and sue umpteen women for alleging sexual assault.
"Just a bunch of expensive suits deciding on what's best for the world (and themselves)"
That's the wrong emphasis based on the points made in this article; surely it is "Just a bunch
of expensive suits deciding on what's best for the themselves (and the world)".
sanders said it and trump, an insider of independent means, are both right about the Clinton duo's
sleazy corruption. thank you Wikileaks, thank you perv Weiner, thank you Huma for sharing (one
of your) computers with your sex-fiend husband. thank you for sharing your total honesty and high
morality, all deserving that we citizens pay your pensions and salaries.
Its taken a while but i think I've decided. I genuinely want Clinton to lose, i think Trump will
be a disastrous president and the worst in history by far, and worse then Clinton.
That said
Clinton and the DNC deserve to lose for the horrific way they treated Sanders in the nomination
to see Clinton crowned the candidate... she does not deserve to win and i cannot face that smug
arrogant speech which will come if she does much less the next 4-8 years.
Lobbying, influence then a thin line to break into corruption and the system being run for the
selfish interest of the tiny few against the majority. The US is no exception to this, it is just
done more subtly with a smokescreen and sleight of hand.
I'm not sure where the "news" is in this piece. The same rules of engagement apply during Republican
administrations. The same rules of engagement apply in every administration in every country in
every part of our benighted World .... and, sadly, always have done. The only response to the
article that I can think of is that eternally useful Americanism ... "No s**t Sherlock."
it is the elite - both right and left wing who have accumulated all the power, know each other
very well and have one aim in life - to retain the power and priviledge for themselves, their
families and their peers - whether that is by social class, university, religion and yes race.
Bitter - you bet people are bitter - ignorant people who don't see they are all much of the same.
It's all about the power and the money that they have, you don't and you don't seem to care. Actually
you probably do have right power, money, class and race hence the pathetically flippant comment.
Well he's already aware of media bias and that a Deep State exists quietly in the background so
it will be interesting to see what happens after the election.
Brilliant. Absolutely and positively the best piece on the subject I have read. As an American,
once a cable installer who visited all the cliche homes of social-strata USA, I find a ray of
hope ij what you write. It is a hope that Americans will just admit the unbelievable folly of
Hillary Clinton as a choice for dog catcher, much less Commander in Chief of the US Armed Forces.
For God's sake, or the sake of Howard Hughes even, this group would nuke Idaho for not approving
of a transexual-animal wedding ceremony, let along disagreeing on healthcare. You have framed
and illuminated a portrait of the macabre aristocracy now in charge. I hope more people read this.
Neither of the two main political parties have a candidate worth anyone's time. The choice
is between a sexual predator and a serial liar to see who will lead the richest most powerful
country on the face of the earth and these two are what the parties have puked up for us to choose
between. I cant imagine a general or admiral sitting in front of either of these two specimens
and thinking themselves proud to be led by them.
This entire cycle is a disgrace, vote for Hillary, impeach her in a year stick Kaine in as
a caretaker and then have a proper election in 2020, its the only sane way out of this disaster.
"Sexual predator", really? You mean like Bill Cosby and Bill Clinton, 2 men with RAPE accusations
following them around for decades? All Trump did was kiss women in show biz and beauty contests,
and they LET him. I guess you never saw Richard Dawson on Family Feud?
You know damn well, people who get to the top in so called western capitalist representative democracy,
only represent themselves. The very idea they care about the people in general is totally demolished
by observing the evidence, how countries function and where the money flows to and where from.
The people are no better than domesticated cattle being led out to graze and brought back in
the evening to be milked. Marx was right when he talked about wage slavery. The slavers are those
in the legislatures of the west.
I really like Thomas Frank, author of the brilliant Pity the Billionaire.
I can't help feeling here that he's really softballed the the US elite (the Democrats in this
case) by only mildly calling them on their epic corruption.
If seen from Main street, is it any wonder the US electorate have in their millions turned aournd
and said "no, you're not going to ensnare us again with your bullshit promises because you want
our vote, you are the problem and we're going to kick YOU out"
I mean how many times can they hope to fool the electorate with bought and paid for contestants,
all the while with the media having their back. When the media is as corrupt and 'owned' as the
US mainstream media, people look elsewhere and there they find voices that are far far more critical
of what their awful rulers get up to.
Trump and Clinton have been friends for years. So the electorate is fooled once again. Every time
the public start to get wind of what's going on, the establishment just adds another layer to
the onion. By the time the hoi polloi catch up, they've siphoned tens of billions, hundreds of
billions for themselves, and created all new distractions and onion layers for the next election.
People are undeniably stupid.
This confirms the existence of a shadow government, made up of rich and powerful industrialists
and bankers who control the way elections results turn out, so that they can help themselves.
From their standpoint, Trump will be a wart in their rear end, because he basically lacks the
sophistication needed to hide excretion under the carpet and walk over it smiling. He is already
full of it and therefore is of no use to them. They did not expect him to come this far. There
is a first time surprise for everything. They did not expect Sanders to gain momentum either.
But they managed to contain it, phew! Now with Clinton, they can continue with their merry ways,
earning billions more, settings fires across the globe and making more profits out them. It is
not just the Democratic party that is full of stench. It includes the other party as well. Right
wing and left wing belong to the same bird. All the campaign for voting, right to vote, participate
etc. are just window wash. American democracy is buried deep in the Arlington cemetery. What runs
now is Plutocracy, whose roots have cracked through the foundations and pillars of this country.
Either a bloody revolution will happen one day soon or America will go the way of Brazil.
The US public are pretty happy generally with extra-judicial killing (we call that murder in
the UK, remember this for later on in the post), seems little concern about the on-record comments
of Clinton regarding Libya.
In fact the on-record comments of Clinton generally, that doesn't even involve hacked email
accounts, are absolutely damning to most Europeans.
However.. here in the UK what passes for satire comedy TV shows have rigorously stuck to the
line Trump is an idiot, Clinton is a democrat.
I can understand their fascination with Trump.. he's an easy target.. but nobody in the UK media
seems to have the balls to call out the fact that Clinton is neck deep in 'extra judicial killing',
which I find odd.. More importantly I find this to be an absolutely damning indictment of British
media. This organ not withstanding.
Interesting, but this just tells of the usual cronyism and nepotism; unedifying as it is. We see
very little here though of her true masters; i.e. Goldman Sachs; or more specifically the people
who own GS who are Hiliary's puppet masters. I would be more worried about Hiliarys ambition apparently
to push for a conflict with Russia; a conflict that serves the Military industrial complex and
the bankers that own it. DT may be a Narcicist but as Michael Moore says; "the enemy of my enemy....."
It's all supposed to be a meritocracy. But if you aren't part of this happy, prosperous
in-group – if you don't have XYZ's email address – you're out.
Great article that makes you think as a reader. For instance, though more ethical, it makes
you wonder how things are different in the BBC or The Guardian, or NYT, or other powerful organisations.
How far does merit count, how far does having the right background, how far not rocking the boat?
Hopefully the article will inspire others to look into the leaderships of American politics where
"everything blurs into everything in this world'.
The most shocking emails to me were the ones that revealed the Democratic Party had a substantial
role in creating and organizing groups like Catholics United, with the intent of using them to
try to liberalize the Catholic Church on issues like abortion and same sex marriage.
The same people who (rightly) cried foul over GW Bush crossing the church/state divide apparently
had no problem doing the same thing when it suited their agenda. I tend to vote Democratic, but
I don't know if I can continue to do that in the future. This kind of thing should not be happening
in America.
With a constitution like that of the US, with its establishment parties sharing a bought and sold
executive evey few years, and in the absence of representative parliamentary democracy, the psuedo
macarthyist insinuations of this article are as civilized as it can get.
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/3599
"And as I've mentioned, we've all been quite content to demean government, drop civics and in
general conspire to produce an unaware and compliant citizenry. The unawareness remains strong
but compliance is obviously fading rapidly. This problem demands some serious, serious thinking
- and not just poll driven, demographically-inspired messaging."
And there is the thinking of the elite rolled into a few sentences.
"Former National Endowment for the Arts chairman Bill Ivey says a leaked e-mail to Clinton
deputy John Podesta did not reveal a 'master plan' for maintaining political power via 'an unaware
and compliant citizenry.'"
One might think that after reading this article, that a liberal/progressive like me would hate
the Democratic Party and all of the elites in it. Well, you would be right (no pun intended),
but the folks that I really despise are on the GOP side of the equation.
My animosity begins with Eisenhower, who turned the Dulles brother lose on the world to start
so many of the fires that still rage today. Then came Nixon, with his "southern strategy", to
turn the hate and racism that existed in America since its founding into a political philosophy
that only an ignorant, half-assed Hollywood actor could fully weaponize. Then there was GWB who
threw jet fuel onto the still smoldering ashes left from the Dulles boys.
(And if you think you can throw LBJ back at me, consider that he saw no way out of Vietnam
simply because he knew the right was accuse him of being soft on communism - and so the big fool
pushed ever deeper into the Big Muddy.)
And the toxic fumes from those blazes then drifted over Donald J Trump and his fellow 16 clown
car occupants - all trying to out-hate each other.
There is simply no alternative to the Democratic Party because the GOP represents hate, misogyny,
racism, and the zombie legions that catered to the corporatocracy and the Christian right. It
was such a winning strategy that the Democratic Party created the Democratic Leadership Council
(DLC) - led by the likes of the Clinton's who out-repug'd the Repugnants, and stole their corporate
lunches. And this is what we have left (no pun intended).
First, Frank misunderstood Kansas. Now he says he was blind to the reality of the Democratic party
until the Podesta emails enlightened him. He's right though that the Democrats are never out of
power whether they win or lose elections (although it's always more convenient to win them, even
with a Clinton and the knowledge that he or she means nasty baggage to come). Republicans have
a lock on country clubs; Dems have a lock on government.
i understand that the republicans make up most of the governor positions as well as state houses
plus the fed. senate and congress...that is why america is now a banana republic [re: see the
fbi interference] and is why america is now an embarassment...run as it is by the republican duck
dynasty intellectual class. stay tuned as fascism follows. please don't stand close to me...you're
an american and embarrassing....
Trust me, middle and lower-class people also try to let eachother know that their kids need a
job, and can you help out. And I don't mind the bank exec promoting the dinner of locally grown/caught
produce with the tastesful wine pairing. Certainly pretty twee, but otherwise pretty normal.
What should be concentrated on is the amount of "OMG, they are complaining about billionaires!"
whining in these emails, and the amount of manipulative news cycle management and duplicitous
skullduggery that takes place.
And how about a law that prevents the Clintons from even stepping on Martha's Vineyard for
at least 4-5 years?
In all, a somewhat depressing but predictable confirmation that the Democratic party has embraced
the donor class to the extent that the donors are now the party's true constituents.
A self-interested, self-promoting, self-protecting "Elite" seeks to control and dominate. Clinton
is clearly integral to this abhorrent system. The USA is in desperate need of change yet the political
system is the antidote to any change. Trump is not the answer. Americans should be very worried.
The only benefit to Trump winning is that both parties will be blown up and recreated with new,
fresh faces - and Trump will be impeached within months.
Why isn't Trump the answer? No one can give me a valid rational reason. He is one of the few who
has shone light on the Swamp and is bringing the woke corrupt world down.
that elite you speak of happen to be your fellow americans and live on your street..unless of
course you live in a trailer park..in which case stop your whining and get yourself an education
and a better job instead of spending all your time watching wrestling and celebrity apprentice
and moaning about the elite...i notice trump hired his stupid kids instead of cracker jack executives...i
guess thats some of the nepotism you're crying about....ya rube.
Trump is different though. He socialized in these environments...the politicians...use hit him
up for donations....gossip too him about the goings on even try and sleep with him .
Trump does not drink so at these events he probably heard unlimited stories maybe even Bill Clinton
bragged to him.
For what ever reason he wants to bring
This scum down. Maybe they disgust him like they disgust us?
'This genre of Podesta email, in which people try to arrange jobs for themselves or their kids,
' I ss written as evidence of nepotism. But there is no mention of whether or not these requests
were successful. Nepotism requires that the person requesting the favour is granted it.
lol no she doesn't. she doesnt want single payer, neither did obama. she doesnt want a liberal
supreme court. she doesn't want the minimum wage raised to 15. she may support race gender lbgt
"fairness" as long as it is to her political advantage. but when it isn't, she will throw anybody
under the bus.
"Read these emails and you understand, with a start, that the people at the top tier of
American life all know each other. They are all engaged in promoting one another's careers,
constantly."
As long as that class division exists, nothing will ever change, and that class will never
relinquish that division of their own accord.
How different is this from anywhere else on the planet? There will always be " elites" composed
of well connected and/or powerful and/ or wealthy and/or famous people.
I have a good job in a good firm and i am inundated by emails from clients or their friends
trying to place their offspring. I decline politely, blame HR and PC, express my sincerest regrets
and delete.
As for wealthy and powerful people enjoying holidays in the company of other wealthy and powerful
people, so what? I spend my holiday with my friends and my friends tend to have the same professional
middle class background and outlook.
She should have said ."You guys are a bunch of cowardly, greedy, malformed humans. You are the
cream of everything wrong with society today.. And the worse of it all is,. you know it too. I
can smell it in this very room."
That's what!
If we followed the likes of Frank Democrats would be out of power for ever.
No, these Democrats would merely be members of the Republican Party, honestly declaring that the
people with money make the rules to benefit themselves. What's the moral point of being in power
if you have to be just as bad as the opposing party in order to stay in power?
I use work in these circles and the soul crushing thing is that elites look out for themselves
and their careers and have no real personality, morals, values, character, backbone and certainly
no interest in the people. They have personalities of wet fish and are generally cowardice and
an embarrassment to mankind. In sort a waste of space
A meritocracy wouldn't have such hob-nobbing going on for positions of power. There'd be no reason
to ask for special consideration for 'Johnny' -- since he would already have risen to the top
based on his own MERIT. So I don't understand why this author keeps insisting that this is a meritocracy
when the evidence is so clearly and so obviously the opposite.
Once upon a time these emails would have been front and centre of Guardian reporting, headline
news and leader columns, now a single opinion article tucked away from the front page. Truly the
gatekeepers have lost just as much credibility as the political class that they shill for.
It is well known that there is a deep state operating in America, if you want to learn something
instead of sneering and being ignorant, you could do worse than reading books such as these:
This is happening in America, which has always claimed that there are no classes here and everything
is done according to merit. So, yes, it's exactly like the triad you mention and it is the more
offensive for occurring in a country that expressly repudiates it.
That article adds up to zero, it does not tell us anything. There are people with networks, and
people promote other people they know. Nothing peculiar about this, it works like this in every
walk of life. By and large people with high stakes will choose other people who they know can
get very hard jobs done, otherwise their project becomes a failure. Can other talented people
break into these networks? They can and they do.
he's pretty powerful yes. he just runs interference for clinton controlled foundations as far
as i know, but i'm sure he will help out the big banks if called upon. your comment reeks of dishonesty.
The Democrats are as bad if not worse than the Republicans at deceit, manipulation of the media,
leaking false information, feeding out a narrative etc..
Its basically become like an arms race between the 2 parties to win by any means necessary
because they are so polarized.
The system needs to be overhauled and changed because its not fit for the 21st century. The
UK political system too needs to modernise because its creaking as well.
Frank (What's the matter with Frank? Frank) misses the point. completely. The amazing thing about
all these emails is how absolutely squeaky clean Podesta is. How many of us could say the same
if our personal emails from the last 10 years were blasted all over the internet?!? Not one --
not one! -- example of intemperate language, of bias, of unchained passions, of immaturity. I'm
proud to be his fellow citizen and would gladly let him serve as Chief of Staff again if he so
chose. Go Italian-Americans!
The Democratic Party faces exactly the same problem as the Labour Party in the UK.
They are both parties which are supposed to represent the interests of the working class and
middle class but they have been infiltrated by corrupt right wing groups lining their own pockets
and representing the interests of the oligarchy.
The Labour and Democratic parties need to work together to get these poisonous people out of
their organisations before they destroy they destroy them from within.
This is all fascinating, and disturbing, but sadly, not a surprise.
It also isn't restricted to the upper echelons of political parties either.
It is no coincidence we hear the same comedians/pundits/writers on Radio Four every week.
It is no coincidence we see the same people on tv.
It is no coincidence the sons and daughters of sons and daughters of the people who went to certain
universities go the same universities.
It is no coincidence certain arts grants go to a certain group of people a lot more than they
go to others.
It is no coincidence that European grants go to the same small groups of people running organisations.
I'll wager it is no coincidence at the Guardian certain people get work experience and internships.
Its the way the world works, and it stinks.
Great essay. It is hard to get all the thoughts about the elite into words when so much anger
and confusion exist now that all lines have blurred. No longer left and right, but top to bottom.
Whereas the world is mostly very grey for the bulk of us, these emails shed a light very clearly
on what is black and white and green all over for a few who are really in control. This election
has certainly pulled back the curtain and left everyone exposed. For so long Americans could pretend
there was virtue and dignity in the "democratic" foundation of our politics, but now with absolute
certainly we can see that it is not so and likely never was. No pretending anymore.
The class to which I refer is not rising in angry protest; they are by and large pretty satisfied,
pretty contented. Nobody takes road trips to exotic West Virginia to see what the members of this
class looks like or how they live; on the contrary, they are the ones for whom such stories are
written. This bunch doesn't have to make do with a comb-over TV mountebank for a leader; for this
class, the choices are always pretty good, and this year they happen to be excellent.
They are the comfortable and well-educated mainstay of our modern Democratic party. They
are also the grandees of our national media; the architects of our software; the designers of
our streets; the high officials of our banking system; the authors of just about every plan to
fix social security or fine-tune the Middle East with precision droning. They are, they think,
not a class at all but rather the enlightened ones, the people who must be answered to but who
need never explain themselves.
This is a good point. A lot of people who torpedoed Bernie Sanders' campaign against Hillary
Clinton in the primaries seem to be comfortable with little or no political change. They do not
seem willing to admit that the political and economic system in the US (and elsewhere) is fundamentally
broken, and effectively is in ruins.
You' re saying that one bad effect of hacks is that email security will be improved and it will
be harder to have secure communications. In effect, you hate the idea that the NSA can read our
emails, but you're worried that the Russians won't be able to. Personally, I don't want either
the government or Wikileaks to invade my privacy. You apparently think that data theft is OK as
long as Julian Assange does it.
That's an ahistorical understanding of the party. Yes, in the runup to the Civil War, the 'Democratic'
party was the party of proto-white supremacists, slave owners, and agriculturalists. But the party
system as it exists today with its alignment of Dems = liberal and Republicans = conservative
came into being around/after 1968. Claiming that today's 'Democrats' voted against slavery is
like claiming that today's 'Republicans' are worthy of being lauded for being abolitionists -
which would be high hypocrisy given their habits of racism and black voter suppression.
Righteousness and majesty...They are, they think, not a class at all but rather the enlightened
ones, the people who must be answered to but who need never explain themselves.
Exactly what Bernie Sanders was against, just think what 'could' have happened if he were the
nominee. The question is when will the email explicitly showing Clinton undermining him come out?
Hillary deserves every bit of what is coming out against her, she asked for it, she wants the
power and celebrity, but it comes with some pretty ugly stuff. As Mr. Sanders said, she is very
'ambitious', an understatement. If nothing comes out to prove her malice against Mr. Sanders,
I will always be convinced it is there somewhere. Now because of what the Democrats did against
him that was proven and oh by the way 'the Russians did it', we have her running neck and neck
with Trump. They asked for it, they got it.
Why is it that literally all Western democracies have developed totally incapable and immoral
political elites at the same time who seem to be lacking any kind of ethical compass?
It is blatantly obvious in the USA where both candidates are almost equally abysmal, but for
different reasons. But the same is also true in Germany, Great Britain, France and most other
Western countries I can judge on. How did that happen? Where are the politicians who are doing
the job for other reasons than self-fulfillment and ideology?
Trump, Clinton, May, Johnson, Farage, Hollande, Sarkozy, Le Pen, Merkel, Gabriel, Petry ...
and the rest are all product of a political system that is in a deep crisis. And this comes from
someone who has always and will always believe in democracy as such. But how can we finally get
better representatives of our political system again?
What the writer is describing and what the e-mails reveal, is, for anyone with half a brain not
too dumbed down by partisanship; is the structure of a system that isn't democracy at all, but
clearly an oligarchy. The super-rich rule and the rest are occasionaly alowed to vote for a candidate
chosen by the rich, giving the illusion of democracy.
Yup, that about sums it up. Yet in the case the choice is truly awful.
And whilst we are here let's remember that the European Parliament is very democratic. The
US system or the UK System would never allow so many nut jobs from UKIP, FN, Lega Nord and various
other facists have a voice. The EU parliament is very representative.
Good read. Money is like manure and if you spread it around it does a lot of good. But if you
pile it up in one place, like Silicon Valley or the banks, eventually it will smell pretty bad
and attract a lot of flies, like the one that seems attracted to Hillary.
You get some idea of just how batty the US electoral campaign system is when you consider that
John Podesta is the guy who has hinted at 'exposing' the US government 'cover up' of UFOs...and
even got Hillary Clinton making statements about looking into Area 51. Well, that's the vote of
all the multitude of conspiracy loons nicely in the bag -- It only shows just how desperate the
campaigns are.
world history has always provided that the wealthy look after themselves. What's new? Here, both
American candidates are wealthy. But Clinton appears to want to look after others and other will
look at and after her. I'm not sure what Trump can look after, perhaps his business dealings and
bankruptcy triumphs, and lawsuits. Perhaps America is going through a new type of revolution,
generational and the massive entry of the post-industrial age in America. How many Americans are
screaming for the past, while at least one U.S. automakers shifts some of their factories to Mexico
- e.g., Chrysler.
We get the candidates we deserve, in any so-called democracy. The west worships money and glitz
and celebrity, willingly watches "reality" TV, and in general can aspire to nothing better than
material superiority over the neighbours. The U.S., with its pathetic "American Dream," is the
most egregious victim of its own obsessions. Bernie Sanders, who in Canada, Britain, or western
Europe would be considered centrist, is vilified as a raving socialist. Genuinely well-disposed
people with a more humane alternative political vision lack the necessary millions to gain public
attention. And so one is left with Business-as-Usual Hillary Clinton (mendacious elitist one-percenter)
or the duplicitous demagogue Donald Trump (mendacious vulgar one-percenter).
The internet should be a democratic forum for intelligent discussion of alternatives but has
become largely the province of trolls and wingnuts. We should be able to do better.
I'm with MarkusKraut; not because of what the e-mails have discovered - I suspect we all suspected
this kind of machinery from BOTH parties - but because their discovery is entirely one-sided.
What does it prove? That the Republicans are any better? Or that Don is any more qualified to
be president than he was two weeks ago?
No. It proves one thing, and one thing only - that Republicans keep secrets better than
Dems do. At least the important ones.
And I say that as someone who was a security administrator for ten years. And I can guarantee
you one thing (and one thing only): The Russians would NOT have got past any e-mail server that
I built.
My worry is now not who gets elected - this was always a ship of fools - or who's to blame
(although I'm sure we'll be told in the first "hundred days"), but what it means for democracy.
And don't worry, I'm not going to try to equate democracy with Hillary (although I still support
her); but about secrecy .
E-mail has always been the most likely medium to be cracked (the correct term for illegal
hacking), and secrecy is anathema to democracy - always was, and always will be.
And having been caught with their pants down, I'd like to see the Democratic party, win or lose
this election, to say that ALL future e-mails will be a matter of public record. And challenge
the GOP to do the same.
Unfortunately, it'll simply be viewed as a failure of security that any administrator like
me could tell you is almost impossible, and they'll simply buy better servers for 2020.
I've never felt any of the mail to be particularly surprising, but merely a demonstration of what
a NeoLiberal society, run by money, looks like at a more granular level. I won't vote for a Trump,
but living in California I can vote Green without having to pull the lever for a Clinton. If California
goes Trump, then every other state in the nation will have swirled down the drain with him.
In the book 'Who Rules America" written by William Domhoff, first published in 1967, it laid out
how the ruling class sits on each others boards of directors, (which he called 'interlocking directorates",
inhabits certain think tanks and organizations like the Council on Foreign Relations or political
parties, goes to the same clubs, intermarries, and knows one another. I.E. the ruling class is
a coherent group of HUMAN BEINGS. People think they are some abstract, nameless wonder. They are
not. Podesta's e-mails, as Frank rightly notices, show the Democratic Party elite. Another set
will show the Republican Party elite, and how BOTH link to each other.
We are talking about the biggest war mongering outfit on the planet. An election. This ship is
being driven by assholes no one elected...and as per, walk away with money and knighthoods while
the fabric of our society is unravelling. Store water and tinned goods...or good luck on the help
line
Good comment except for the needless hand-wringing about reading "private" e-mails. The freak
show that is the 2016 US general election is yet another clear sign that neo-liberalism is a scam
run for and by bankers, corporate CEOs, kooky tech billionaires, corrupt politicians and other
wealthy and amoral sociopaths.
The media has become their propaganda arm and the divide between what people experience and
see and what the media tells them is happening grows ever wider. Alternative media outlets (although
some of these, such as VICE, are neo-lib shills also) and organisations like WikiLeaks are more
important than ever as they still speak truth to power. Even some dissidents and media 'agitators'
are coming down on the side of the establishment - I am thinking Snowden, Greenwald and Naomi
Klein all of whom have wagged their fingers at Julian Assange for doing a job the media used to
do.
A good rule of thumb that tells you who the establishment worries about is looking at who is
repeatedly denounced in the media. Trump, Assange and Putin currently have the powers that be
worried because they are giving them the proverbial two fingers (or one finger, depending on which
side of the Atlantic you are on) and exposing the rotten framework of lies and corruption that
hold the rickety system together. Media darlings like Snowden present no real threat and are tolerated,
even celebrated.
My analysis is that Trump would not be permitted to win. Why do I say that? Because he has had every
establishment off his side. Trump does not have one establishment, maybe with the exception of the
Evangelicals, if you can call them an establishment," said Assange. "Banks, intelligence, arms companies,
foreign money, etc. are all united behind Hillary Clinton. And the media as well. Media owners, and
the journalists themselves."
He is right, but the same was said about Brexit.
Cognitive Dissonance -> 1980XLS •Nov 4, 2016 8:10 AM
It seems the Shadow Government has decided to go full banana republic.
The sad fact is the vast majority of people simply don't believe this could happen 'here'.
Joe Davola -> two hoots •Nov 4, 2016 9:09 AM
In my opinion, the biggest thing to come out of these emails is the complete manipulation
of the "news". The only thing I can attribute it to is that the media are just another form
of the free-stuff crowd, because it's not as if Hillary offers a shining beacon of ideology. It's
easy to write stories when they're written for you, and it appears that you're really smart because
you "got the scoop".
Sure the Saudi angle is quite damning, but for most that's just too deep and difficult to piece
together - unless the news breaks it down to simple sound bytes (or an emoji). Heck, without Tyler
combing these dumps and lining them up with the overall picture of what was going down at the
time, it would be easy to just get swamped in the sheer volume. Much like the "we've printed out
50,000 emails" wasn't intended to help the investigation, it was intended to bog the process down.
Mike in GA -> I am a Man I am Forty •Nov 4, 2016 8:28 AM
Trump has pushed back on every issue that the establishment has thrown at him. Wikileaks has
helped with their steady drip of revealing emails giving us all a behind-the-scenes look at the
everyday thoughts of our "Leaders". The corruption, collusion and outright criminality thus exposed
could only have been accomplished by Trump - certainly no establishment Uniparty candidate would
so fearlessly take on the daily goring of everyone else's ox.
Now exposed, this corruption and criminality HAS to be addressed and can only be addressed
by an outsider, change-agent president. The opportunity to clean house so substantially does not
present itself often and may never again. If properly executed, the halls of power could largely
be purged of the criminal class so endemic in the wikileaked emails.
This is where it gets pretty hairy for Trump, and for America. These criminals, living large,
very large, on the taxpayer, will not go silently into the night. They will pull out every stop
to stop Trump or at least limit the damage. People will start dying a little faster in DC now.
Can anyone explain why that 55 y/o Major General, about to get the promotion of his lifetime
into the Air Force Missile Command would commit suicide? And why it took 2 months for the AF to
rule it a "suicide"? Rumor says he became privy to domestic EMP contingency plans and was unwilling
to comply.
When assassination becomes a tool of the ruling party, the Party has come to town.
"... The support Trump has enjoyed is directly tied to the frustration many across the country feel toward Washington and its entrenched leaders, and they shouldn't expect that sentiment to dissipate regardless of whether Trump or Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton wins at the ballot box on Nov. 8, he said. ..."
Billionaire tech investor Peter Thiel reiterated his support for Republican presidential nominee
Donald Trump Monday morning, telling a room of journalists that a Washington outsider in the White
House would recalibrate lawmakers who have lost touch with the struggles of most Americans.
Thiel said it was "both insane and somehow inevitable" that political leaders would expect this presidential
election to be a contest between "political dynasties" that have shepherded the country into two
major financial crises: the tech bubble burst in the early 2000s, and the housing crisis and economic
recession later that decade.
The support Trump has enjoyed is directly tied to the frustration many across the country feel
toward Washington and its entrenched leaders, and they shouldn't expect that sentiment to dissipate
regardless of whether Trump or Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton wins at the ballot box on Nov.
8, he said.
"What Trump represents isn't crazy and it's not going away," he said.
I'd actually argue the opposite. Thousands of people are turning to Trump as a cynical form of
rebellion. They think that voting for him will be interesting/fun. If you were to ask them how
a Hillary Clinton presidency would seriously make their lives worse, they'd have nothing serious
to answer. At best they might say that they'll be fine, but that the rest of the country would
suffer, and then spout of a bunch of nonsense as to why that would be. It's a luxury to be so
reckless, which is where America is right now. If millions of lives literally depended on the
outcome of this election, people would be much more careful about how they plan to vote.
Trump mirrors resentment with the current political culture. Unfortunately very few readers in this
forum understand that the emergence of Trump as a viable candidate in the current race, the candidate
who withstand 24x7 air bombarment by corrupt neoliberabl MSM (like Guardian ;-) signify deep crisis
of neoliberalsm and neoliberal globalization.
Notable quotes:
"... "What Madison could not have foreseen was the extent to which unconstrained campaign finance and a sophisticated lobbying industry would come to dominate an entire nation, regardless of its size." ..."
"... That's it – finance and sophisticated lobbying. And you can add to that mass brainwashing at election campaigns by means of choice language and orchestration as advised by cognitive scientists who are expressly recruited for this purpose. Voters remain largely unaware of the mind control they are undergoing. And of course the essential prerequisite for all of this is financial power. ..."
"... Now read again in this light Gore Vidal's famous pronouncement… "Any American who is prepared to run for president should automatically by definition be disqualified from ever doing so." ..."
"... Worse still, the political spectrum runs from right to right. To all intents and purposes, one single party, the US Neoliberal party, with 2 factions catering for power and privilege. Anything to the left of that is simply not an available choice for voters. ..."
"... Americans have wakened up to the fact that they badly need a government which caters for the needs of the average citizen. In their desperation some will still vote for Trump warts and all. This for the same sorts of reasons that Italians voted for Berlusconi, whose winning slogan was basically 'I am not a politician'. ..."
"... The right choice was Bernie Sanders. Sadly, not powerful enough. So Americans missed the boat there. But at least there was a boat to miss this time around. You can be sure that similar future boats will be sunk well in advance. Corporate power has learnt its lesson and the art of election rigging has now become an exact science. ..."
"... Donald Trump, Brexit and Le Pen are all in their separate ways rejections of the dogma of liberalism, social and economic, that has dominated the West for the past three decades. ..."
"... In 2010, Chomsky wrote : ..."
"... The United States is extremely lucky.....if somebody comes along who is charismatic and honest this country is in real trouble because of the frustration, disillusionment, the justified anger and the absence of any coherent response. ..."
"... Dangerous times. The beauty of democracy is we get what we deserve ..."
"... The worst thing about Donald Trump is that he's the man in the mirror. ..."
"... He is the distillation of all that we have been induced to desire and admire. ..."
"... I thought that he is the mirror image, the reverse, of the current liberal consensus. A consensus driven by worthy ideals but driven too far, gradually losing acceptance and with no self correcting awareness. ..."
"... Trump is awful - but by speaking freely he challenges the excesses of those who would limit free speech. Trump is awful - but by demonising minorities he challenges those who would excuse minorities of all responsibility. Trump is awful - but by flaunting his wealth he challenges those who keep their connections and wealth hidden for the sake of appearances. ..."
"... Trump is awful because the system is out of balance. He is a consequence, not a cause. ..."
"... Voting for Trump is voting for peace. Voting for Clinton is voting for WW3. ..."
"... It's quite clearly because Hillary as President is an utterly terrifying prospect. When half the population would rather have Trump than her, it must be conceded that she has some serious reputational issues. ..."
"... Personally, I'd take Trump over Hillary if I was a US citizen. He may be a buffoon but she is profoundly dangerous, probably a genuine psychopath and shouldn't be allowed anywhere near the Presidency. Sanders is the man America needs now, though, barring one of Hillary's many crimes finally toppling her, it's not going to happen... ..."
"... The true constitution is plutocracy tempered by scandal ..."
"... And the shame is we seem to be becoming desensitized to scandal. We cannot be said to live in democracies when our political class are so obviously bought by the vastly rich. ..."
"... One of the things it says is that people are so sick of Identity Politics from the Left and believe the Left are not very true to the ideals of what should be the Left. ..."
"... When the people who are supposed to care about the poor and working joes and janes prefer to care about the minorities whose vote they can rely on, the poor and the working joes and janes will show their frustration by supporting someone who will come along and tell it as it is, even if he is part of how it got that way. ..."
"... People throughout the world have awoken to the Left being Right Light but with a more nauseating moral superiority complex. ..."
"... he is not an outsider but the perfect representation of his caste, the caste that runs the global economy and governs our politics ..."
"... 'Encouraged by the corporate media, the Republicans have been waging a full-spectrum assault on empathy, altruism and the decencies we owe to other people. Their gleeful stoving in of faces, their cackling destruction of political safeguards and democratic norms, their stomping on all that is generous and caring and cooperative in human nature, have turned the party into a game of Mortal Kombat scripted by Breitbart News.' ..."
"... Many years ago in the British Military, those with the right connections and enough money could buy an officer's commission and rise up the system to be an incompetent General. As a result, many battles were mismanaged and many lives wasted due to the incompetent (wealthy privileged few) buying their way to the top. American politics today works on exactly the same system of wealthy patronage and privilege for the incompetent, read Clinton and Trump. Until the best candidates are able to rise up through the political system without buying their way there then the whole corrupt farce will continue and we will be no different to the all the other tin pot republics of the world. ..."
"... There's the "culture wars" aspect. Many people don't like being told they are "deplorable" for opposing illegal (or even legal) immigration. They don't like being called "racist" for disagreeing with an ideology. ..."
"... I like the phrase Monbiot ends with - "He is our system, stripped of its pretences" - it reminds me of a phrase in the Communist Manifesto - but I don't think it's true. "Our" system is more than capitalism, it's culture. And Clinton is a far more "perfect representation" of the increasingly censorious, narrow [neo]liberal culture which dominates the Western world. ..."
"... Finally, Monbiot misses the chance to contrast Clinton's and Trump's apparent differences with regard to confronting nuclear-armed Russia over the skies of Syria. It could be like 1964 all over again - except in this election, the Democrat is the nearest thing to Barry Goldwater. ..."
"... As a life-long despiser of all things Trump, I cannot believe that I am saying this: Trump is good for world peace. ..."
"... I fully agree with Monbiot, American democracy is a sham - the lobby system has embedded corruption right in the heart of its body politic. Lets be clear here though, whatever is the problem with American democracy can in theory at least be fixed, but Trump simply can not and moreover he is not the answer ..."
"... His opponent, war child and Wall Street darling can count her lucky stars that the media leaves her alone (with husband Bill, hands firmly in his pockets, nodding approvingly) and concentrates on their feeding frenzy attacking Trump on sexual allegations of abusing women, giving Hillery, Yes, likely to tell lies, ( mendacious, remember when she claimed to be under enemy fire in Bosnia? remember how evasive she was on the Benghazi attack on the embassy) Yes Trump is a dangerous man running against an also extremely dangerous woman. ..."
"... Extremely interesting reference to the Madison paper, but the issue is less about the size of the electorate, and more about the power that the election provides to the victor. ..."
"... Democracy in the US is so corrupted by money that it is no longer recognisable as democracy. You can kick individual politicians out of office, but what do you do when the entire structure of politics is corrupt? ..."
"... When you look at speeches and conversations and debates with the so-called bogeyman, Putin, he is not at all in a league as low and vile as portrayed and says many more sensible things than anybody cares to listen to, because we're all brainwashed. We are complicit in wars (now in Syria) and cannot see why we have to connive with terrorists, tens of thousands of them, and they get supported by the war machine and friends like Saudis and Turkey which traded for years with ISIS. ..."
"... Clinton the war hawk, and shows us we are only capable of seeing one side and project all nastiness outward while we can feel good about ourselves by hating the other. ..."
"... It fits the Decline of an Empire image as it did in other Falls of Civilizations. ..."
"... Trump spoke to the executives at Ford like no one before ever has. He told them if they moved production to Mexico (as they plan to do) that he would slap huge tariffs on their cars in America and no one would buy them. ..."
"... What happens in Syria could be important to us all. Clinton doesn't hide her ambition to drive Assad from power and give Russia a kicking. It's actually very unpopular although the media doesn't like to say so; it prefers to lambast Spain for re-fueling Russian war ships off to fight the crazed Jihadists as if we supported the religious fanatics that want to slaughter all Infidels! There is an enormous gulf between what ordinary people want and the power crazy Generals in the Pentagon and NATO. ..."
"... USA has got itself in an unholy mess . It's politicians no longer work for the people . Their paymasters care not if life in Idaho resembles Dantes inferno . Trump has many faults but being "not Hilary" is not one of them. The very fact he is disliked by all the vested interests should make you take another look. And remember , the American constitution has many checks and balances , a President has a lot less power than most people imagine. ..."
"... Like many on the right, the left have unthinkingly accepted a narrative of an organized, conspiratorial system run by an elite of politicians and plutocrats. The problem with this narrative is it suggests politics and politicians are inherently nefarious, in turn suggesting there are no political solutions to be sought to problems, or anything people can do to challenge a global system of power. As Monbiot asks: "You can kick individual politicians out of office, but what do you do when the entire structure of politics is corrupt?" Well, what indeed? ..."
"... I don't think you need to believe in an organised conspiracy and I don't see any real evidence that George Monbiot does. The trouble is that the corporate and political interests align in a way that absorbs any attempt to challenge them and the narrative has been written that of course politics is all about economics and of course we need mighty corporations to sustain us. ..."
"... Not long after the start of the presidential campaign I began to reflect that in Trump we are seeing materializing before us the logical result of the neoliberal project ..."
"... The Republican party essentially offered their base nothing – that was the problem. ..."
"... They couldn't offer all the things that ordinary Americans want – better and wider Medicaid, better and wider social security, tax increases on the rich, an end to pointless foreign wars and the American empire. ..."
"... The Democrats have largely the same funding base, but they at least deliver crumbs – at least a nod to the needs of ordinary people through half-hearted social programmes. ..."
"... Trump is imperfect because he wants normal relations rather than war with Russia. No, Hillary Clinton is the ultimate representation of the system that is abusing us. What will occur when Goldman Sachs and the military-industrial complex coalition get their, what is it, 5th term in office would be a great subject of many Guardian opinion pieces, actually. But that will have to wait till after November 8. ..."
"... And, of course, we also have Hillary's Wall Street speeches -- thanks to Wikileaks we have the complete transcripts, in case Guardian readers are unaware. They expose the real thinking and 'private positions' of the central character in the next episode of 'Rule by Plutocracy'. ..."
"... The democrats is the party practicing hypocrisy, pretending that they somehow representing the interest of the working class. They are the ones spreading lies and hypocrisy and manipulating the working class everyday through their power over the media. Their function is to appease the working class. The real obstacle for improving conditions for the working class historically has always been the Democratic party, not the Republican party. ..."
"... In what concerns foreign politics, Trump some times seems more reasonable than Clinton and the establishment. Clinton is the best coached politician of all times. She doesn't know that she's coached. She just followed the most radical groups and isn't able to question anything at all. The only thing that the coaches didn't fix until now is her laughing which is considered even by her coaches as a sign of weirdness. ..."
"... Western economies are now so beholden to the patronage of the essentially stateless multinational, it has become a political imperative to appease their interests - it's difficult to see a future in which an administration might resist this force, because at its whim, national economies face ruination. In light of such helplessness our political representatives face an easier path in simply accepting their lot as mere administrators who will tinker at the margins [and potentially reap the rewards of a good servant], rather than hold to principle and resist an overwhelming force. ..."
"... "Trump personifies the traits promoted by the media and corporate worlds he affects to revile; the worlds that created him. He is the fetishisation of wealth, power and image in a nation where extrinsic values are championed throughout public discourse. His conspicuous consumption, self-amplification and towering (if fragile) ego are in tune with the dominant narratives of our age." ..."
"... Yes, they don't care any more if we see the full extent of their corruption as we've given up our power to do anything about it. ..."
"... It was once very common to see Democratic politicians as neighbors attending every community event. They were Teamsters, pipe fitters, and electricians. And they were coaches and ushers and pallbearers. Now they are academics and lawyers and NGO employees and managers who pop up during campaigns. The typical income of the elected Democrats outside their government check is north of $100,000. They don't live in, or even wander through, the poorer neighborhoods. So they are essentially clueless that government services like busses are run to suit government and not actual customers. ..."
"... Yea, 15 years of constant wars of empire with no end in sight has pretty much ran this country in the ground. ..."
"... We all talk about how much money is wasted by the federal government on unimportant endeavors like human services and education, but don't even bat an eye about the sieve of money that is the Pentagon. ..."
"... Half a trillion dollars for aircraft carriers we don't need and are already obsolete. China is on the verge of developing wickedly effective anti-ship missiles designed specifically to target these Gerald R. Ford-class vessels. You might as well paint a huge bull's-eye on these ships' 4-1/2 acre flight deck. ..."
"... There are plenty more examples of this crap and this doesn't even include the nearly TWO trillion dollars we've spent this past decade-and-a-half on stomping flat the Middle East and large swaths of the Indian subcontinent. ..."
"... And all this time, our nation's infrastructure is crumbling literally right out from underneath us and millions upon millions of children and their families experience a daily struggle just to eat. Eat?! In the "greatest," wealthiest nation on earth and we prefer to kill people at weddings with drones than feed our own children. ..."
"... I'd like to read an unbiased piece about why the media narrative doesn't match the reality of the Trump phenomenon. He is getting enormous crowds attend his rallies but hardly any coverage of that in the filtered news outlets. Hillary, is struggling to get anyone turn up without paying them. There is no real enthusiasm. ..."
"... The buzzwords and tired old catch phrases and cliches used by the left to suppress any alternative discussion, and divert from their own misdemeanors are fooling no one but themselves. Trump supporters simply don't care any more how Hillary supporters explain that she lied about dodging sniper fire. Or the numerous other times she and her cohorts have been caught out telling fibs. ..."
"... Very true. Throughout history the rich, the powerful, the landed, ennobled interest and their friends in the Law and money changing houses have sought to control governments and have usually succeeded. ..."
"... In the Media today the rich are fawned over by sycophantic journalists and programme makers. These are the people who make the political weather and create the prevailing narratives. ..."
"... Working class people fancied themselves to above the common herd and thought themselves part of some elite. ..."
"... It's quite disturbing the lengths this paper will go to in order to slur and discredit Trump, labelling him dangerous and alluding to the sexual assault allegations. This even goes so far to a very lengthy article regarding Trumps lack of knowledge on the Rumbelows Cup 25 years ago. ..."
"... Whereas very little examination is made into Hillary Clinton's background which includes serious allegation of fraud and involvement in assisting in covering up her husband's alleged series of rapes. There are also issues in the wikileaks emails that merit analysis as well as undercover tapes of seioau issues with her campaign team. ..."
"... One of the most important characteristics of the so-called neoliberalism is its negative selection. While mostly successfully camouflaged, that negative selection is more than obvious this time, in two US presidential candidates. It's hard to imagine lower than those two. ..."
"... Well, OK George. Tell me: if Trump's such an establishment candidate, then why does the whole of the establishment unanimously reject him? Is it normal for Republicans (such as the Bushes and the neocons) to endorse Democrats? Why does even the Speaker of the House (a Republican) and even, on occasion, Trump's own Vice-Presidential nominee seem to be trying to undermine his campaign? If Trump is really just more of the same as all that came before, why is he being treated different by the MSM and the political establishment? ..."
"... Obviously, there's something flawed about your assumption. ..."
"... Trump has exposed the corruption of the political system and the media and has promised to put a stop to it. By contrast, Clinton is financed by the very banks, corporates and financial elites who are responsible for the corruption. This Trump speech is explicit on what we all suspected is going on. Everybody should watch it, irrespective of whether they support him or not! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tab5vvo0TJw ..."
"... "I know a lot of people in Michigan that are planning to vote for Trump and they don't necessarily agree with him. They're not racist or redneck, they're actually pretty decent people and so after talking to a number of them I wanted to write this. ..."
"... Donald Trump came to the Detroit Economic Club and stood there in front of Ford Motor executives and said "if you close these factories as you're planning to do in Detroit and build them in Mexico, I'm going to put a 35% tariff on those cars when you send them back and nobody's going to buy them." It was an amazing thing to see. No politician, Republican or Democrat, had ever said anything like that to these executives, and it was music to the ears of people in Michigan and Ohio and Pennsylvania and Wisconsin - the "Brexit" states. ..."
"... Mrs Clinton is also the product of our political culture. A feminist who owes everything to her husband and men in the Democratic Party. A Democrat who started her political career as a Republican; a civil right activist who worked for Gerry Goldwater, one of last openly racist/segregationist politicians. A Secretary of State who has no clue about, or training in, foreign policy, and who received her position as compensation for losing the election. A pacifist, who has never had a gun in her hands, but supported every war in the last twenty years. A humanist who rejoiced over Qaddafi's death ("we came, we won, he is dead!") like a sadist. ..."
"... One thing that far right politics offers the ordinary white disaffected voter is 'pay back', it is a promised revenge-fest, putting up walls, getting rid of foreigners, punishing employers of foreigners, etc., etc. All the stuff that far right groups have wet dreams about. ..."
"... Because neoliberal politics has left a hell of a lot of people feeling pissed off, the far right capitalizes on this, whilst belonging to the same neoliberal dystopia so ultimately not being able to make good on their promises. Their promises address a lot of people's anger, which of course isn't really about foreigners at all, that is simply the decoy, but cutting through all the crap to make that clear is no easy task, not really sure how it can be done, certainly no political leader in the western hemisphere has the ability to do so. ..."
"... Wrong as always. Trump *is* an outsider. He's an unabashed nationalist who's set him up against the *actual* caste that governs our politics: Neo-liberal internationalists with socially trendy left-liberal politics (but not so left that they don't hire good tax lawyers to avoid paying a fraction of what they are legally obliged to). ..."
"... Best represented in the Goldman Sachs executives who are donating millions to Hillary Clinton because they are worried about Trump's opposition to free trade, and they know she will give them *everything* they want. ..."
"... Trumps the closest thing we're gotten to a genuine threat to the system in a long, long time, so of course George Monbiot and the rest of the Guardian writers has set themselves against him, because if you're gonna be wrong about the EU, wrong about New Labour, wrong about social liberalism, wrong about immigration, why change the habit of a lifetime? ..."
"... Lies: Emails, policy changes based on polls showing a complete lack of conviction, corporate collusion, Bosnia, Clinton Foundation, war mongering, etc. Racist stereotypes: Super predators. Misogyny: Aside from her laughing away her pedophile case and allegedly threatening the women who came out against Bill, you've also got this sexist gem "Women are the primary victims of war". ..."
"... Alleged gropings: Well she's killed people by texting. So unless your moral compass is so out of whack that somehow a man JOKING about his player status in private is worse than Clinton's actions throughout her political career, then I guess you could make the case that Clinton at least doesn't have this skeleton in her closet. ..."
"... Refusal to accept democratic outcomes: No. He's speaking out against the media's collusion with the democratic party favoring Clinton over every other nominee, including Bernie Sanders. He's talking about what was revealed in the DNC leaks and the O'Keefe tapes that show how dirty the tactics have been in order to legally persuade the voting public into electing one person or the other. ..."
"... When do the conspiracy theories about the criminality of his opponent no longer count as conspiracies? When we have a plethora of emails confirming there is indeed fire next to that smoke, corruption fire, collusion fire, fire of contempt for the electorate. When we have emails confirming the Saudi Arabians are actually funding terrorist schools across the globe, emails where Hilary herself admits it, but will not say anything publicly about terrorism and Saudi Arabia, what's conspiracy and what's reality? ..."
"... Is it because Saudi Arabia funded her foundation with $23 million, or because it doesn't fit with her great 'internationalists' global agenda? ..."
"... Yep trump is a buffoon, but the failure of all media to deliver serious debate means the US is about to elect someone probably more dangerous than trump, how the hell can that be ..."
"... Nothing wrong with a liberal internationalist utopia, it sounds rather good and worth striving for. It's just that what they've been pushing is actually a neoliberal globalist nirvana for the 1 per cent ..."
"... The problem is the left this paper represents were bought off with the small change by neoliberalism, and they expect the rest of us to suck it up so the elites from both sides can continue the game ..."
"... we near the end of the neoliberal model. That the USA has a choice between two 'demopublicans' is no choice at all. ..."
"... This is the culmination of living in a post-truth political world. Lies and smears, ably supported by the corporate media and Murdoch in particular means that the average person who doesn't closely follow politics is being misinformed. ..."
"... The complete failure of right wing economic 'theories' means they only have lies, smears and the old 'divide and conquer' left in their arsenal. 'Free speech' is their attempt to get lies and smears equal billing with the truth. All truth on the other hand must be suppressed. All experts and scientists who don't regurgitate the meaningless slogans of the right will be ignored, traduced, defunded, disbanded or silenced by law. ..."
"... Not so much an article about Trump as much as a rant. George Monbiot writes with the utter conviction of one who mistakenly believes that his readers share his bigotry. When he talks about the 'alleged gropings' or the 'alleged refusal to accept democratic outcomes', that is exactly what they are 'alleged'. ..."
"... The Democratic Party has been dredging up porn-stars and wannabe models who now make claims that Trump tried to 'kiss them without asking'. ..."
"... The press also ignored the tapes of the DNC paying thugs to cause violence at Trump rallies, the bribes paid to the Clintons for political favours and the stealing of the election from Bernie Sanders. Trump is quite right to think the 'democratic outcome' is being fixed. Not only were the votes for Sanders manipulated, but Al Gore's votes were also altered and manipulated to ensure a win for Bush in the 2000 presidential election. The same interests who engineered the 2000 election have switched from supporting the Republican Party to supporting Clinton. ..."
"... Great article. The neoliberals have been able to control the narrative and in doing so have managed to scapegoat all manner of minority groups, building anger among those disaffected with modern politics. Easy targets - minorities, immigrants, the poor, the disadvantaged and the low-paid workers. ..."
"... The real enemy here are those sitting atop the corporate tree, but with the media controlled by them, the truth is never revealed. ..."
America's fourth president, James Madison, envisaged the United States constitution as representation
tempered by competition between factions. In the 10th federalist paper, written in 1787, he argued
that large republics were better insulated from corruption than small, or "pure" democracies, as
the greater number of citizens would make it "more difficult for unworthy candidates to practise
with success the vicious arts by which elections are too often carried". A large electorate would
protect the system against oppressive interest groups. Politics practised on a grand scale would
be more likely to select people of "enlightened views and virtuous sentiments".
Instead, the US – in common with many other nations – now suffers the worst of both worlds: a
large electorate dominated by a tiny faction. Instead of republics being governed, as Madison feared,
by "the secret wishes of an unjust and interested majority", they are beholden to the not-so-secret
wishes of an unjust and interested minority. What Madison could not have foreseen was the extent
to which unconstrained campaign finance and a sophisticated lobbying industry would come to dominate
an entire nation, regardless of its size.
For every representative, Republican or Democrat, who retains a trace element of independence,
there are three sitting in the breast pocket of corporate capital. Since the supreme court decided
that there should be no effective limits on campaign finance, and, to a lesser extent, long before,
candidates have been reduced to tongue-tied automata, incapable of responding to those in need of
help, incapable of regulating those in need of restraint, for fear of upsetting their funders.
Democracy in the US is so corrupted by money that it is no longer recognisable as democracy. You
can kick individual politicians out of office, but what do you do when the entire structure of politics
is corrupt? Turn to the demagogue who rages into this political vacuum, denouncing the forces he
exemplifies. The problem is not, as Trump claims, that the election will be stolen by ballot rigging.
It is that the entire electoral process is stolen from the American people before they get anywhere
near casting their votes. When Trump claims that the little guy is being screwed by the system, he's
right. The only problem is that he is the system.
The political constitution of the United States is not, as Madison envisaged, representation tempered
by competition between factions. The true constitution is plutocracy tempered by scandal. In other
words, all that impedes the absolute power of money is the occasional exposure of the excesses of
the wealthy.
greatapedescendant 26 Oct 2016 4:11
A good read thanks. Nothing I really disagree with there. Just a few things to add and restate.
"What Madison could not have foreseen was the extent to which unconstrained campaign
finance and a sophisticated lobbying industry would come to dominate an entire nation, regardless
of its size."
That's it – finance and sophisticated lobbying. And you can add to that mass brainwashing
at election campaigns by means of choice language and orchestration as advised by cognitive scientists
who are expressly recruited for this purpose. Voters remain largely unaware of the mind control
they are undergoing. And of course the essential prerequisite for all of this is financial power.
Now read again in this light Gore Vidal's famous pronouncement… "Any American who is prepared
to run for president should automatically by definition be disqualified from ever doing so."
Which recalls Madison over 200 years before… "The truth is that all men having power ought
to be mistrusted."
What the US has is in effect is not a democracy but a plutocracy run by a polyarchy. Which
conserves some democratic elements. To which the US president is largely an obedient and subservient
puppet. And which openly fails to consider the needs of the average US citizen.
Worse still, the political spectrum runs from right to right. To all intents and purposes,
one single party, the US Neoliberal party, with 2 factions catering for power and privilege. Anything
to the left of that is simply not an available choice for voters.
Americans have wakened up to the fact that they badly need a government which caters for
the needs of the average citizen. In their desperation some will still vote for Trump warts and
all. This for the same sorts of reasons that Italians voted for Berlusconi, whose winning slogan
was basically 'I am not a politician'. Though that didn't work out too well. No longer able
to stomach more of the same, voters reach the stage of being willing to back anyone who might
bring about a break with the status quo. Even Trump.
The right choice was Bernie Sanders. Sadly, not powerful enough. So Americans missed the
boat there. But at least there was a boat to miss this time around. You can be sure that similar
future boats will be sunk well in advance. Corporate power has learnt its lesson and the art of
election rigging has now become an exact science.
UltraLightBeam 26 Oct 2016 4:11
Donald Trump, Brexit and Le Pen are all in their separate ways rejections of the dogma
of liberalism, social and economic, that has dominated the West for the past three decades.
The Guardian, among others, laments the loss of 'tolerance' and 'openness' as defining qualities
of our societies. But what's always left unsaid is: tolerance of what? Openness to what? Anything?
Everything?
Is it beyond the pale to critically assess some of the values brought by immigration, and to
reject them? Will only limitless, unthinking 'tolerance' and 'openness' do?
Once self-described 'progressives' engage with this topic, then maybe we'll see a reversal
in the momentum that Trump and the rest of the right wing demagogues have built up.
The United States is extremely lucky.....if somebody comes along who is charismatic
and honest this country is in real trouble because of the frustration, disillusionment, the
justified anger and the absence of any coherent response.
Dangerous times. The beauty of democracy is we get what we deserve.
DiscoveredJoys -> morelightlessheat 26 Oct 2016 6:11
The most telling part for me was:
The worst thing about Donald Trump is that he's the man in the mirror.
Except that instead of
He is the distillation of all that we have been induced to desire and admire.
I thought that he is the mirror image, the reverse, of the current liberal consensus. A consensus
driven by worthy ideals but driven too far, gradually losing acceptance and with no self correcting
awareness.
Trump is awful - but by speaking freely he challenges the excesses of those who would limit
free speech. Trump is awful - but by demonising minorities he challenges those who would excuse
minorities of all responsibility. Trump is awful - but by flaunting his wealth he challenges those
who keep their connections and wealth hidden for the sake of appearances.
Trump is awful because the system is out of balance. He is a consequence, not a cause.
Gman13 26 Oct 2016 4:25
Voting for Trump is voting for peace. Voting for Clinton is voting for WW3.
These events will unfold if Hillary wins:
1. No fly zone imposed in Syria to help "moderate opposition" on pretence of protecting civilians.
2. Syrian government nonetheless continues defending their country as terrorists shell Western
Aleppo.
3. Hillary's planes attack Syrian government planes and the Russians.
4. Russia and Syria respond as the war escalates. America intensifies arming of "moderate opposition"
and Saudis.
5. America arms "rebels" in various Russian regions who "fight for democracy" but this struggle
is somehow hijacked by terrorists, only they are not called terrorists but "opposition"
6. Ukranian government is encouraged to restart the war.
7. Iran enters the war openly against Saudi Arabia
8. Israel bombs Iran
9. Cornered Russia targets mainland US with nuclear weapons
10. Etc.
snakebrain -> Andthenandthen 26 Oct 2016 6:54
It's quite clearly because Hillary as President is an utterly terrifying prospect. When
half the population would rather have Trump than her, it must be conceded that she has some serious
reputational issues.
If Hillary and the DNC hadn't fixed the primaries, we'd now be looking at a Sanders-Trump race,
and a certain Democrat victory. As it is, it's on a knife edge as to whether we get Trump or Hillary.
Personally, I'd take Trump over Hillary if I was a US citizen. He may be a buffoon but
she is profoundly dangerous, probably a genuine psychopath and shouldn't be allowed anywhere near
the Presidency. Sanders is the man America needs now, though, barring one of Hillary's many crimes
finally toppling her, it's not going to happen...
jessthecrip 26 Oct 2016 4:29
Well said George.
The true constitution is plutocracy tempered by scandal
And the shame is we seem to be becoming desensitized to scandal. We cannot be said to live
in democracies when our political class are so obviously bought by the vastly rich.
Remko1 -> UnevenSurface 26 Oct 2016 7:43
You're mixing up your powers. legislative, executive and judicial are the powers of law. Money
and business are some of the keys to stay in command of a country. (there's also military, electorate,
bureaucracy etc.)
And if money is not on your side, it's against you, which gets quite nasty if your main tv-stations
are not state-run.
For example if the EU would (theoretically of course) set rules that make corruption more difficult
you would see that commercial media all over the EU and notoriously corrupted politicians would
start making propaganda to leave the EU. ;)
yamialwaysright chilledoutbeardie 26 Oct 2016 4:38
One of the things it says is that people are so sick of Identity Politics from the Left
and believe the Left are not very true to the ideals of what should be the Left.
When the people who are supposed to care about the poor and working joes and janes prefer
to care about the minorities whose vote they can rely on, the poor and the working joes and janes
will show their frustration by supporting someone who will come along and tell it as it is, even
if he is part of how it got that way.
People throughout the world have awoken to the Left being Right Light but with a more nauseating
moral superiority complex.
Danny Sheahan -> chilledoutbeardie 26 Oct 2016 5:25
That many people are so desperate for change that even being a billionaire but someone outside
the political elite is going to appeal to them.
Tom1Wright 26 Oct 2016 4:32
I find this line of thinking unjust and repulsive: the implication that Trump is a product
of the political establishment, and not an outsider, is to tar the entire Republican party and
its supporters with a great big flag marked 'racist'. That is a gross over simplification and
a total distortion.
UnevenSurface -> Tom1Wright 26 Oct 2016 5:05
But that's not what the article said at all: I quote:
he is not an outsider but the perfect representation of his caste, the caste that runs
the global economy and governs our politics
No mention of the GOP.
Tom1Wright -> UnevenSurface 26 Oct 2016 5:14
and I quote
'Encouraged by the corporate media, the Republicans have been waging a full-spectrum
assault on empathy, altruism and the decencies we owe to other people. Their gleeful stoving
in of faces, their cackling destruction of political safeguards and democratic norms, their
stomping on all that is generous and caring and cooperative in human nature, have turned the
party into a game of Mortal Kombat scripted by Breitbart News.'
HindsightMe 26 Oct 2016 4:33
the truth is there is an anti establishment movement and trump just got caught up in the ride.
He didnt start the movement but latched on to it. While we are still fixated on character flaws
the undercurrent of dissatisfaction by the public is still there. Hillary is going to have a tough
time in trying to bring together a divided nation
leadale 26 Oct 2016 4:37
Many years ago in the British Military, those with the right connections and enough money
could buy an officer's commission and rise up the system to be an incompetent General. As a result,
many battles were mismanaged and many lives wasted due to the incompetent (wealthy privileged
few) buying their way to the top. American politics today works on exactly the same system of
wealthy patronage and privilege for the incompetent, read Clinton and Trump. Until the best candidates
are able to rise up through the political system without buying their way there then the whole
corrupt farce will continue and we will be no different to the all the other tin pot republics
of the world.
arkley leadale 26 Oct 2016 5:48
As Wellington once said on reading the list of officers being sent out to him,
"My hope is that when the enemy reads these names he trembles as I do"
Some would argue however that the British system of bought commissions actually made the army
more effective in part because many competent officers had to stay in the field roles of platoon
and company commanders rather than get staff jobs and through the fact that promotion on merit
did exist for non-commissioned officers but there was a block on rising above sergeant.
Some would argue that the British class system ensured that during the Industrial Revolution
charge hands and foremen were appointed from the best workers but there was no way forward from
that, the result being that the best practices were applied through having the best practitioners
in charge at the sharp end.
rodmclaughlin 26 Oct 2016 4:37
"he is not an outsider but the perfect representation of his caste, the caste that runs the global
economy and governs our politics."
Obviously, Donald Trump is not an "outsider" in the economic
sense. Trump definitely belongs to the ruling "caste", or rather, "class". But he is by no means
the perfect representative of it. "The global economy", or rather, "capitalism", thrives better
with the free movement of (cheap) labour than without it. Economically, poor Americans would be
better off with more immigration control.
And there's more too it than economics. There's the "culture wars" aspect. Many people
don't like being told they are "deplorable" for opposing illegal (or even legal) immigration.
They don't like being called "racist" for disagreeing with an ideology.
I like the phrase Monbiot ends with - "He is our system, stripped of its pretences" - it
reminds me of a phrase in the Communist Manifesto - but I don't think it's true. "Our" system
is more than capitalism, it's culture. And Clinton is a far more "perfect representation" of the
increasingly censorious, narrow [neo]liberal culture which dominates the Western world.
Finally, Monbiot misses the chance to contrast Clinton's and Trump's apparent differences
with regard to confronting nuclear-armed Russia over the skies of Syria. It could be like 1964
all over again - except in this election, the Democrat is the nearest thing to Barry Goldwater.
nishville 26 Oct 2016 4:40
As a life-long despiser of all things Trump, I cannot believe that I am saying this: Trump
is good for world peace. He might be crap for everything else but I for one will sleep much
better if he is elected POTUS.
dylan37 26 Oct 2016 4:40
Agree, for once, with a piece by George. Trump is nothing new - we've seen his kind of faux-outsider
thing before, but he's amplifying it with the skills of a carnival barker and the "what me?" shrug
of the everyman - when we all know he's not. The election result can't be rigged because the game
is fixed from the start. A potential president needs millions of dollars behind them to even think
about running, and then needs to repay those bought favours once in office. Trump may just win
this one though - despite the polls, poor human qualities and negative press - simply because
he's possibly tapped into a rich seam of anti-politics and a growing desire for anything different,
even if it's distasteful and deplorable. It's that difference that might make the difference,
even when it's actually just more of the same. It's all in the packaging.
greenwichite 26 Oct 2016 4:41
Donald Trump is a clumsy, nasty opportunist who has got one thing right - people don't want globalisation.
What people want, is clean, high-tech industries in their own countries, that automate the
processes we are currently offshoring. They would rather their clothes were made by robots in
Rochdale than a sweat-shop in India.
Same goes for energy imports: we want clean, local renewables.
What people don't want is large, unpleasant multinational corporations negotiating themselves
tax cuts and "free trade" with corrupt politicians like Hillary Clinton.
Just my opinion, of course...
TheSandbag -> greenwichite 26 Oct 2016 4:50
Your right about globalisation, but I think wrong about the automation bit. People want Jobs because
its the only way to survive currently and they see them being shipped to the country with the
easiest to exploit workforce. I don't think many of them realize that those jobs are never coming
back. The socioeconomic system we exist in doesn't work for 90% of the population who are surplus
to requirements for sustaining the other 10%.
Shadenfraude 26 Oct 2016 4:43
I fully agree with Monbiot, American democracy is a sham - the lobby system has embedded corruption
right in the heart of its body politic. Lets be clear here though, whatever is the problem with
American democracy can in theory at least be fixed, but Trump simply can not and moreover he is
not the answer.
... ... ...
oddballs 26 Oct 2016 5:24
Trump threatened Ford that if they closed down US car plants and moved them to Mexico he would
put huge import tariffs on their products making them to expensive.
Export of jobs to low wage countries, how do you think Americans feel when they buy 'sports
wear, sweater, t-shirts shoes that cost say 3 $ to import into the US and then get sold for20
or 50 times as much, by the same US companies that moved production out of the country.
The anger many Americans feel how their lively-hoods have been outsourced, is the lake of discontent
Trump is fishing for votes.
His opponent, war child and Wall Street darling can count her lucky stars that the media
leaves her alone (with husband Bill, hands firmly in his pockets, nodding approvingly) and concentrates
on their feeding frenzy attacking Trump on sexual allegations of abusing women, giving Hillery,
Yes, likely to tell lies, ( mendacious, remember when she claimed to be under enemy fire in Bosnia?
remember how evasive she was on the Benghazi attack on the embassy)
Yes Trump is a dangerous man running against an also extremely dangerous woman.
onepieceman 26 Oct 2016 5:31
Extremely interesting reference to the Madison paper, but the issue is less about the size
of the electorate, and more about the power that the election provides to the victor.
One positive outcome that I hope will come of all of this is that people might think a little
more carefully about how much power an incoming president (or any politician) should be given.
The complacent assumption about a permanently benign government is overdue for a shakeup.
peccadillo -> Dean Alexander 26 Oct 2016 5:43
Democracy in the US is so corrupted by money that it is no longer recognisable as democracy.
You can kick individual politicians out of office, but what do you do when the entire structure
of politics is corrupt?
Having missed that bit, I wonder if you actually read the article.
tater 26 Oct 2016 5:46
The sad thing is that the victims of the corrupt economic and political processes are the small
town folk who try to see Trump as their saviour. The globalisation that the US promoted to expand
its hegemony had no safeguards to protect local economies from mega retail and finance corporations
that were left at liberty to strip wealth from localities. The Federal transfer payments that
might have helped compensate have been too small and were either corrupted pork barrel payments
or shameful social security payments. For a culture that prides itself on independent initiative
and self sufficiency this was always painful and that has made it all the easier for the lobbyists
to argue against increased transfer payments and the federal taxes they require. So more money
for the Trumps of this world.
And to the future. The US is facing the serious risk of a military take over. Already its foreign
policy emanates from the military and the corruption brings it ever closer to the corporations.
If the people don't demand better the coup will come.
MrMopp 26 Oct 2016 6:12
There's a reason turnout for presidential elections is barely above 50%.
Wised up, fed up Americans have long known their only choice is between a Coke or Pepsi President.
Well, this time they've got a Dr. Pepper candidate but they still know their democracy is just
a commodity to be bought and sold, traded and paraded; their elections an almost perpetual presidential
circus.
That a grotesque like Trump can emerge and still be within touching distance of the Whitehouse
isn't entirely down to the Democrats disastrous decision to market New Clinton Coke. Although
that's helped.
The unpalatable truth is, like Brexit, many Americans simply want to shake things up and shake
them up bigly, even if it means a very messy, sticky outcome.
Anyone with Netflix can watch the classic film, "Network" at the moment. And it is a film of
the moment.
"I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It's a depression.
Everybody's out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel's worth. Banks
are going bust. Shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter. Punks are running wild in the street
and there's nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there's no end to it. We know the
air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat, and we sit watching our TVs while some local
newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if
that's the way it's supposed to be.
We know things are bad - worse than bad. They're crazy. It's like everything everywhere is
going crazy, so we don't go out anymore. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we are living
in is getting smaller, and all we say is: 'Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms.
Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials and I won't say anything. Just leave
us alone.'
Well, I'm not gonna leave you alone. I want you to get MAD! I don't want you to protest. I
don't want you to riot - I don't want you to write to your congressman, because I wouldn't know
what to tell you to write. I don't know what to do about the depression and the inflation and
the Russians and the crime in the street. All I know is that first you've got to get mad. [shouting]
You've got to say: 'I'm a human being, god-dammit! My life has value!'
So, I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to
get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell: I'M AS MAD
AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!
I want you to get up right now. Sit up. Go to your windows. Open them and stick your head out
and yell - 'I'm as mad as hell and I'm not gonna take this anymore!' Things have got to change.
But first, you've gotta get mad!...You've got to say, I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO
TAKE THIS ANYMORE! Then we'll figure out what to do about the depression and the inflation and
the oil crisis. But first, get up out of your chairs, open the window, stick your head out, and
yell, and say it: I'M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!"
And that was in 1976. A whole lot of shit has happened since then but essentially, Coke is
still Coke and Pepsi is still Pepsi.
Forty years later, millions are going to get out of their chairs. They are going to vote. For
millions of Americans of every stripe, Trump is the "I'M AS MAD AS HELL AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE
THIS ANYMORE", candidate.
And he's in with a shout.
André De Koning 26 Oct 2016 6:13
Trump is indeed the embodiment of our collective Shadow (As Jung called this unconscious side
of our Self). It does reflect the degeneration of the culture we live in where politics has turned
into a travesty; where all projections of this side are on the Other, the usual other who we can
collectively dislike. All the wars initiated by the US have started with a huge propaganda programme
to hate and project our own Shadow on to this other. Often these were first friends, whether in
Iran or Iraq, Libya: as soon as the oil was not for ""us" , they were depicted as monsters who
needed action: regime change through direct invasion and enormous numbers of war crimes or through
CIA programmed regime change, it all went according to shady plans and manipulation and lies lapped
up by the masses.
When you look at speeches and conversations and debates with the so-called bogeyman, Putin,
he is not at all in a league as low and vile as portrayed and says many more sensible things than
anybody cares to listen to, because we're all brainwashed. We are complicit in wars (now in Syria)
and cannot see why we have to connive with terrorists, tens of thousands of them, and they get
supported by the war machine and friends like Saudis and Turkey which traded for years with ISIS.
The Western culture has become more vile than we could have imagined and slowly, like the frog
in increasingly hot water, we have become used to neglecting most of the population of Syria and
focusing on the rebel held areas, totally unaware of what has happened to the many thousands who
have lived under the occupation by terrorists who come from abroad ad fight the proxy war for
the US (and Saudi and the EU). Trump dares to embody all this, as does Clinton the war hawk,
and shows us we are only capable of seeing one side and project all nastiness outward while we
can feel good about ourselves by hating the other.
It fits the Decline of an Empire image as it did in other Falls of Civilizations.
tashe222 26 Oct 2016 6:28
Lots of virtue signalling from Mr. M.
Trump spoke to the executives at Ford like no one before ever has. He told them if they
moved production to Mexico (as they plan to do) that he would slap huge tariffs on their cars
in America and no one would buy them.
Trump has said many stupid things in this campaign, but he has some independence and is not
totally beholden to vested interests, and so there is at least a 'glimmer' of hope for the future
with him as Potus.
Yes, when the Archdruid first posted that it helped me understand some of the forces that were
driving Trump's successes. I disagree with the idea that voting for Trump is a good idea because
it will bring change to a moribund system. Change is not a panacea and the type of change he is
likely to bring is not going to be pleasant.
Hanwell123 -> ArseButter 26 Oct 2016 6:59
What happens in Syria could be important to us all. Clinton doesn't hide her ambition to
drive Assad from power and give Russia a kicking. It's actually very unpopular although the media
doesn't like to say so; it prefers to lambast Spain for re-fueling Russian war ships off to fight
the crazed Jihadists as if we supported the religious fanatics that want to slaughter all Infidels!
There is an enormous gulf between what ordinary people want and the power crazy Generals in the
Pentagon and NATO.
unsubscriber 26 Oct 2016 6:43
George always writes so beautifully and so tellingly. My favourite sentence from this column is:
Their gleeful stoving in of faces, their cackling destruction of political safeguards and democratic
norms, their stomping on all that is generous and caring and cooperative in human nature, have
turned the party into a game of Mortal Kombat scripted by Breitbart News.
Cadmium 26 Oct 2016 6:51
Trump is not a misogynist, look the word up. He may be crude but that's not the same thing. He
also represents a lot more people than a tiny faction. He is also advocating coming down on lobbying,
which is good. He may be a climate change denier but that's because a lot of his supporters are,
he'd probably change if they did. The way to deal with it is with rational argument, character
assassination is counterproductive even if he himself does it. Although he seems to do it as a
reaction rather than as an attack. He probably has a lot higher chance of winning than most people
think since a lot of people outside the polls will feel represented by him and a lot of those
included in the polls may not vote for Hilary.
ID4755061 26 Oct 2016 6:52
George Monbiot is right. Trump is a conduit for primal stuff that has always been there and never
gone away. All the work that has been done to try to change values and attitudes, to make societies
more tolerant and accepting and sharing, to get rid of xenophobia and racism and the rest, has
merely supressed all these things. Also, while times were good (that hasn't been so for a long
time) most of this subterranean stuff got glossed over most of the time by some kind of feel good
factor and hope for a better future.
But once the protections have gone, if there is nothing to feel good about or there is little
hope left, the primitive fear of other and strange and different kicks back in. It's a basic survival
instinct from a time when everything around the human species was a threat and it is a fundamental
part of us and Trump and Palin at al before him have got this, even if they don't articulate it
this way, and it works and it will always work. It's a pure emotional response to threat that
we can't avoid, the only way out of it, whihc many of use use, is to use our intellects to challenge
the kick of emotion and see it for what it is and to understand the consequences of giving it
free reign. It's this last bit that Trump, Palin, Farage and their ilk just don't get and never
will, we aill always be fighting this fight.
PotholeKid 26 Oct 2016 6:56
Political culture includes the Clintons and Bushes, the Democratic party and Republican party.
exploring that culture using the DNC and Podesta leaks as reference, paints a much better picture
of the depth of depravity this culture represents..Trump is a symptom and no matter how much the
press focuses on maligning his character. The Clintons share a huge responsibility for the corruption
of the system. Mr. Monbiot would serve us well by looking at solutions for cleaning up the mess,
what Trumps likes to call "Draining the swamp"
lonelysoul72 26 Oct 2016 6:59
Trump for me , he is horrendous but Clinton is worse.
nooriginalthought 26 Oct 2016 7:06
"Democracy in the U.S. is so corrupted by money it is no longer recognisable as democracy."
Sounds like a quote from Frank Underwood. To catch a thief sometimes you need the services of
a thief. With a fair degree of certainty we can be sure a Clinton administration will offer us
continuity .
If that is what you think the world needs fine.
If you believe globalization to be of benefit only to the few .
If you believe Russia has no rights to a sphere of influence on its boarders.
If you believe America's self appointed role as world policemen a disaster.
If you believe trade agreements a backdoor to corporate control.
If your just pissed off with politicians .
Your probably going to vote Trump. Looking forward to a long list of articles here in November
prophecies of Armageddon a la brexit. You liberal lefties , you'll never learn. If you want to
know what people are thinking , you got to get out of the echochamber.
nooriginalthought -> aurlius 26 Oct 2016 7:45
Sorry , hate having to explain myself to the dim witted.
USA has got itself in an unholy mess . It's politicians no longer work for the people .
Their paymasters care not if life in Idaho resembles Dantes inferno .
Trump has many faults but being "not Hilary" is not one of them. The very fact he is disliked
by all the vested interests should make you take another look.
And remember , the American constitution has many checks and balances , a President has a lot
less power than most people imagine.
Pinkie123 26 Oct 2016 7:21
While it is impossible to credibly disagree with the general thrust of this, some of Monbiot's
assumptions exemplify problems with left-wing thinking at the moment.
But those traits ensure that he is not an outsider but the perfect representation of his
caste, the caste that runs the global economy and governs our politics. He is our system, stripped
of its pretences.
Like many on the right, the left have unthinkingly accepted a narrative of an organized,
conspiratorial system run by an elite of politicians and plutocrats. The problem with this narrative
is it suggests politics and politicians are inherently nefarious, in turn suggesting there are
no political solutions to be sought to problems, or anything people can do to challenge a global
system of power. As Monbiot asks: "You can kick individual politicians out of office, but what
do you do when the entire structure of politics is corrupt?" Well, what indeed?
I think Monbiot a principled, intelligent left-wing commentator, but at the same time he epitomises
a left-wing retreat into pessimism in the face of a putatively global network of power and inevitable
environmental catastrophe. In reality, while there is no shortage of perfidious, corrupt corporate
interests dominating global economies, there is no organized system or shadowy establishment -
only a chaotic mess rooted in complex political problems. Once you accept that reality, then it
becomes possible to imagine political solutions to the quandaries confronting us. Rather than
just railing against realities, you can envision a new world to replace them. And a new kind of
world is something you very rarely get from the left these days. Unlike the utopian socialists
of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, there is little optimism or imagination - just anger,
pessimism and online echo chambers of 'clictivists'.
Like the documentarian Adam Curtis says, once you conclude that all politics is corrupt then
all you can do is sit there impotently and say: 'Oh dear'.
deltajones -> Pinkie123 26 Oct 2016 8:12
I don't think you need to believe in an organised conspiracy and I don't see any real evidence
that George Monbiot does. The trouble is that the corporate and political interests align in a
way that absorbs any attempt to challenge them and the narrative has been written that of course
politics is all about economics and of course we need mighty corporations to sustain us.
Even the left has largely taken on that narrative and it's seen as common sense. Challenging
this belief system is the toughest job that there is and we see that in the howling indignation
hurled at Jeremy Corbyn if he makes the slightest suggestion of nationalisation of the railways,
for instance.
ianfraser3 26 Oct 2016 7:29
Not long after the start of the presidential campaign I began to reflect that in Trump
we are seeing materializing before us the logical result of the neoliberal project, the ultimate
shopping spree, buy an election.
furiouspurpose -> IllusionOfFairness 26 Oct 2016 8:08
The Republican party essentially offered their base nothing – that was the problem.
They couldn't offer all the things that ordinary Americans want – better and wider Medicaid,
better and wider social security, tax increases on the rich, an end to pointless foreign wars
and the American empire. None of these things were acceptable to their funders so that only
left emotional issues – anti-abortion, anti-gay, pro-god, pro-gun. And all of the emotional issues
are on the wrong side of history as the US naturally grows more politically progressive. So the
Republican party couldn't even deliver on the emotionally driven agenda. I think their base realised
that they were being offered nothing – and that's why they turned to Trump. Perhaps a fascist
blowhard could bulldoze the system to deliver on the emotional side of the offer. That's why Trump
broke through
The Democrats have largely the same funding base, but they at least deliver crumbs – at
least a nod to the needs of ordinary people through half-hearted social programmes. In the
end the African Americans decided that Hillary could be relied upon to deliver some crumbs – so
they settled for that. That's why Sanders couldn't break through.
fairleft 26 Oct 2016 7:55
Trump is imperfect because he wants normal relations rather than war with Russia. No, Hillary
Clinton is the ultimate representation of the system that is abusing us. What will occur when
Goldman Sachs and the military-industrial complex coalition get their, what is it, 5th term in
office would be a great subject of many Guardian opinion pieces, actually. But that will have
to wait till after November 8.
Such commentary would be greatly aided the Podesta emails, which enlighten us as to the mind
and 'zeitgeist' of the HIllary team. And, of course, we also have Hillary's Wall Street speeches
-- thanks to Wikileaks we have the complete transcripts, in case Guardian readers are unaware.
They expose the real thinking and 'private positions' of the central character in the next episode
of 'Rule by Plutocracy'.
But, of course, opinion columns and think pieces on the Real Hillary and the Podesta emails
will have to wait ... forever.
toffee1 26 Oct 2016 7:58
Trump shows the true face of the ruling class with no hypocrisy. He is telling us the truth.
If we have a democracy, we should have a party representing the interests of the business class,
why not. The democrats is the party practicing hypocrisy, pretending that they somehow representing
the interest of the working class. They are the ones spreading lies and hypocrisy and manipulating
the working class everyday through their power over the media. Their function is to appease the
working class. The real obstacle for improving conditions for the working class historically has
always been the Democratic party, not the Republican party.
Kikinaskald Cadmium 26 Oct 2016 8:39
In fact presidents don't usually have much affect, they're prey to their advisors. Generally true.
But Obama was able to show that he was able to distance himself up to a certain point from what
was around him. He was aware of the power of the establishment and of their bias. So, when the
wave against Iran was as strong as never before, he made a deal with Iran. He also didn't want
to intervene more actively in Syria and even in what concerns Russia, he seems to have moderate
positions.
In what concerns foreign politics, Trump some times seems more reasonable than Clinton
and the establishment. Clinton is the best coached politician of all times. She doesn't know that
she's coached. She just followed the most radical groups and isn't able to question anything at
all. The only thing that the coaches didn't fix until now is her laughing which is considered
even by her coaches as a sign of weirdness.
Kikinaskald -> J.K. Stevens 26 Oct 2016 9:09
She is considered to be highly aggressive, she pushed for the bombing of a few countries and
intervening everywhere..
Unfortunately all politics in the west is based on a similar model with our own domestic landscape
perhaps most closely resembling that in the US. We've always been peddled convenient lies of course,
but perhaps as society itself becomes more polarised [in terms of distribution of wealth and the
social consequences of that], the dissonance with the manufactured version of reality becomes
ever sharper. It is deeply problematic because traditional popular media is dominated by the wealthy
elite and the reality it depicts is as much a reflection of the consensual outlook of that elite
as it is deliberate, organised mendacity [although there's plenty of that too].
Western economies are now so beholden to the patronage of the essentially stateless multinational,
it has become a political imperative to appease their interests - it's difficult to see a future
in which an administration might resist this force, because at its whim, national economies face
ruination. In light of such helplessness our political representatives face an easier path in
simply accepting their lot as mere administrators who will tinker at the margins [and potentially
reap the rewards of a good servant], rather than hold to principle and resist an overwhelming
force.
Meanwhile the electorate is become increasingly disaffected by this mainstream of politics
who they [rightly] sense is no longer truly representative of their interests in any substantive
way. To this backdrop the media has made notable blunders in securing the status quo. It has revealed
the corruption and self-seeking of many in politics and promoted the widespread distrust of mainstream
politicians for a variety of reasons. While the corruption is real and endemic, howls of protest
against political 'outsiders' from this same press is met with with the view that the political
establishment cannot be trusted engendered by the same sources.
The narrative for Brexit is somewhat similar. For many years the EU was the whipping boy for
all our ills and the idea that it is fundamentally undemocratic in contrast to our own system,
so unchallenged that it is taken for fact, even by the reasonably educated. Whilst I'm personally
deflated and not a little worried by our exit, it comes as little surprise that a distorted perspective
on the EU has led to a revolt against it.
There are of course now very many alternative narratives to those which are the preserve of
monied media magnates, but they're disparate, fractured and unfocused.
Only the malaise has any sort of consistency about it and it is bitterly ironic that figures
like Trump and Farage can so effectively plug into that in the guise of outsiders, to offer spurious
alternatives to that which is so desperately needed. It's gloomy stuff.
Western economies are now so beholden to the patronage of the essentially stateless
multinational, it has become a political imperative to appease their interests - it's difficult
to see a future in which an administration might resist this force, because at its whim, national
economies face ruination. In light of such helplessness our political representatives face
an easier path in simply accepting their lot as mere administrators who will tinker at the
margins [and potentially reap the rewards of a good servant], rather than hold to principle
and resist an overwhelming force.
I have been an advocate of this point for a long time.There is a saying in politics in America
that'' the only difference between a Democrat and a Republican is the speed at which they drop
to their knees when big business walks into the room''.
How it is going to be stopped or indeed if there is the will to do so,I do not know. The proponents
and those who have most to lose have been incredibly successful in propagating the myth that 'you
to can have what I have'and have convinced a sizeable minority that there is no alternative.
Until that changes and is exposed for the illusion that it is ,we are I fear heading for something
far worse than we have now.
"Trump personifies the traits promoted by the media and corporate worlds he affects
to revile; the worlds that created him. He is the fetishisation of wealth, power and image
in a nation where extrinsic values are championed throughout public discourse. His conspicuous
consumption, self-amplification and towering (if fragile) ego are in tune with the dominant
narratives of our age."
Because this is who we are and this is how we role. We got on rickety ships and braved the
cowardly waters to reach these shores, with tremendous realworld uncertainty and absolute religious
zeal. We are the manly men and womanly women who manifested our destiny, endured the cruel nature
naturing, and civilized the wild wild west, at the same time preserving our own wildness and rugged
individualism. Why should we go all soft and namby-pamby with this social safety nonsense? Let
the roadkills expire with dignified indignity on the margins of the social order. We will bequeath
a glorious legacy to the Randian ubermenschen who will inherit this land from us. They will live
in Thielian compounds wearing the trendiest Lululemons. They will regularly admonish their worses
with chants of: "Do you want to live? Pay, pal". If we go soft, if we falter, how will we ever
be able to look in the eye the ghosts of John Wayne, Marion Morrison, Curtis LeMay, Chuck Heston,
Chuck Norris, and the Great Great Ronnie Himself? Gut-check time folks, suck it up and get on
with the program.
"The political constitution of the United States is not, as Madison envisaged, representation
tempered by competition between factions. The true constitution is plutocracy tempered by scandal."
The Founders had a wicked sense of humor. They set up the structure of various branches so
as to allow for the possibility of a future take-over by the Funders. That leaves room for the
exorbitant influence of corporations and wealthy individuals and the rise of the Trumps, leading
to the eventual fall into a Mad Max world.
"Yes, [Trump] is a shallow, mendacious, boorish and extremely dangerous man. But those traits
ensure that he is not an outsider but the perfect representation of his caste, the caste that
runs the global economy and governs our politics. He is our system, stripped of its pretences."
It is irrelevant if everyone sees the emperor/system has no clothes, it quite enjoys walking
around naked now that it has absolute power.
'It is irrelevant if everyone sees the emperor/system has no clothes, it quite enjoys
walking around naked now that it has absolute power.'
Yes, they don't care any more if we see the full extent of their corruption as we've given
up our power to do anything about it.
chiefwiley -> Luftwaffe 26 Oct 2016 9:31
It was once very common to see Democratic politicians as neighbors attending every community
event. They were Teamsters, pipe fitters, and electricians. And they were coaches and ushers and
pallbearers. Now they are academics and lawyers and NGO employees and managers who pop up during
campaigns.
The typical income of the elected Democrats outside their government check is north of $100,000.
They don't live in, or even wander through, the poorer neighborhoods. So they are essentially
clueless that government services like busses are run to suit government and not actual customers.
It's sort of nice to have somebody looking after our interests in theory, but it would
be at least polite if they deemed to ask us what we think our best interests are. Notice the nasty
names and attributes being hurled at political "dissidents," especially around here, and there
should be little wonder why many think the benevolent and somewhat single minded and authoritarian
left is at least part of their problems.
ghstwrtrx7 -> allblues 26 Oct 2016 14:02
Yea, 15 years of constant wars of empire with no end in sight has pretty much ran this
country in the ground.
We all talk about how much money is wasted by the federal government on unimportant endeavors
like human services and education, but don't even bat an eye about the sieve of money that is
the Pentagon.
Half a trillion dollars for aircraft carriers we don't need and are already obsolete. China
is on the verge of developing wickedly effective anti-ship missiles designed specifically to target
these Gerald R. Ford-class vessels. You might as well paint a huge bull's-eye on these ships'
4-1/2 acre flight deck.
And then there there's the most egregious waste of money our historically over-bloated defense
budget has ever seen: The Lockheed-Martin F-35 Lightening II Joint Strike Fighter. Quite a mouthful,
isn't? When you hear how much this boondoggle costs the American taxpayer, you'll choke: $1.5
Trillion, with a t. What's even more retching is that aside from already being obsolete, it doesn't
even work.
There are plenty more examples of this crap and this doesn't even include the nearly TWO
trillion dollars we've spent this past decade-and-a-half on stomping flat the Middle East and
large swaths of the Indian subcontinent.
And all this time, our nation's infrastructure is crumbling literally right out from underneath
us and millions upon millions of children and their families experience a daily struggle just
to eat. Eat?! In the "greatest," wealthiest nation on earth and we prefer to kill people at weddings
with drones than feed our own children.
I can't speak for anyone else other than myself, but that, boys and girls, has a decided miasma
of evil about it.
transplendent 26 Oct 2016 9:49
I'd like to read an unbiased piece about why the media narrative doesn't match the reality
of the Trump phenomenon. He is getting enormous crowds attend his rallies but hardly any coverage
of that in the filtered news outlets. Hillary, is struggling to get anyone turn up without paying
them. There is no real enthusiasm.
If Hillary doesn't win by a major landslide (and I mean BIGLY) as the MSM would lead us to
believe she is going to, it could be curtains for the media, as what little credibility that is
not already swirling around the plughole will disappear down it once and for all.
The buzzwords and tired old catch phrases and cliches used by the left to suppress any
alternative discussion, and divert from their own misdemeanors are fooling no one but themselves.
Trump supporters simply don't care any more how Hillary supporters explain that she lied about
dodging sniper fire. Or the numerous other times she and her cohorts have been caught out telling
fibs.
leftofstalin 26 Oct 2016 10:06
Sorry George YOU and the chattering classes you represent are the reason for the rise of the
far right blinded by the false promises of new labour and it's ilk the working classes have been
demonized as striking troublemakers benefit frauds racists uneducated bigots etc etc and going
by the comments on these threads from remainders you STILL don't understand the psyche of the
working class
Gary Ruddock 26 Oct 2016 10:07
When Obama humiliated Trump at that dinner back in 2011 he may have set a course for his own
destruction. Lately, Obama does not appear anywhere near as confident as he once did.
Perhaps Trump has seen the light, seen the error of his ways, maybe he realizes if he doesn't
stand up against the system, then no one will.
transplendent 26 Oct 2016 10:38
Trump's only crime, is he buys into the idea of national identity and statehood (along with
every other nation state in the world mind you), and Hillary wants to kick down the doors and
hand over the US to Saudi Arabia and any international vested interest who can drop a few dollars
into the foundation coffers. I can't see Saudi Arabia throwing open the doors any day soon, unless
it is onto a one way street.
N.B. The Russians are not behind it.
gjjwatson 26 Oct 2016 11:10
Very true. Throughout history the rich, the powerful, the landed, ennobled interest and
their friends in the Law and money changing houses have sought to control governments and have
usually succeeded.
In the Media today the rich are fawned over by sycophantic journalists and programme makers.
These are the people who make the political weather and create the prevailing narratives.
I remember when President Reagan railed against government whilst he was in office, he said
the worst words a citizen could hear were "I`m from the government, I`m here to help you".
Working class people fancied themselves to above the common herd and thought themselves
part of some elite.
All of this chimes of course with American history and it`s constitution written by slave owning
colonists who proclaimed that "all men are created equal".
bonhiver 26 Oct 2016 12:10
It's quite disturbing the lengths this paper will go to in order to slur and discredit
Trump, labelling him dangerous and alluding to the sexual assault allegations. This even goes
so far to a very lengthy article regarding Trumps lack of knowledge on the Rumbelows Cup 25 years
ago.
Whereas very little examination is made into Hillary Clinton's background which includes
serious allegation of fraud and involvement in assisting in covering up her husband's alleged
series of rapes. There are also issues in the wikileaks emails that merit analysis as well as
undercover tapes of seioau issues with her campaign team.
Whereas it is fair to criticise Trump for a lot of stuff it does appear that there is no attempt
at balance as Clinton's faults appear to get covered up om this paper.
Whereas I can not vote in the US elections and therefore the partisan reporting has no substantive
effect on how I may vote or act it is troubling that a UK newspaper does not provide the reader
with an objective as possible reporting on the presidential race.
It suggests biased reporting elsewhere.
thevisitor2015 26 Oct 2016 12:46
One of the most important characteristics of the so-called neoliberalism is its negative
selection. While mostly successfully camouflaged, that negative selection is more than obvious
this time, in two US presidential candidates. It's hard to imagine lower than those two.
seamuspadraig 26 Oct 2016 13:37
Well, OK George. Tell me: if Trump's such an establishment candidate, then why does the
whole of the establishment unanimously reject him? Is it normal for Republicans (such as the Bushes
and the neocons) to endorse Democrats? Why does even the Speaker of the House (a Republican) and
even, on occasion, Trump's own Vice-Presidential nominee seem to be trying to undermine his campaign?
If Trump is really just more of the same as all that came before, why is he being treated different
by the MSM and the political establishment?
Obviously, there's something flawed about your assumption.
CharlesPDXOr -> seamuspadraig 26 Oct 2016 13:58
I think the answer to your question is in the article: because Trump has brought the truth
of the monied class into the open. He is a perfect example of all that class is and tries to pretend
it is not. And when the commoners see this in front of them, a whole lot of them are disgusted
by it. That doesn't sit well back in the country club and the boardroom, where they work so hard
to keep all of that behind closed doors. They hate him because he is one of them and is spilling
the beans on all of them.
bill9651 26 Oct 2016 13:01
Trump has exposed the corruption of the political system and the media and has promised to
put a stop to it. By contrast, Clinton is financed by the very banks, corporates and financial
elites who are responsible for the corruption. This Trump speech is explicit on what we all suspected
is going on. Everybody should watch it, irrespective of whether they support him or not!
Michael Moore explaining why a lot of people like him
"I know a lot of people in Michigan that are planning to vote for Trump and they don't necessarily
agree with him. They're not racist or redneck, they're actually pretty decent people and so after
talking to a number of them I wanted to write this.
Donald Trump came to the Detroit Economic Club and stood there in front of Ford Motor executives
and said "if you close these factories as you're planning to do in Detroit and build them in Mexico,
I'm going to put a 35% tariff on those cars when you send them back and nobody's going to buy
them." It was an amazing thing to see. No politician, Republican or Democrat, had ever said anything
like that to these executives, and it was music to the ears of people in Michigan and Ohio and
Pennsylvania and Wisconsin - the "Brexit" states.
You live here in Ohio, you know what I'm talking about. Whether Trump means it or not, is kind
of irrelevant because he's saying the things to people who are hurting, and that's why every beaten-down,
nameless, forgotten working stiff who used to be part of what was called the middle class loves
Trump. He is the human Molotov Cocktail that they've been waiting for; the human hand grande that
they can legally throw into the system that stole their lives from them. And on November 8, although
they lost their jobs, although they've been foreclose on by the bank, next came the divorce and
now the wife and kids are gone, the car's been repoed, they haven't had a real vacation in years,
they're stuck with the shitty Obamacare bronze plan where you can't even get a fucking percocet,
they've essentially lost everything they had except one thing - the one thing that doesn't cost
them a cent and is guaranteed to them by the American constitution: the right to vote.
They might be penniless, they might be homeless, they might be fucked over and fucked up it doesn't
matter, because it's equalized on that day - a millionaire has the same number of votes as the
person without a job: one. And there's more of the former middle class than there are in the millionaire
class. So on November 8 the dispossessed will walk into the voting booth, be handed a ballot,
close the curtain, and take that lever or felt pen or touchscreen and put a big fucking X in the
box by the name of the man who has threatened to upend and overturn the very system that has ruined
their lives: Donald J Trump.
They see that the elite who ruined their lives hate Trump. Corporate America hates Trump. Wall
Street hates Trump. The career politicians hate Trump. The media hates Trump, after they loved
him and created him, and now hate. Thank you media: the enemy of my enemy is who I'm voting for
on November 8.
Yes, on November 8, you Joe Blow, Steve Blow, Bob Blow, Billy Blow, all the Blows get to go
and blow up the whole goddamn system because it's your right. Trump's election is going to be
the biggest fuck you ever recorded in human history and it will feel good."
Michael Moore
Debreceni 26 Oct 2016 14:15
Mrs Clinton is also the product of our political culture. A feminist who owes everything
to her husband and men in the Democratic Party. A Democrat who started her political career as
a Republican; a civil right activist who worked for Gerry Goldwater, one of last openly racist/segregationist
politicians. A Secretary of State who has no clue about, or training in, foreign policy, and who
received her position as compensation for losing the election. A pacifist, who has never had a
gun in her hands, but supported every war in the last twenty years. A humanist who rejoiced over
Qaddafi's death ("we came, we won, he is dead!") like a sadist.
Both candidates have serious weaknesses. Yet Trump is very much an American character, his
vices and weaknesses are either overlooked, or widely shared, secretively respected and even admired
(even by those who vote against him). Clinton's arrogance, elitism and hypocrisy, coupled with
her lack of talent, charisma and personality, make her an aberration in American politics.
BabylonianSheDevil03 26 Oct 2016 15:26
One thing that far right politics offers the ordinary white disaffected voter is 'pay back',
it is a promised revenge-fest, putting up walls, getting rid of foreigners, punishing employers
of foreigners, etc., etc. All the stuff that far right groups have wet dreams about.
Farage used the same tactics in the UK. Le Pen is the same.
Because neoliberal politics has left a hell of a lot of people feeling pissed off, the
far right capitalizes on this, whilst belonging to the same neoliberal dystopia so ultimately
not being able to make good on their promises. Their promises address a lot of people's anger,
which of course isn't really about foreigners at all, that is simply the decoy, but cutting through
all the crap to make that clear is no easy task, not really sure how it can be done, certainly
no political leader in the western hemisphere has the ability to do so.
ProseBeforeHos 26 Oct 2016 15:45
"But those traits ensure that he is not an outsider but the perfect representation of his caste,
the caste that runs the global economy and governs our politics."
Wrong as always. Trump *is* an outsider. He's an unabashed nationalist who's set him up
against the *actual* caste that governs our politics: Neo-liberal internationalists with socially
trendy left-liberal politics (but not so left that they don't hire good tax lawyers to avoid paying
a fraction of what they are legally obliged to).
Best represented in the Goldman Sachs executives who are donating millions to Hillary Clinton
because they are worried about Trump's opposition to free trade, and they know she will give them
*everything* they want.
Trumps the closest thing we're gotten to a genuine threat to the system in a long, long
time, so of course George Monbiot and the rest of the Guardian writers has set themselves against
him, because if you're gonna be wrong about the EU, wrong about New Labour, wrong about social
liberalism, wrong about immigration, why change the habit of a lifetime?
aofeia1224 26 Oct 2016 16:09
"What is the worst thing about Donald Trump? The lies? The racist stereotypes? The misogyny?
The alleged gropings? The apparent refusal to accept democratic outcomes?"
Lies: Emails, policy changes based on polls showing a complete lack of conviction, corporate
collusion, Bosnia, Clinton Foundation, war mongering, etc.
Racist stereotypes: Super predators. Misogyny: Aside from her laughing away her pedophile case
and allegedly threatening the women who came out against Bill, you've also got this sexist gem
"Women are the primary victims of war".
Alleged gropings: Well she's killed people by texting. So unless your moral compass is
so out of whack that somehow a man JOKING about his player status in private is worse than Clinton's
actions throughout her political career, then I guess you could make the case that Clinton at
least doesn't have this skeleton in her closet.
Refusal to accept democratic outcomes: No. He's speaking out against the media's collusion
with the democratic party favoring Clinton over every other nominee, including Bernie Sanders.
He's talking about what was revealed in the DNC leaks and the O'Keefe tapes that show how dirty
the tactics have been in order to legally persuade the voting public into electing one person
or the other.
Besides that, who cares about his "refusal" to accept the outcome? The American people protested
when Bush won in 2000 saying it was rigged. Same goes with Obama saying the same "anti democratic"
shit back in 2008 in regards to the Bush Administration.
Pot call kettle black
caravanserai 26 Oct 2016 16:16
Republicans are crazy and their policies make little sense. Neo-conservatism? Trickle down
economics? Getting the poor to pay for the mess created by the bankers in 2008? Trump knows what
sells to his party's base. He throws them red meat. However, the Democrats are not much better.
They started to sell out when Bill Clinton was president. They pretend to still be the party of
the New Deal, but they don't want to offend Wall Street. US democracy is in trouble.
rooolf 26 Oct 2016 16:24
When do the conspiracy theories about the criminality of his opponent no longer count as
conspiracies? When we have a plethora of emails confirming there is indeed fire next to that smoke,
corruption fire, collusion fire, fire of contempt for the electorate. When we have emails confirming
the Saudi Arabians are actually funding terrorist schools across the globe, emails where Hilary
herself admits it, but will not say anything publicly about terrorism and Saudi Arabia, what's
conspiracy and what's reality?
Is it because Saudi Arabia funded her foundation with $23 million, or because it doesn't
fit with her great 'internationalists' global agenda?
Either way there seems to be some conspiring of some sort
When is it no longer theory? And where does the guardian fit into this corrupted corporate
media idea?
Yep trump is a buffoon, but the failure of all media to deliver serious debate means the
US is about to elect someone probably more dangerous than trump, how the hell can that be
What the author overlooks is the media's own complicity in allowing this to develop
Unfortunately the corruption of the system is so entrenched it takes an abnormality like trump
to challenge it
Hard to believe, but trump is a once in a lifetime opportunity to shake shit up, not a pleasant
one, in fact a damn ugly opportunity, but the media shut him down, got all caught up in self preservation
and missed the opportunity
it what comes next that is scary
BScHons -> rooolf 26 Oct 2016 17:09
Nothing wrong with a liberal internationalist utopia, it sounds rather good and worth striving
for. It's just that what they've been pushing is actually a neoliberal globalist nirvana for the
1 per cent
rooolf BScHons 26 Oct 2016 17:17
Totally agree
The problem is the left this paper represents were bought off with the small change by
neoliberalism, and they expect the rest of us to suck it up so the elites from both sides can
continue the game
Talking about the environment and diversity doesn't cut it
mrjonno 26 Oct 2016 17:02
Well said as ever George. Humanity is in a total mess as we near the end of the neoliberal
model. That the USA has a choice between two 'demopublicans' is no choice at all.
I would go further in your analysis - media controlled by these sociopaths has ensured that our
society shares the same values - we are a bankrupt species as is.
As long as you are here to provide sensible analysis, along with Peter Joseph, I have hope
that we can pull out of the nosedive that we are currently on a trajectory for.
Thank you for your sane input into an otherwise insane world. Thank you Mr Monbiot.
annedemontmorency 26 Oct 2016 19:08
We'll ignore the part about the inability to accept democratic outcomes since that afflicts
so many people and organisations - Brexit , anyone?
More to the point is how the summit of US politics produces candidates like Trump and Clinton.
Clinton is suffering the same damage the LibDems received during their coalition with the Tories
.Proximity to power exposed their inadequacies and hypocrisy in both cases.
Trump - unbelievably - remains a viable candidate but only because Hillary Clinton reeks of
graft and self interest.
The obvious media campaign against Trump could also backfire - voters know a hatchet job when
they see one - they watch House of Cards.
But politics is odd around the whole world.
The Guardian is running a piece about the Pirate party in Iceland.
Why go so far? - the most remarkable coup in recent politics was UKIP forcing a vote on the
EU which it not only won it did so in spite of only ever having ONE MP out of 630.
Trump may be America's UKIP - he resembles them in so many ways.
ID6209069 26 Oct 2016 20:35
It's possible that something like this was inevitable, in a nation which is populated by "consumers"
rather than as citizens. There are "valuable demographics" versus those that aren't worthy of
the attention of the constant bombardment of advertising. I jokingly said last year that as I
was turning 55 last year, I am no longer in the 'coveted 29-54 demo'. My worth as a consumer has
been changed merely by reaching a certain age, so I now see fewer ads about cars and electronics
and more about prescription medicines. The product of our media is eyeballs, not programs or articles.
The advertising is the money maker, the content merely a means of luring people in for a sales
pitch, not to educate or inform. If that structure sells us a hideous caricature of a successful
person and gives him political power, as long as the ad dollars keep rolling in.
GreyBags 26 Oct 2016 21:19
This is the culmination of living in a post-truth political world. Lies and smears, ably
supported by the corporate media and Murdoch in particular means that the average person who doesn't
closely follow politics is being misinformed.
The complete failure of right wing economic 'theories' means they only have lies, smears
and the old 'divide and conquer' left in their arsenal. 'Free speech' is their attempt to get
lies and smears equal billing with the truth. All truth on the other hand must be suppressed.
All experts and scientists who don't regurgitate the meaningless slogans of the right will be
ignored, traduced, defunded, disbanded or silenced by law.
We see the same corrupted philosophy in Australia as well.
JamesCameron 7d ago
Yet Trump, the "misogynist, racist and bigot"' has more women in executive and managerial positions
than any comparable company, pays these women the same or more than their male counterparts and
fought the West Palm Beach City Council to be allowed to open his newly purchased club to blacks
and Jews who had been banned until then. I suspect his views do chime with Americans fed up with
political correctness gone mad as well as the venality of the administration of Barak Obama, a
machine politician with dodgy bagmen from Chicago – the historically corrupt city in Illinois,
the most corrupt state in the Union. Finally, unlike The Hilary, he has actually held down a job,
worked hard and achieved success and perhaps they are more offended by what she does than what
he says.
aucourant 7d ago
Not so much an article about Trump as much as a rant. George Monbiot writes with the utter
conviction of one who mistakenly believes that his readers share his bigotry. When he talks about
the 'alleged gropings' or the 'alleged refusal to accept democratic outcomes', that is exactly
what they are 'alleged'.
The Democratic Party has been dredging up porn-stars and wannabe models who now make claims
that Trump tried to 'kiss them without asking'. This has become the nightly fare of the mainstream
media in the USA. At the same time the media ignores the destruction of Clinton's emails, the
bribing of top FBI officials who are investigating the destroyed tapes and the giving of immunity
to all those who aided Clinton in hiding and destroying subpoenaed evidence.
The press also ignored the tapes of the DNC paying thugs to cause violence at Trump rallies,
the bribes paid to the Clintons for political favours and the stealing of the election from Bernie
Sanders. Trump is quite right to think the 'democratic outcome' is being fixed. Not only were
the votes for Sanders manipulated, but Al Gore's votes were also altered and manipulated to ensure
a win for Bush in the 2000 presidential election. The same interests who engineered the 2000 election
have switched from supporting the Republican Party to supporting Clinton.
Anomander64 6d ago
Great article. The neoliberals have been able to control the narrative and in doing so
have managed to scapegoat all manner of minority groups, building anger among those disaffected
with modern politics. Easy targets - minorities, immigrants, the poor, the disadvantaged and the
low-paid workers.
The real enemy here are those sitting atop the corporate tree, but with the media controlled
by them, the truth is never revealed.
mochilero7687 5d ago
Perhaps next week George will write in detail about all the scandals Hildabeast has caused
and been involved in over the past 40 years - which have cost the US govt tens of millions of
dollars and millions of man hours - but I won't be holding my breath.
"... With US belief in "conspiracy theory" over 50 percent (see our previous article here ) elites are showing increasingly concern that they have lost control of their narrative. ..."
"... The article explains that if people grow paranoid about government, then the "norms" of government will collapse. ..."
"... The article also has parallels to an article we analyzed recently here by Cass Sunstein. His Bloomberg editorial suggested that nothing was more important from a political standpoint than returning "civility" to Congress and politics generally. ..."
"... The NeoCons will take the United States in the same direction it is going until its' bust. Endless war, run down infrastructure and poverty is the future. Tax receipts are falling fast and government can't pay the big bills with service sector jobs. ..."
"... Decommissioning the plethora of foreign airbases and dismantling NATO would see the Bankster/MIC die a death. Gotta starve those beasts pronto. ..."
"... "Conspiracy theory is called "paranoid politics" in this article but it amounts to the same thing." ..."
"... "conspiracy theory" ..."
"... "paranoid" ..."
"... "we should" ..."
"... "paranoid politics" ..."
"... "good" ..."
"... necessarily controlled ..."
"... "The most dangerous man, to any government, is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost invariably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane and intolerable, and so, if he is romantic, he tries to change it. And if he is not romantic personally, he is apt to spread discontent among those who are." ..."
With US belief in "conspiracy theory" over 50 percent (see our previous article
here ) elites are showing increasingly concern that they have lost control of their narrative.
This article again illustrates elite push back. The article explains that if people grow paranoid
about government, then the "norms" of government will collapse.
Conspiracy theory is called "paranoid politics" in this article but it amounts to the same thing.
The article also has parallels to an article we analyzed recently
here
by Cass Sunstein. His Bloomberg editorial suggested that nothing was more important from a political
standpoint than returning "civility" to Congress and politics generally.
This article runs along the same lines: Negative perceptions of the US government can make the
process of "governing" dysfunctional.
Herdee •Nov 1, 2016 12:13 AM
The NeoCons will take the United States in the same direction it is going until its' bust.
Endless war, run down infrastructure and poverty is the future. Tax receipts are falling fast
and government can't pay the big bills with service sector jobs.
WTFUD •Oct 31, 2016 11:14 PM
Major Civil Unrest is required in the USSofA to alleviate the pressure on Russia, the Elites'
would be bogeyman. The rest of the world would benefit too.
Decommissioning the plethora of foreign airbases and dismantling NATO would see the Bankster/MIC
die a death. Gotta starve those beasts pronto.
PoasterToaster •Oct 31, 2016 10:30 PM
Bankers hiding behind "government" and using the moral authority it carries in people's heads
to carry out their dirty deeds. But now the people have seen behind the curtain and the dope at
the controls has been found wanting. Writing is on the wall for them and they know it.
"The rise of paranoid politics could make America ungovernable"
We in America aren't supposed to be "governed". And our state of mind is none of your goddamned
business.
One of the most delightful ironies (to those with a sufficiently macabre sense of humour) is that
declassified CIA documents from the 1960s have proven that the mass media promotion of the
"conspiracy theory" meme was deliberately developed by the CIA, using their media assets.
Many people have developed ways to discuss the relatively slim differences between being "paranoid"
versus being realistic. After several decades of enjoying the luxury to
spend most of my time attempting to understand the political processes, my conclusion has always
been that THE MORE I LEARNED, THE WORSE IT GOT.
It is barely possible to exaggerate the degree to which "we should" seriously consider
"paranoid politics" as being the most realistic. Governments
are only "good" in the sense that they are the biggest forms of organized crime,
dominated by the best organized gangs of criminals. In my view, that conclusion can both
be derived from the basic principles of the ways that general energy systems operate, as well
as empirically confirmed by an overwhelming abundance of well-documented evidence. Indeed, more
rational evidence and logical arguments result in that any deeper analysis of politics ALWAYS
discovers and demonstrates the ways that civilization is necessarily controlled
by applications of the methods of organized crime, whose excessive successfulness are more and
more spinning out of control.
As H.L. Menchen stated:
"The most dangerous man, to any government, is the man who is able to think things out
for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost invariably
he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane and
intolerable, and so, if he is romantic, he tries to change it. And if he is not romantic
personally, he is apt to spread discontent among those who are."
The important things which most governments DO,
that are "dishonest, insane and intolerable,"
are ENFORCE FRAUDS by private banks.
Given those social FACTS, it is barely possible to develop a sufficiently
"paranoid politics," to encompass the degree to which the existing
political economy, based upon enforcing frauds, is being driven by advancing technologies
towards becoming exponentially more fraudulent. The problem is NOT that some
people are becoming too critical, but that the majority of them have not yet become critical enough
... "We need" to go beyond being merely superficially cynical, in order to become profoundly
cynical enough to perhaps cope with how and why governments ARE the biggest forms of organized
crime, dominated by the best organized gangs of criminals.
In my view, most of the content published on Zero Hedge, which engages in various
superficially correct analyses of those problems, tends to never engage in deeper levels of analysis,
due to the degree to which the resulting conclusions are way worse than anything which could be
adequately admitted and addressed. Rather, it is barely possible to exaggerate the degree to which
one is justifiably paranoid about the ways that the ruling classes in
Globalized Neolithic Civilization are becoming increasingly psychotic psychopaths:
THE EXCESSIVE SUCCESSFULNESS OF CONTROLLING CIVILIZATION
BY APPLICATIONS OF THE VARIOUS METHODS OF ORGANIZED CRIME
HAS RESULTED IN CIVILIZATION MANIFESTING CRIMINAL INSANITY!
Radical Marijuana -> medium giraffe •Nov 1, 2016 12:25 AM
Yes, mg, the CIA, in ways which were, of course, ILLEGAL, attempted to discredit those who
did not believe the official story regarding the assination of President Kennedy.
The most relevant conclusion of that documentary was that, at the highest levels, there is
no difference, because they blend together, between organized crime and government agencies such
as the CIA, which was effectively the American branch of the secret police employed by the international
bankers.
The success of [civil rights and anti-apartheid] movements did not end racism, but drove
it underground, allowing neoliberals to exploit racist and tribalist political support while
pursuing the interests of wealth and capital, at the expense of the (disproportionately non-white)
poor.
That coalition has now been replaced by one in which the tribalists and racists are dominant.
For the moment at least, [hard] neoliberals continue to support the parties they formerly controlled,
with the result that the balance of political forces between the right and the opposing coalition
of soft neoliberals and the left has not changed significantly.
There's an ambiguity in this narrative and in the three-party analysis.
Do we acknowledge that the soft neoliberals in control of the coalition that includes the inchoate
left also "exploit racist and tribalist political support while pursuing the interests of wealth
and capital, at the expense of the (disproportionately non-white) poor."? They do it with a different
style and maybe with some concession to economic melioration, as well as supporting anti-racist
and feminist policy to keep the inchoate left on board, but . . .
The new politics of the right has lost faith in the hard neoliberalism that formerly furnished
its policy agenda of tax cuts for the rich, war in the Middle East and so on, leaving the impure
resentment ungoverned and unfocused, as you say.
The soft neoliberals, it seems to me, are using anti-racism to discredit economic populism
and its motivations, using the new politics of the right as a foil.
The problem of how to oppose racism and tribalism effectively is now entangled with soft neoliberal
control of the remaining party coalition, which is to say with the credibility of the left party
as a vehicle for economic populism and the credibility of economic populism as an antidote for
racism or sexism. (cf js. @ 1,2)
The form of tribalism used to mobilize the left entails denying that an agenda of economic
populism is relevant to the problems of sexism and racism, because the deplorables must be deplored
to get out the vote. And, because the (soft) neoliberals in charge must keep economic populism
under control to deliver the goods to their donor base.
"... FBI agents looking at Weiners weiner on his laptop, sees tons of Huma emails and Clinton emails, turn and tell their boss they are disgusted with all this and he needs to disrupt her winning office or they are going public. That's what happened! ..."
"... I think you are spot on with that observation. Comey was forced to tell Congress the Clinton e-mail investigation was being reopened. If he did not then sure as hell the existence of those e-mails on the Weiner computer would be leaked. ..."
"... I agree, it is all puppet theatre with some humor added. The more outrageous the more believable, right? ..."
"... It achieves some "unity" around Trump when there wasn't enough going down the home stretch, it became OBVIOUS she's not a winner, which anyone with half a brain has known since she announced? So maybe they are pulling the plug and she's been beat officially? Which leaves the question is Trump for real? ..."
"... I must say, fake or not he fought hard? I like Trump. I hope he realizes if he did decide to do GOOD, he could become very powerful. Why these leaders get to these positions and give it all up for a little greed is beyond me? They could be 10 times more powerful by just being GOOD? You've got the money Trump, if your GOOD, you'll obtain the power? Trump has some political capital and makes him more attractive to the establishment. My guess is, im being too optimistic for good things to happen? I hope Im wrong. ..."
"... The Clintons are a great success story. They never set out to be legal, only not to get sent to jail. By this standard they have succeeded. They have wealth and power and are 2 of the most admired people on earth. Lawyers and fines are just businesses expenses. ..."
"... I want to share my intentions with my fellow ZH Bloggers and Patriots, beginning today, I am going to be sending a series of communications directly to Paul Ryan by using his WEBSITE found at the following URL: http://www.speaker.gov/contact ..."
"... I plan to both encourage and challenge the Speaker. I know many on ZH look at Paul Ryan as a hypocrite. I understand why you may hold this position. I too am very disappointed with recent REPUBLICAN positions and communications. However, now is the time to unite as "WE THE PEOPLE". All of the data is suggesting that leadership within US Government Agencies is corrupted by special interests and their own fleshly nature. We see evidence of TREASON everywhere. But I believe brighter days lie ahead for America at least in the short term. ..."
"... AMERICA has lost her way and this needs to be corrected. ..."
FBI agents looking at Weiners weiner on his laptop, sees tons of Huma emails and Clinton emails, turn and tell their boss
they are disgusted with all this and he needs to disrupt her winning office or they are going public. That's what happened!
I think you are spot on with that observation. Comey was forced to tell Congress the Clinton e-mail investigation was being
reopened. If he did not then sure as hell the existence of those e-mails on the Weiner computer would be leaked.
I agree, it is all puppet theatre with some humor added. The more outrageous the more believable, right?
It achieves some "unity" around Trump when there wasn't enough going down the home stretch, it became OBVIOUS she's not
a winner, which anyone with half a brain has known since she announced? So maybe they are pulling the plug and she's been beat
officially? Which leaves the question is Trump for real?
I must say, fake or not he fought hard? I like Trump. I hope he realizes if he did decide to do GOOD, he could become very
powerful. Why these leaders get to these positions and give it all up for a little greed is beyond me? They could be 10 times
more powerful by just being GOOD? You've got the money Trump, if your GOOD, you'll obtain the power? Trump has some political
capital and makes him more attractive to the establishment. My guess is, im being too optimistic for good things to happen? I
hope Im wrong.
I've been burned so many times by BIG GOV. both DEM & REP? I just cant trust anyone that is near it?
They take lots of ideas from ZH these days, and its not good..... ZH offers them the ideas, the power, and the creativity of
the crowd. They use it against us, a very powerful tool.
The Clintons are a great success story. They never set out to be legal, only not to get sent to jail. By this standard they
have succeeded. They have wealth and power and are 2 of the most admired people on earth. Lawyers and fines are just businesses
expenses.
I want to share my intentions with my fellow ZH Bloggers and Patriots, beginning today, I am going to be sending a series
of communications directly to Paul Ryan by using his WEBSITE found at the following URL:
http://www.speaker.gov/contact
I plan to both encourage and challenge the Speaker. I know many on ZH look at Paul Ryan as a hypocrite. I understand why
you may hold this position. I too am very disappointed with recent REPUBLICAN positions and communications. However, now is the
time to unite as "WE THE PEOPLE". All of the data is suggesting that leadership within US Government Agencies is corrupted by
special interests and their own fleshly nature. We see evidence of TREASON everywhere. But I believe brighter days lie ahead for
America at least in the short term.
AMERICA has lost her way and this needs to be corrected.
I encourage everyone who reads this message to send a note to the SPEAKER encouraging him to do four things:
Get on board the TRUMP/PENCE train no matter what it takes which includes eating "HUMBLE PIE".
Go after Hillary R. Clinton and press for swift and immediate justice.
Enforce existing laws for TREASON that are on the books.
Do whatever it takes to ensure the integrity of the American POTUS Election process. MAKE OUR VOTE COUNT.
I plan to do this today and will be sending the speaker notes and comments from ZH.
If everyone contacts the SPEAKER, he will get the POINT.
GOD's SPEED in whatever you decide to do as a CITIZEN of these UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
"... Moreover, thousands of emails were erased from her server, even after she had reportedly been sent a subpoena from Congress to retain them. During her first two years as secretary of state, half of her outside visitors were contributors to the Clinton Foundation. Yet there was not a single quid pro quo, Clinton tells us. ..."
"... Pat is oh-so right: "This election is not over." In fact it's likely that Donald Trump will continue to surge and will win on November 8th. ..."
"... Remember: Many of the polls claiming to show statistically significant Clinton leads were commissioned by the same corrupt news organizations that have worked for months to bias their news coverage in an attempt to throw the election to Clinton. ..."
"... The problem facing the donor class and the party elites is that Trump supporters are not swayed by the media bias. A recent Gallup poll shows Americans trust in journalists to be at its lowest level since Gallup began asking the question. ..."
"... Americans are savvy to the media's rigging of election reporting. Election Day, Nov. 8th, will show that the dishonest reporting of the mainstream media and the cooked samplings of their polls were all for naught. ..."
"... More years of bank favoritism, corporate socialism, political corruption, failed social programs, deindustrialization, open borders lawlessness, erosion of liberties, interventionism and wage stagnation is all adding more steam to the pressure cooker. ..."
"... A Trump presidency would back the pressure off, a Clinton presidency would be a disaster. ..."
"... Why does PJB, of all people, cling to the abhorrent notion that presidential "greatness" is defined by territorial aggrandizement through war? ..."
"... Unfortunately, that new evidence of the Clinton Criminal Enterprise (CCE) caused nary a ripple in the MSM. It was merely noted in the Crony lapdog Washington Post and then quickly submerged into the bottom of the content swamp. The Clinton WikiLeaks documents and the James O'Keefe corruption videos are marginalized or not even acknowledged to exist by the various MSM outlets. ..."
"... Hillary is probably guilty of a lot of things. However, evidence from the counter-media and/or Congress means nothing to the MSM. In fact the MSM will actually conjure up a multitude of baseless red herrings to protect Hillary. E.g., the Trump as Putin puppet meme as a diversion away from documented Clinton corruption. ..."
"... The anti-Hillary elements can only mutually reinforce in their internet ghettos. Those ghettos do not provide enough political leverage to move against a President Hillary no matter how compelling the evidence of the Clinton's collective criminality. In that context, Hillary will be politically inoculated by the protective MSM against Republican congressional inquiries and attacks. ..."
"... Hillary's presidency will almost certainly be a catastrophe because it will manifest the haggard, corrupt, cronied-up, parasitic and mediocre qualities of the hack sitting in the Oval Office. Expect a one term fiasco and then Hillary will stumble out of the White House as even more of a political and personal wreck. ..."
Moreover, thousands of emails were erased from her server, even after she had reportedly been
sent a subpoena from Congress to retain them. During her first two years as secretary of state, half
of her outside visitors were contributors to the Clinton Foundation. Yet there was not a single quid
pro quo, Clinton tells us.
Yesterday's newspapers exploded with reports of how Bill Clinton aide Doug Band raised money for
the Clinton Foundation, and then hit up the same corporate contributors to pay huge fees for Bill's
speeches.
What were the corporations buying if not influence? What were the foreign contributors buying,
if not influence with an ex-president, and a secretary of state and possible future president?
Did none of the big donors receive any official favors?
"There's a lot of smoke and there's no fire," says Hillary Clinton.
Perhaps, but there seems to be more smoke every day.
If once or twice in her hours of testimony to the FBI, to a grand jury, or before Congress, Clinton
were proven to have lied, her Justice Department would be obligated to name a special prosecutor,
as was Nixon's.
And, with the election over, the investigative reporters of the adversary press, Pulitzers beckoning,
would be cut loose to go after her.
The Republican House is already gearing up for investigations that could last deep into Clinton's
first term.
There is a vast trove of public and sworn testimony from Hillary, about the server, the emails,
the erasures, the Clinton Foundation. Now, thanks to WikiLeaks, there are tens of thousands of emails
to sift through, and perhaps tens of thousands more to come.
What are the odds that not one contains information that contradicts her sworn testimony? Rep.
Jim Jordan contends that Clinton may already have perjured herself.
And as the full-court press would begin with her inauguration, Clinton would have to deal with
the Syrians, the Russians, the Taliban, the North Koreans, and Xi Jinping in the South China Sea-and
with Bill Clinton wandering around the White House with nothing to do.
This election is not over. But if Hillary Clinton wins, a truly hellish presidency could await
her, and us.
Pat is oh-so right: "This election is not over." In fact it's likely that Donald Trump will continue
to surge and will win on November 8th.
Remember: Many of the polls claiming to show statistically significant Clinton leads were commissioned
by the same corrupt news organizations that have worked for months to bias their news coverage
in an attempt to throw the election to Clinton.
On the other hand, several polls with a history of accuracy have consistently shown either
a Trump lead or a statistical dead-heat.
The problem facing the donor class and the party elites is that Trump supporters are not swayed
by the media bias. A recent Gallup poll shows Americans trust in journalists to be at its lowest
level since Gallup began asking the question.
Americans are savvy to the media's rigging of election reporting. Election Day, Nov. 8th, will
show that the dishonest reporting of the mainstream media and the cooked samplings of their polls
were all for naught.
Thus, fortunately, the American people will avoid the spectacle of a "truly hellish" Clinton
presidency.
More years of bank favoritism, corporate socialism, political corruption, failed social programs,
deindustrialization, open borders lawlessness, erosion of liberties, interventionism and wage
stagnation is all adding more steam to the pressure cooker.
A Trump presidency would back the pressure off, a Clinton presidency would be a disaster.
James Polk, no charmer, was a one-term president, but a great one, victorious in the Mexican
War, annexing California and the Southwest, negotiating a fair division of the Oregon territory
with the British.
Why does PJB, of all people, cling to the abhorrent notion that presidential "greatness" is
defined by territorial aggrandizement through war?
The only people responsible for that "cloud" are conservatives. If you wish to prevent the horrid
fate that you're describing, Pat, you need to apologize and concede that these investigations
are groundless. You can't say "where there's smoke, there's fire" if we can all see your smoke
machine.
The Visigoths will continue their advance on Rome by the millions. The Supreme Court and Fed will
shy away from diversity in their numbers. The alternative media will go bonkers, but to no avail.
The military will provide employment (endless wars) to those displaced by a permissive immigration
policy. Elizabeth I – will look down (up) in envy.
Re: "Yesterday's newspapers exploded with reports of how Bill Clinton aide Doug Band raised
money for the Clinton Foundation, and then hit up the same corporate contributors to pay huge
fees for Bill's speeches."
Unfortunately, that new evidence of the Clinton Criminal Enterprise (CCE) caused nary a ripple
in the MSM. It was merely noted in the Crony lapdog Washington Post and then quickly submerged
into the bottom of the content swamp. The Clinton WikiLeaks documents and the James O'Keefe corruption
videos are marginalized or not even acknowledged to exist by the various MSM outlets.
Hillary is probably guilty of a lot of things. However, evidence from the counter-media and/or
Congress means nothing to the MSM. In fact the MSM will actually conjure up a multitude of baseless
red herrings to protect Hillary. E.g., the Trump as Putin puppet meme as a diversion away from
documented Clinton corruption.
The anti-Hillary elements can only mutually reinforce in their internet ghettos. Those ghettos
do not provide enough political leverage to move against a President Hillary no matter how compelling
the evidence of the Clinton's collective criminality. In that context, Hillary will be politically
inoculated by the protective MSM against Republican congressional inquiries and attacks.
Hillary's presidency will almost certainly be a catastrophe because it will manifest the haggard,
corrupt, cronied-up, parasitic and mediocre qualities of the hack sitting in the Oval Office.
Expect a one term fiasco and then Hillary will stumble out of the White House as even more of
a political and personal wreck.
Agree with Pat though that it's going to be a wild ride for the rest of us – straight down.
P.S. A Republican Congress does have the power of the purse and could shave away Clinton's
Imperial use of the executive branch. But the feckless Congress has never been intelligent enough
to utilize that power effectively.
SteveM makes excellent points about the mainstream media cover-up of the Wikileaks revelations:
"Unfortunately, that new evidence of the Clinton Criminal Enterprise (CCE) caused nary a ripple
in the MSM. It was merely noted in the Crony lapdog Washington Post and then quickly submerged
into the bottom of the content swamp. The Clinton WikiLeaks documents and the James O'Keefe corruption
videos are marginalized or not even acknowledged to exist by the various MSM outlets."
Alex Pfeiffer (The Daily Caller) expands upon SteveM's critique in "The Anatomy Of A Press
Cover-Up." Great stuff:
@William N. Grigg: "Why does PJB, of all people, cling to the abhorrent notion that presidential
"greatness" is defined by territorial aggrandizement through war?"
Yes, that's one aspect of PJB's thought that has long disturbed me. Granted, PJB is a nationalist,
and I can see why an old-fashioned nationalist would admire Polk. But PJB also advocates an "enlightened
nationalism." There's nothing enlightened about stealing someone else's land. Frankly, I fail
to see how Polk's actions are any different from Hitler's actions a century later. I don't want
to offend anyone but, I'm sorry… this needs to be said.
I greatly admire Pat Buchanan, but this article is rather ridiculous.
"If once or twice in her hours of testimony to the FBI, to a grand jury, or before Congress,
Clinton were proven to have lied, her Justice Department would be obligated to name a special
prosecutor, as was Nixon's."
Translation: "I want revenge for Watergate."
Look, I admire Nixon. I think he was one of our greatest Presidents. I really mean that. I
also think that he was unfairly subjected to a witch hunt and that there was no valid reason for
him to have faced the prospect of impeachment (and the same is true, in my view, for both of the
Presidents who were actually impeached, interestingly enough). Nixon should have been allowed
to finish his second term.
I think Hillary Clinton is also facing a witch hunt. I don't agree with her foreign policy
views or with many of her domestic policy views, but this vicious attempt by the GOP to take her
down needs to stop. There is no evidence that she is any more corrupt than anybody else.
And, in any case, if she gets elected, she will be entitled to serve as President. To deliberately
try to sabotage her Presidency by hounding her with these investigations would be to show profound
contempt for democratic norms.
Enough already. I don't support Clinton or Trump. Jill Stein is my gal now. But I hope that
whoever wins does a great job and that all goes well for them. Nothing else would be in the best
interests of the country or the world.
"Remember: Many of the polls claiming to show statistically significant Clinton leads were commissioned
by the same corrupt news organizations that have worked for months to bias their news coverage
in an attempt to throw the election to Clinton.
On the other hand, several polls with a history of accuracy have consistently shown either a Trump
lead or a statistical dead-heat."
We heard this in 2012. Go back and read the Free Republic election night thread to see how
such comforting thoughts came crashing down as the night went on. Then read the posts today…all
the exact same people saying all the exact same things.
For a society to work well and to succeed, the good-will (trust and support) of it's productive,
tax-paying citizens is of paramount importance. The corrupt politics in DC for the last 25 years
has used up this good-will. Only few trust these elitists , as evidenced by the success of
the socialist, Sanders, and Trump.
With the election of the corrupt, lying, unaccomplished politician, the legitimacy of the
D.C. "Leaders" will be gone. It would be a disaster!
" She would enter office as the least-admired president in history, without a vision or a mandate.
She would take office with two-thirds of the nation believing she is untruthful and untrustworthy.
"
Funny you should go there. Sure, HRC has historically high unfavorability ratings. Fact: DJT's
unfavorability ratings are even higher. Check any reasonably non-partisan site such as RCP or
538.
Pretty much all the negatives about HRC are trumped by Trump. His flip-flopping makes hers
look amateur: he used to be a pro-choice Democrat; has publicly espoused admiration for HRC and
declared that WJC was unfairly criticized for his transgressions. Integrity: he's stiffed countless
businesses, small and large; he's been sued by his own lawyers for non-payment. Character: he
behaves like a child, 'nuff said.
Corruption: his daddy illegally bailed him out of a financial jam; Trump's foundation makes
the Clintons' look legit by comparison.
With HRC, the GOP had a huge chance to take back the WH: she has plenty of genuine baggage
to go along with the made-up stuff. However the GOP managed to nominate the one candidate who
makes her transgressions appear tolerable. The end result is that a significant number of moderate
Republicans are supporting no one, Johnson, or even HRC. Trump is so toxic that very few progressive
Dems will stray from HRC, despite being horrified by her corporate connections.
Re today: The FBI is not investigating her server. Servers don't send emails on their own. They
are investigating Hillary Clinton. They just don't like to say that. I wonder if it's in order
to – once again – announce Hillary's "innocence," just before the end of early voting and voting
day. We'll see.
For those interested in a functional government, note that this is three straight elections
– over twelve years – where the incoming president is a priori deemed illegitimate, regardless
of the scale of the victory, and the opposing political party has no interest in working with
that president.
In fact, some senators and representatives (Cruz, Gowdy, Issa, etc.) seem to take joy and pride
in noting the extent and length of these investigations, regardless of what they find. It is the
very process of governmental obstruction they seek, not necessarily justice or truth.
Could we have a new historic first if Hillary wins, the First Woman President to be impeached
by Congress? And the first couple in the history of the Republic to both be impeached?
At some point the Republicans have to be for something. I suppose they will be tempted to go after
Ms. Clinton for what she has elided or attempted to, but I think that is a major mistake. You
wrote: "Yet the hostility Clinton would face the day she takes office would almost seem to ensure
four years of pure hell.
The reason: her credibility, or rather her transparent lack of it."
There are a few assumptions in this – first, that any investigations into her past behavior
will be impartial. True or not, the impression will be hard to pull off – I expect they will easily
be framed as misogynist. And some most likely will be, so it takes a bit of thought and study
to determine which are motivated by misogyny and which are not. News cycles are too fast for that
sort of reflection, and in any event more or less all the major papers and television networks
are in her camp, so can't really expect journalism out of them anymore. It will be a called a
misogynist, partisan investigation and that will be the end of it.
Second, it assumes that the people doing the investigation have credibility. That's a big if
– the GOP went from Bush 43's two terms of military adventurism, increasing income inequality
and economic catastrophe to no introspection or admission of error in the ensuing 8 years of apparently
mindless, vindictive opposition. That is a long time of being kind of – well – less than thoughtful.
And it's had tremendous costs. Mr. Obama presents as a decent man in his profiles, but he was
very inexperienced when elected and in my opinion has more or less been bumbling around for almost
8 years now, kind of like Clouseau in those old Pink Panther movies. Only a lot of people of died,
lost their homes or have seen their communities consumed by despair. Government has been very
ineffective for many Americans, and the Republicans have a lot to answer for with the way they've
chosen to spend their time and direct their energy over the last 8 years. It's been a waste going
after Obama, and going after Clinton will just be more of the same.
And the last assumption is that with all that might be going on in the next few years, this
is important. Ms. Clinton has made some statements, some good, some bad. The bad, though, are
remarkably bad – she's for invading a Middle Eastern country and establishing control over their
airspace, as an example. In 2017. It's pure crazy. She has Democratic support. Hate to think if
she is elected the Republicans will be focusing on email.
Instead, there's the very real possibility that as millennials age, they are less apt to stomach
a thing called hope. The Obama presidency did not usher in a new age of cooperation. Nancy Pelosi and
John Boehner did not announce they would be going on a nationwide concert tour performing the hits of
the Carpenters.
Racial tension, climate change, gun violence, terrorism, and poverty persist. Easy answers do
not exist, and even if they did, they wouldn't be coming from one of the two major political parties
– groups often more concerned with their own survival than practical solutions to tangible issues. As
the global situation appears to become more and more hopeless – thanks to actual horrors, plus the media
saturation that occurs after every tragedy, which amplifies our malaise – it should come as no surprise
that millennials as a group and the nation at large disagree on how to turn things around.
Consensus might just be a thing of the past; MTV is far from the unchallenged thought leader for
American youth. What this election might be remembered for is the moment when the American political
system became so ossified and incapable of solutions that we decided, at last, to junk it and start
from scratch.
"... In Germany, some 60 percent of A.F.D. supporters say globalization has "mainly negative" effects. We live in a world, the liberal British historian Timothy Garton Ash noted lately, "which would have Marx rubbing his hands with Schadenfreude." ..."
"... When Hillary Clinton calls half of Mr. Trump's voters a "basket of deplorables," she sounds as aloof as Marie Antoinette, telling French subjects who had no bread to "eat cake." ..."
HAMBURG, Germany - We have a word in German, "Wutbürger," which means "angry citizen" - though
like many German compound words, its meaning can never quite be captured in a pithy English translation.
And yet nothing in either language quite frames this current political moment.
It is a relatively new expression, with a derogatory connotation. A Wutbürger rages against a
new train station and tilts against
wind turbines . Wutbürgers came out in protest after the Berlin government decided to bail out
Greece and to accept roughly one million refugees and migrants into Germany.
Wutbürgers lie at both ends of the political spectrum; they flock to the right-wing Alternative
für Deutschland (A.F.D.) and the socialist Linke (Left) Party. The left wing has long had a place
in German politics, and the Linke has deep roots in the former East Germany's ruling party. And we've
had a fringe right wing since the postwar period began. But the populist anger of the A.F.D. is something
new: Anti-establishment, anti-European Union and anti-globalization, the A.F.D. didn't exist four
years ago. Today, 18 percent of Germans would consider voting for it.
The same thing is happening elsewhere in Europe: Many British Wutbürgers voted for Brexit. French
Wutbürgers will vote for Marine Le Pen's National Front. Perhaps the most powerful Wutbürger of them
all is Donald J. Trump.
Which raises the question: How was anger hijacked?
In its pure form, anger is a wonderful force of change. Just imagine a world without anger. In
Germany, without the anger of the labor movement, we would still have a class-based voting system
that privileged the wealthy, and workers would still toil 16 hours a day without pension rights.
Britain and France would still be ruled by absolute monarchs. The Iron Curtain would still divide
Europe, the United States would still be a British colony and its slaves could only dream of casting
a vote this Nov. 8.
Karl Marx was a Wutbürger. So were Montesquieu, William Wilberforce, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther
King Jr. and the tens of thousands of Eastern German protesters who brought down the
Berlin Wall in 1989.
Now: Compare these spirits to the current parties claiming to stand for necessary change. Mr.
Trump vs. Dr. King. Sadly, the leaders of today's Wutbürger movements never grasped the difference
between anger driven by righteousness and anger driven by hate.
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Anger works like gasoline. If you use it intelligently and in a controlled manner, you can move
the world. That's called progress. Or you just spill it about and ignite it, creating spectacular
explosions. That's called arson.
Unfortunately, a lack of maturity and prudence today exists among not just the new populist class,
but parts of the political establishment. The governing class needs to understand that just because
people are embittered and paranoid doesn't mean they don't have a case. A growing number of voters
are going into meltdown because they believe that politicians - and journalists - don't see what
they see.
Sure, the injustices they see are, in historical perspective, less stark and obvious than in the
days of Marx or King. The injustices of today are smaller, but they are more complex. And this is
what makes them all the more terrifying.
If John Steinbeck could travel the West today as he traveled America three generations ago, leaving
the highways to visit forgotten towns, documenting people's struggles as he did in "The Grapes of
Wrath,'' he would find much the same to write about. Globalization and its masters have capitalized
on enormous pay gaps between West and East, at a huge profit for them, and huge cost to others.
The upper class has gained much more from the internationalization of trade and finances than
the working class has, often in obscene ways. Bankers get bonuses despite making idiotic decisions
that trigger staggering losses. Giant enterprises like Facebook or Apple pay minimal taxes, while
blue-collar workers have to labor harder - even taking a second or third job - to maintain their
standard of living. And this is as true in Germany, France or Austria as it is in Ohio or Florida.
In Germany, some 60 percent of A.F.D. supporters say globalization has "mainly negative" effects.
We live in a world, the liberal British historian Timothy Garton Ash noted lately, "which would have
Marx rubbing his hands with Schadenfreude."
The grievances of white, often less-educated voters on both sides of the Atlantic are often dismissed
as xenophobic, simplistic hillbillyism. But doing so comes at a cost. Europe's traditional force
of social change, its social democrats, appear to just not get it. When Hillary Clinton calls half
of Mr. Trump's voters a "basket of deplorables," she sounds as aloof as Marie Antoinette, telling
French subjects who had no bread to "eat cake." In Germany, a deputy Social Democrat leader, Ralf Stegner, displays a similar arrogance when he calls A.F.D. supporters "racists" and "skunks." Media
reports often convey the same degree of contempt.
In Germany a recent poll showed that only 14 percent of the citizens trusted the politicians.
This is an alarming figure, in a country where faith in a progressive, democratic government has
been a cornerstone of our postwar peace. But this presumes that legitimate anger will be acknowledged
as such. If this faith is rattled, democracy loses its basic promise.
Amid their mutual finger-pointing, neither populist nor established parties acknowledge that both
are squandering people's anger, either by turning this anger into counterproductive hatred or by
denouncing and dismissing it. Mrs. Clinton has the chance to change, by leading a political establishment
that examines and processes anger instead of merely producing and dismissing it. If she does, let's
hope Europe once again looks to America as a model for democracy.
Jochen Bittner is a political editor for the weekly newspaper Die Zeit and a contributing
opinion writer. Follow The New York Times Opinion section on
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Twitter , and sign up for the
Opinion Today newsletter
.
Instead, there's the very real possibility that as millennials age, they are less apt
to stomach a thing called hope. The Obama presidency did not usher in a new age of
cooperation. Nancy Pelosi and John Boehner did not announce they would be going on a
nationwide concert tour performing the hits of the Carpenters.
Racial tension, climate change, gun violence, terrorism, and poverty persist. Easy
answers do not exist, and even if they did, they wouldn't be coming from one of the
two major political parties – groups often more concerned with their own survival
than practical solutions to tangible issues. As the global situation appears to
become more and more hopeless – thanks to actual horrors, plus the media saturation
that occurs after every tragedy, which amplifies our malaise – it should come as no
surprise that millennials as a group and the nation at large disagree on how to turn
things around.
Consensus might just be a thing of the past; MTV is far from the unchallenged
thought leader for American youth. What this election might be remembered for is the
moment when the American political system became so ossified and incapable of
solutions that we decided, at last, to junk it and start from scratch.
I thought I'd never say this, but Glenn
Beck gave a very thoughtful interview with Charley Rose last night. He raised a lot of issues that
the other Glenn (Glenn Greenwald) has been raising --
the moral bankruptcy of each political
party and the tendency of each to attack the other for things that they themselves would deny, excuse,
and say that it doesn't
matter when their own party does it.
Glenn is not supporting Trump. But he gives the example
of the many Republicans who viciously attacked Bill Clinton for his sexual behavior but now deny,
excuse and say that it doesn't matter when Trump does it.
The flip side, of course, is found with the many Democrats who viciously attack Trump but denied,
excused, and said that it didn't matter when Bill Clinton did it.
Glenn says that to restore trust with the American people, both parties need to clean their
houses and become parties that put laws and principles first, which implies criticizing their own
instead of shielding them when they misbehave.
The for-profit media thrive and depend on controversy and generally
content that is emotionally engaging. Racism is only a small
part of it, it is much more broadly appealing - it is essentially
"addressing", channeling, amplifying, and redirecting existing
grievances of a large part of the public. If economy and society
would be doing great and a large majority of people would be
happy/contented, these anger-based media formats wouldn't find
an audience.
The same underlying causes as the success of Trump.
The reason why he can maintain considerable success despite of
grave shortcomings is because he continues to be a channel for
the anger that is not disappearing. (With the support of the
media, who are also interested in an ongoing controversy with
details as scandalous as possible.)
"... This outcome has an objective character. The two-party system is a political monopoly of the capitalist class. Both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party are political instruments of big business. The claims of Bernie Sanders and his pseudo-left apologists that it is possible to reform or pressure the Democrats-and even carry out a "political revolution" through it-have proven to be lies ..."
"The 2016 election campaign was dominated for many months by explosive popular disaffection with
the whole political and corporate establishment. But it has concluded in a contest between two candidates
who personify that establishment-one a billionaire from the criminal world of real-estate swindling,
the other the consensus choice of the military-intelligence apparatus and Wall Street.
This outcome has an objective character. The two-party system is a political monopoly of the
capitalist class. Both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party are political instruments of
big business. The claims of Bernie Sanders and his pseudo-left apologists that it is possible to
reform or pressure the Democrats-and even carry out a "political revolution" through it-have proven
to be lies."
"... The establishment GOP and establishment DNC have become almost identical in their support of big banks, big corporations, and extremely hawkish overseas military policies. Favorites of the top 10% in the US. ..."
"... The biggest reason why it kicked this cycle. Historically only the bottom 20% or so have been heavily exploited. After 8 years of net loss (economic growth < population growth), almost everyone outside the elites of society are feeling the pinch. ..."
"... There's British voters that claim Hillary Clinton would be a Tory there for example. ..."
"... One specific example would be immigration, where voters don't agree with the Republican position on hardline enforcement of the law, nor with the Democratic position on continuing to expand immigration and granting legal status to those who have come illegally. ..."
"... The government bailouts from the banking crash of 2007-8 really kickstarted the angry voter here in the U.S. ..."
"... For the record, Sanders voted against the bank bailout. Obama and Clinton voted for it. Trump was not an elected official at the time of course. And Cruz was not yet in the Senate, but voter anger over items like this propelled him there. ..."
"... A part of what you describe is due to the capture of the state and media by a modern clerisy, all clinging to power by chasing the same (presumed centrist) voter. Voter disgust at this class and their short-sighted decisions is fully understandable. ..."
"... voting for a candidate who signals a Left/Right wing inclination (Clinton, NuLabour, Trump?) but has no intention of delivering - is a deliberate and willful disenfranchisement of the voter. ..."
It's a bigly trend
with enormous consequences for fiscal and monetary policy. But the rise of voter rage in advanced
democracies is a hard narrative to chart, what with the lack of data and the abundance of anecdote.
However, this seems a pretty decent attempt:
That's from Barclay's Marvin Barth - who has set out to measure "voter rage as a drop in the combined
vote share of the centre-right and centre-left parties as voters shift to parties that they believe
better reflect their frustrations," in a 73-page note.
And the exercise perhaps demonstrates that Brexit wasn't much of an exception after all:
Interesting/telling that commodity exporters such as Norway and Australia bucked the general trend,
no? Although you have to wonder how long that will last as the commodity boom fades.
Another interesting question ( asked by Joseph, with his hat on as Southern Africa correspondent
): is South Africa - where unemployment is over 30 per cent and the economy is really feeling
the pain of the commodity bust - part of the politics of rage?
The rising number of violent
'service delivery protests' and the current unrest on university campuses both suggest that South
Africa could be. On the other hand, in party politics itself, one curious thing about the fracturing
of the African National Congress is that there hasn't been more support for radical alternatives.
There are the Economic Freedom Fighters of course - but the party didn't do well enough capture
any municipalities in recent local elections. The centre-focused Democratic Alliance took the prizes
instead. Disaffected ANC voters are if anything staying home instead. Of course South Africa is full
of political risk in several other ways. But it may be an interesting exception to the voter rage
narrative.
Anyway, elsewhere, in European democracies, Barclays say that the drop in centre-party support
has actually been more like a collapse :
Greece (GR), perhaps unsurprisingly, has had roughly a 50pp drop in its centre vote share on
all three measures. But the 44-64pp drop in Austria (AT) is more shocking. In relative terms,
the 24-37pp drop in the Netherlands (NL) is even more startling given that the centre vote share
rarely ever has topped 50%; similarly striking is the 15-22pp drop in Belgium (BE), a country
famous for its linguistically divided parliament. Even in countries that traditionally have fewer
competitive parties, the declines have been large: Germany (DE) 20-27pp, France (FR) 18-32pp,
and Spain (ES) 15-28pp.
The broad-based decline also is unprecedented. Figure 3 charts a time series of the centre
vote share in advanced economies, grouped by type, from 1970 to the present. While there has been
a longer-term trend of mild erosion, a cross-country collapse in the political centre of the current
scale has not occurred previously. Reviewing the entire post-WWII period, there is no other similar
event. Nor was such a wide-ranging drop in the political centre visible during the inter-war,
Great Depression years.
… Figure 3 and Figure 4 also highlight another noteworthy point: voter rage does not seem to
be due (solely) to severe economic distress, contrary to one popular notion. Not only did the
Great Depression fail to provoke a similar collapse in the political centre among ongoing democracies
in the 1930s, but the current bout of political rage appears to pre-date the Global Financial
Crisis (GFC). As Figure 3 shows, the peak in the centre vote share was 2008 for Southern Europe,
but in the US, non-euro area Europe and the northern euro area, the deterioration of the political
centre began in 2003-05.
There's more in
the usual place for those that want it, as we're loath to rerun the full list of potential reasons
for this phenomenon here. Demographics, globalisation, xenophobia all get an airing and all get assigned
to a "yeah, probably, but where does one begin and another end" bucket.
For what it's worth, Barc's underlying contention is that the "biggest source of voter rage appears
to be a sense of economic and political disenfranchisement due to imperfect representation in national
governments and delegation of sovereignty to supranational and intergovernmental organizations."
Apparently 16 of 17 parties Barc looked at demanded "greater protection of, or retaking of, national
sovereignty."
Taking back control is more universal a wish than you might have imagined. It doesn't make
you very confident about globalisation's fate.
In the other direction, Barc suggest "the label 'populist' does not appear to fit the economic
policies of a majority of the parties challenging the political centre." Also in that direction,
"redistribution and corporate taxation, issues closely related to anger over increasing income inequality
appear to be lower-order campaign issues for most alternative parties even if it is of primary importance
for the remainder."
It all seems plausible enough as theories go, but we reserve the right to grab on to any other
narrative that comes along and which does a better job of grouping together what is a large number
of competing, non-mutually exclusive, narratives. Tracking voter-to-party preferences in immigration,
free trade, inequality (and so on) yield confusing results and, anyway, it seems unlikely to us that
party policy as presented is always fully understood or taken at face value by supporters.
Still, Barc themselves are humble about the data being used here and say they are "left to use
logic and narrative to analyse numerous bivariate relationships" and the direction of causality is
often impossible to determine.
In short, this is a worthy exercise - but handle with care.
10 hours ago
Interesting too that the decline from Chart 5
seems to coincide with the emergence and growth of the world wide web and the many distinct/fractious
perspectives and opinions instead of the more consensual/centralized editorial hubs typical of the
previous "age". Also- it seems the concept of "enlightened self-interest" has been displaced a more
dog-eat-dog-materialism where the winner takes all. The roots of rebellion and revolution have not
changed so it is good to see some thought by a "winning" organization is seeking an explanation.
Pi1010 5pts Featured
11 hours ago
Entrenched political alignment does not change much within a population, left and right winged-ness
follows a normal distribution. Around the early 80's political parties got scientific and professional,
they realised they only needed to win over the centrally minded swing voters but could ignore those
outside the center who would vote for them anyway. At the same time politicians became stage managed
by their media minders, Tony Blair being the master of this.
Voters outside the center, taken for granted have gone elsewhere and also find the rare genuine
politician appealing (Farage, Trump, Sanders, Corbyn). If voter rage is a problem, and I'm not convinced
it is, then mainstream parties need to broaden their appeal away from the center, they won't though
in case they lose to the other side, prisoners dilemma indeed.
The late Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky apparently proposed to Vladimir Putin that the oligarchs
fund and control two parties, which would play out bitterly contested elections, while the same
groups kept control behind the scenes. Putin in the end betrayed the oligarchs for his conception
of Russian national interest (which may still involve oligarchs).
As Russia Insider noted
"(In) the U.S we have two capitalist parties that largely agree on everything. The exceptions
are issues that matter a lot to the regular people who make up the two parties' bases, but are largely
irrelevant to party elites who fund and run both of them."
Which is why Trump, an outsider who cares about these issues, Is Literally Hitler as far as the
corporate media are concerned, and why the DNC cheated Sanders.
In defense of labantall. First, the earlier citation of Frost was apposite; thought-provoking,
if not completely convincing. Second, that both of the 2 parties are (usually) professional and (possibly)
competent servants of their (admittedly disparate sets of) clients ought not be in dispute.
The alleged
Russian plan would be a sham, in that the clientele of the 2 parties would be the same - which is
not the case in America - but I defend the observation as germane, even if it is fallacious in fact.
The Russians just don't get it, and why would that be a surprise. I don't agree that Trump gets bad
press only because he is an outsider, I think he's doing himself in; but that's not an absurd opinion.
Regardless of the source.... The analysis is largely correct.
The establishment GOP and establishment DNC have become almost identical in their support of big
banks, big corporations, and extremely hawkish overseas military policies. Favorites of the top 10%
in the US.
Simultaneous, anti-establishment movements happened in both primaries (Sanders & Trump). While "The
Wall" stands as very different as a policy, both candidates agreed on some big issues impacting the
bulk of the american populace such as,
Mass immigration = Wage suppression
Banks are too big. Sanders advocates the re-imposition of Glass Stegall
The biggest reason why it kicked this cycle. Historically only the bottom 20% or so have been
heavily exploited. After 8 years of net loss (economic growth < population growth), almost everyone
outside the elites of society are feeling the pinch.
@ Londo
@ Paul Murphy
@ rj1
@ labantall
As the child of Labour-voting parents in the Eisenhower era, both US parties seemed
pretty much alike to me. So when my aunt who lived in the US came over to visit, I asked her why
they had two such similar parties?
She replied "Because every office door has an inside and an outside..."
Russia Insider is a website run by Western expats in Russia. I suppose it could be a fake site.
I just found it by googling "Berezovsky two parties". You can find the original Berezovsky interview
by Masha Gessen, who is as far from a Putin mouthpiece as you can get.
"The idea that US democrats and republicans largely agree on everything is absurd"
I think you have to distinguish between those at the top of the parties (and their funders) and
the rank and file.
Thanks to those commenters who defended my right to a different opinion ;-)
@ labantall
@ Paul Murphy
Erm, the Dems and GOP are so in agreement we've had close to legislative grid-lock
for the past eight years. All this wing-nuttery about global elites being in bed with the media,
keeping a boot on the throat of the common man, etc etc, doesn't really have a place here on FTAV.
So take a rest from this post -- and the site -- please.
Not convinced that they can quantify this accurately. Assessing the vote of "centre-x" parties
is both highly subjective, and also affected by longer-term trends in the parties themselves.
Just to take the example of the UK. You might argue that the rise of UKIP, and perhaps the Green
party, reflected an increased vote for more extreme parties. But maybe it reflected instead a move
to the centre ground by the two main parties (big tents re-pitched so they no longer cover the extremes).
Both Labour and the Conservatives have dramatically shifted positions over the years, in both
directions. Was Michael Foot's Labout party a "centre-left" party? Were Michael Howard's Conservatives
"centre-right"? I am sure for the purposes of this analysis, the answer was "yes" both times, but
I would answer with two "no"s.
@ Pharma
The terms themselves lose meaning when we go to a country-by-country basis. There's
British voters that claim Hillary Clinton would be a Tory there for example.
I've always wished someone could break down for me the difference between center, center-right,
right, and far-right (ditto moving left) as 4 separate viewpoints.
Hmm. 'New Podesta Email Exposes Playbook For Rigging Polls Through "Oversamples"' on Zero Hedge
seems to have more than one million page views at the moment.
The U.S. numbers are a bit misleading, since significant numbers of independent voters are
actually in between the two parties on political views.
One specific example would be immigration, where voters don't agree with the Republican position
on hardline enforcement of the law, nor with the Democratic position on continuing to expand immigration
and granting legal status to those who have come illegally.
Hence, a lot of independent voters are up for grabs by whichever party happens to strike a more
moderate tone. The challenge for the parties is in getting moderate candidates through the primary
process, which of late has been dominated by hardliners and party loyalists who are not in tune with
the general public's views (hence how both parties succeeded in nominating the candidate with the
lowest favorability rating).
Along with economic and political disenfranchisement (see the billionaires response "Guess
it takes a study to point out the obvious" to research concluding the US is no longer a democracy)
don't forget demographic disenfranchisement.
As the Canadian anthropologist Peter Frost puts it :
"In late capitalism, the elites are no longer restrained by ties of national identity and are
thus freer to enrich themselves at the expense of their host society. This clash of interests lies
at the heart of the globalist project: on the one hand, jobs are outsourced to low-wage countries;
on the other, low-wage labor is insourced for jobs that cannot be relocated, such as in the construction
and service industries. This two-way movement redistributes wealth from owners of labor to owners of capital. Business people
benefit from access to lower-paid workers and weaker labor and environmental standards. Working people
are meanwhile thrown into competition with these other workers. As a result, the top 10% of society
is pulling farther and farther ahead of everyone else, and this trend is taking place throughout
the developed world. The rich are getting richer … not by making a better product but by making the
same product with cheaper and less troublesome inputs of labor."
In order for a government to achieve anything constructive, a significant proportion of the
population have to reach broad agreement on what policies are desirable, and what means of implementing
them are acceptable. The political centre is where this broad agreement normally occurs.
We appear to have entered a period where a majority of the population can agree on what they don't
like (banker/CEO salaries, zero-hour contracts, housing shortage), but cannot agree on policies to
expunge these outrages from our society. This fills me with foreboding.
@ Patience
Well, in the United States, for the first time ever, entitlement "reform" was not
an issue during a presidential campaign. Trump has vowed to not touch Medicare or Social Security,
while HRC has promised to perhaps enhance both entitlement programs.
I believe that a consensus has developed in the United States that, due to income inequality,
th budget for entitlement programs must be increased, not "streamlined".
Regardless of what happens in two weeks, I doubt that a GOP presidential nominee can ever run
on a platform to "reform" entitlement programs.
The government bailouts from the banking crash
of 2007-8 really kickstarted the angry voter here in the U.S. Don't know if you can ever find an
identifiable cause across multiple democracies, but that's a key one common to the U.S. and Europe.
For the record, Sanders voted against the
bank bailout. Obama and Clinton voted for it. Trump was not an elected official at the time of course.
And Cruz was not yet in the Senate, but voter anger over items like this propelled him there.
" issues closely related to anger over increasing income inequality appear to be lower-order campaign
issues for most alternative parties "
This is because the f**k-witted managerial metropolitan centrists (as exemplified by the FT) fail
to realise that income inequality (poverty) is seen as analogous to 'immigration' because right wing
parties hijack the agenda and centrist governments are either 1) monumentally incompetent or 2) wholly
captured by financial interests. (the answer is '2' btw)
What people see are bankers back to getting paid millions, house prices rocketing out of any normal
persons reach, wages stagnating and immigrants flooding in. Their lives are half what they used to
be and the real, actual ignoramuses - politicians and media - sneer at people and telling them that
_they_ are ignorant.
'Dont believe your own eyes or experiences - believe us - youre worthless and ignorant'. . If
this occured in a soap opera there'd be an outcry. Its the mantra of the abuser, writ national.
And applauded by the FT.
What youre observing is an economic revolt against the Reification Fallacy promulgated and promoted
by the media.
Economic models are notional constructs, they are neither real nor accurate. By messing around
with the management of the country these bull*hit artists have cost ordinary people a decade of their
productive lives. Enough is enough.
People dont realise why this has happened but when they do - when its explained to them properly
that a combination of 'professionals' fixated on imaginary models (how is this different from a mental
illness?) and 'regulatory capture' (corruption) by financial interests has made them homeless/pensionless/savingsless
there will be wholesale revolt.
In addition, the increasingly shrill and unhinged demonisation by politicians and the media of
peoples correctly expressed (if wrongly rooted) frustrations is evidence that the establishment realise
their error. Yet they _still_ refuse to call for or enact a reversal of the Odious policies they
operate!
Looking forward to the Austrian election re-run and the Italian referendum, on top of general
elections across Europe next year, I can only quote a recent noble laureate 'I dont need a weatherman
to know which way the wind blows'
(And I dont need a bank or a newspaper to tell me either.)
@ ceraunavolta
I find these ideas about RWAs and the order/authoritarian openness axis very
unsavoury. To me it just looks like de-humanising pejorative tribalism/categorisation dressed
up as quantitative/objective analysis. A world neatly divided between nice clever open outward
looking groovy people (like US) and horrid narrow-minded inward looking vengeful people (like
THEM).
This stuff is surely skirting the borders of medicalising dissent – which seldom ends well.
Also – it's pretty lightweight if you think about it for more than about thirty seconds: On Brexit,
for example, it surely could be argued that, for some, supporting continued EU membership actually
represented a vote *for* order and an expression of a lack of openness to the possibility of change.
Surely one person's order can be another's chaos – and one person's perception of what is 'other'
can be another person's 'familiar' – so even if there is an intrinsic and fixed difference between
people in their preference for order or openness you wouldn't necessarily expect such an intrinsic
bias to be strongly predicative on any binary issue unless everyone's circumstances were the same
(with regards to what for them constituted 'order' and 'other').
I'm wondering if anyone's looked for evidence of a distinct personality type (perhaps at higher
prevalence among academics) characterised by an over willingness to believe that people are automaton-like
with inflexible fixed character traits (a view of humanity which, as it happens, is conveniently
susceptible to simple numerical modelling and the production of impressive looking true-because-numbers/sciencey
graphs)?
I'm thinking we could call such people NHDs – 'naive human determinists' or possibly 'numerical human
determinists'?
Excellent – I applaud your caution/scepticism David.
Could it perhaps be that the reason the 'rise of the angry voter' is hard to chart is because
it is not actually an independently identifiable thing? Most people, on all sides, tend to try lazily
to medicalise/infantilise people who don't agree with them as being stupid, ill-educated/over-educated,
indoctrinated by the evil media (left-wing or right-wing media respectively), angry/complacent, left-behind-socially-excluded/out-of-touch-wealthy-elitists
and/or suffering from cognitive biases etc. Everyone but themselves, apparently, is susceptible to
these sorts of factors – but I think it is basically pretty lazy (and dangerous!) for people to try
to 'metta' out of (often difficult, complicated, non-simple right/wrong goody/baddy) arguments over
the actual issues, and instead go for a kind of class-action-ad-hominem 'you only think that because
you are this-that-or-the-other'.
From a parochial perspective, back in the eighties, the 'variance' of mainstream politics in the
UK was massive – people like Norman Tebbit on the one hand, and Michael Foot on the other were mainstream
political figures – there was a massive absence of consensus. There was a lot of anger. The anger,
presumably, was a *downstream* consequence of the realities. By the standards of the subsequent anodyne
managerialist political/media merry-go-round we'd arrived at by the mid 2000s the gulf across the
entire mainstream of UK politics was virtually infinitesimally small by comparison. Things have started
to heat up again. This is all part of the process. This is how it is supposed to work. It ebbs and
it flows – I imagine – for good reason. I'm inclined to think that trying to identify some sort of
new thing – 'identity politics' or 'the new politics of rage' is mostly just displacement behaviour
by people who, for a variety of reasons, don't really want to get their hands dirty with the real
issues.
I remember, I think it was Peter Mandelson, said back during the New Labour years something like
'politics doesn't really matter when times are good'. I think perhaps some people are starting to
discover (some of them for the first time in their lives) why it is that we actually have politics.
I think the SA example from Joseph is also very good – it illustrates that 'things are complicated'
and that simple 'narratives' are no substitute for actually being on the ground and trying to understand
what's actually going on.
@ Skwosh
A part of what you describe is due to the capture of the state and media by a modern
clerisy, all clinging to power by chasing the same (presumed centrist) voter. Voter disgust at this
class and their short-sighted decisions is fully understandable.
@ DaniaDelendaEst
@ Skwosh
I'd briefly add that voting for a candidate who signals a Left/Right wing inclination
(Clinton, NuLabour, Trump?) but has no intention of delivering - is a deliberate and willful disenfranchisement
of the voter.
I don't disagree – and I take the point made by you and other commenters about 'chasing the centre
ground' in political/electoral strategy – but I'm not so sure it is avoidable. For sure, when the
electoral conditions are right then you can win by appealing to a small number of often centrist
swing voters, but it only works *if* those conditions already exist – and when those conditions exist
then people who use that strategy will prevail and get to make policy (inclined to pander to the
centre) – and if they instead fall on their swords and decided to loose honourably then another,
different (and possibly less honourable) lot will play to the centre ground and win instead. It works
until it doesn't. I grant that this approach is likely to end up going on for too long, allowing
polarization and genuine disenfranchisement to build – but I think this is unfortunately all part
of the process – one of the unavoidable costs of democracy's least-worst-ness. These electoral conditions
wax and wane – there is only so far-apart or ill-balanced the political spectrum can get before there
is no centre that can swing it. When it breaks – when the centre cannot (and probably should not)
hold any longer then the particular reasons for this will presumably be many, varied, complicated
and messy in any given instance and at any given point in political history – difficult to generalise
about – and difficult to unify into a single 'narrative'.
I am certainly not saying that there is no anger or disgust – and I'm not saying that these things
are not justified. That there is anger and disgust is part of why things are heating up politically
– and this is as it should be; this is what shifts a consensus that may have outlived its utility
and/or establishes a new consensuses in an area where there was none before. During the transition
such processes are inevitably shouty. My problem is with the idea that the 'anger' or the 'disgust'
is somehow the causative thing that is making politics all 'freaky'. For one thing I don't really
accept that politics has yet become *that* freaky (yet anyway). It is certainly freakier than of
late, but I think some people need to get out more (in terms of historical perspective) if they think
that this sort of thing is somehow unprecedented. It seems obvious to me that the anger and disgust
is an inevitable consequence of the underlying grievances that people have – so if someone wants
to understand 'what is going on' then they need to look at these underlying grievances rather than
trying to understand it all in terms of being 'anger-driven'. Anger is something people naturally
feel and express when they're unhappy about stuff and/or they think they (or others) are being treated
unfairly, marginalised, patronised etc. (not that I'm implying either of you would disagree with
this).
"... My impression is that Trump_vs_deep_state is more about dissatisfaction of the Republican base with the Republican brass (which fully endorsed neoliberal globalization), the phenomenon somewhat similar to Sanders. ..."
"... Working class and lower middle class essentially abandoned DemoRats (Clinton democrats) after so many years of betrayal and "they have nowhere to go" attitude. ..."
"... Now they try to forge the alliance of highly paid professionals who benefitted from globalization("creative class"), financial speculators and minorities. Which does not look like a stable coalition to me. ..."
"... In other words both Parties are now split and have two mini-parties inside. I am not sure that Sanders part of Democratic party would support Hillary. The wounds caused by DNC betrayal and double dealing are still too fresh. ..."
"... We have something like what Marxists call "revolutionary situation" when the elite loses control of "peons". And existence of Internet made MSM propaganda far less effective that it would be otherwise. That's why they resort to war propaganda tricks. ..."
"That's not untrue, but it seems to me to be getting worse."
Because of economic stagnation and anxiety among lower class Republicans. Trump blames immigration
and trade unlike traditional elite Republicans. These are economic issues.
Trump supporters no longer believe or trust the Republican elite who they see as corrupt
which is partly true. They've been backing Nixon, Reagan, Bush etc and things are just getting
worse. They've been played.
Granted it's complicated and partly they see their side as losing and so are doubling down
on the conservatism, racism, sexism etc. But Trump *brags* that he was against the Iraq war.
That's not an elite Republican opinion.
likbez -> DrDick... , -1
My impression is that Trump_vs_deep_state is more about dissatisfaction of the Republican base with the Republican
brass (which fully endorsed neoliberal globalization), the phenomenon somewhat similar to Sanders.
Working class and lower middle class essentially abandoned DemoRats (Clinton democrats) after
so many years of betrayal and "they have nowhere to go" attitude.
Looks like they have found were to go this election cycle and this loss of the base is probably
was the biggest surprise for neoliberal Democrats.
Now they try to forge the alliance of highly paid professionals who benefitted from globalization("creative
class"), financial speculators and minorities. Which does not look like a stable coalition to
me.
Some data suggest that among unions which endorsed Hillary 3 out of 4 members will vote against
her. And that are data from union brass. Lower middle class might also demonstrate the same pattern
this election cycle.
In other words both Parties are now split and have two mini-parties inside. I am not sure that
Sanders part of Democratic party would support Hillary. The wounds caused by DNC betrayal and
double dealing are still too fresh.
We have something like what Marxists call "revolutionary situation" when the elite loses control
of "peons". And existence of Internet made MSM propaganda far less effective that it would be
otherwise. That's why they resort to war propaganda tricks.
More stupidity. First off, the American elite (like all elites) is far from unitary and most of them back Republicans, though
they hedge their bets by also supporting centrist Democrats.
I would submit that there are very few voters that will vote from Clinton because of this "cold war rhetoric" schtick. Greenwald
keeps falling and cannot get up.
ilsm -> EMichael...
Few "will [move the] vote from Clinton because of this "cold war rhetoric" schtick.
Those "few" were awake during the 80's and see the nuclear/neocon dystopian horror behind Clinton. While Trump mentioned
using nukes, Hillary's nuke policy is 'well' laid out by Robert Kagan and the hegemon interests.
Recall Mao said "go ahead......' Nukes are just another form of the pointless body count strategy.
likbez -> ilsm...
Like before WWI, Hillary might be "a symptom of degenerate [neoliberal] aristocracy clinging to irresponsible power." Gen. Butler,
"War Is A Racket." is still a classic book on the subject.
All war is for profit. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were fought for profit. The profit from Iraqi oil and whatever was
expected from Afghanistan were irrelevant. Weapons of mass destruction, the Taliban, even Isis, were and are all issues that
could have been more efficiently handled, but instead were pretexts to convince the credulous of the necessity of war.
The real profit was the profit taken by the military-political-industrial complex in the treasure and stolen rights of the
American people. That is the bottom line for why we went to war, and why we are still there, and why, if our elites persist,
we might go to war with Russia or China.
The good news is that, because of the unrelenting depredations by American elites on the treasure and rights of the people,
the United States is increasingly unable to wage war effectively. The bad news is that our elites are too blind to see this.
America: Consuming your future today.
====
Peter T 10.23.16 at 8:56 am
faustusnotes
fear of "socialism" – meaning, broadly, greater popular participation in politics – was explicitly a major factor in the
German and Russian decisions for war. In both cases, they hoped victory would shore up increasingly fragile conservative dominance.
It also underlay British and French attitudes. 1870-1914 was a very stressful time for elites.
1915 was too early for any of the combatants to settle. By mid-late 1916 there were some voices in favour of negotiations,
but the Germans would have none of it then or in 1917. By the time the Germans were prepared to talk (mid 1918), they had lost.
Fear of socialism was again a major factor in the post-war settlements.
Liberals of today see World War I as the great disaster that shattered the pre-war liberal order. In the same way, the generation
post 1815 saw the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars as the great disaster that shattered the happy old order. The extent of the
damage and loss was much the same in each, although World War I took 5 years to do what the French wars did in 25.
===
Omega Centauri 10.23.16 at 1:13 am ( 33 )
The decision to continue it seems to be a natural consequence of the human proclivity towards doubling down. This operates
on many levels, some of which are related to the need for vindication of those involved in the decision to start the conflict.
There is also the horror that if you end a war without achieving something the masses can identify with as victory, then the
families of those killed will see that their loved ones died in vain -- for someone else's mistake (very bad for your political
future).
And of course if you quit, what is to stop the enemy from extracting reparations or worse from you, because in his eyes, you
are the criminal party. Much easier to try yet one more offensive, or to lure a formerly neutral party into joining in and opening
up another front, which you hope will break the stalemate.
The thing that appalls me so much about the Great War, is how so many nations were dragged in, by promises of booty
. In many ways it resembles the Peloponnisian war, in its inability to allow neutrals to be neutrals.
"... Continuing the war, once the bloodbath is underway and its futility is fully evident (which surely is objectively the case as early as 1915), seems to me to be the point where moral culpability on all sides applies most forcibly. ..."
"... It was a symptom of degenerate aristocracy clinging to irresponsible power. Continuing to turn the crank on the meat grinder without any realistic strategic hope or aim should have condemned the military establishment as well as the political establishment in several countries where it didn't. Hindenburg was there to appoint Hitler; Petain to surrender France. ..."
"... And, before the war? Are the arguments against war really connecting? ..."
"... That internationalist idea doesn't seem to survive the war's first hours, let alone first weeks. ..."
"... Universal conscription in France and Germany created a common experience. Several generations learned not so much the horror of mass slaughter as war as the instant of national glory in dramatic crises and short-lived conflicts with a decisive result. ..."
"... Certainly, there had been arguments made before the war and even several disparate political movements that had adopted ideas critical of imperialism by military means. I question, though, how engaged they were with mainstream politics of the day and therefore how fully developed we can say their ideas or arguments were. ..."
"... Consider the Hague Conferences of 1899 and 1907 as examples of the state of the practical politics of a program for peace. The first Conference was called by the Czar and the second by Theodore Roosevelt - no little irony in either case. ..."
"... the 1907 Conference as an illustration of the growing war fever gripping western (so-called) civilization, as many of the delegates apparently sat around discussing how they longed for a cleansing war. ..."
"... I cannot pretend to understand the psychology, but I accept that it was prevalent, as least for a certain class. Morally reprehensible this glorification of war? I certainly think so. Was it engaged by fully developed argument? When? ..."
"... It was against the background of this Great Game of elite diplomacy and saber-rattling and brief, limited wars that efforts had been made to erect an arguably more idealistic apparatus of liberal international peace thru international law, limitations of armaments and the creation of formal mechanisms for the arbitration of disputes. ..."
"... If this was the institutional program produced by "the fully developed and strongly argued" case against war, it wasn't that fully developed or strongly argued, as demonstrated by the severe shortcomings of the Hague Conferences. ..."
"... The consequences were horrific as mass mobilization and industrialized warfare combined with primitive means of command-and-control and reactionary often incompetent leadership to create a blood-bath of immense scale. (See my first comment.) ..."
The case against war was fully developed and strongly argued in the years before 1914 . . .
Was it? I wonder about that.
Continuing the war, once the bloodbath is underway and its futility is fully evident (which surely is objectively the case
as early as 1915), seems to me to be the point where moral culpability on all sides applies most forcibly. It is on this
point that I think arguments from before the war cannot have the weight the horror of experience must give them. Elite leadership
across Europe failed.
It was a symptom of degenerate aristocracy clinging to irresponsible power. Continuing to turn the crank on the meat grinder
without any realistic strategic hope or aim should have condemned the military establishment as well as the political establishment
in several countries where it didn't. Hindenburg was there to appoint Hitler; Petain to surrender France.
It is inexplicable, really, unless you can see that the moral and practical case against war is not fully developed between the
wars; if there's a critique that made use of experience in its details in the 1920s and 1930s and made itself heard, I missed
it - it seems like opposites of such an appreciation triumph.
And, before the war? Are the arguments against war really connecting? There's certainly a socialist argument against
war, based on the illegitimacy of war's class divisions, which were conveniently exemplified in military rank and reactionary
attitudes among the officer class. That internationalist idea doesn't seem to survive the war's first hours, let alone first
weeks.
Universal conscription in France and Germany created a common experience. Several generations learned not so much the horror
of mass slaughter as war as the instant of national glory in dramatic crises and short-lived conflicts with a decisive result.
bruce wilder 10.22.16 at 8:47 pm.26
Certainly, there had been arguments made before the war and even several disparate political movements that had adopted
ideas critical of imperialism by military means. I question, though, how engaged they were with mainstream politics of the day
and therefore how fully developed we can say their ideas or arguments were.
Consider the Hague Conferences of 1899 and 1907 as examples of the state of the practical politics of a program for peace.
The first Conference was called by the Czar and the second by Theodore Roosevelt - no little irony in either case.
Without looking it up I recall Barbara Tuchman using the 1907 Conference as an illustration of the growing war fever gripping
western (so-called) civilization, as many of the delegates apparently sat around discussing how they longed for a cleansing war.
I cannot pretend to understand the psychology, but I accept that it was prevalent, as least for a certain class. Morally
reprehensible this glorification of war? I certainly think so. Was it engaged by fully developed argument? When?
The long effort by reactionary forces to assemble a coalition capable of defeating Napoleon had created in Europe what for
a time was called the Concert of Europe. Austria, Prussia and Russia initially cooperated in suppressing liberal and nationalist
aspirations and that effort gradually morphed into efforts to harness or channel rising liberalism and nationalism and industrial
power.
It was the evolved apparatus descended from Metternich's Congress of Vienna thru Bismarck's Congress of Berlin that made wars
brief and generally decisive in regard to some policy end.
The long list of successive crises and brief wars that stevenjohnson references above - often cited as evidence of the increasing
fragility of the general peace - could just as well be cited as evidence for the continued effectiveness of the antique Concert
of Europe in containing and managing the risk of general war. (Fashoda 1898, Venezuela 1902, Russo-Japanese War 1905, Agadir 1911,
Balkan Wars 1911-1912 - it can be a very long list).
It was against the background of this Great Game of elite diplomacy and saber-rattling and brief, limited wars that efforts
had been made to erect an arguably more idealistic apparatus of liberal international peace thru international law, limitations
of armaments and the creation of formal mechanisms for the arbitration of disputes.
If this was the institutional program produced by "the fully developed and strongly argued" case against war, it wasn't
that fully developed or strongly argued, as demonstrated by the severe shortcomings of the Hague Conferences.
It was one of the mechanisms for peace by international law - the neutrality of Belgium mutually guaranteed by Britain and
Germany in the Treaty of London 1839 - that triggered Britain's entry as an Allied Power and general war. There is, of course,
no particular reason Australia should have taken an interest in Belgium's neutrality, but it was that issue that seemed to compel
the consensus of opinion in favor of war in Britain's government.
The consequences were horrific as mass mobilization and industrialized warfare combined with primitive means of command-and-control
and reactionary often incompetent leadership to create a blood-bath of immense scale. (See my first comment.)
What I don't find is the alternative lever or mechanism at the ready, put in place by this fully developed argument against
war. The mechanism in place was the neutrality of Belgium guaranteed by international law (arguably reinforced in the stipulations
of the Hague Conference of 1907). If Germany doesn't violate Belgian neutrality, the result in the West at least is stalemate
as France and Germany are evenly matched across their narrow and mostly impassable frontier; in the East, Russia must concede
to Germany even as Austria must concede to Russia; - instead of a general conflagration, the result is another negotiated settlement
of some sort, perhaps arbitrated by Britain or the U.S.
The urgent questions of the day regarding the organization of modern liberal polities in the territories of Ottoman Turkey,
Hapsburg Austria and Czarist Russia - what is the strongly argued and fully developed case there? How is the cause of Polish nationalism,
or Finnish nationalism or Yugoslav nationalism to be handled or managed without violence and war?
The antique system of a Concert of Europe had kinda sorta found a way by means of short and decisive engagements followed by
multi-power negotiation, a pattern that had continued with the gradual emergence of Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania. But, where was
the argument for managing irredentism and nationalist aspiration peacefully?
"... Obama said back in 2008: "I want to be honest, it's not as if it's just Republicans who have monkeyed around with elections in the past. Sometimes, Democrats have, too." ..."
"... hillary goes along with CIA and the neocon/zionist/MIC agenda but she's replaceable. ..."
"... An out of control, above the law, criminal mafia acting on behalf of the Saudis and Israelis (if you think Syria is about the petrodollar or a Qatari pipeline... Think again - it's about Iran and Russia and about Greater Israel and its Leviathan and Golan gas most of all - Zbig et al would prefer to be full battle rattle in Ukraine and Chechnya...) is stopped how? ..."
A U.K. based company that has provided voting machines for 16 states, including important battleground
states like Florida and Arizona, has direct ties with billionaire leftist and Clinton crusader George
Soros.
As Lifezette
reports , the fact that the man in control of voting machines in 16 states is tied directly to
the man who has given millions of dollars to the Clinton campaign and various progressive and globalist
causes will surely leave a bad taste in the mouth of many a voter.
The balloting equipment tied to Soros is coming from the U.K. based Smartmatic company, whose
chairman Mark Malloch-Brown is a former UN official and sits on the board of Soros' Open Society
Foundation.
According to Lifezette , Malloch-Brown was part of the Soros Advisory Committee on Bosnia and
also is a member of the executive committee of the International Crisis Group, an organization he
co-founded in the 1990s and built with funds from George Soros' personal fortune.
In 2007 Soros appointed Malloch-Brown vice-president of his Quantum Funds, vice-chairman of Soros
Fund Management, and vice-chairman of the Open Society Institute (former name of OSF).
Browns ties also intertwine with the Clintons as he was a partner with Sawyer-Miller, the consulting
firm where close Clinton associate Mandy Grunwald worked. Brown also was also a senior advisor to
FTI Consulting, a firm at which Jackson Dunn, who spent 15 years working as an aide to the Clintons,
is a senior managing director.
When taking that into account, along with the poor track record Smartmatic has of providing free
and fair elections, this all becomes quite terrifying.
An astonishing 2006 classified U.S. diplomatic cable obtained and released by WikiLeaks reveals
the extent to which Smartmatic may have played a hand in rigging the 2004 Venezuelan recall election
under a section titled "A Shadow of Fraud." The memo stated that "Smartmatic Corporation is a
riddle both in ownership and operation, complicated by the fact that its machines have overseen
several landslide (and contested) victories by President Hugo Chavez and his supporters."
"The Smartmatic machines used in Venezuela are widely suspected of, though never proven conclusively
to be, susceptible to fraud," the memo continued. "The Venezuelan opposition is convinced that
the Smartmatic machines robbed them of victory in the August 2004 referendum. Since then, there
have been at least eight statistical analyses performed on the referendum results."
"One study obtained the data log from the CANTV network and supposedly proved that the Smartmatic
machines were bi-directional and in fact showed irregularities in how they reported their results
to the CNE central server during the referendum," it read.
With such suspicion and a study which claims to prove that the U.K. firm's equipment tampered
with the 2004 Venezuelan recall election, should be enough for states to reject these machines if
they desire a fair election.
Smartmatic is providing machines to Arizona, California, Colorado, Washington DC, Florida, Illinois,
Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, Nevada, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Washington and
Wisconsin, which means these Soros and Clinton linked machines are going to take the votes of thousands
of Americans.
While GOP nominee Donald Trump has been voicing his opinion that the elections are indeed rigged
due to media bias, and the proof that
mainstream polls are heavily weighted to favor Clinton , it is needless to say that if the results
show Hillary as a winner in November, there is going to a mess to shuffle through to find signs of
honesty.
MSNBC are reporting that Hillary is absolutely surging and now leading by double digits! America
is going absolutely wild for Hillary!! This is very exciting – I can sense victory, and I see
that bitter right-wingers can sense defeat as they pre-emptively blame their loss on vote rigging.
There is no such thing as election rigging, unless we're talking about Al Gore losing to Bush
– there was clear evidence of rigging during this election. But Republicans are known for rigging
elections. Democrats have never, and will never rig an election.
Two words: PAPER BALLOTS!!! How anyone with 3 brain cells or more can't see that paper ballots
are the way to go when voting is beyond me. There is a paper trail, and they cannot be hacked.
They can be recounted. Machines are easily manipulated and there is NO PAPER trail to recount.
Use paper ballots and tell Gerge Soros to go fuck himself.
The Soros voting machine issue is one of the largest problems with this election. Trump has mentioned
him by name twice during the debates and has also talked openly about a 'rigged' election. I hope
he will address this directly.
We're already seeing the polls skew in Clinton's direction in unusual states like Arizona so
even that is on the cards to be stolen.
LOL, not even your big hero Barry would claim that. To wit: Obama said back in 2008: "I want
to be honest, it's not as if it's just Republicans who have monkeyed around with elections in
the past. Sometimes, Democrats have, too."
And this time, it seems to be more than some monkeying on part of Hitlery and Barry. Rather
"we rigged some votes and screwed some folks." Go figure.
Speaking at a rally in Charlotte, North Carolina, Million Dollar Bonus said: "To say you won't
respect the results of the election, that is a direct threat to our democracy.
"The peaceful transfer of power is one of the things that makes America America.
And look, some people are sore losers, and we just got to keep going" It was actually Hillary
Clinton who said that, same difference lol,
You make a good point, and to distill the matter to its essence, apart from a controlled media
and well established and entrenched special, foreign and banking interests in DC... The CIA is
a CRIMINAL MAFIA acting under color of law, currently taking Saudi money to pay jihadi and 'blackwater'
type mercs in Syria, and by the way Yemen, and elsewhere, to include the slow ramp up in E Ukraine.
hillary goes along with CIA and the neocon/zionist/MIC agenda but she's replaceable.
No they can and will steal this election if, in fact, Trump were to get a majority of votes
(which by the way is unlikely - study the demographics... trump can not beat hillary when she
has 70/80% of women, the latinos, blacks, leftists, and so on) - but the underlying issue remains:
An out of control, above the law, criminal mafia acting on behalf of the Saudis and Israelis
(if you think Syria is about the petrodollar or a Qatari pipeline... Think again - it's about
Iran and Russia and about Greater Israel and its Leviathan and Golan gas most of all - Zbig et
al would prefer to be full battle rattle in Ukraine and Chechnya...) is stopped how?
Considering that US military personnel may quite literally be killed by CIA provided weapons,
one might posit that one scenario is CIA personnel being hunted down and arrested (or not) by
elements of the US special forces although this doesn't happen without either strong and secure
leadership or some paradigm-shifting revelation.
For example- if more knew how exceedingly likely it is that 9/11 was an inside/Israeli job...
Knew it... Things might change.
but I'm not optimistic.
hillary means ww3, and we are not the good guys. If we ever were..
Things were way different back when JFK was killed, I know I was around then.
For one thing there was no internet, and people trusted and respected the media (TV and Newspapers)
This trust made it very easy to coverup and / or bury details.
People overwhelmingly trusted government officials, Very few people questioned what government
and media told them, again this makes it super easy to lie and coverup
I repect your question, and I hope you consider what I said. I am trying to make the case that
assasination is no longer an option, not unless they want to truly start a real civil war. Which
I would not rule out. But if they wish to keep the status quo and the sheep silent, assasination
is way way to risky for the reasons I mentioned above
"... US-Russia-China cooperation will eliminate for the US the threat of war with the only two powers whose nuclear capabilities could pose existential threats to the US. ..."
"... Simultaneously, Trump will put an end to "the prevailing view that the U.S. is, and always must be, the benign hegemon, altruistically policing the world, while allowing its allies, satellites-and even rivals-to manufacture everything and thereby generate the jobs, profits, and knowhow…a view that elevated the ambitions and pretensions of the American elite over the well-being of the larger U.S. population…Instead of sacrificing American economic interests on the altar of U.S. 'leadership,' [Trump] will view the strengthening of the American economy as central to American greatness." ..."
"... President Trump will rebuild the decimated US manufacturing sector and return to Americans those tens of millions of jobs that America's globalist elites were allowed to ship overseas. Rebuilding the US economy – and jobs! – will be the centerpiece of a Donald Trump presidency. ..."
"... The problem is that everyone wants to call themselves a Realist, even the Neocons. The Neocons proclaim that promoting Democracy, nation building, and being the world's policeman is 'realism' because if you withdraw from the world the problems follow you home. Tom Rogan bellowed that we needed to destroy Syria in the name of realism. They are totally wrong but the point is that everyone wants to claim this mantle which is why I tend to avoid this term. ..."
"... I think we should embrace the Putin Doctrine but that name is toxic. Basically, he eschews destroying standing govts because it is highly destabilizing. This is common sense. ..."
"... Oh, when I hear 'Bush kept us safe' it tears my heart out when I see guys in their 20/30's walking around with those titanium prosthetics. Do the 4,000+ men who died in Iraq and 10,000+ severely wounded count? And this does not even start to count the chaos and death in the M.E. ..."
"... Mainstream media are besides themselves at the prospect of their masters having to relinquish their special entitlements; namely, designer wars, selection of the few to govern the many (Supreme Court and the Fed), and putting foreign dictates over American interests at an incredible cost to the U.S. in human and non-human resources. ..."
Donald Trump played a wily capitalistic trick on his Republican opponents in the primary fights
this year-he served an underserved market.
By now it's a cliché that Trump, while on his way to the GOP nomination, tapped into an unnoticed
reservoir of right-of-center opinion on domestic and economic concerns-namely, the populist-nationalists
who felt left out of the reigning market-libertarianism of the last few decades.
Indeed, of the 17 Republicans who ran this year, Trump had mostly to himself the populist issues:
that is, opposition to open borders, to free trade, and to earned-entitlement cutting. When the other
candidates were zigging toward the familiar-and unpopular-Chamber of Commerce-approved orthodoxy,
Trump was zagging toward the voters.
Moreover, the same sort of populist-nationalist reservoir-tapping was evident in the realm of
foreign affairs. To put it in bluntly Trumpian terms, the New Yorker hit 'em where they weren't.
The fact that Trump was doing something dramatically different became clear in the make-or-break
Republican debate in Greenville, S.C., on February 13. Back in those early days of the campaign,
Trump had lost one contest (Iowa) and won one (New Hampshire), and it was still anybody's guess who
would emerge victorious.
During that debate, Trump took what seemed to be an extraordinary gamble: he ripped into George
W. Bush's national-security record-in a state where the 43rd president was still popular. Speaking
of the Iraq War, Trump said, "George Bush made a mistake. We can make mistakes. But that one was
a beauty. We should have never been in Iraq. We have destabilized the Middle East."
And then Trump went further, aiming indirectly at the former president, while slugging his brother
Jeb directly: "The World Trade Center came down during your brother's reign, remember that."
In response, Jeb intoned the usual Republican line, "He kept us safe." And others on the stage
in Greenville that night rushed to associate themselves with Bush 43.
In the aftermath of this verbal melee, many thought that Trump had doomed himself. As one unnamed
Republican "strategist" chortled to Politico , "Trump's attack on President George W. Bush
was galactic-level stupid in South Carolina."
Well, not quite: Trump triumphed in the Palmetto State primary a week later, winning by a 10-point
margin.
Thus, as we can see in retrospect, something had changed within the GOP. After 9/11, in the early
years of this century, South Carolinians had been eager to fight. Yet by the middle of the second
decade, they-or at least a plurality of them-had grown weary of endless foreign war.
Trump's victory in the Palmetto State was decisive, yet it was nevertheless only a plurality,
32.5 percent. Meanwhile, Sen. Marco Rubio, running as an unabashed neocon hawk, finished second.
So we can see that the Republican foreign-policy "market" is now segmented. And while Trump proved
effective at targeting crucial segments, they weren't the only segments-because, in actuality, there
are four easily identifiable blocs on the foreign-policy right. And as we delineate these four segments,
we can see that while some are highly organized and tightly articulate, others are loose and inchoate:
First, the libertarians. That is, the Cato Institute and other free-market think tanks, Reason
magazine, and so on. Libertarians are not so numerous around the country, but they are strong
among the intelligentsia.
Second, the old-right "isolationists." These folks, also known as "paleocons," often find common
ground with libertarians, yet their origins are different, and so is their outlook. Whereas the libertarians
typically have issued a blanket anathema to all foreign entanglements, the isolationists have been
more selective. During World War I, for example, their intellectual forbears were hostile to U.S.
involvement on the side of the Allies, but that was often because of specifically anti-English or
pro-German sentiments, not because they felt guided by an overall principle of non-intervention.
Indeed, the same isolationists were often eager to intervene in Latin America and in the Far East.
More recently, the temperamentally isolationist bloc has joined with the libertarians in opposition
to deeper U.S. involvement in the Middle East.
Third, the traditional hawks. On the proverbial Main Street, USA, plenty of people-not limited
to the active-duty military, veterans, and law-enforcers-believe that America's national honor is
worth fighting for.
Fourth, the neoconservatives. This group, which takes hawkishness to an avant-garde extreme, is
so praised, and so criticized, that there's little that needs be added here. Yet we can say this:
as with the libertarians, they are concentrated in Washington, DC; by contrast, out beyond the Beltway,
they are relatively scarce. Because of their connections to big donors to both parties, however,
they have been powerful, even preeminent, in foreign-policy circles over the last quarter-century.
Yet today, it's the neocons who feel most threatened by, and most hostile to, the Trump phenomenon.
We can pause to offer a contextual point: floating somewhere among the first three categories-libertarians,
isolationists, hawks-are the foreign-policy realists. These, of course, are the people, following
in the tradition of the great scholar Hans Morgenthau, who pride themselves on seeing the world as
it is, regarding foreign policy as just another application of Bismarckian wisdom-"the art of the
possible."
The realists, disproportionately academics and think-tankers, are a savvy and well-credentialed
group-or, according to critics, cynical and world-weary. Yet either way, they have made many alliances
with the aforementioned trio of groups, even as they have usually maintained their ideological flexibility.
To borrow the celebrated wisdom of the 19th-century realpolitiker Lord Palmerston, realists don't
have permanent attachments; they have permanent interests. And so it seems likely that if Trump wins-or
anyone like Trump in the future-many realists will be willing to emerge from their wood-paneled precincts
to engage in the hurly-burly of public service.
Returning to our basic quartet of blocs, we can quickly see that two of them, the libertarians
and the neocons, have been loudly successful in the "battle of ideas." That is, almost everyone knows
where the libertarians and the neocons stand on the controversies of the moment. Meanwhile, the other
two groups-the isolationists and the traditional hawks-have failed to make themselves heard. That
is, until Trump.
For the most part, the isolationists and hawks have not been organized; they've just been clusters
of veterans, cops, gun owners, and like-minded souls gathering here and there, feeling strongly about
the issues but never finding a national megaphone. Indeed, even organized groups, such as the American
Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars, sizable as they might be, have had little impact, of late,
on foreign affairs.
This paradoxical reality-that even big groups can be voiceless, allowing smaller groups to carry
the day-is well understood. Back in 1839, the historian Thomas Carlyle observed of his Britain, "The
speaking classes speak and debate," while the "deep-buried [working] class lies like an Enceladus"-a
mythological giant imprisoned under a volcano. Yet, Carlyle continued, the giant under the volcano
will not stay silent forever; one day it will erupt, and the inevitable eruption "has to produce
earthquakes!"
In our time, Trump has provoked the Enceladus-like earthquake. Over the past year, while the mainstream
media has continued to lavish attention on the fine points of libertarianism and neoconservatism,
the Peoples of the Volcano have blown up American politics.
Trump has spoken loudly to both of his groups. To the isolationists, he has highlighted his past
opposition to the Iraq and Libya misadventures, as well as his suspicions about NATO and other alliances.
(Here the libertarians, too, are on board.) At the same time, he has also talked the language of
the hawks, as when he has said, "Take the oil" and "Bomb the [bleep] out of them." Trump has also
attacked the Iran nuclear agreement, deriding it as "one of the worst deals ever made."
Thus earlier this year Trump mobilized the isolationists and the hawks, leaving the libertarians
to Rand Paul and the neocons to Rubio.
Now as we move to the general election, it appears that Trump has kept the loyalty of his core
groups. Many libertarians, meanwhile, are voting for Gary Johnson-the former Republican governor
at the top of the Libertarian Party's ticket-and they are being joined, most likely as a one-off,
by disaffected Republicans and Democrats. Meanwhile, the neocons, most of them, have become the objective
allies, if not the overt supporters, of Hillary Clinton.
Even if Trump loses, his energized supporters, having found their voice, will be a new and important
force within the GOP-a force that could make it significantly harder for a future president to, say,
"liberate" and "democratize" Syria.
♦♦♦
Yet now we must skip past the unknown unknowns of the election and ask: what might we expect if
Trump becomes president?
One immediate point to be borne in mind is that it will be a challenge to fill the cabinet and
the sub-cabinet-to say nothing of the thousands of "Schedule C" positions across the administration-with
true Trump loyalists. Yes, of course, if Trump wins that means he will have garnered 50 million or
more votes, but still, the number of people who have the right credentials and can pass all the background
checks-including, for most of the top jobs, Senate confirmation-is minuscule.
So here we might single out the foreign-policy realists as likely having a bright future in a
Trump administration: after all, they are often well-credentialed and, by their nature, have prudently
tended to keep their anti-Trump commentary to a minimum. (There's a piece of inside-the-Beltway realist
wisdom that seems relevant here: "You're for what happens.")
Yet the path to realist dominion in a Trump administration is not smooth. As a group, they have
been in eclipse since the Bush 41 era, so an entire generation of their cadres is missing. The realists
do not have long lists of age-appropriate alumni ready for another spin through the revolving door.
By contrast, the libertarians have lots of young staffers on some think-tank payroll or another.
And of course, the neocons have lots of experience and contacts-yes, they screwed up the last time
they were in power, but at least they know the jargon.
Thus, unless president-elect Trump makes a genuinely heroic effort to infuse his administration
with new blood, he will end up hiring a lot of folks who might not really agree with him-and who
perhaps even have strongly, if quietly, opposed him. That means that the path of a Trump presidency
could be channeled in an unexpected direction, as the adherents of other foreign-policy schools-including,
conceivably, schools from the left-clamber aboard. As they say in DC, "personnel is policy."
Still, Trump has a strong personality, and it's entirely possible that, as president, he will
succeed in imprinting his unique will on his appointees. (On the other hand, the career government,
starting with the State Department's foreign service officers, might well prove to be a different
story.)
Looking further ahead, as a hypothetical President Trump surveys the situation from the Sit Room,
here are nine things that will be in view:
1.
Trump will recall, always, that the Bush 43 presidency drove itself into a ditch on Iraq. So he
will surely see the supreme value of not sending U.S. ground troops-beyond a few advisors-into Middle
Eastern war zones.
2.
Trump will also realize that Barack Obama, for all his talk about hope and change, ended up preserving
the bulk of Bush 43's policies. The only difference is that Obama did it on the cheap, reducing defense
spending as he went along.
Obama similar to Bush-really? Yes. To be sure, Obama dropped all of Bush's democratic messianism,
but even with his cool detachment he kept all of Bush's alliances and commitments, including those
in Afghanistan and Iraq. And then he added a new international commitment: "climate change."
In other words, America now has a policy of "quintuple containment": Russia, China, Iran, ISIS/al-Qaeda,
and, of course, the carbon-dioxide molecule. Many would argue that today we aren't managing any of
these containments well; others insist that the Obama administration, perversely, seems most dedicated
to the containment of climate change: everything else can fall apart, but if the Obamans can maintain
the illusion of their international CO2 deals, as far as they are concerned all will be well.
In addition, Uncle Sam has another hundred or so minor commitments-including bilateral defense
treaties with countries most Americans have never heard of, along with special commitments to champion
the rights of children, women, dissidents, endangered species, etc. On a one-by-one basis, it's possible
to admire many of these efforts; on a cumulative basis, it's impossible to imagine how we can sustain
all of them.
3. A populist president like Trump will further realize that if the U.S. has just 4 percent of the
world's population and barely more than a fifth of world GDP, it's not possible that we can continue
to police the planet. Yes, we have many allies-on paper. Yet Trump's critique of many of them as
feckless, even faithless, resonated for one big reason: it was true.
So Trump will likely begin the process of rethinking U.S. commitments around the world. Do we
really want to risk nuclear war over the Spratly Islands? Or the eastern marches of Ukraine? Here,
Trump might well default to the wisdom of the realists: big powers are just that-big powers-and so
one must deal with them in all their authoritarian essentiality. And as for all the other countries
of the world-some we like and some we don't-we're not going to change them, either. (Although in
some cases, notably Iraq and Syria, partition, supervised by the great powers, may be the only solution.)
4.
Trump will surely see world diplomacy as an extension of what he has done best all his life-making
deals. This instinct will serve him well in two ways: first, he will be sharply separating himself
from his predecessors, Bush the hot-blooded unilateralist war-of-choicer and Obama the cool and detached
multilateralist leader-from-behind. Second, his deal-making desire will inspire him do what needs
to be done: build rapport with world leaders as a prelude to making things happen.
To cite one immediate example: there's no way that we will ever achieve anything resembling "peace
with honor" in Afghanistan without the full cooperation of the Taliban's masters in Pakistan. Ergo,
the needed deal must be struck in Islamabad, not Kabul.
Almost certainly, a President Trump will treat China and Russia as legitimate powers, not as rogue
states that must be single-handedly tamed by America.
Moreover, Trump's deal-making trope also suggests that instead of sacrificing American economic
interests on the altar of U.S. "leadership," he will view the strengthening of the American economy
as central to American greatness.
5.
Trump will further realize that his friends the realists have had a blind spot of late when it
comes to eco nomic matters. Once upon a time-that is, in the 19th century-economic nationalism was
at the forefront of American foreign-policy making. In the old days, as America's Manifest Destiny
stretched beyond the continental U.S., expansionism and Hamiltonianism went together: as they used
to say, trade follows the flag. Theodore Roosevelt's digging of the Panama Canal surely ranks as
one of the most successful fusions of foreign and economic policy in American history.
Yet in the past few decades, the economic nationalists and the foreign-policy realists have drifted
apart. For example, a Reagan official, Clyde Prestowitz of the Economic Strategy Institute, has been
mostly ignored by the realists, who have instead embraced the conventional elite view of free trade
and globalization.
So a President Trump will have the opportunity to reunite realism and economic nationalism; he
can once again put manufacturing exports, for example, at the top of the U.S. agenda. Indeed, Trump
might consider other economic-nationalist gambits: for example, if we are currently defending such
wealthy countries as Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Norway, why aren't they investing some of the trillions
of dollars in their sovereign-wealth funds into, say, American infrastructure?
6.
Trump will also come into power realizing that he has few friends in the foreign-policy establishment;
after all, most establishmentarians opposed him vehemently. Yet that could turn out to be a real
plus for the 45th president because it could enable him to discard the stodgy and outworn thinking
of the "experts." In particular, he could refute the prevailing view that the U.S. is, and always
must be, the benign hegemon, altruistically policing the world, while allowing its allies, satellites-and
even rivals-to manufacture everything and thereby generate the jobs, profits, and knowhow. That was
always, of course, a view that elevated the ambitions and pretensions of the American elite over
the well-being of the larger U.S. population-and maybe Trump can come up with a better and fairer
vision.
7.
As an instinctive deal-maker, Trump will have the capacity to clear away the underbrush of accumulated
obsolete doctrines and dogmas. To cite just one small but tragic example, there's the dopey chain
of thinking that has guided U.S. policy toward South Sudan. Today, we officially condemn both sides
in that country's ongoing civil war. Yet we might ask, how can that work out well for American interests?
After all, one side or the other is going to win, and we presumably want a friend in Juba, not a
Chinese-affiliated foe.
On the larger canvas, Trump will observe that if the U.S., China, and Russia are the three countries
capable of destroying the world, then it's smart to figure out a modus vivendi among this
threesome. Such practical deal-making, of course, would undermine the moralistic narrative that Xi
Jinping and Vladimir Putin are the potentates of new evil empires.
8.
Whether or not he's currently familiar with the terminology, Trump seems likely to recapitulate
the "multipolar" system envisioned by Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger in the 1970s. Back then,
the multipolar vision included the U.S., the USSR, Western Europe, China, and Japan.
Yet multipolarity was lost in the '80s, as the American economy was Reaganized, the Cold War grew
colder, and the Soviet Union staggered to its self-implosion. Then in the '90s we had the "unipolar
moment," when the U.S. enjoyed "hyper-power" primacy.
Yet as with all moments, unipolarity soon passed, undone by the Iraq quagmire, America's economic
stagnation, and the rise of other powers. So today, multipolarity seems destined to re-emerge with
a slightly upgraded cast of players: the U.S., China, Russia, the European Union, and perhaps India.
9.
And, of course, Trump will have to build that wall along the U.S.-Mexican border.
♦♦♦
Some might object that I am reading too much into Trump. Indeed, the conventional wisdom, even
today, maintains that Trump is visceral, not intellectual, that he is buffoonish, not Kissingerian.
To such critics, this Trump supporter feels compelled to respond: when has the conventional wisdom
about the New Yorker been proven correct?
It's not easy to become president. In all of U.S. history, just 42 individuals have been elected
to the presidency-or to the vice presidency and succeeded a fallen president. That is, indeed, an
exclusive club. Or as Trump himself might say, it's not a club for dummies.
If Trump does, in fact, become the 45th president, then by definition, he will have proven himself
to be pretty darn strategic. And that's a portent that bodes well for his foreign policy.
James P. Pinkerton is a contributor to the Fox News Channel.
Among James Pinkerton's most compelling reasons to hope for a Trump presidency are these two:
[1] "Almost certainly, a President Trump will treat China and Russia as legitimate powers, not
as rogue states that must be single-handedly tamed by America…Trump will observe that if the U.S.,
China, and Russia are the three countries capable of destroying the world, then it's smart to
figure out amodus vivendi among this threesome…"
US-Russia-China cooperation will eliminate for the US the threat of war with the only two
powers whose nuclear capabilities could pose existential threats to the US.
[2] Simultaneously, Trump will put an end to "the prevailing view that the U.S. is,
and always must be, the benign hegemon, altruistically policing the world, while allowing its
allies, satellites-and even rivals-to manufacture everything and thereby generate the jobs, profits,
and knowhow…a view that elevated the ambitions and pretensions of the American elite over the
well-being of the larger U.S. population…Instead of sacrificing American economic interests on
the altar of U.S. 'leadership,' [Trump] will view the strengthening of the American economy as
central to American greatness."
President Trump will rebuild the decimated US manufacturing sector and return to Americans
those tens of millions of jobs that America's globalist elites were allowed to ship overseas.
Rebuilding the US economy – and jobs! – will be the centerpiece of a Donald Trump presidency.<
The problem is that everyone wants to call themselves a Realist, even the Neocons. The Neocons
proclaim that promoting Democracy, nation building, and being the world's policeman is 'realism'
because if you withdraw from the world the problems follow you home. Tom Rogan bellowed that we
needed to destroy Syria in the name of realism. They are totally wrong but the point is that everyone
wants to claim this mantle which is why I tend to avoid this term.
I think we should
embrace the Putin Doctrine but that name is toxic. Basically, he eschews destroying standing govts
because it is highly destabilizing. This is common sense.
Oh, when I hear 'Bush kept us safe' it tears my heart out when I see guys in their 20/30's
walking around with those titanium prosthetics. Do the 4,000+ men who died in Iraq and 10,000+
severely wounded count? And this does not even start to count the chaos and death in the M.E.
Trump just came across as different while maintaining conservative, albeit middle-American values.
Mainstream media are besides themselves at the prospect of their masters having to relinquish
their special entitlements; namely, designer wars, selection of the few to govern the many (Supreme
Court and the Fed), and putting foreign dictates over American interests at an incredible cost
to the U.S. in human and non-human resources.
The song goes on. Trump hit a real nerve. Even if he loses, the American people have had a
small but important victory. We are frustrated with the ruling cabal. A sleeping giant has been
awoken. This election could be the political Perl Harbor….
Pinkerton has spent thousands of words writing about someone who is not the Donald Trump anyone
has ever seen.
In this, he joins every other member of the Right, who wait in hopeful anticipation
to see a Champion for their cause in Donald Trump, and are willing to turn a blind eye to his
ignorance, outright stupidity, lack of self-discipline, and lack of serious intent.
Pinkerton, he will only follow your lead here if he sees what's in it for HIM, not for the
Right and certainly not for the benefit of the American people.
Flawed premise. This opine works its way through the rabbit hole pretzel of current methodologies
in D.C. The ones that don't work. The city of NY had a similar outcome building a certain ice
skating facility within the confines of a system designed to fail.
What Trump does is implode those failed systems, implements a methodology that has proven to
succeed, and then does it. Under budget and before the deadline. Finding the *right* bodies to
make it all work isn't as difficult as is surmised. What that shows is how difficult that task
would be for the author. Whenever I hear some pundit claim that Trump can't possibly do all that
means is the pundit couldn't possibly do it.
The current system is full of youcan'tdoits, what have you got to lose, more of the same?
"... I would agree that Trump is horrible candidate. The candidate who (like Hillary) suggests complete degeneration of the US neoliberal elite. ..."
"... But the problem is that Hillary is even worse. Much worse and more dangerous because in addition to being a closet Republican she is also a warmonger. In foreign policy area she is John McCain in pantsuit. And if you believe that after one hour in White House she does not abandon all her election promises and start behaving like a far-right republican in foreign policy and a moderate republican in domestic policy, it's you who drunk too much Cool Aid. ..."
"... In other words, the USA [workers and middle class] now is in the political position that in chess is called Zugzwang: we face a choice between the compulsive liar, unrepentant, extremely dangerous and unstable warmonger with failing health vs. a bombastic, completely unprepared to governance of such a huge country crook. ..."
The key problems with Democratic Party and Hillary is that they lost working class and middle
class voters, becoming another party of highly paid professionals and Wall Street speculators
(let's say top 10%, not just 1%), the party of neoliberal elite.
It will be interesting to see if yet another attempt to "bait and switch" working class and
lower middle class works this time. I think it will not. Even upper middle class is very resentful
of Democrats and Hillary. So many votes will be not "for" but "against". This is the scenario
Democratic strategists fear the most, but they can do nothing about it.
She overplayed "identity politics" card. Her "identity politics" and her fake feminism are
completely insincere. She is completely numb to human suffering and interests of females and minorities.
Looks like she has a total lack of empathy for other people.
"What scares me is my knowledge of her career-long investment in trying to convince the
generals and the admirals that she is a 'tough bitch', ala Margaret Thatcher, who will not
hesitate to pull the trigger. An illuminating article in the NY Times (
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/24/magazine/how-hillary-clinton-became-a-hawk.html ) revealed
that she always advocates the most muscular and reckless dispositions of U.S. military forces
whenever her opinion is solicited. "
Usually people are resentful about Party which betrayed them so many times. It would be interesting
to see how this will play this time.
Beverly Mann October 23, 2016 12:00 pm
It will be interesting to see if yet another attempt to "bait and switch" working class and
lower middle class works this time?
Yup. The Republicans definitely have the interests of the working class and lower middle class
at heart when they give, and propose, ever deeper tax cuts for the wealthy, the repeal of the
estate tax that by now applies only to estates of more than $5 million, complete deregulation
of the finance industry, industry capture of every federal regulatory agency and cabinet department
and commission or board, from the SEC, to the EPA, to the Interior Dept. (in order to hand over
to the oil, gas and timber industries vast parts of federal lands), the FDA, the FTC, the FCC,
the NLRB, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and the Justice Dept. (including the Antitrust
Division)-to name only some.
And OF COURSE it's to serve the interests of the working class and lower middle class that
they concertedly appoint Supreme Court justices and lower federal court judges that are unabashed
proxies of big business.
And then there's the incessant push to privatize Social Security and Medicare. It ain't the
Dems that are pushing that.
You're drinking wayyy too much Kool Aid, likbez. Or maybe just reading too much Ayn Rand, at
Paul Ryan's recommendation.
beene October 23, 2016 10:31 am
I would suggest despite most of the elite in both parties supporting Hillary, and saying
she has the election in the bag is premature. In my opinion the fact that Trump rallies still
has large attendance; where Hillary's rallies would have trouble filling up a large room is a
better indication that Trump will win.
Even democrats are not voting democratic this time to be ignored till election again.
likbez October 23, 2016 12:56 pm
Beverly,
=== quote ===
Yup. The Republicans definitely have the interests of the working class and lower middle class
at heart when they give, and propose, ever deeper tax cuts for the wealthy, the repeal of the
estate tax that by now applies only to estates of more than $5 million, complete deregulation
of the finance industry, industry capture of every federal regulatory agency and cabinet department
and commission or board, from the SEC, to the EPA, to the Interior Dept. (in order to hand
over to the oil, gas and timber industries vast parts of federal lands), the FDA, the FTC,
the FCC, the NLRB, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and the Justice Dept. (including
the Antitrust Division) -- to name only some.
And OF COURSE it's to serve the interests of the working class and lower middle class that
they concertedly appoint Supreme Court justices and lower federal court judges that are unabashed
proxies of big business.
=== end of quote ===
This is all true. But Trump essentially running not as a Republican but as an independent on
(mostly) populist platform (with elements of nativism). That's why a large part of Republican
brass explicitly abandoned him. That does not exclude that he easily will be co-opted after the
election, if he wins.
And I would not be surprised one bit if Dick Cheney, Victoria Nuland, Paul Wolfowitz and Perle
vote for Hillary. Robert Kagan and papa Bush already declared such an intention. She is a neocon.
A wolf in sheep clothing, if we are talking about real anti-war democrats, not the USA brand of
DemoRats. She is crazy warmonger, no question about it, trying to compensate a complete lack of
diplomatic skills with jingoism and saber rattling.
The problem here might be that you implicitly idealize Hillary and demonize Trump.
I would agree that Trump is horrible candidate. The candidate who (like Hillary) suggests
complete degeneration of the US neoliberal elite.
But the problem is that Hillary is even worse. Much worse and more dangerous because in
addition to being a closet Republican she is also a warmonger. In foreign policy area she is John
McCain in pantsuit. And if you believe that after one hour in White House she does not abandon
all her election promises and start behaving like a far-right republican in foreign policy and
a moderate republican in domestic policy, it's you who drunk too much Cool Aid.
That's what classic neoliberal DemoRats "bait and switch" maneuver (previously executed
by Obama two times) means. And that's why working class now abandoned Democratic Party. Even unions
members of unions which endorses Clinton are expected to vote 3:1 against her. Serial betrayal
of interests of working class (and lower middle class) after 25 years gets on nerve. Not that
their choice is wise, but they made a choice. This is "What's the matter with Kansas" all over
again.
It reminds me the situation when Stalin was asked whether right revisionism of Marxism (social
democrats) or left (Trotskyites with their dream of World revolution) is better. He answered "both
are worse" :-).
In other words, the USA [workers and middle class] now is in the political position that
in chess is called Zugzwang: we face a choice between the compulsive liar, unrepentant, extremely
dangerous and unstable warmonger with failing health vs. a bombastic, completely unprepared to
governance of such a huge country crook.
Of course, we need also remember about existence of "deep state" which make each of
them mostly a figurehead, but still the power of "deep state" is not absolute and this is a very
sad situation.
Beverly Mann, October 23, 2016 1:57 pm
Good grace.
Two points: First, you apparently are unaware of Trump's proposed tax plan, written by Heritage
Foundation economists and political-think-tank types. It's literally more regressively extreme
evn than Paul Ryan's. It gives tax cuts to the wealthy that are exponentially more generous percentage-wise
than G.W. Bush's two tax cuts together were, it eliminates the estate tax, and it gives massive
tax cuts to corporations, including yuge ones.
Two billionaire Hamptons-based hedge funders, Robert Mercer and his daughter Rebekah, have
been funding a super PAC for Trump and since late spring have met with Trump and handed him policy
proposals and suggestions for administrative agency heads and judicial appointments. Other yuge
funders are members of the Ricketts family, including Thomas Ricketts, CEO of TD Ameritrade and
a son of its founder.
Two other billionaires funding Trump: Forrest Lucas, founder of Lucas Oil and reportedly Trump's
choice for Interior Secretary if you and the working class and lower middle class folks whose
interests Trump has at heart get their way.
And then there's Texas oil billionaire Harold Hamm, Trump's very first billionaire mega-donor.
One of my recurring pet peeves about Clinton and her campaign is her failure to tell the public
that these billionaires are contributing mega-bucks to help fund Trump's campaign, and to tell
the public who exactly they are. As well as her failure to make a concerted effort to educate
the public about the the specifics of Trump's fiscal and deregulatory agenda as he has published
it.
As for your belief that I idealize Clinton, you obviously are very new to Angry Bear. I was
a virulent Sanders supporter throughout the primaries, to the very end. In 2008 I originally supported
John Edwards during the primaries and then, when it became clear that it was a two-candidate race,
supported Obama. My reason? I really, really, REALLY did not want to see another triangulation
Democratic administration. That's largely what we got during Obama's first term, though, and I
was not happy about it.
Bottom line: I'm not the gullible one here. You are.
likbez, October 23, 2016 2:37 pm
You demonstrate complete inability to weight the gravity of two dismal, but unequal in their
gravity options.
All your arguments about Supreme Court justices, taxes, inheritance and other similar things
make sense if and only if the country continues to exist.
Which is not given due to the craziness and the level of degeneration of neoliberal elite and
specifically Hillary ("no fly zone in Syria" is one example of her craziness). Playing chickens
with a nuclear power for the sake of proving imperial dominance in Middle East is a crazy policy.
Neocons rule the roost in both parties, which essentially became a single War Party with two
wings. Trump looks like the only chance somewhat to limit their influence and reach some détente
with Russia.
Looks like you organically unable to understand that your choice in this particular case is
between the decimation of the last remnants of the New Deal and a real chance of WWIII.
This is not "pick your poison" situation. Those are two events of completely difference magnitude:
one is reversible (and please note that Trump is bound by very controversial obligations to his
electorate and faces hostile Congress), the other is not.
We all should do our best to prevent the unleashing WWIII even if that means temporary decimation
of the remnants of New Deal.
Neoliberalism after 2008 entered zombie state, so while it is still strong, aggressive and
bloodthirsty it might not last for long. And in such case the defeat of democratic forces on domestic
front is temporary.
"... The oligarchy has spent decades on a project to "defund the Left," and they've succeeded in ways we're only just now grasping. "Defunding the Left" doesn't mean denying funds to the rotten Democratic Party; it means defunding everything that threatens the 1%'s hold on wealth and power. ..."
Yves here. Mark Ames wrote this post for our fundraiser five years ago. We've turned into a fundraiser
staple, since as long as Larry Summers is with us, this is the sort of classic worth reading regularly.
Think of it as our analogue to Christmas perennials like The Grinch That Stole Christmas or It's
a Wonderful Life. But not to worry, Ames being Ames and NC being NC, this is the antithesis of sappy.
(Mark, you are on notice that if by some miraculous bit of good fortune, Summers retreats from the
public sphere, we'll need you to provide an updated slant on elite venality).
And in the spirit of Christmas come a couple months early, we hope you'll leave something nice
in our stocking, um, Tip Jar -- We are raising our donor target to 1350 (Lambert has yet to update our thermometer) to help us
reach our final financial target for original reporting.
If you've been reading Naked Capitalism for any period of time without giving back in donations-and
most of us have been hooked from the time we discovered Yves Smith's powerful, sharp voice and brilliant
mind-then you you've been getting away with murder. Naked Capitalism is that rare blog that makes
you smarter. Smarter about a lot of things, but primarily about Yves' area of expertise, finance.
By a quirk of historical bad luck, the American Left has gone two generations without understanding
finance, or even caring to understand. It was the hippies who decided half a century ago that finance
was beneath them, so they happily ceded the entire field-finance, business, economics, money-otherwise
known as "political power"-to the other side. Walking away from the finance struggle was like that
hitchhiker handing the gun back to the Manson Family. There's a great line from Charles Portis's
anti-hippie novel, "Dog of the South" that captures the Boomers' self-righteous disdain for "figures":
He would always say-boast, the way those people do-that he had no head for figures and couldn't
do things with his hands, slyly suggesting the presence of finer qualities.
That part about the hands-that would refer to the hippies' other great failure, turning their
backs on Labor, because Labor didn't groove with the Hippies' Culture War. So the Left finds itself,
fifty years later, dealing with the consequences of all those years of ruinous neglect of finance
and labor-the consequences being powerlessness and political impotence.
That's why Yves Smith is so important to anyone who cares about politics and the bad direction
this country is taking. In 2008, the Left suddenly discovered that although it could bray with the
best of 'em about how bad foreign wars are, and how wrong racism and sexism an homophobia are, it
was caught completely and shamefully by surprise by the financial collapse of 2008. The ignorance
was paralyzing, politically and intellectually. Even the lexicon was alien. Unless of course you
were one of the early followers of Yves Smith's blog.
It wasn't always this way.
Back in the 1930s, the Left was firmly grounded in economics, money and finance; back then, the
Left and Labor were practically one. With a foundation in finance and economics, the Left understood
labor and political power and ideology and organization much better than the Left today, which at
best can parry back the idiotic malice-flak that the Right specializes in spraying us with. We're
only just learning how politically stunted and ignorant we are, how much time and knowledge we've
lost, and how much catching up we have to do.
Which is why Yves Smith's Naked Capitalism is one of the 99%'s most valuable asset in the long
struggle ahead: She is both analyst and educator, with a rare literary talent (especially for finance).
One thing that's protected the financial oligarchy is the turgid horrible prose that they camouflage
their toxic ideas and concepts in. Yves is one of the rare few who can make reading finance as emotionally
charged as it needs to be.
Naked Capitalism is our online university in finance and politics and ideology. Whereas other
online universities are set up to turn millions of gullible youths into debt-shackled Wall Street
feeding cows, Naked Capitalism is the opposite: Completely free, consistently brilliant, vital, and
necessary, making us smarter, teaching us how we might one day overthrow the financial oligarchy.
One other difference between Naked Capitalism and online university swindles: (Stanley Kaplan cough-cough!)
Your donations won't end up paying Ezra Klein's salary.
Which brings me back to my whole "Shame on you!" point I was trying to make earlier. When it comes
to fundraising, nothing works like shaming. That's how those late-night commercials work: You're
sitting there in your nice comfortable home, and then suddenly there's this three-legged dog hobbling
into its cage, with big wet eyes, and then some bearded pedophile comes on and says, "Poor Rusty
has endured more abuse and pain than you can ever imagine, and tomorrow, he will be gassed to death
in a slow, horrible poison death chamber. And you-look at you, sitting there with your Chunky Monkey
and your central heating, what kind of sick bastard are you? Get your goddamn Visa Mastercard out
and send money to Rusty, or else his death is on your head. I hope you sleep well at night."
Now I know that this sort of appeal wouldn't work on the Naked Capitalism crowd-too many economists
here, and as everyone knows, you can't appeal to economists' hearts because, well, see under "Larry
Summers World Bank Memo"… I can imagine Larry watching that late night commercial with the three-legged
dog, powering a 2-liter bottle of Diet Coke and devouring a bag of Kettle Salt & Vinegar potato chips,
calculating the productive worth of the three-legged dog, unmoved by the sentimental appeal. Larry
grabs a dictaphone: "Item: How to end dog-gassings? Solution: Ship all three-legged stray dogs to
sub-Saharan Africa. Africans won't even notice. Dogs saved. Private capital freed up. Problem solved."
So some of you have no hearts, and some of us have no shame. But we all do understand how vital
Naked Capitalism has been in educating us. I'm sure that the other side knows how dangerous a site
like this is, because as we become more educated and more political, we become more and more of a
threat.
The oligarchy has spent decades on a project to "defund the Left," and they've succeeded in
ways we're only just now grasping. "Defunding the Left" doesn't mean denying funds to the rotten
Democratic Party; it means defunding everything that threatens the 1%'s hold on wealth and power.
One of their greatest successes, whether by design or not, has been the gutting of journalism,
shrinking it down to a manageable size where its integrity can be drowned in a bathtub. It's nearly
impossible to make a living as a journalist these days; and with the economics of the journalism
business still in free-fall like the Soviet refrigerator industry in the 1990s, media outlets are
even less inclined to challenge power, journalists are less inclined to rock the boat than ever,
and everyone is more inclined to corruption (see: Washington Post, Atlantic Monthly). A ProPublica
study in May put it in numbers: In 1980, the ratio of PR flaks to journalists was roughly 1:3. In
2008, there were 3 PR flaks for every 1 journalist. And that was before the 2008 shit hit the journalism
fan.
This is what an oligarchy looks like. I saw the exact same dynamic in Russia under Yeltsin: When
he took power in 1991, Russia had the most fearless and most ideologically diverse journalism culture
of any I've ever seen, a lo-fi, hi-octane version of American journalism in the 1970s. But as soon
as Yeltsin created a class of oligarchs to ensure his election victory in 1996, the oligarchs snapped
up all the free media outlets, and forced out anyone who challenged power, one by one. By the time
Putin came to power, all the great Russian journalists that I and Taibbi knew had abandoned the profession
for PR or political whoring. It was the oligarchy that killed Russian journalism; Putin merely mopped
up a few remaining pockets of resistance.
The only way to prevent that from happening to is to support the best of what we have left. Working
for free sucks. It can't hold, and it won't.
There are multiple ways to give. The first is here on the blog,
the Tip Jar , which takes you
to PayPal. There you can use a debit card, a credit card or a PayPal account (the charge will be
in the name of Aurora Advisors).
You can also send a check (or multiple post dated checks) in the name of Aurora Advisors Incorporated
to
Aurora Advisors Incorporated
903 Park Avenue, 8th Floor
New York, NY 10075
Please also send an e-mail to [email protected] with the headline "Check is in the mail"
(and just the $ en route in the message) to have your contribution included in the total number of
donations.
So donate now to Naked Capitalism
. If you can't afford much, give what you can. If you can afford more, give more. If you can
give a lot, give a lot. Whether you can contribute $5 or $5,000, it will pay for itself, I guarantee
you. This isn't just giving, it's a statement that you are want a different debate, a different society,
and a different culture.
Who knows, maybe we'll win; maybe we'll even figure out a way to seal Larry Summers in a kind
of space barge, and fire him off into deep space, to orbit Uranus for eternity. Yves? Could it be
financed?
And you-look at you, sitting there with your Chunky Monkey and your central heating, what
kind of sick bastard are you? Get your goddamn Visa Mastercard out and send money to Rusty,
or else his death is on your head. I hope you sleep well at night.
I'd already shelled out for the NC fundraiser, but this one got me to pull out the MasterCard
and finally get around to becoming a subscriber to Ames' fantastic Radio War Nerd podcast, which
I discovered thanks to the NC commentariat.
Interesting how people become the Other over time. Go back to the videos of crowds taunting
and attacking black kids being escorted by federal marshals into "white" schools, and you see
clean-shaven crew cuts and perms and wife-beater t-shirts and pegged pants and real boots. Go
look at the videos of redneck activity now, NASCAR and "mudding" (pickups with huge tires and
engines slogging through pits of slimy red Georgia mud" and gatherings of motorboats on Southern
lakes, and it's all beards and pony tails (on guys and gals? Says Jeff Foxworthy) and tie-died
clothing (along with the Confederate battle flags and gunz and all.
I got my BA in history from Lake Forest College, in a snotty sick-wealthy northern suburb of
Chicago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Forest_College
My years there, '69-72, after my volunteer "service" in the US Army and a year doing "Racket"
duty in Vietnam, were a "hippie" tour de force. All social concerns and "anti-war" (actually "escape
the draft" by young people who were largely those who could not get into the really prestigious
Ivy League facilities, despite great family wealth, or who had been booted from the same. Heavy
drug use, supine administration ("laissez faire"), endless debates over Marxism Leninism Trotskyism
etc. Ineffectual "peace marches," to do stuff like "blocking" an unused entrance to Ft. Sheridan,
just down the road - a few TV reporters to document the tomfoolery - "Stop The War Machine!" Motions
toward communes, DOA when the practicalities of sharing, comity, ran up against the selfish consumerism
of the privileged: ""I don't get my own room and stereo? I get to copulate with others, but you,
my steady, must remain my sole property!" It helped the transformation that the daughter of the
Dean did a Janis Joplin at the very end of my matriculation there - all of a sudden the local
police were invited in, to search student rooms and cars and engage in all the funsies of "drug
enforcement" with stings, etc.
Lake Forest very quickly morphed, once the draft ended, into a very much focused "business
school," to teach the young budding not-ready-for-MIT-or-Wharton capitalists the rudiments of
their craft. Graduating about 450 looting-ready young folks a year. ?(Not all of them, of course…)
Pretty amazing, not surprising.
Neither the rednecks nor the "hippies" were much interested in what the parasites were doing
to "FIRE" over those decades and generations. That's the thing about parasites: most of what they
do is invisible until the infection gets severe and vital organs are damaged, while the host goes
about generating the nutrition that feeds the critters until whooops! Time to shed some segments
into the water supply, lay some eggs, encyst, find another host…
"... Establishment panic is traceable to another fear: its [neoliberal] ideology, its political religion, is seen by growing millions as a golden calf, a 20th-century god that has failed. ..."
"... After having expunged Christianity from our public life and public square, our establishment installed "democracy" as the new deity, at whose altars we should all worship. And so our schools began to teach. ..."
"... Today, Clintons, Obamas, and Bushes send soldiers and secularist tutors to "establish democracy" among the "lesser breeds without the Law." ..."
"... By suggesting he might not accept the results of a "rigged election," Trump is committing an unpardonable sin. But this new cult, this devotion to a new holy trinity of diversity, democracy, and equality, is of recent vintage and has shallow roots. ..."
"... For none of the three-diversity, equality, democracy-is to be found in the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Federalist Papers, or the Pledge of Allegiance. In the pledge, we are a republic. ..."
"... Among many in the silent majority, Clintonian democracy is not an improvement upon the old republic; it is the corruption of it. ..."
"... Consider: six months ago, Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, the Clinton bundler, announced that by executive action he would convert 200,000 convicted felons into eligible voters by November. ..."
"... Yet, some of us recall another time, when Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas wrote in "Points of Rebellion": "We must realize that today's Establishment is the new George III. Whether it will continue to adhere to his tactics, we do not know. If it does, the redress, honored in tradition, is also revolution." ..."
"... Baby-boomer radicals loved it, raising their fists in defiance of Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew. But now that it is the populist-nationalist right that is moving beyond the niceties of liberal democracy to save the America that they love, elitist enthusiasm for "revolution" seems more constrained. ..."
What explains the hysteria of the establishment? In a word, fear. The establishment is horrified
at the Donald's defiance because, deep within its soul, it fears that the people for whom Trump speaks
no longer accept its political legitimacy or moral authority. It may rule and run the country, and
may rig the system through mass immigration and a mammoth welfare state so that Middle America is
never again able to elect one of its own. But that establishment, disconnected from the people it
rules, senses, rightly, that it is unloved and even detested.
Having fixed the future, the establishment
finds half of the country looking upon it with the same sullen contempt that our Founding Fathers
came to look upon the overlords Parliament sent to rule them.
Establishment panic is traceable to another fear: its [neoliberal] ideology, its political
religion, is seen by growing millions as a golden calf, a 20th-century god that has failed.
Trump is "talking down our democracy," said a shocked Clinton.
After having expunged Christianity from our public life and public square, our establishment
installed "democracy" as the new deity, at whose altars we should all worship. And so our schools
began to teach.
Half a millennia ago, missionaries and explorers set sail from Spain, England, and France to bring
Christianity to the New World.
Today, Clintons, Obamas, and Bushes send soldiers and secularist tutors to "establish democracy"
among the "lesser breeds without the Law."
Unfortunately, the natives, once democratized, return to their roots and vote for Hezbollah, Hamas,
and the Muslim Brotherhood, using democratic processes and procedures to reestablish their true God.
And Allah is no democrat.
By suggesting he might not accept the results of a "rigged election," Trump is committing
an unpardonable sin. But this new cult, this devotion to a new holy trinity of diversity, democracy,
and equality, is of recent vintage and has shallow roots.
For none of the three-diversity, equality, democracy-is to be found in the Constitution, the
Bill of Rights, the Federalist Papers, or the Pledge of Allegiance. In the pledge, we are a republic.
When Ben Franklin, emerging from the Philadelphia convention, was asked by a woman what kind of
government they had created, he answered, "A republic, if you can keep it."
Among many in the silent majority, Clintonian democracy is not an improvement upon the old
republic; it is the corruption of it.
Consider: six months ago, Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, the Clinton bundler, announced that
by executive action he would convert 200,000 convicted felons into eligible voters by November.
If that is democracy, many will say, to hell with it. And if felons decide the electoral votes
of Virginia, and Virginia decides who is our next U.S. president, are we obligated to honor that
election?
In 1824, Gen. Andrew Jackson ran first in popular and electoral votes. But, short of a majority,
the matter went to the House. There, Speaker Henry Clay and John Quincy Adams delivered the presidency
to Adams-and Adams made Clay secretary of state, putting him on the path to the presidency that had
been taken by Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and Adams himself. Were Jackson's people wrong to regard
as a "corrupt bargain" the deal that robbed the general of the presidency? The establishment also
recoiled in horror from Milwaukee Sheriff Dave Clarke's declaration that it is now "torches and pitchforks
time."
Yet, some of us recall another time, when Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas wrote in
"Points of Rebellion": "We must realize that today's Establishment is the new George III. Whether
it will continue to adhere to his tactics, we do not know. If it does, the redress, honored in tradition,
is also revolution."
Baby-boomer radicals loved it, raising their fists in defiance of Richard Nixon and Spiro
Agnew. But now that it is the populist-nationalist right that is moving beyond the niceties of liberal
democracy to save the America that they love, elitist enthusiasm for "revolution" seems more constrained.
Succinct exposure of continuing American psycho militaristic aggression in ME:
"The United States no longer enters wars as we did in earlier eras. Our president does not announce
that we have taken up a new cause in a distant land. Congress does not declare war, which is its
constitutional responsibility. Instead, a few buttons are pressed and, with only a brief and quickly
forgotten spurt of news stories that obscure more than they reveal, we are at war."
http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2016/10/19/plunges-into-war-with-yemen/STkGyrSwoHiCvIeP2gm6CM/story.html
That's a good piece; reasonable, and well-substantiated. I think a lot of Americans today do
not realize what a deliberate and considered process becoming involved in war is supposed to
be. He's absolutely correct that the doctrine has evolved from 'advise and consent' to 'it's
easier to obtain forgiveness than permission'.
"... Boris said this in response to the Russian and Syrian government air attacks upon Aleppo, which were certainly brutal. Then, about a week later, the West began, with clinical precision, to identify people in the last Iraqi Isis stronghold of Mosul with really radical beards and bomb them to smithereens, mercifully and humanitarianly sparing the local, decent, democratically minded citizens, who of course escaped the bombardment without so much as a graze. ..."
"... In Ukraine, Russia was the designated fall-guy for having NATO snuggled right up against its cheek, an overtly hostile military alliance which has advertised itself as Russia's enemy. ..."
"... In Crimea, similarly, Russia was looking at the probability of a NATO naval base right next door. The reasons for Russia's intervention in Syria are more complicated and were both geostrategic and economic, but had nothing whatever to do with belligerence. The USA was never invited into Syria, yet had been bombing in Syria – ostensibly against ISIS, but making no secret of Washington's desire that Assad be overthrown – for nearly two years before Russia stepped in, and few suggested the USA was being belligerent. ..."
"... The problem, then, is not that they are spreading misinformation, but that Russia Today is spreading truthful information which the UK government finds extremely unhelpful. Is it non-biased and non-partisan, does it always give balance and right of reply? No, no and thrice no. Does the BBC? ..."
"Andrew Mitchell was not alone in rattling the rusty sabre by suggesting we shoot down Russian
jets over Syria. We also had Boris Johnson, our Foreign Secretary, demanding - in the manner of
a clownish ayatollah - that people should protest outside the Russian embassy.
Boris said this in response to the Russian and Syrian government air attacks upon Aleppo,
which were certainly brutal. Then, about a week later, the West began, with clinical precision,
to identify people in the last Iraqi Isis stronghold of Mosul with really radical beards and bomb
them to smithereens, mercifully and humanitarianly sparing the local, decent, democratically minded
citizens, who of course escaped the bombardment without so much as a graze."
Still full of shite, of course – Britain cannot seem to write anything which is not, and it's
only a matter of degree. Putin is neither overtly homophobic (I have no idea what his personal
beliefs are, which is as it should be, you should not be able to tell) nor belligerent. In
Ukraine, Russia was the designated fall-guy for having NATO snuggled right up against its cheek,
an overtly hostile military alliance which has advertised itself as Russia's enemy.
This was meant to be brought about by means of a political coup, because NATO did not want
to risk putting it to a vote, although it deliberately exaggerated the broadness of Ukrainian
enthusiasm for a European future.
In Crimea, similarly, Russia was looking at the probability of a NATO naval base right
next door. The reasons for Russia's intervention in Syria are more complicated and were both geostrategic
and economic, but had nothing whatever to do with belligerence. The USA was never invited into
Syria, yet had been bombing in Syria – ostensibly against ISIS, but making no secret of Washington's
desire that Assad be overthrown – for nearly two years before Russia stepped in, and few suggested
the USA was being belligerent.
The problem, then, is not that they are spreading misinformation, but that Russia Today
is spreading truthful information which the UK government finds extremely unhelpful. Is it
non-biased and non-partisan, does it always give balance and right of reply? No, no and thrice
no. Does the BBC?
"... I find the spectacle of liberals heroically mounting the barricades against Trump-fascism rather amusing. ..."
"... Second thing is, Trump isn't fascist. In my opinion, Trump's an old-fashioned white American nativist, ..."
"... Tagging him as "fascist" allows his critics to put an alien, non-American gloss on a set of attitudes and policies that have been mainstreamed in American politics for at least 150 years and predate the formulation of fascism by several decades if not a century. Those nasty vetting/exclusion things he's proposing are as American as apple pie. For those interested in boning up on the Know Nothings and the Chinese Exclusion Act, I have this piece for you . ..."
"... Real fascism, in theory, is a rather interesting and nasty beast. In my opinion, it turns bolshevism on its head by using race or ethnic identity instead of class identity as the supreme, mobilizing force in national life. ..."
"... In both fascism and bolshevism, democratic outcomes lack inherent legitimacy. National legitimacy resides in the party, which embodies the essence of a threatened race or class in a way that Hegel might appreciate but Marx probably wouldn't. Subversion of democracy and seizure of state power are not only permissible; they are imperatives. ..."
"... The purest fascism movement I know of exists in Ukraine. I wrote about it here , and it's a piece I think is well worth reading to understand what a political movement organized on fascist principles really looks like. And Trump ain't no fascist. He's a nativist running a rather incompetent campaign. ..."
"... The most interesting application of the "fascist" analysis, rather surprisingly, applies to the Clinton campaign, not the Trump campaign, when considering the cultivation of a nexus between big business and *ahem* racially inflected politics. ..."
"... White labor originally had legal recourse to beating back the challenge/threat of African-American labor instead of accommodating it as a "class" ally; it subsequently relied on institutional and customary advantages. ..."
"... The most reliable wedge against working class solidarity and a socialist narrative in American politics used to be white privilege which, when it was reliably backed by US business and political muscle, was a doctrine of de facto white supremacy. ..."
"... The perception of marginalized white clout is reinforced by the nomination of Hillary Clinton and her campaign emphasis on the empowerment of previously marginalized but now demographically more important groups. ..."
"... The Clinton campaign has been all about race and its doppelganger -actually, the overarching and more ear-friendly term that encompasses racial, ethnic, gender, and sexual loyalties-"identity politics." ..."
"... The most calculated and systematic employment of racial politics was employed by the Hillary Clinton campaign in the Democratic primary to undercut the socialist-lite populist appeal of Bernie Sanders. ..."
"... My personal disdain for the Clinton campaign was born on the day that John Lewis intoned "I never saw him" in order to dismiss the civil rights credentials of Bernie Sanders ..."
"... In the primary, this translated into an attack on Sanders and the apparently mythical "Bernie bro" as racist swine threatening the legacy of the first black president, venerated by the African American electorate, Barack Obama. In the general, well, Donald Trump and his supporters provided acres more genuine grist for the identity warrior mill. ..."
"... Trump's ambitions to gain traction for a favorable American/populist/outsider narrative for his campaign have been frustrated by determined efforts to frame him as anti-Semitic, racist against blacks and Hispanics, sexist, and bigoted against the disabled-and ready to hold the door while Pepe the Frog feeds his opponents, including a large contingent of conservative and liberal Jewish journalists subjected to unimaginable invective by the Alt-Right– into the ovens. ..."
"... That campaign pretty much went by the wayside (as did Black Lives Matter, a racial justice initiative partially funded by core Clinton backer George Soros; interesting, no?) as a) black nationalists started shooting policemen and b) Clinton kicked off a charm campaign to help wedge the black-wary GOP establishment away from Trump. ..."
"... "Identity politics" is near the core of the Clintonian agenda as a bulwark against any class/populist upheaval that might threaten her brand of billionaire-friendly liberalism. ..."
"... Clinton's enduring and grotesque loyalty to her family's charitable foundation, an operation that in my opinion has no place on the resume of a public servant, as a font of prestige, conduit for influence, and model for billionaire-backed global engagement. ..."
"... By placing the focus of the campaign on identity politics and Trump's actual and putative crimes against various identity groups, the Clinton campaign has successfully obscured what I consider to be its fundamental identity as a vehicle for neoliberal globalists keen to preserve and employ the United States as a welcoming environment and supreme vehicle for supra-sovereign business interests. ..."
"... Clintonism's core identity is not, in other words, as a crusade for groups suffering from the legacy and future threat of oppression by Trump's white male followers. It is a full-court press to keep the wheels on the neoliberal sh*twagon as it careens down the road of globalization, and it recognizes the importance in American democracy of slicing and dicing the electorate by identity politics and co-opting useful demographics as the key to maintaining power. ..."
"... Trump has cornered the somewhat less entitled and increasingly threatened white ethnic group, some of whom are poised to make the jump to white nationalism with or without him. ..."
"... Clinton has cornered the increasingly entitled and assertive global billionaire group, which adores the class-busting anti-socialist identity-based politics she practices. ..."
I find the spectacle of liberals heroically mounting the barricades against Trump-fascism
rather amusing.
For one thing, liberals don't crush fascism. Liberals appease fascism, then they exploit fascism.
In between there's a great big war, where communists crush fascism. That's pretty much the lesson
of WWII.
Second thing is, Trump isn't fascist. In my opinion, Trump's an old-fashioned white American
nativist, which is pretty much indistinguishable from old-fashioned racist when considering
the subjugation of native Americans and African-Americans and Asian immigrants, but requires that
touch of "nativist" nuance when considering indigenous bigotry against Irish, Italian, and Jewish
immigrants and citizens.
Tagging him as "fascist" allows his critics to put an alien, non-American gloss on a set of
attitudes and policies that have been mainstreamed in American politics for at least 150 years and
predate the formulation of fascism by several decades if not a century. Those nasty vetting/exclusion
things he's proposing are as American as apple pie. For those interested in boning up on the Know
Nothings and the Chinese Exclusion Act,
I have this piece for you .
And for anybody who doesn't believe the US government does not already engage in intensive "extreme"
vetting and targeting of all Muslims immigrants, especially those from targeted countries, not only
to identify potential security risks but to groom potential intelligence assets, I got the Brooklyn
Bridge to sell you right here:
Real fascism, in theory, is a rather interesting and nasty beast. In my opinion, it turns
bolshevism on its head by using race or ethnic identity instead of class identity as the supreme,
mobilizing force in national life.
In both fascism and bolshevism, democratic outcomes lack inherent legitimacy. National legitimacy
resides in the party, which embodies the essence of a threatened race or class in a way that Hegel
might appreciate but Marx probably wouldn't. Subversion of democracy and seizure of state power are
not only permissible; they are imperatives.
The need to seize state power and hold it while a fascist or Bolshevik agenda is implemented dictates
the need for a military force loyal to and subservient to the party and its leadership, not the state.
The purest fascism movement I know of exists in Ukraine.
I wrote about it here , and it's a piece I think is well worth reading to understand what a political
movement organized on fascist principles really looks like. And Trump ain't no fascist. He's a nativist
running a rather incompetent campaign.
It's a little premature to throw dirt on the grave of the Trump candidacy, perhaps (I'll check
back in on November 9), but it looks like he spent too much time glorying in the adulation of his
white male nativist base and too little time, effort, and money trying to deliver a plausible message
that would allow other demographics to shrug off the "deplorable" tag and vote for him. I don't blame/credit
the media too much for burying Trump, a prejudice of mine perhaps. I blame Trump's inability to construct
an effective phalanx of pro-Trump messengers, a failure that's probably rooted in the fact that Trump
spent the primary and general campaign at war with the GOP establishment.
The only capital crime in politics is disunity, and the GOP and Trump are guilty on multiple counts.
The most interesting application of the "fascist" analysis, rather surprisingly, applies to
the Clinton campaign, not the Trump campaign, when considering the cultivation of a nexus between
big business and *ahem* racially inflected politics.
It should be remembered that fascism does not succeed in the real world as a crusade by race-obsessed
lumpen . It succeeds when fascists are co-opted by capitalists, as was unambiguously the case
in Nazi Germany and Italy. And big business supported fascism because it feared the alternatives:
socialism and communism.
That's because there is no more effective counter to class consciousness than race consciousness.
That's one reason why, in my opinion, socialism hasn't done a better job of catching on in the
United States. The contradictions between black and white labor formed a ready-made wedge. The North's
abhorrence at the spread of slavery into the American West before the Civil War had more to do a
desire to preserve these new realms for "free" labor-"free" in one context, from the competition
of slave labor-than egalitarian principle.
White labor originally had legal recourse to beating back the challenge/threat of African-American
labor instead of accommodating it as a "class" ally; it subsequently relied on institutional and
customary advantages.
If anyone harbors illusions concerning the kumbaya solidarity between white and black labor
in the post-World War II era, I think the article The Problem of Race in American Labor History
by Herbert Hill ( a freebie on
JSTOR ) is a good place to start.
The most reliable wedge against working class solidarity and a socialist narrative in American
politics used to be white privilege which, when it was reliably backed by US business and political
muscle, was a doctrine of de facto white supremacy.
However, in this campaign, the race wedge has cut the other way in a most interesting fashion.
White conservatives are appalled, and minority liberals energized, by the fact that the white guy,
despite winning the majority white male vote, lost to a black guy not once but twice, giving a White
Twilight/Black Dawn (TM) vibe to the national debate.
The perception of marginalized white clout is reinforced by the nomination of Hillary Clinton
and her campaign emphasis on the empowerment of previously marginalized but now demographically more
important groups.
The Clinton campaign has been all about race and its doppelganger -actually, the overarching
and more ear-friendly term that encompasses racial, ethnic, gender, and sexual loyalties-"identity
politics."
The most calculated and systematic employment of racial politics was employed by the Hillary
Clinton campaign in the Democratic primary to undercut the socialist-lite populist appeal of Bernie
Sanders.
My personal disdain for the Clinton campaign was born on the day that John Lewis intoned "I
never saw him" in order to dismiss the civil rights credentials of Bernie Sanders while announcing
the Black Congressional Caucus endorsement of Hillary Clinton. Bear in mind that during the 1960s,
Sanders had
affiliated his student group at the University of Chicago with Lewis' SNCC, the Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee; during the same era, Hillary Clinton was at Wellesley
condemning
"the snicks" for their excessively confrontational tactics.
Ah, politics.
To understand the significance of this event, one should read Fracture by the guru of woke
Clintonism, Joy Reid. Or read
my piece on the subject . Or simply understand that after Hillary Clinton lost Lewis's endorsement,
the black vote, and the southern Democratic primaries to Barack Obama in 2008, and she was determined
above all to secure and exploit monolithic black support in the primaries and, later on, the general
in 2016.
So, in order to prevent Sanders from splitting the black vote to her disadvantage on ideological/class
lines, Clinton played the race card. Or, as we put it today when discussing the championing of historically
disadvantaged a.k.a. non white male heterosexual groups, celebrated "identity politics".
In the primary, this translated into an attack on Sanders and the apparently mythical "Bernie
bro" as racist swine threatening the legacy of the first black president, venerated by the African
American electorate, Barack Obama. In the general, well, Donald Trump and his supporters provided
acres more genuine grist for the identity warrior mill.
Trump's populism draws its heat from American nativism, not "soak the rich" populism of the Sandernista
stripe, and it was easily submerged in the "identity politics" narrative.
Trump's ambitions to gain traction for a favorable American/populist/outsider narrative for
his campaign have been frustrated by determined efforts to frame him as anti-Semitic, racist against
blacks and Hispanics, sexist, and bigoted against the disabled-and ready to hold the door while Pepe
the Frog feeds his opponents, including a large contingent of conservative and liberal Jewish journalists
subjected to unimaginable invective by the Alt-Right– into the ovens.
As an indication of the fungible & opportunistic character of the "identity politics" approach,
as far as I can tell from a recent visit to a swing state, as the Clinton campaign pivoted to the
general, the theme of Trump's anti-black racism has been retired in favor of pushing his offenses
against women and the disabled. Perhaps this reflects the fact that Clinton has a well-advertised
lock on the African-American vote and doesn't need to cater to it; also, racism being what it is,
playing the black card is not the best way to lure Republicans and indies to the Clinton camp.
The high water mark of the Clinton African-American tilt was perhaps the abortive campaign to
turn gun control into a referendum on the domination of Congress by white male conservatives. It
happened a few months ago, so who remembers? But John Lewis led a sit-in occupation of the Senate
floor in the wake of the Orlando shootings to highlight how America's future was being held hostage
to the whims of Trump-inclined white pols.
That campaign pretty much went by the wayside (as did Black Lives Matter, a racial justice
initiative partially funded by core Clinton backer George Soros; interesting, no?) as a) black nationalists
started shooting policemen and b) Clinton kicked off a charm campaign to help wedge the black-wary
GOP establishment away from Trump.
There is more to Clintonism, I think, than simply playing the "identity politics" card to screw
Bernie Sanders or discombobulate the Trump campaign. "Identity politics" is near the core of
the Clintonian agenda as a bulwark against any class/populist upheaval that might threaten her brand
of billionaire-friendly liberalism.
In my view, a key tell is Clinton's enduring and grotesque loyalty to her family's charitable
foundation, an operation that in my opinion has no place on the resume of a public servant, as a
font of prestige, conduit for influence, and model for billionaire-backed global engagement.
By placing the focus of the campaign on identity politics and Trump's actual and putative
crimes against various identity groups, the Clinton campaign has successfully obscured what I consider
to be its fundamental identity as a vehicle for neoliberal globalists keen to preserve and employ
the United States as a welcoming environment and supreme vehicle for supra-sovereign business interests.
Clintonism's core identity is not, in other words, as a crusade for groups suffering from
the legacy and future threat of oppression by Trump's white male followers. It is a full-court press
to keep the wheels on the neoliberal sh*twagon as it careens down the road of globalization, and
it recognizes the importance in American democracy of slicing and dicing the electorate by identity
politics and co-opting useful demographics as the key to maintaining power.
In my view, the Trump and Clinton campaigns are both protofascist.
Trump has cornered the somewhat less entitled and increasingly threatened white ethnic group,
some of whom are poised to make the jump to white nationalism with or without him.
Clinton has cornered the increasingly entitled and assertive global billionaire group, which
adores the class-busting anti-socialist identity-based politics she practices.
But the bottom line is race. U.S. racism has stacked up 400 years of tinder that might take a
few hundred more years, if ever, to burn off. And until it does, every politician in the country
is going to see his or her political future in flicking matches at it. And that's what we're seeing
in the current campaign. A lot. Not fascism.
(Reprinted from
China Matters by permission of author or representative)
Democrats can beat populists, and usually have, by attending to what underlies the surface ugliness.
This offends me so deeply! The suggestion that Democrats
should
defeat populists dishonors
the history of the term and, perhaps inadvertently, betrays what the Democratic "leadership" has sunk
to.
"We must realize that today's Establishment is the new George III. Whether
it will continue to adhere to his tactics, we do not know. If it does, the redress,
honored in tradition, is also revolution."
Justice William O. Douglas wrote in "Points of Rebellion":
Unfortunately members of Japan's congress (the Diet) do from time to time put
in hammy displays of slanging matches and even the kind of stagey fisticuffs that
would have pro wrestling "competitors" complaining about bad acting. Perhaps it
is the Japanese people's way of reminding themselves and even outsiders that one
of their indisputable contributions to the performance arts is Kabuki.
The main audience is the constituents of the Diet members in question, and certainly not signifying
an attempt to steer policy responses (much to my chagrin if they do it in relation to the TPP debates).
As Europeans assess the fallout from the U.K.'s
Brexit referendum
, they face a series of elections that could equally shake the political establishment. In the
coming 12 months, four of Europe's five largest economies have votes that will almost certainly mean
serious gains for right-wing populists and nationalists. Once seen as fringe groups, France's National
Front, Italy's Five Star Movement, and the Freedom Party in the Netherlands have attracted legions
of followers by tapping discontent over immigration, terrorism, and feeble economic performance.
"The Netherlands should again become a country of and for the Dutch people," says Evert Davelaar,
a Freedom Party backer who says immigrants don't share "Western and Christian values."
... ... ....
The populists are deeply skeptical of European integration, and those in France and the Netherlands
want to follow Britain's lead and quit the European Union. "Political risk in Europe is now far more
significant than in the United States," says Ajay Rajadhyaksha, head of macro research at Barclays.
... ... ...
...the biggest risk of the nationalist groundswell: increasingly fragmented parliaments that will
be unable or unwilling to tackle the problems hobbling their economies. True, populist leaders might
not have enough clout to enact controversial measures such as the Dutch Freedom Party's call to close
mosques and deport Muslims. And while the Brexit vote in June helped energize Eurosceptics, it's
unlikely that any major European country will soon quit the EU, Morgan Stanley economists wrote in
a recent report. But they added that "the protest parties promise to turn back the clock" on free-market
reforms while leaving "sclerotic" labour and market regulations in place. France's National Front,
for example, wants to temporarily renationalise banks and increase tariffs while embracing cumbersome
labour rules widely blamed for chronic double-digit unemployment. Such policies could damp already
weak euro zone growth, forecast by the International Monetary Fund to drop from 2 percent in 2015
to 1.5 percent in 2017. "Politics introduces a downside skew to growth," the economists said.
"... Instead of the investigative process being focused on achieving justice, Kucinich says it was "a very political process" that had "everything to do with the 2016 presidential election" in which Clinton is the Democratic nominee. Kucinich elaborates that "the executive branch of government made an early determination that no matter what came up that there was no way that Hillary Clinton was going to have to be accountable under law for anything dealing with the mishandling of classified information." ..."
Speaking Monday on Fox News with host Neil Cavuto, former Democratic presidential candidate
and United States House of Representatives Member from Ohio Dennis Kucinich opined that, from
early on, the US government's investigation of Hillary Clinton for mishandling confidential
information while she was Secretary of State was fixed in her favor.
Instead of the investigative process being focused on achieving justice, Kucinich says it
was "a very political process" that had "everything to do with the 2016 presidential election" in
which Clinton is the Democratic nominee. Kucinich elaborates that "the executive branch of
government made an early determination that no matter what came up that there was no way that
Hillary Clinton was going to have to be accountable under law for anything dealing with the
mishandling of classified information."
Its from World Socialist Web Site by thier analysys
does contain some valid points. Especially about betrayal of nomenklatura, and, especially, KGB nomenklatura,which was wholesale bought
by the USA for cash.
Note that the author is unable or unwilling to use the tterm "neoliberalism". Looks like orthodox Marxism has problem with this
notion as it contradict Marxism dogma that capitalism as an economic doctrine is final stage before arrival of socialism. Looks like
it is not the final ;-)
Notable quotes:
"... Russia Since 1980 ..."
"... History reveals that the grandsons of the Bolshevik coup d'état didn't destroy the Soviet Union in a valiant effort to advance the cause of communist prosperity or even to return to their common European home; instead, it transformed Soviet managers and ministers into roving bandits (asset-grabbing privateers) with a tacit presidential charter to privatize the people's assets and revenues to themselves under the new Muscovite rule of men ..."
"... The scale of this plunder was astounding. It not only bankrupted the Soviet Union, forcing Russian President Boris Yeltsin to appeal to the G-7 for $6 billion of assistance on December 6, 1991, but triggered a free fall in aggregate production commencing in 1990, aptly known as catastroika. ..."
"... In retrospect, the Soviet economy didn't collapse because the liberalized command economy devised after 1953 was marked for death. The system was inefficient, corrupt and reprehensible in a myriad of ways, but sustainable, as the CIA and most Sovietologists maintained. It was destroyed by Gorbachev's tolerance and complicity in allowing privateers to misappropriate state revenues, pilfer materials, spontaneously privatize, and hotwire their ill-gotten gains abroad, all of which disorganized production. ..."
"... The rapid growth and increasing complexity of the Soviet economy required access to the resources of the world economy. ..."
"... For the Soviet bureaucracy, a parasitic social caste committed to the defense of its privileges and terrified of the working class, the revolutionary solution to the contradictions of the Soviet economy was absolutely unthinkable. The only course that it could contemplate was the second-capitulation to imperialism. ..."
"... In other words, the integration of the USSR into the structure of the world capitalist economy on a capitalist basis means not the slow development of a backward national economy, but the rapid destruction of one which has sustained living conditions which are, at least for the working class, far closer to those that exist in the advanced countries than in the third world. ..."
"... The Fourth International ..."
"... The End of the USSR, ..."
"... The report related the destruction of the USSR by the ruling bureaucracy to a broader international phenomenon. The smashing up of the USSR was mirrored in the United States by the destruction of the trade unions as even partial instruments of working-class defense. ..."
"... Millions of people are going to see imperialism for what it really is. The democratic mask is going to be torn off. The idea that imperialism is compatible with peace is going to be exposed. The very elements which drove masses into revolutionary struggle in the past are once again present. The workers of Russia and the Ukraine are going to be reminded why they made a revolution in the first place. The American workers are going to be reminded why they themselves in an earlier period engaged in the most massive struggles against the corporations. The workers of Europe are going to be reminded why their continent was the birthplace of socialism and Karl Marx. [p. 25] ..."
This analysis has been vindicated by scholarly investigations into the causes of the Soviet economic collapse that facilitated
the bureaucracy's dissolution of the USSR. In Russia Since 1980, published in 2008 by Cambridge University Press, Professors
Steven Rosefielde and Stefan Hedlund present evidence that Gorbachev introduced measures that appear, in retrospect, to have been
aimed at sabotaging the Soviet economy. "Gorbachev and his entourage," they write, "seem to have had a venal hidden agenda that caused
things to get out of hand quickly." [p. 38] In a devastating appraisal of Gorbachev's policies, Rosefielde and Hedlund state:
History reveals that the grandsons of the Bolshevik coup d'état didn't destroy the Soviet Union in a valiant effort to advance
the cause of communist prosperity or even to return to their common European home; instead, it transformed Soviet managers and ministers
into roving bandits (asset-grabbing privateers) with a tacit presidential charter to privatize the people's assets and revenues to
themselves under the new Muscovite rule of men. [p. 40]
Instead of displaying due diligence over personal use of state revenues, materials and property, inculcated in every Bolshevik
since 1917, Gorbachev winked at a counterrevolution from below opening Pandora's Box. He allowed enterprises and others not only
to profit maximize for the state in various ways, which was beneficial, but also to misappropriate state assets, and export the proceeds
abroad. In the process, red directors disregarded state contracts and obligations, disorganizing inter-industrial intermediate input
flows, and triggering a depression from which the Soviet Union never recovered and Russia has barely emerged. [p. 47]
Given all the heated debates that would later ensue about how Yeltsin and his shock therapy engendered mass plunder, it should
be noted that the looting began under Gorbachev's watch. It was his malign neglect that transformed the rhetoric of Market Communism
into the pillage of the nation's assets.
The scale of this plunder was astounding. It not only bankrupted the Soviet Union, forcing Russian President Boris Yeltsin
to appeal to the G-7 for $6 billion of assistance on December 6, 1991, but triggered a free fall in aggregate production commencing
in 1990, aptly known as catastroika.
In retrospect, the Soviet economy didn't collapse because the liberalized command economy devised after 1953 was marked for
death. The system was inefficient, corrupt and reprehensible in a myriad of ways, but sustainable, as the CIA and most Sovietologists
maintained. It was destroyed by Gorbachev's tolerance and complicity in allowing privateers to misappropriate state revenues, pilfer
materials, spontaneously privatize, and hotwire their ill-gotten gains abroad, all of which disorganized production. [p. 49]
The analysis of Rosefielde and Hedlund, while accurate in its assessment of Gorbachev's actions, is simplistic. Gorbachev's policies
can be understood only within the framework of more fundamental political and socioeconomic factors. First, and most important, the
real objective crisis of the Soviet economy (which existed and preceded by many decades the accession of Gorbachev to power) developed
out of the contradictions of the autarkic nationalist policies pursued by the Soviet regime since Stalin and Bukharin introduced
the program of "socialism in one country" in 1924. The rapid growth and increasing complexity of the Soviet economy required
access to the resources of the world economy. This access could be achieved only in one of two ways: either through the spread
of socialist revolution into the advanced capitalist countries, or through the counterrevolutionary integration of the USSR into
the economic structures of world capitalism.
For the Soviet bureaucracy, a parasitic social caste committed to the defense of its privileges and terrified of the working
class, the revolutionary solution to the contradictions of the Soviet economy was absolutely unthinkable. The only course that it
could contemplate was the second-capitulation to imperialism. This second course, moreover, opened for the leading sections
of the bureaucracy the possibility of permanently securing their privileges and vastly expanding their wealth. The privileged caste
would become a ruling class. The corruption of Gorbachev, Yeltsin and their associates was merely the necessary means employed by
the bureaucracy to achieve this utterly reactionary and immensely destructive outcome.
On October 3, 1991, less than three months before the dissolution of the USSR, I delivered a lecture in Kiev in which I challenged
the argument-which was widely propagated by the Stalinist regime-that the restoration of capitalism would bring immense benefits
to the people. I stated:
In this country, capitalist restoration can only take place on the basis of the widespread destruction of the already existing
productive forces and the social- cultural institutions that depended upon them. In other words, the integration of the USSR
into the structure of the world capitalist economy on a capitalist basis means not the slow development of a backward national economy,
but the rapid destruction of one which has sustained living conditions which are, at least for the working class, far closer to those
that exist in the advanced countries than in the third world. When one examines the various schemes hatched by proponents of
capitalist restoration, one cannot but conclude that they are no less ignorant than Stalin of the real workings of the world capitalist
economy. And they are preparing the ground for a social tragedy that will eclipse that produced by the pragmatic and nationalistic
policies of Stalin. ["Soviet Union at the Crossroads," published in The Fourth International (Fall- Winter 1992, Volume
19, No. 1, p. 109), Emphasis in the original.]
Almost exactly 20 years ago, on January 4, 1992, the Workers League held a party membership meeting in Detroit to consider the
historical, political and social implications of the dissolution of the USSR. Rereading this report so many years later, I believe
that it has stood the test of time. It stated that the dissolution of the USSR "represents the juridical liquidation of the workers'
state and its replacement with regimes that are openly and unequivocally devoted to the destruction of the remnants of the national
economy and the planning system that issued from the October Revolution. To define the CIS [Confederation of Independent States]
or its independent republics as workers states would be to completely separate the definition from the concrete content which it
expressed during the previous period." [David North, The End of the USSR, Labor Publications, 1992, p. 6]
The report continued:
"A revolutionary party must face reality and state what is. The Soviet working class has suffered a serious defeat. The bureaucracy
has devoured the workers state before the working class was able to clean out the bureaucracy. This fact, however unpleasant, does
not refute the perspective of the Fourth International. Since it was founded in 1938, our movement has repeatedly said that if the
working class was not able to destroy this bureaucracy, then the Soviet Union would suffer a shipwreck. Trotsky did not call for
political revolution as some sort of exaggerated response to this or that act of bureaucratic malfeasance. He said that a political
revolution was necessary because only in that way could the Soviet Union, as a workers state, be defended against imperialism." [p.
6]
I sought to explain why the Soviet working class had failed to rise up in opposition to the bureaucracy's liquidation of the Soviet
Union. How was it possible that the destruction of the Soviet Union-having survived the horrors of the Nazi invasion-could be carried
out "by a miserable group of petty gangsters, acting in the interests of the scum of Soviet society?" I offered the following answer:
We must reply to these questions by stressing the implications of the massive destruction of revolutionary cadre carried out within
the Soviet Union by the Stalinist regime. Virtually all the human representatives of the revolutionary tradition who consciously
prepared and led that revolution were wiped out. And along with the political leaders of the revolution, the most creative representatives
of the intelligentsia who had flourished in the early years of the Soviet state were also annihilated or terrorized into silence.
Furthermore, we must point to the deep-going alienation of the working class itself from state property. Property belonged to
the state, but the state "belonged" to the bureaucracy, as Trotsky noted. The fundamental distinction between state property and
bourgeois property-however important from a theoretical standpoint-became less and less relevant from a practical standpoint. It
is true that capitalist exploitation did not exist in the scientific sense of the term, but that did not alter the fact that the
day-to-day conditions of life in factories and mines and other workplaces were as miserable as are to be found in any of the advanced
capitalist countries, and, in many cases, far worse.
Finally, we must consider the consequences of the protracted decay of the international socialist movement...
Especially during the past decade, the collapse of effective working class resistance in any part of the world to the bourgeois
offensive had a demoralizing effect on Soviet workers. Capitalism assumed an aura of "invincibility," although this aura was merely
the illusory reflection of the spinelessness of the labor bureaucracies all over the world, which have on every occasion betrayed
the workers and capitulated to the bourgeoisie. What the Soviet workers saw was not the bitter resistance of sections of workers
to the international offensive of capital, but defeats and their consequences. [p. 13-14]
The report related the destruction of the USSR by the ruling bureaucracy to a broader international phenomenon. The smashing
up of the USSR was mirrored in the United States by the destruction of the trade unions as even partial instruments of working-class
defense.
In every part of the world, including the advanced countries, the workers are discovering that their own parties and their own
trade union organizations are engaged in the related task of systematically lowering and impoverishing the working class. [p. 22]
Finally, the report dismissed any notion that the dissolution of the USSR signified a new era of progressive capitalist development.
Millions of people are going to see imperialism for what it really is. The democratic mask is going to be torn off. The idea
that imperialism is compatible with peace is going to be exposed. The very elements which drove masses into revolutionary struggle
in the past are once again present. The workers of Russia and the Ukraine are going to be reminded why they made a revolution in
the first place. The American workers are going to be reminded why they themselves in an earlier period engaged in the most massive
struggles against the corporations. The workers of Europe are going to be reminded why their continent was the birthplace of socialism
and Karl Marx. [p. 25]
The aftermath of the dissolution of the USSR: 20 years of economic crisis, social decay, and political reaction
According to liberal theory, the dissolution of the Soviet Union ought to have produced a new flowering of democracy. Of course,
nothing of the sort occurred-not in the former USSR or, for that matter, in the United States. Moreover, the breakup of the Soviet
Union-the so-called defeat of communism-was not followed by a triumphant resurgence of its irreconcilable enemies in the international
workers' movement, the social democratic and reformist trade unions and political parties. The opposite occurred. All these organizations
experienced, in the aftermath of the breakup of the USSR, a devastating and even terminal crisis. In the United States, the trade
union movement-whose principal preoccupation during the entire Cold War had been the defeat of Communism-has all but collapsed. During
the two decades that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union, the AFL-CIO lost a substantial portion of its membership, was reduced
to a state of utter impotence, and ceased to exist as a workers' organization in any socially significant sense of the term. At the
same time, everywhere in the world, the social position of the working class-from the standpoint of its influence on the direction
of state policy and its ability to increase its share of the surplus value produced by its own labor-deteriorated dramatically.
Certain important conclusions flow from this fact. First, the breakup of the Soviet Union did not flow from the supposed failure
of Marxism and socialism. If that had been the case, the anti-Marxist and antisocialist labor organizations should have thrived in
the post-Soviet era. The fact that these organizations experienced ignominious failure compels one to uncover the common feature
in the program and orientation of all the so-called labor organizations, "communist" and anticommunist alike. What was the common
element in the political DNA of all these organization? The answer is that regardless of their names, conflicting political alignments
and superficial ideological differences, the large labor organizations of the post-World War II period pursued essentially nationalist
policies. They tied the fate of the working class to one or another nation-state. This left them incapable of responding to the increasing
integration of the world economy. The emergence of transnational corporations and the associated phenomena of capitalist globalization
shattered all labor organizations that based themselves on a nationalist program.
The second conclusion is that the improvement of conditions of the international working class was linked, to one degree or another,
to the existence of the Soviet Union. Despite the treachery and crimes of the Stalinist bureaucracy, the existence of the USSR, a
state that arose on the basis of a socialist revolution, imposed upon American and European imperialism certain political and social
restraints that would otherwise have been unacceptable. The political environment of the past two decades-characterized by unrestrained
imperialist militarism, the violations of international law, and the repudiation of essential principles of bourgeois democracy-is
the direct outcome of the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
The breakup of the USSR was, for the great masses of its former citizens, an unmitigated disaster. Twenty years after the October
Revolution, despite all the political crimes of the Stalinist regime, the new property relations established in the aftermath of
the October Revolution made possible an extraordinary social transformation of backward Russia. And even after suffering horrifying
losses during the four years of war with Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union experienced in the 20 years that followed the war a stupendous
growth of its economy, which was accompanied by advances in science and culture that astonished the entire world.
But what is the verdict on the post-Soviet experience of the Russian people? First and foremost, the dissolution of the USSR set
into motion a demographic catastrophe. Ten years after the breakup of the Soviet Union, the Russian population was shrinking at an
annual rate of 750,000. Between 1983 and 2001, the number of annual births dropped by one half. 75 percent of pregnant women in Russia
suffered some form of illness that endangered their unborn child. Only one quarter of infants were born healthy.
The overall health of the Russian people deteriorated dramatically after the restoration of capitalism. There was a staggering
rise in alcoholism, heart disease, cancer and sexually transmitted diseases. All this occurred against the backdrop of a catastrophic
breakdown of the economy of the former USSR and a dramatic rise in mass poverty.
As for democracy, the post-Soviet system was consolidated on the basis of mass murder. For more than 70 years, the Bolshevik regime's
dissolution of the Constituent Assembly in January 1918-an event that did not entail the loss of a single life-was trumpeted as an
unforgettable and unforgivable violation of democratic principles. But in October 1993, having lost a majority in the popularly elected
parliament, the Yeltsin regime ordered the bombardment of the White House-the seat of the Russian parliament-located in the middle
of Moscow. Estimates of the number of people who were killed in the military assault run as high as 2,000. On the basis of this carnage,
the Yeltsin regime was effectively transformed into a dictatorship, based on the military and security forces. The regime of Putin-Medvedev
continues along the same dictatorial lines. The assault on the White House was supported by the Clinton administration. Unlike the
dissolution of the Constituent Assembly, the bombardment of the Russian parliament is an event that has been all but forgotten.
What is there to be said of post-Soviet Russian culture? As always, there are talented people who do their best to produce serious
work. But the general picture is one of desolation. The words that have emerged from the breakup of the USSR and that define modern
Russian culture, or what is left of it, are "mafia," "biznessman" and "oligarch."
What has occurred in Russia is only an extreme expression of a social and cultural breakdown that is to be observed in all capitalist
countries. Can it even be said with certainty that the economic system devised in Russia is more corrupt that that which exists in
Britain or the United States? The Russian oligarchs are probably cruder and more vulgar in the methods they employ. However, the
argument could be plausibly made that their methods of plunder are less efficient than those employed by their counterparts in the
summits of American finance. After all, the American financial oligarchs, whose speculative operations brought about the near-collapse
of the US and global economy in the autumn of 2008, were able to orchestrate, within a matter of days, the transfer of the full burden
of their losses to the public.
It is undoubtedly true that the dissolution of the USSR at the end of 1991 opened up endless opportunities for the use of American
power-in the Balkans, the Middle East and Central Asia. But the eruption of American militarism was, in the final analysis, the expression
of a more profound and historically significant tendency-the long-term decline of the economic position of American capitalism. This
tendency was not reversed by the breakup of the USSR. The history of American capitalism during the past two decades has been one
of decay. The brief episodes of economic growth have been based on reckless and unsustainable speculation. The Clinton boom of the
1990s was fueled by the "irrational exuberance" of Wall Street speculation, the so-called dot.com bubble. The great corporate icons
of the decade-of which Enron was the shining symbol-were assigned staggering valuations on the basis of thoroughly criminal operations.
It all collapsed in 2000-2001. The subsequent revival was fueled by frenzied speculation in housing. And, finally, the collapse in
2008, from which there has been no recovery.
When historians begin to recover from their intellectual stupor, they will see the collapse of the USSR and the protracted decline
of American capitalism as interrelated episodes of a global crisis, arising from the inability to develop the massive productive
forces developed by mankind on the basis of private ownership of the means of production and within the framework of the nation-state
system.
"... Once again, during the last hour of the third debate, Clinton reiterated her position on a 'no fly zone' and 'safe zones' in Syria. She is absolutely committed to this policy position which aligns with the anonymous 50+ state dept lifers and Beltway neocons stance. ..."
"... Trump's candidacy = sovereignty - NO War. Clinton's candidacy = Globalism - WAR. Your vote is either for War or against War. It's that simple... ..."
"... Simply incredible the borg,and all those who say she is a lock are in for a big surprise,as Americans don't believe the serial liars anymore. ..."
"... It will be a 'fuck you' vote more than a vote for The Don. ..."
"... The dems forgot to switch off the internet. The anti-Trump MSM campaign is so total and over the top because it has to be --> CNN is so last century. No one is getting out of bed to vote Hillary. ..."
"... Step away from your TVs, smartphones and computers with your brains in the air. Let them breathe freely. ..."
"... Clinton seems to have had some of the questions ahead of time. She seemed to be reading the answers off a telepromter in her lecturn. ..."
"... He should declare that Hillary helped arm Al Qaeda to topple Assad for her banker buddies (cant mention the Jewishness/Israeli Firsterism of the 'neocons' of course, not because false but because true) and will be happy to send African Americans and Latinos to die for 'oil companies' and her 'banker friends' and after decades of establishment Dems promising the sky, maybe they dont need an inveterate liar who arms Islamic terrorists. ..."
"... Hillary armed Al Qaeda and possibly ISIS - both AngloZionist proxies. How in the fuck is she not in jail??? ..."
"... As Noam Chomsky has pointed out, duopolistic elections are merely mechanisms of manufactured consent. When each of the major parties are controlled by the different factions of the oligarchy, there is only afforded the option to vote for the ideology put forth by each oligarchic group. ..."
"... What fascinates me is how Obama went all public about Trumps assertions of rigged elections. It appears the puppet masters are very afraid of a "cynical" (realistic) population. Manufactured consent only works if people play the game. As evidenced in South Africa when no one showed up to vote, the government collapsed. ..."
"... "Your vote is either for War or against War. It's that simple." Is this being lost sight off amongst all the noise? I hope not, for the sake of the Ukrainians and the Syrians. And for the sake of the countries yet to be destabilised. ..."
"... A vote for Clinton = War and a vote for Trump = NO war ..."
"... Don't know when WH was created but the whitehelmets.org domain name was registered (in Beirut not Syria) in August 2014 and it is hosted on Cloudflare in Texas. Maybe it took some time get the brand recognition going? ..."
"... she also tends to repeat the same talking points 900 times so i knew what she'd say before she said it. did catch her whining about imaginary "russian rigging". again; no surprise there. ..."
"... as for trump, he mentioned abortion stuff more than usual in what i'm guessing is an attempt to win back any jesus freaks he lost with the billy bush tape. ..."
"... For the first time I listened to a Trump speech - delivered in Florida on the 13th of this month. What struck me is how much the media attacks on him and his family have got to him. He mentions how he could have settled for a leisurely retirement, but that he felt he had to do something for his country. ..."
"... perhaps he hadn't quite realized the array of power that is lined up against him. They are not going to let one dude wreck their party. ..."
"... It examines Trump through the prism as a likely "Jacksonian Conservative", who are not dissimilar to traditional conservatives but are not non-interventionists as such, just far more honest about their interventionism (as they are unburdened by the neocon bullshit about "killing them to make them barbarians more civilised") and really only likely to want to apply aggression where they feel that fundamental American interests are threatened. ..."
"... Getting Julian Assange's internet connection cut off just makes the Obama regime look even more stupid and pathetic now. The document dumps keep on coming. Did they really think they would stop that by shutting off the LAN in the Ecuadoran embassy? ..."
"... The underlying problem seems to be that John Podesta bought into the marketing bullshit about The Cloud. So he kept all his very sensitive correspondence at his Gmail account, apparently using it as the archive of his correspondence. ..."
"... I don't know if we'll ever know who hacked his account. It is not that hard to do, so it doesn't really require a "state actor". Google only gives you a few tries at entering your password, so Podesta's account couldn't have been hacked by randomly trying every possibility. Somehow, the hacker got the actual password. Either it was exposed somewhere, or it was obtained by spear phishing . That involves sending your target an email that directs him to a Web page that asks him to enter his password. All that's required to do that is being able to write a plausible email, and setting up a Web site to mimic the Web site where the account you want to hack resides, Gmail in this case. ..."
"... Nearly all information technology security breaches are insider jobs, genuine crackers/hackers are rare. Wikileaks is by far the most likely being fed from the inside of the DNC etc. and/or from their suppliers or security detail by people that are disgusted, have personal vendettas, and so on. It's the real Anonymous, anyone anywhere, not the inept CIA stooges or the faux organized or ideological pretenders. In addition any analyst at the NSA with access to XKeyScore can supply Wikileaks with all the Podesta emails on a whim in less than half an hour of "work" and the actual data to be sent would be gotten with a single XKeyScore database query. That sort of query is exactly what the XKeyScore backend part was built to do as documented by Snowden and affirmed by Binney and others. ..."
"... Duterte may well be flawed but he has a keen nose for where things are heading, Filipinos should be proud of him. ..."
"... 'Hillary "We will follow ISIS to Raqqa to take it "back"' (take Raqqa back from the Syrians?) ..."
"... The crazy hyper-entitled White Supremacist bi*ch is beyond any belief. ..."
"... Jesus Christ, Adolf F. Hitler would've blushed if he said some of her shit. This woman admits she is a war criminal in real time. ..."
"... If Hillary is elected, she will be haunted by her 'mistakes' and by the exposure of her double face by Wikileaks. She is stigmatized as 'crooked Hillary' and as an unreliable decision maker. From now on, all her decisions will be tainted with suspicion. I doubt that she'll be able to lead the country properly during the 4 years she hopes to stay in power. ..."
"... the United States has strayed from its democratically-based roots to become a banking and corporate plutocracy. ..."
The candidates are not the first to blame for this. The first to blame are the moderators of such
debates, the alleged journalists 8and their overlords) who do not ask questions that are relevant
for the life of the general votes and who do not intervene at all when the debaters run off course.
The second group to blame are the general horse-race media who each play up their (owner's) special-interest
hobbyhorses as if those will be the decisive issue for the next four years. The candidates fight
for the attention of these media and adopt to them.
I didn't watch yesterday's debate but every media I skimmed tells me that Clinton was gorgeous
and Trump very bad. That means she said what they wanted to hear and Trump didn't. It doesn't
say what other people who watched though of it. Especially in the rural parts of the country they
likely fear the consequences of climate change way more than Russia, ISIS and Iran together.
Another reason why both candidates avoided to bring up the issues low in the list above is that
both hold positions that are socially somewhat liberal and both are corporatists. None of those low
ranked issues is personally relevant to them. No realistic answer to these would better their campaign
finances or their personal standing in the circles they move in. Personally they are both east coast
elite and don't give a fu***** sh** what real people care about.
As far as I can discern it from the various reports no new political issues were touched. Clinton
ran her usual focus group tested lies while Trump refrained from attacking her hard. A huge mistake
in my view. He can beat her by attacking her really, really hard, not on issues but personality.
Her disliked rate (like Trump's) is over -40%. She is vulnerable on many, many things in her past.
Her foreign policy is way more aggressive than most voters like. Calling this back into mind again
and again could probably send her below -50%. Who told him to leave that stuff alone? Trump is a
major
political disruption . He should have emphasized that but he barely hinted at it for whatever
reason.
The voters are served badly -if at all- by the TV debates in their current form. These do not
explain real choices. That is what this whole election circus should be about. But that is no longer
the case and maybe it never was.
I watched a couple of minutes of the Hillary&Donald show. Then got a book and read instead.
Granted the Queen of Chaos will now have an empire to rule over ... but there will be no honeymoon
- there are a lot of issues that will dog her heels irrespective of the so-called press trying
to help cover-up. The good news in that is the probability of political gridlock. The bad news
is that the QoC will have almost no control over her neo-con handlers, the military nor the CIA
...
It's going to be a helluva ride. The DuhMurriKKKan people have little to do with anything ...
and it is possible the economy may show a slight increase as the DuhMurriKKKan people do what
they've been trained to do: go on a shopping spree for shit they don't need on the grounds that
it'll make them feel better.
Plus, the DNC bus did dump shit in the street in Georgia ... a fitting symbol for politics
in Dumb-shit-MurriKKKah. Doh!
"In this venue, your honours, in this venue, I announce my separation from the United States,"
Duterte said to applause at a Chinese forum in the Great Hall of the People attended by Chinese
Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli. "Both in military, not maybe social, but economics also. America has
lost."
Obviously, TheRealDonald's missing Minot nuke will be visiting the Duterte presidential compound
shortly after the Trump-Clinton fraud selection, then Der Decider, whoever plays that 'hope and
chains' spox role for Deep State, will announce it was a 'Russian strike', against US 'peace-keeping'
forces in the Western Pacific, and then proceed accordingly to attack and occupy Crimea, to 'protect
our BFF in the Middle East, Israel'.
Deep State has already cued up a SCOTUS decision on Citizens United Ultra for 2017. QEn+ already
cued up to support junk T-bonds for 'The Wall' or 'The Infrastructure'. US national 'debt' (sic)
will hit $25,000,000,000,000 by 2020, then it's game over.
as an American citizen, I am truly terrified of this election. Hillary Clinton will most likely
start WW3 to serve her masters in Saudi Arabia which seek to eliminate Iran and Russia. Most of
us who read this page see Russia as the country fighting terrorist and the US as the one supporting
terrorism. Not good. The problem is Trump does himself no favors with the women voters. This election
I think also put the world and the normally clueless and self centered American citizens that
we are in alot of trouble. The fact that these are the two candidates means we are in serious
decline. The world has known that for a while and to be honest, a multi polar world is a good
thing
Hillary Clinton will most likely start WW3 to serve her masters in Saudi Arabia which seek
to eliminate Iran and Russia
Saudis are dumb, it was about them, now famous, Lavrov's phrase--debily, blyad' (fvcking morons),
but even they do understand that should the shit hit the fan--one of the first targets (even in
the counter-force mode) will be Saudi territory with one of the specific targets being Saudi royal
family and those who "serve" them. It is time to end Wahhabi scourge anyway.
I watched, it was boring. And I agree, Trump should have been more on the offensive, but with
more precision, not just his usual rambling.
jdmckay | Oct 20, 2016 10:26:19 AM | 11 He tried to distance himself from Putin, oddly the only thing he had going for him in my book
(realization Putin's got things done right, things we should have done, and US has lied about
it). Trump backed off...
YES, major point.
Once again, during the last hour of the third debate, Clinton reiterated her position on a
'no fly zone' and 'safe zones' in Syria. She is absolutely committed to this policy position which
aligns with the anonymous 50+ state dept lifers and Beltway neocons stance.
This irresponsible, shortsighted, deadly position alone disqualifies her completely from serving
as Commander in Chief.
Imagine, if you will, she wins. She convenes her military advisors and they discuss how to
implement this policy - no fly zone. Dunsford tells her, again, if said policy were to be implemented
we, the US, would risk shooting down a Russian fighter jet(s) who is safeguarding, by invitation,
the air space of the sovereign state of Syria. She says that is a risk we must take b/c our 'clients'
Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Israel are demanding such action and Assad must go.
Kaboom - we either have a very real WWIII scenario on our hands OR a complete revolt by our
armed forces...nobody in their right mind wants to go to war with Russia...and I'm no longer convinced
she's in her right mind.
So, what if Hillary wants WWIII?
What if this is in her and her fellow travelers long-term game 'Global' plan?
What if she's insane enough to believe the U.S. and our allies could beat Russia and their
allies?
What if she gets back into the WH and we spend the next four years poking, taunting, propagandizing
pure hate and fear at the bear all the while brainwashing the American psyche to hate, loathe
and fear all things Russian? How maddening will that be? Haven't we already been through enough
psychological warfare?
What if one of the next steps in the New World Order or Global governments game plan is to
untether the U.S. military from the shores of the U.S. and grow it into a Global government military
force? You know, the world's police force.
What if they scenario'd out WWIII plans and the implementation of a no fly zone in Syria is
where it all begins?
What if this is the reason Clinton isn't budging from her 'no fly zone' position? She wants
war. She believes we can win the war. If we win the war the American Globalists morph into 'World'
leaders.
Who in the hell would want this other than those that are quietly leading and championing this
monster. I don't. Do you?
This election is about one thing and one thing only. The people of the United States, our founding
documents, our sovereignty vs the American Globalist class, their control and their Global government
wet dream.
Trump's candidacy = sovereignty - NO War. Clinton's candidacy = Globalism - WAR. Your vote
is either for War or against War. It's that simple...
Simply incredible the borg,and all those who say she is a lock are in for a big surprise,as
Americans don't believe the serial liars anymore.
dahoit | Oct 20, 2016 10:47:07 AM | 14
I believe your assertion is correct. A low turn out, monster win is out there. It will
be a 'fuck you' vote more than a vote for The Don. I would imagine a lot of people are in
for a shock - and a bigger shock than the public backlash against austerity that Brexit was, where
'respected' polling was off by 10 points by election day.
The dems forgot to switch off the internet. The anti-Trump MSM campaign is so total and
over the top because it has to be --> CNN is so last century. No one is getting out of bed to
vote Hillary.
Scylla and Charybdis. Does it really matter much which one wins? I await the collapse of this
empire and pray that it does not totally explode. What we say and/or think will make absolutely
no difference to the final result. The controllers are in control and have been so since the assassination
'60s.
Step away from your TVs, smartphones and computers with your brains in the air. Let them
breathe freely.
The Strait of Messina is dangerous waters so the American public's only logical recourse is
to steer the ship of democracy towards sense and sensibility and let go the anchor of "None of
The Above". The people must demand new candidates who are worthy of holding the Office of the
President. The federal bureaucracy will continue to run the government through September of 2017,
plenty of time for a new election.
Declare Tuesday, November 8th a national day of voter independence and stay home!
That's a simply ludicrous position to take! Trump's 'The Wall' together with 'Defeat ISIS'
together with 'Stand with Israel' is EXACTLY the same Yinon Plan as Clinton's, although it probably
spares the poor folks in Crimea, now under the Russian Oligarchy, and does nothing at all for
the poor folks of Ukraine, now under the Israeli Junta Coup.
Either candidate is proposing soon $TRILLION Full Battle Rattle NeoCon DOD-DHS-NSA-CIA There's
zero daylight between them. The only difference is Trump will make sure that the Exceptionals
are relieved of any tax burden, while Clinton will make sure the burden falls on the Middle Class.
Again, there is zero daylight between them. For every tax increase, Mil.Gov.Fed.Biz receives the
equivalent salary increase or annual bonus.
This whole shittery falls on the Middle Class, and metastasizes OneParty to Stage Five.
Trump won't win in any case. His role was to throw FarRightRabbinicals off the cliff, and make
Hillary appear to voters to be a Nice Old Gal Centrist. She's not. The whole thing was rigged
from the 1998 and 9/11 coup, from Bernie and Donald, on down the rabbit hole.
Debates are to convince, not to illuminate. What a person did not figure out before the debates,
it is rather hopeless to explain.
Thus the stress on issues that are familiar even to the least inquisitive voters, heavily overrepresented
among the "undecided voters" who are, after all, the chief target. Number one, who is, and who
is not a bimbo?
The high position of Putin on the topic list is well deserved. This is about defending everything
we hold pure and dear. We do not want our daughters and our e-mail violated, unless we like to
read the content. Daughters are troublesome enough, but the threat to e-mails is something that
is hard to understand, and that necessitates nonsense. Somehow Putin gets in the mix, rather than
Microsoft, Apple, Google and other companies that destroyed the privacy of communications with
crappy software.
But does it matter? It is like exam in literature or history. It does not matter what the topic
is, but we want to see if the candidates can handle it to our satisfaction. For myself, I like
Clinton formula: "You will never find me signing praises of foreign dictators and strongmen who
do not love America". It is so realistic! First, given her age and fragile throat, I should advise
Mrs. Clinton to refrain from singing. And if she does, the subject should be on the well vetted
list, "leaders who love America". That touches upon some thorny issues, like "what is love", but
as long as Mrs. Clinton does not sing, it is fine.
Trump, if I understand him, took a more risky path, namely, the he is more highly regarded
by people who count, primarily Putin, than schwartzer Obama and "not so well looking chick" Clinton.
Why primarily Putin? It is a bit hard to see who else. The person should have some important leadership
position. And he/she should be on the record saying something nice about Trump. At that point
the scope of name-dropping is narrow.
Wasn't ''PEOPLES GET THE GOVERNMENT THEY DESERVE'',the regime change war cry of so called ''US''?.Dont
see why Madame ''we came we saw he died'' become POTUS approves ''no fly'' wet dream of war mongers
gets shot down by ''evil '' putin and aliies from the skies of Syria onto the ground in pieces.Than
discrimination for hundreds of years while ''americans'' figure out what happened withdrawing
into a shell like a wounded animal leaving the rest of the world to live in peace!
He should declare that Hillary helped arm Al Qaeda to topple Assad for her banker buddies
(cant mention the Jewishness/Israeli Firsterism of the 'neocons' of course, not because false
but because true) and will be happy to send African Americans and Latinos to die for 'oil companies'
and her 'banker friends' and after decades of establishment Dems promising the sky, maybe they
dont need an inveterate liar who arms Islamic terrorists.
Hillary armed Al Qaeda and possibly ISIS - both AngloZionist proxies. How in the fuck is
she not in jail???
As Noam Chomsky has pointed out, duopolistic elections are merely mechanisms of manufactured
consent. When each of the major parties are controlled by the different factions of the oligarchy,
there is only afforded the option to vote for the ideology put forth by each oligarchic group.
Each party defines their ideology to distinguish itself from the other to assure a divided
population. They also manipulate the population via identity politics and state it in such a way
that voters decisions are not rationally resolved but emotionally so, to assure that sufficient
cognitive dissonance is developed to produce a risky shift to a make a decision in favor of a
candidate that would otherwise be unacceptable.
Rigged from the get go is definitely true.
What fascinates me is how Obama went all public about Trumps assertions of rigged elections.
It appears the puppet masters are very afraid of a "cynical" (realistic) population. Manufactured
consent only works if people play the game. As evidenced in South Africa when no one showed up
to vote, the government collapsed.
"Your vote is either for War or against War. It's that simple." Is this being lost sight
off amongst all the noise? I hope not, for the sake of the Ukrainians and the Syrians. And for
the sake of the countries yet to be destabilised.
Where has Trump once advocated for a no fly zone let alone war? Links and sources please. Enlighten
me.
The only candidate who has been steadfast in support of a no fly zone in Syria is Clinton.
Trump avoids the entire Syrian mess like the plague. Have you not heard him attack Hillary on
her Iraq vote, Libyan tragedy, Syria etc? He's not only attacking her for her incompetence and
dishonesty, but b/c he finds these wars/regime changes abominable. As do I.
A vote for Clinton = War and a vote for Trump = NO war
I share your frustration. In my opinion televised 'debates' should be banned, and we should go
back to the time-honored technique of looking at the record. Whether Clinton is smooth or has
a weird smile, or Trump is composed or goes on a rant, makes no difference to me.
I know what Hillary Clinton will do, which is, what she has done for the past 20+ years. She
will aggressively fight even more wars, maybe even attacking Russian forces in Syria (!). She
will spend trillions on all this 'nation-destroying' folly, and of course, that will necessitate
gutting social security because deficits are bad. She will throw what's left of our retirement
funds to the tender mercies of Wall Street, and after they are through with us we will be lucky
to get pennies on the dollar. She will open the borders even more to unchecked third-world immigration,
which will kill the working class. She will push for having our laws and judiciary over-ruled
by foreign corporate lawyers meeting in secret (TPP etc. are not about trade - tariffs are already
near zero - they are about giving multinational corporations de-facto supreme legislative and
judicial power. Really). She will remain the Queen of Chaos, the candidate of Wall Street and
War, who never met a country that she didn't want to bomb into a post-apocalyptic wasteland.
Trump? He says a lot of sensible things, and despite his mouthing off in public, he has a track
record of amicably cooperating with people on long-term projects. But he has no track record in
governance, so of course, I don't really know. He's a gamble.
But right now I am so fed up with the status quo that I am willing to roll the dice. Trump
2016.
I agree Trump has had chance after chance to effectively attack Clinton. But here is the problem.
Much of that attack would have had to be done from a leftist angle. Outside of Russia, Trump looks
to be as much a militarist as Obama at least. The gop money daddies are just as militarist as
the democratic party money daddies. The gop is pro-war just they don't want democrats running
them.
Benghazi is a perfect example. They refuse to attack Clinton on her pro-war, destroy everybody
policies, so they they make up attacks about the handling of the Benghazi attacks, rather than
the reason why Americans were there--to send arms to jihadist terrorists in Syria. (By the way
this is why silence on Obama letting criminal banksters go--they would have done the same thing.)
Trump is intellectually challenged. He could have seen what was happening and brought along
his base to an anti-war position and attracted more people. His base was soft clay in his hands
as even he noticed. However he had no skills as political leader to understand nor the ability
to sculpt his base and win the election, which was given Clinton's horrible numbers, his to lose.
Q: Where you are on the question of a safe zone or a no-fly zone in Syria?
TRUMP: I love a safe zone for people. I do not like the migration. I do not like the people
coming. What they should do is, the countries should all get together, including the Gulf states,
who have nothing but money, they should all get together and they should take a big swath of land
in Syria and they do a safe zone for people, where they could to live, and then ultimately go
back to their country, go back to where they came from.
Q: Does the U.S. get involved in making that safe zone?
TRUMP: I would help them economically, even though we owe $19 trillion.
Source: CBS Face the Nation 2015 interview on Syrian Refugee crisis , Oct 11, 2015
I don't know about your read of Trump's response, but I don't think he's talking about the
same kind of safe zone the Brookings Institute has in mind aka carving up Syria. His answer suggests
he's thinking a 'safe zone' as more in terms of a temporary refugee zone/space/camp...'they do
a safe zone for people, where they could to live, and then ultimately go back to their country,
go back to where they came from.'
btw, does anyone know which exact month in 2013 the WH were founded?
It´s a minor detail, but it would fit so neatly if it is after the first week of September '13
when the "humanitarian" airstrike for the false-flag Ghouta attack was called off. Demonstrating
it was conceived as Project R2P Intervention 2.0 after the first one failed.
Don't know when WH was created but the whitehelmets.org domain name was registered (in
Beirut not Syria) in August 2014 and it is hosted on Cloudflare in Texas. Maybe it took some time
get the brand recognition going?
Le Mesurier claims that he persoanlly trained the first group of 20 volunteers in early 2013.
It seems these 20 'carefully vetted moderate rebels' each went on to train further groups of 20.
So, if we allow 1-2 months training, it looks like mid-late 2013 might be a reasonable date for
them to take an effective role in the PR business.
b, 'The voters are served badly -if at all- by the TV debates in their current form. These do
not explain real choices. That is what this whole election circus should be about. But that is
no longer the case and maybe it never was.'
No 'maybe' ... the 'political' process in the US is a complete fraud. The present political
class must be removed and replaced. People term 3rd Party/Write-in votes as 'protest votes' but
they can - must in my view - be more than that. They must be the first step taken to simply seize
power and control of the USA by US citizens. We cannot have a democracy - anywhere - without an
engaged demos. That's just the way it is.
No
to Clinton, no to Trump . No to the elephants and the jackasses and the menagerie. It will
take a decade/a dozen years. If we had begun in 2004 we'd be there by now.
downloaded it from youtube late last night. that gave me the option of skimming past hillary and
her WASPy passive aggressive act. she also tends to repeat the same talking points 900 times
so i knew what she'd say before she said it. did catch her whining about imaginary "russian rigging".
again; no surprise there.
as for trump, he mentioned abortion stuff more than usual in what i'm guessing is an attempt
to win back any jesus freaks he lost with the billy bush tape. the fact that he supposedly
went so far down in the polls from that tape makes the whole thing seem pointless ("who can pander
to uptight morons with moronic priorities more") but saying silly stuff about overturning roe
v wade seemed desperate. even if he got to appoint more than the one judge replacing the fat dead
greaseball he probably won't get another. and even in that case he would need approval from a
congress that agrees on nothing but their hatred for him.
even the things that got more mentions didn't matter. all i saw on the screeching MSM (especially
CliNtoN) was "oh mah gerd he said he's waiting until election day to comment on the election!
that means riots and bloodshed cuz that's what goes on in our dumb fuck heads all day!"
at least canada will be spared all the rich whining hipster pieces of trash like lena dunham.
small consolation.
For the first time I listened to a Trump speech - delivered in Florida on the 13th of this
month. What struck me is how much the media attacks on him and his family have got to him. He
mentions how he could have settled for a leisurely retirement, but that he felt he had to do something
for his country.
It's almost as if he'd already decided to back off, convincing himself
that maybe he can do more outside the White House. There is a resigned tone to his voice especially
the way he finishes sentences. Maybe he just knows, or was told, that he'd be assassinated if
he ever got elected. Or perhaps he hadn't quite realized the array of power that is lined
up against him. They are not going to let one dude wreck their party.
Good, substantive
interview with Jill Stein . Includes insightful discussion on ME, Syria & relations with Putin/Russia.
Especially for those not familiar with her may find this interesting. Conducted yesterday (10/19).
Nah, it's ludicrous. 'Cuz this is like the gazillionth time I posted this. And will sadly have
to do it a few more times in the next three weeks.
The Donald Trump dove myth dies hard.
In the past five years, Trump has consistently pushed one big foreign policy idea: America
should steal other countries' oil....
"In the old days when you won a war, you won a war. You kept the country," Trump said. "We
go fight a war for 10 years, 12 years, lose thousands of people, spend $1.5 trillion, and then
we hand the keys over to people that hate us on some council." He has repeated this idea for
years, saying during one 2013 Fox News appearance, "I've said it a thousand times."
....To be clear: Trump's plan is to use American ground troops to forcibly seize the most
valuable resource in two different sovereign countries. The word for that is colonialism.
Trump wants to wage war in the name of explicitly ransacking poorer countries for their
natural resources - something that's far more militarily aggressive than anything Clinton has
suggested.
This doesn't really track as "hawkishness" for most people, mostly because it's so outlandish.
A policy of naked colonialism has been completely unacceptable in American public discourse
for decades, so it seems hard to take Trump's proposals as seriously as, say, Clinton's support
for intervening more forcefully in Syria....
He also wants to bring back torture that's "much tougher" than waterboarding. "Don't kid
yourself, folks. It works, okay? It works. Only a stupid person would say it doesn't work,"
he said at a November campaign event. But "if it doesn't work, they deserve it anyway, for
what they're doing."
....The problem is that Trump's instincts are not actually that dovish. Trump... has a consistent
pattern of saying things that sound skeptical of war, while actually endorsing fairly aggressive
policies.
....In a March 2011 vlog post uncovered by BuzzFeed's Andrew Kaczynski and Christopher Massie,
Trump full-throatedly endorsed intervening in the country's civil war - albeit on humanitarian
grounds, not for its oil.
"Qaddafi in Libya is killing thousands of people, nobody knows how bad it is, and we're
sitting around," Trump said. "We should go in, we should stop this guy, which would be very
easy and very quick. We could do it surgically, stop him from doing it, and save these lives."
In a later interview, he went further, endorsing outright regime change: "if you don't get
rid of Gaddafi, it's a major, major black eye for this country."
Shortly after the US intervention in Libya began in March 2011, Trump criticized the Obama
administration's approach - for not being aggressive enough. Trump warned that the US was too
concerned with supporting the rebels and not trying hard enough to - you guessed it - take
the oil.
"I would take the oil - and stop this baby stuff," Trump declared. "I'm only interested
in Libya if we take the oil. If we don't take the oil, I'm not interested."
Throw in a needy, fragile ego -- the braggadocio is overcompensation -- and a hairtrigger temper,
and the invasion scenarios write themselves.
And by the way, he's apparently not really that good a businessman either.
Riches-to-Riches Trump Spins Fake Horatio Alger Tale . If he'd put his money into S&P 500
index fund, he'd be worth about eight times what he likely is now. Which is very likely substantially
less than what he says he is. Good reason to withhold the tax returns, no?
So I guess his only recommendation is a reality show with the tagline "You're fired!" All surface,
no depth, the ultimate post-modernist candidate. No fixed mean to that text, alright, he both
invites you to write your interpretation but polices "the other" outside of it.
Interesting that the first post-modern candidate is a bloodthirsty fascist (given his refusal
to accept the electoral results, I would now consider this not wholly inappropriate).
But then again, someone as innocent as
Chauncey Gardiner was
unlikely to emerge from the media.
Moon of Alabama Brecht quote
" Obama: Vote Rigging Is Impossible - If In Favor Of Hillary Clinton | Main
October 20, 2016
This Election Circus Is A Disservice To The People
Via Adam Johnson:
"Total mentions all 4 debates:
Russia/Putin 178
ISIS/terror 132
Iran 67
...
Abortion 17
Poverty 10
Climate change 4
Campaign finance 3
Privacy 0"
The candidates are not the first to blame for this. The first to blame are the moderators of such
debates, the alleged journalists 8and their overlords) who do not ask questions that are relevant
for the life of the general votes and who do not intervene at all when the debaters run off course.
The second group to blame are the general horse-race media who each play up their (owner's) special-interest
hobbyhorses as if those will be the decisive issue for the next four years. The candidates fight
for the attention of these media and adopt to them.
I didn't watch yesterday's debate but every media I skimmed tells me that Clinton was gorgeous
and Trump very bad. That means she said what they wanted to hear and Trump didn't. It doesn't
say what other people who watched though of it. Especially in the rural parts of the country they
likely fear the consequences of climate change way more than Russia, ISIS and Iran together.
Another reason why both candidates avoided to bring up the issues low in the list above is
that both hold positions that are socially somewhat liberal and both are corporatists. None of
those low ranked issues is personally relevant to them. No realistic answer to these would better
their campaign finances or their personal standing in the circles they move in. Personally they
are both east coast elite and don't give a fu***** sh** what real people care about.
As far as I can discern it from the various reports no new political issues were touched. Clinton
ran her usual focus group tested lies while Trump refrained from attacking her hard. A huge mistake
in my view. He can beat her by attacking her really, really hard, not on issues but personality.
Her disliked rate (like Trump's) is over -40%. She is vulnerable on many, many things in her past.
Her foreign policy is way more aggressive than most voters like. Calling this back into mind again
and again could probably send her below -50%. Who told him to leave that stuff alone? Trump is
a major political disruption. He should have emphasized that but he barely hinted at it for whatever
reason.
The voters are served badly -if at all- by the TV debates in their current form. These do not
explain real choices. That is what this whole election circus should be about. But that is no
longer the case and maybe it never was.
Posted by b on October 20, 2016 at 09:11 AM | Permalink
Comments
I didn't watch too.
Posted by: Jack Smith | Oct 20, 2016 9:22:12 AM | 1
I don't follow US elections closely, but my take on this - Trump had made a deal. He pretends
to be fighting, but he is not. Dunno what was that - either he was intimidated, blackmailed, bought
off, or any combination of thereof, and it doesn't matter actually.
Hail to the first Lady President of the United States. Best luck to Middle East, Eastern Europe
and SE Asia - they all gonna need it. Oh, and dear US voters - don't blame yourself, you don't
have any influence on the election, so it's not your fault. You'll pay the price too, though.
Posted by: Wizzy | Oct 20, 2016 9:27:47 AM | 2
"But that is no longer the case and maybe it never was"
It was when the League of Women Voters ran the show but when they wouldn't agree to selling
out the citizens in Amerika is when we got this dog and phoney show.
I didn't watch and I'll be Voting Green.
rg the lg | Oct 20, 2016 10:19:53 AM | 10
Strictly speaking, if the voters aren't getting what they want from the politicians in a democracy,
and they're too chickenshit to demand reform or else - then they should blame themselves because
it IS their fault.
We're getting really, really sick of the bullshit that passes for politics in 2 Party Oz. We
sent them a subtle message in 2015 by voting for independents and splinter groups and the "Government"
governs with a majority of 1 seat. Next election there will either be a responsive non-traitorous
Government, or a revolution. Some of them are starting to wake up and others are pretending not
to notice. But the writing is on the wall...
I've had a good look at your "The Donald Trump dove myth" article and I must admit that its
quality far exceeds your own verbal rubbish.
It examines Trump through the prism as a likely "Jacksonian Conservative", who are not
dissimilar to traditional conservatives but are not non-interventionists as such, just far more
honest about their interventionism (as they are unburdened by the neocon bullshit about "killing
them to make them barbarians more civilised") and really only likely to want to apply aggression
where they feel that fundamental American interests are threatened.
To me, that's a big step up from the NEOCON/NEOLIB false pretense garbage. I'd far rather have
an honest RATIONAL and RISK ASSESSING thug than a two faced snake, which better describes your
C**tory and her Kissenger/Albright gang of perfectly murderable certified war criminals. You can
call him a "fascist" if you like. You obviously prefer the 1984 thuggery to more honest, above
the table varieties. To each one his own.
One last note. Those goons that the Dems kept sending to Trump's rallies to stir violence up,
there's now the fucking Himalayas of evidence that it's entirely real and beyond any doubt.
Guess who was the historical king of criminal spamming of shit stirring goons at political
adversaries' rallies? The Bolsheviks and your own fixated Fascists/Nazis. Looks like your Hillary
learned from the best, inspired by the best, via her fascist mentor Klitsinger et num al.
So, enjoy your Clintory, dear Pom, and good luck as you and yer Britannia're gonna need it
if that discard of a dementia stricken half-human wins the elections.
Getting Julian Assange's internet connection cut off just makes the Obama regime look even
more stupid and pathetic now. The document dumps keep on coming. Did they really think they would
stop that by shutting off the LAN in the Ecuadoran embassy?
The underlying problem seems to be that John Podesta bought into the marketing bullshit
about The Cloud. So he kept all his very sensitive correspondence at his Gmail account, apparently
using it as the archive of his correspondence.
I don't know if we'll ever know who hacked his account. It is not that hard to do, so it
doesn't really require a "state actor". Google only gives you a few tries at entering your password,
so Podesta's account couldn't have been hacked by randomly trying every possibility. Somehow,
the hacker got the actual password. Either it was exposed somewhere, or it was obtained by
spear
phishing . That involves sending your target an email that directs him to a Web page that
asks him to enter his password. All that's required to do that is being able to write a plausible
email, and setting up a Web site to mimic the Web site where the account you want to hack resides,
Gmail in this case.
Nearly all information technology security breaches are insider jobs, genuine crackers/hackers
are rare. Wikileaks is by far the most likely being fed from the inside of the DNC etc. and/or
from their suppliers or security detail by people that are disgusted, have personal vendettas,
and so on. It's the real Anonymous, anyone anywhere, not the inept CIA stooges or the faux organized
or ideological pretenders. In addition any analyst at the NSA with access to XKeyScore can supply
Wikileaks with all the Podesta emails on a whim in less than half an hour of "work" and the actual
data to be sent would be gotten with a single XKeyScore database query. That sort of query is
exactly what the XKeyScore backend part was built to do as documented by Snowden and affirmed
by Binney and others.
The powers that be can cheat but people can ignore their efforts, it's what happens in every
revolution and civil war. It's hard to see how a second Clinton presidency will have any shred
of legitimacy in the US or in the world.
Duterte may well be flawed but he has a keen nose for where things are heading, Filipinos
should be proud of him.
Don't believe anyone who says what you do or don't do doesn't matter.
CLINTON: Well, I am encouraged that there is an effort led by the Iraqi army, supported by
Kurdish forces, and also given the help and advice from the number of special forces and other
Americans on the ground. But I will not support putting American soldiers into Iraq as an occupying
force. I don't think that is in our interest, and I don't think that would be smart to do.
In fact, Chris, I think that would be a big red flag waving for ISIS to reconstitute itself.
The goal here is to take back Mosul. It's going to be a hard fight. I've got no illusions
about that. And then continue to press into Syria to begin to take back and move on Raqqa,
which is the ISIS headquarters.
I am hopeful that the hard work that American military advisers have done will pay off
and that we will see a real - a really successful military operation. But we know we've got
lots of work to do. Syria will remain a hotbed of terrorism as long as the civil war, aided
and abetted by the Iranians and the Russians, continue.
Considering Lynn Forester de Rothschild's apparent hand in potential President Hillary Clinton's
economic policy, such theories don't appear so far from the truth - and only further prove the
United States has strayed from its democratically-based roots to become a banking and corporate
plutocracy.
This is a bit misinformed conclusion. Some of you may know "Wizard of Oz". It is a famous novel
for children that was used for the screenplay of an adorable movie with the same title. Not everybody
knows that it was also a novel for the adults, with a key: a political satire against banking
and corporate plutocracy that controlled the government of USA around 1900. If I recall, the title
figure of the Wizard was Mark Hanna, and Wicked Witch of the East stood for eastern banks which
at that time included the largest banks that were behind Mark Hanna (who in turn was the puppeteer
of the President). Certain things change in the last 120 years, for example, the rich and famous
largely abandoned the mansions in Rhode Island, but New York remains the financial capital. I
somewhat doubt that Rothschild secretly have the sway over this crowd, if one would have to point
to the most powerful financial entity I would pick Goldman Sachs. Yes, it helped that Lady de
Rothschild was sociable, amiable and communicated well with Hillary and numerous gentlemen who
could drop 100,000 on a plate to please the hostess, but at the end of the day, things were quite
similar when Rothschild largely sticked to Europe.
The structural problem is not a conspiracy, but simply, capitalism. Any way you cut it, democracy
relies on convincing the citizens what is good and what is bad for them, and that still requires
money. Money can come from numerous small donors or few large ones, or some combination. Unfortunately,
large donors have disproportional influence, until a politician creates his/her brand, too few
small donors would know about him/her. Nice thing about Sanders was that he operates largely outside
the circle of large donors. That said, both Clintons and Obama entered the political scene as
"outsiders".
I met rich people only few times in my life, and I must admit, it is a pleasant experience.
Sleeping is comfortable, food is good, when you go to restaurant the owner greets your party very
politely and explains the best dishes of the day and so on. In politics, there are reactionary
fat cats and progressive fat cats, but needless to say, they tend to share certain perspective
and they skew the media, the academia and the policies in a certain direction.
If Hillary is elected, she will be haunted by her 'mistakes' and by the exposure of her double
face by Wikileaks. She is stigmatized as 'crooked Hillary' and as an unreliable decision maker.
From now on, all her decisions will be tainted with suspicion. I doubt that she'll be able to
lead the country properly during the 4 years she hopes to stay in power.
@ Piotr Berman who wrote: The structural problem is not a conspiracy, but simply, capitalism.
I heartily disagree. Capitalism is a myth created to cover for decisions made by those who
own private finance.....part of my undergraduate degree is in macro economics. Your assertion
that the Rothschild influence is restricted to Europe is laughable.
Joe6pac has it right......the United States has strayed from its democratically-based roots
to become a banking and corporate plutocracy.
I believe that it is Piotr Berman that is misinformed.
With single-bid ("plurality") voting you only have two candidates to choose from.
I have described the strategic hedge simple score election method all over the Internet. It
is simple in the sense that does not require easily hackable voting machines, and can easily work
with hand counted paper ballots at non-centralized voting places. It is not hampered by any requirement
to cater to so-called "sincere," "honest" (actually artless and foolish) voters. It easily thwarts
both the spoiler effect and the blind hurdle dilemma (the "Burr Dilemma"). It just works.
Strategic hedge simple score voting can be described in one simple sentence: Strategically
bid no vote at all for undesired candidates (ignore them as though they did not exist), or strategically
cast from five to ten votes for any number of candidates you prefer (up to some reasonable limit
of, say, twelve candidates), and then simply add all the votes up.
Both IRV-style and approval voting methods suffer from the blind hurdle dilemma, which can
be overcome with the hedge voting strategy. An example of usage of the hedge strategy, presuming
the case of a "leftist" voter, would be casting ten votes for Ralph Nader, and only eight or nine
for Al Gore. This way, the voter would only sacrifice 20 or 10 percent of their electoral influence
if Nader did not win.
Don't be fooled by fake "alternatives like "IRV" and "approval voting".
And demand hand counted paper ballots that cannot be rigged by "Russian hackers".
Reagan delivered Stingers to the Northern Alliance and Taliban, why is Reagan not in prison?
Because of people like Ollie North and Dick Armitage. Because the Deep State is in control under
Continuance of Government, ever since the 2001 military coup.
Trump may have gone to Catholic prep school, but he's no choir boy either.
Hillary will win, it's in the bag, and she won't be haunted by anything at all, she doesn't
have an introspective bone in her hagsack. She will be our Nero for 21st C.
"We came, we saw, he died, haww, haww, haww."
Should have been bodybagged and tagged and disposed of at sea, her, not M.
"... Point being that not only would The Clintons have the Democratic Party machine to rely on for potential vote rigging in this stage of the process (distinguishing vs. primaries simply for rhetorical focus), ..."
"... but with the clear reality of the Republican Party elite also backing her, she can rely on at least some of the Republican Party machine also being available for potential vote rigging, and who have their experience in Florida, Ohio, etc to bring to the table. ..."
"... The longer term issue is the Imperial Oligarchy has now taken off the mask, they have abandoned the pretense of 2 party competition to unite behind the defender of status quo interests, with WikiLeaks detailing the gory bits of their corruption and malfeasance. And everybody in the system is tainted by that, both parties, media, etc. It has overtly collapsed to the reality of a single Party of Power (per the term Oligarch media like to use re: Russia for example). ..."
"... the Clinton faction is 100% "bi-partisan" and about confluence of both Oligarchic parties. ..."
"... I would say the Democratic primary was even a mirror of this, I would guess that Clinton had hoped to win more easily vs Sanders without rigging etc... essentially between Sanders and Trump turning anything but "radical status quo" into boogymen. ..."
"... That just reveals how close to the line the Imperial Oligarchy feels compelled to play... and, I suppose, how confident they are in the full spectrum of tools at their disposal to manipulate democracy. ..."
"... But that is also shown merely by the situation we are in, with the collapse of the two party system in order to maintain the strength of Imperial Oligarchy. ..."
Point being that not only would The Clintons have the Democratic Party machine to rely on
for potential vote rigging in this stage of the process (distinguishing vs. primaries simply for
rhetorical focus),
but with the clear reality of the Republican Party elite also backing her, she can rely
on at least some of the Republican Party machine also being available for potential vote rigging,
and who have their experience in Florida, Ohio, etc to bring to the table.
The longer term issue is the Imperial Oligarchy has now taken off the mask, they have abandoned
the pretense of 2 party competition to unite behind the defender of status quo interests, with
WikiLeaks detailing the gory bits of their corruption and malfeasance. And everybody in the system
is tainted by that, both parties, media, etc. It has overtly collapsed to the reality of a single
Party of Power (per the term Oligarch media like to use re: Russia for example).
And the craziest thing of course is not that this all happened by accident because some "scary
clown" appeared, but that this was nearly exactly planned BY The Clinton faction themselves (promoting
Trump in order to win vs. "scary clown"). Most notably, not simply as a seizure of power by Democratic
Party "against" Republicans... They are very clear the Clinton faction is 100% "bi-partisan"
and about confluence of both Oligarchic parties.
I would say the Democratic primary was even a mirror of this, I would guess that Clinton
had hoped to win more easily vs Sanders without rigging etc... essentially between Sanders and
Trump turning anything but "radical status quo" into boogymen. Only surprise was how well
Sanders did, necessitating fraud etc, with polls in fact showing Sanders was BETTER placed to
defeat Trump than Clinton.
That just reveals how close to the line the Imperial Oligarchy feels compelled to play...
and, I suppose, how confident they are in the full spectrum of tools at their disposal to manipulate
democracy.
But that is also shown merely by the situation we are in, with the collapse of the two
party system in order to maintain the strength of Imperial Oligarchy.
"... It is high time for the U.S. to return to paper-ballots and manual vote counting. The process is easier, comprehensible, less prone to manipulations and reproducible. Experience in other countries show that it is also nearly as fast, if not faster, than machine counting. There is simply no sensible reason why machines should be used at all. ..."
"... There is simply no sensible reason why machines should be used at all." Of course there is - to rig elections. What do you think they are used for. ..."
"... The price to pay is the ability to be alerted when vote rigging is going on. Bush won in 2000 because his people controlled the processes that mattered in Florida. ..."
"... There are the same allegations about 2004 in regards to Ohio. ..."
"... Here's the best statistical analysis of US vote count irregularities to date. Not a pretty picture. ..."
"... There is more needed than just paper ballots. A proportional system, a limit on donations and partisan/donor government posts, a stop to the corporate and lobbyist revolving doors. ..."
"... At present the US seem to be on their way to a one party system. Any democratic process will take place within this "private" club including a very small part of the population. ..."
"... for the 1 percent the system is not rigged, they have a preferred globalization candidate, and a police state fall back should the peasants rebell. ..."
"... US citizens are reduced to vote in a block to this power in the Senate and the House in continuous cycles. In the end that blocks any political progress there might be. ..."
"... There's lots of evidence that the 2004 election was stolen for Bush in Ohio. ..."
"... "smartmatic" is obviously the right choice. it's a name we know and trust. Like Deibold, Northrup, KBR, and Bellingcat. The integrity stands for itself. ..."
"... Just think of how many residents of graveyards will be voting their consciences (or lack thereof) this year. Remember Chicago advise - vote early, vote often. ..."
"... obomber has a friend in the vote rigging business. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-10-18/robert-creamer ..."
"... Concerted media campaign (scripted) against Trump portrays him as hysterical. Recall the trumped-up "(Howard) Dean Scream". ..."
"... Hillary is as nasty and hysterical as Trump or worse. She uses the F bomb regularly. Screams at her subordinates and she annihilated several countries worth of women and children. ..."
"... We should all be aware of what occurred in the two Baby Bush elections as far as voter machine tabulations and judicial fraud in his becoming president in both elections and the likely murder(s) to cover the fraud up. Small plane crashes being almost untraceable. ..."
"... paper vote or bust. Everything else hides an attempt at control and ultimately fraud. ..."
"... How does that help Trump? Most DNC *and* RNC Deep State insiders favor Hillary. ..."
"... Who is leaking all this stuff so well-timed together? Might just be the FBI, finding itself unable to prosecute officially, not only for fear of retribution, but also because the heap of shit that would get uncovered could be enough for the rest of the world to declare war on the US. ..."
"... In Vietnam, as in Iraq, the U.S. government pushed hard to get an election to sanctify its puppet regime. Ellsberg, who spent two years in Vietnam after his time in the Pentagon, aided some of the key U.S. officials in this effort who sought an honest vote. But when U.S. Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge heard their pitch, he replied, "You've got a gentleman in the White House right now [Johnson] who has spent most of his life rigging elections. I've spent most of my life rigging elections. I spent nine whole months rigging a Republican convention to choose Ike as a candidate rather than Bob Taft." Lodge later ordered, "Get it across to the press that they shouldn't apply higher standards here in Vietnam than they do in the U.S." ..."
"... Why is policy discussion absent from this election cycle? Its all Trump bashing,wo one iota of his policies being broadcast? ..."
"... Obomba, the most un-criticised POTUS in American history, is a laughable pos concerned about his terrible corrupt legacy of death war and division which Trump will reveal, once in. ..."
"... Election Fraud within the Outlaw US Empire has a long history. One very intrepid investigator and expert on this is Brad Friedman who runs the Brad Blog, whose current lead item is about this very topic. ..."
"... The Vote 'No Confidence' movement is growing. It's being actively discussed on FB and ZH now ..."
"... Trump say the election is rigged ? Obama's setting up a straw mam by changing the story to election fraud. There may well be fraud in the voting process but we are unlikely to ever know how much. But as to the election being rigged , that's so plainly obvious it's painful. ..."
"... And Germany doesn't allow electronic voting machines. Gotta be a clue there somewhere. ..."
"... There is ample evidence of election fraud, vote fraud, and various types of 'rigging' or 'organising' in the US it is just too long to go into in a short post. ..."
"... Poll Pro-HRC results are not trustworthy. They aren't necessarily outright fabricated (is easy to do and very hard to detect / prosecute), nor even fraudulently carried out, but 'arranged' to give the desired result, which might even, in some cases, be perfectly unconscious, just following SOP. (I could outline 10 major problems / procedures that twist the results.) ..."
"... Then, the media take it up, and cherry-pick the results, pro HRC. That includes internet sites like real clear politics, which I noticed recently is biased (paid?) in favor of HRC. ..."
"... It is amazing to me, yet very few ppl actually dig into the available info about the polls. (Maybe 300 ppl in the world?) HRC needs these fakelorum poll results because they will 'rig' the election as best as they can, they need to point back to them: "see we were winning all the time Trump deplorables yelling insults who cares" - Pathetic. Also, of course, controlling the polls while not the same as 'riggin' the election is part of the same MO. (See Podesta e-mails from Wikileaks.) ..."
"... I think things could get pretty ugly on Nov 9 if Trump wins because i don't see Hillary going quietly into the night and the dems have seeded "putin is rigging" the election idea to contest the results. Plus the establishment that wants Hillary controls the media and the executive office. ..."
"... Trump's delegitimizing the election before it takes place is definitely color revolution stuff - the carrot revolution? ..."
"... "Hillary Clinton now says her "number one priority" in Syria is the removal of Bashar al-Assad, putting us on the path of war with Syria and Russia next year. ..."
"... no-fly zone" over Syria will certainly be followed by the shooting down of both Russian and U.S. jets, in an unpredictable escalation that could easily spread ..."
"... Note the sums are shards of chewed peanuts and their shells. MSM are bought, controlled and are put in a lowly position, and pamper to power, any.… They will go where the money is but it takes them a long time to figure out who what where why etc. and what they are supposed to do. They cannot be outed as completely controlled, so have to do some 'moves' to retain credibility, and their clients/controllers understand that. Encouraging a corrupt 4th Estate has its major downsides. ..."
"... Rigged. Right. Let me tell you about rigged. The US system is rigged in a far larger sense than any Americans realize. It's rigged to blow off the Constitution. ..."
"... the idea of the Electoral College was that every four years communities vote for a local person who could be trusted to go to Washington and become part of the committee that chooses a president and vice-president. ..."
"... The process is "supposed" to be more akin to the Holy See choosing a pope. The electors were to meet in Washington, debate the possibilities, come up with short list, go to the top person on the list and ask if they would be willing to be president (or vice-president, as the case may be), and if they agreed, the deal was done. If not, go to the second person. ..."
"... And demand hand counted paper ballots that cannot be rigged by "Russian hackers". It's called simple score because it is almost the same as other well-known forms of score (and "range") voting, except it's optimized for hand counted paper ballots (i.e. no machines). ..."
"... Need to comb through the propositions carefully. Against big business and self serving liberals.. BTW, I'm a Californian from the Central Valley. Oh! How I wish there is a proposition. Should Hussein Obomo II charge for crimes against humanity? ..."
"... it is absolutely evident that Donald Trump is not only facing the mammoth Clinton political machine, but, also the combined forces of the viciously dishonest Mainstream Media." ..."
"... "When was the last time the media threw 100% of its support behind one party's presidential candidate? What does that say about the media?" ..."
"... Do you feel comfortable with the idea that a handful of TV and print-news executives are inserting themselves into the process and choosing our leaders for us?" ..."
"... It looks like ALL of the Neocon war criminals and architects of the mass slaughters in Iraq (Libya, Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, etc) are standing with Hillary Clinton: ..."
"... Here's a partial list of neocon war criminals supporting Miss Neocon: Paul Wolfowitz (aka, the Prince of Darkness), Eliot Cohen, Richard Perle, David Wurmser, Robert Kagan, Max Boot, Bill Kristol, Dov Zakheim, Douglas Feith, Michael Ledeen, Marc Grossman, David Frum, Michael Chertoff, John Podhoretz, Elliot Abrams, Alan Dershowitz, etc ..."
"... All neocons stand with the CrookedC*nt because there hasn't been nearly enough pointless war, slaughter, dismemberment, death or trauma, it needs to go on FOREVER. ..."
"... To be blunt. It is not only MSM who are prostitutes of oligarchic ruling elite but all or most even so called left-leaning or independent media are all under guise of phony "opposition" or diversity of opinion where there is none. ..."
"... MSM even lacks this basic foundation of a rational thought and must be dismissed entirely. ..."
"... The freedom of speech and press, democracy and just simple decency are simply not allowed in these US under penalty of social marginalizing or even death as Assange and Manning are facing. The entire message of MSM propaganda false flag soldiers is fear. ..."
"... The US Elections themselves are regularity defrauded (read Greg Palast) for decades in thousands of well-documented different and additional ways to polls such as: ..."
"... No independent verification of the vote or serious reporting by international observers about violations, or independent exit polls, and many, many more ways every election is stolen as anybody who opens eyes can see. ..."
"... "The individual loses his substance by voluntarily bowing to an overpowering and distant oligarchy, while simultaneously "participating" in sham democracy." ..."
"... Remember this is a person that actually publicly admits he took 6 months off (from what?) to campaign for Mr Changey Hopey, The drone Bombing Nobel Peace Prize winner, so it's not like he could ever 5have any political insights worth listening to, now is it? ..."
"... Oddly, I looked to Russia for inspiration. RF believes in international law so greatly that she strives mightily at every turn to make it the way nations interact. And what we can see if we choose, is that this effort is paying off. The world is changing because of what Russia believes in. ..."
"... Although Clinton Won Massachusetts by 2%, Hand Counted Precincts in Massachusetts Favored Bernie Sanders by 17% ..."
"... Massachusetts, one of the participating states for the Super Tuesday election results, may need further scrutiny to allay concerns over election fraud using electronic voting machines. 68 out of the state's 351 jurisdictions used hand counted ballots and showed a much larger preference of 17% for Bernie Sanders than the rest of the jurisdictions tabulated by electronic voting machine vendors ES&S, Diebold and Dominion. Hillary Clinton was declared the winner of Massachusetts by 1.42 %. ..."
"... In the Dominican Republic's last elections (May 2016) voters forced the Electoral Office to get rid of the electronic count in favor of paper ballots, which were counted both, by scanner and by hand, one by one, in front of delegates from each party. This action avoided a credibility crisis and everything went smooth. ..."
Obama was asked about Trump's voter fraud assertions on Tuesday [..] He responded with a blistering
attack on the Republican candidate, noting that U.S. elections are run and monitored by local
officials, who may well be appointed by Republican governors of states, and saying that cases
of significant voter fraud were not to be found in American elections.
Obama said there was "no serious" person who would suggest it was possible to rig American
elections , adding, "I'd invite Mr. Trump to stop whining and go try to make his case to get votes."
That is curious. There are a lot of "non serious" persons in the Democratic Party who tell us
that Russia is trying to manipulate the U.S. elections. How is it going to that when it's not possible?
Is rigging the election only impossible when it is in favor of Hillary Clinton? This while rigging
the elections in favor of Donald Trump, by Russia or someone else, is entirely possible and even
"evident"?
Curious.
That said - I do believe that the U.S. election can be decided through manipulation. We have evidently
seen that in 2000 when Bush was "elected" by a fake "recount" and a Supreme Court decision.
The outcome of a U.S. presidential election can depend on very few votes in very few localities.
The various machines and processes used in U.S. elections can be influenced. It is no longer comprehensible
for the voters how the votes are counted and how the results created. *
The intense manipulation attempts by the Clinton camp, via the DNC against Sanders or by
creating a Russian boogeyman to propagandize against Trump, lets me believe that her side is well
capable of considering and implementing some vote count shenanigan. Neither are Trump or the Republicans
in general strangers to dirty methods and manipulations.
It is high time for the U.S. to return to paper-ballots and manual vote counting. The process
is easier, comprehensible, less prone to manipulations and reproducible. Experience in other countries
show that it is also nearly as fast, if not faster, than machine counting. There is simply no sensible
reason why machines should be used at all.
* (The German Constitutional Court prohibited the use of all voting machines in German
elections because for the general voters they institute irreproducible vote counting which leads
to a general loss of trust in the democratic process. The price to pay for using voting machines
is legitimacy.)
Posted by b on October 19, 2016 at 01:54 AM |
Permalink
I just found out that many states in the US use electronic voting systems made by Smartmatic which
is part of the SGO Group. Lord Mark Malloch-Brown is the chairman of SGO. This man is heavily
entangled with Soros. Hillary is Soros' candidate. You simply can't make this sh*t up
No. The price to pay is the ability to be alerted when vote rigging is going on. Bush won
in 2000 because his people controlled the processes that mattered in Florida.
There are the same allegations about 2004 in regards to Ohio.
There is more needed than just paper ballots. A proportional system, a limit on donations
and partisan/donor government posts, a stop to the corporate and lobbyist revolving doors.
And diverse political parties that present voters with a choice. At present the US seem
to be on their way to a one party system. Any democratic process will take place within this "private"
club including a very small part of the population.
But democracy never meant the power of the poor. So, no, for the 1 percent the system is
not rigged, they have a preferred globalization candidate, and a police state fall back should
the peasants rebell.
And in the end, this is the way things are run in Russia and China, with a lot less media circus.
Add - a limit to presidential power for one person. US citizens are reduced to vote in
a block to this power in the Senate and the House in continuous cycles. In the end that blocks
any political progress there might be. The US are the oldest modern democracy. It is like
being stuck in the age of steam engines.
Good one, wj2! Here's some more info on Lord Malloch-Brown and George Soros, courtesy of WikiPedia:
Malloch Brown has been closely associated with billionaire speculator George Soros. Working
for Refugees International, he was part of the Soros Advisory Committee on Bosnia in 1993–94,
formed by George Soros. He has since kept cordial relations with Soros, and rented an apartment
owned by Soros while working in New York on UN assignments. In May 2007, Soros' Quantum Fund
announced the appointment of Sir Mark as vice-president. In September 2007, The Observer reported
that he had resigned this position on becoming a government minister in the UK. Also in May
2007, Malloch Brown was named vice-chairman of Soros Fund Management and the Open Society Institute,
two other important Soros organisations.
DOOOOOOOOOM! "smartmatic" is obviously the right choice. it's a name we know and trust. Like
Deibold, Northrup, KBR, and Bellingcat. The integrity stands for itself. With a population
so gleefully ignorant and self centered as D'uhmerica, you should be lowering your expectations
significantly.
Are honest elections even legal in Texas and Louisiana? How about Massachusetts and New York?
They may be legal there but it would be dangerous to try to enforce that.
Just think of how many residents of graveyards will be voting their consciences (or lack thereof)
this year. Remember Chicago advise - vote early, vote often.
PB 13 "Concerning attacks from both sides, Trump is definitely more hysterical."
Concerted media campaign (scripted) against Trump portrays him as hysterical. Recall the
trumped-up "(Howard) Dean Scream".
Trump's hysterical rants (and the smear campaign) are played up in a organized attempt to knock
him out. People are getting kneecapped (Billy Bush) to demonstrate to others the wrath that may
be visited upon them for supporting the wrong candidate.
Take Bill O'Reilly for example, He told a subordinate female employee (documented court record)
that he wanted to "get a few wines in her and soap up her tits in the shower with a loofah and
falafel. There was a settlement and the story was under-reported. Forgotten and forgiven. In fact
Bill O stands as an arbiter of moral virtue.
Hillary is as nasty and hysterical as Trump or worse. She uses the F bomb regularly. Screams
at her subordinates and she annihilated several countries worth of women and children.
It is simply "not in the script" to malign Hillary with her own words and obnoxious behavior.
By the way, she is also a drunk.
We should all be aware of what occurred in the two Baby Bush elections as far as voter machine
tabulations and judicial fraud in his becoming president in both elections and the likely murder(s)
to cover the fraud up. Small plane crashes being almost untraceable.
https://spectregroup.wordpress.com/2008/12/26/bushs-it-guy-killed-in-plane-crash/
Who is leaking all this stuff so well-timed together? Might just be the FBI, finding itself
unable to prosecute officially, not only for fear of retribution, but also because the heap of
shit that would get uncovered could be enough for the rest of the world to declare war on the
US.
Daniel Ellsberg, in his book Secrets , recounts what he had learned during his government
service about the honesty of U.S. elections. As reported in
Counterpunch :
In Vietnam, as in Iraq, the U.S. government pushed hard to get an election to sanctify
its puppet regime. Ellsberg, who spent two years in Vietnam after his time in the Pentagon,
aided some of the key U.S. officials in this effort who sought an honest vote. But when U.S.
Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge heard their pitch, he replied, "You've got a gentleman in the
White House right now [Johnson] who has spent most of his life rigging elections. I've spent
most of my life rigging elections. I spent nine whole months rigging a Republican convention
to choose Ike as a candidate rather than Bob Taft." Lodge later ordered, "Get it across to
the press that they shouldn't apply higher standards here in Vietnam than they do in the U.S."
But Lodge's comments were downright uplifting compared with a meeting that Ellsberg attended
with former Vice President Richard Nixon, who was visiting Vietnam on a "fact-finding mission"
to help bolster his presidential aspirations. Former CIA operative Edward Lansdale told Nixon
that he and his colleagues wanted to help "make this the most honest election that's ever been
held in Vietnam." Nixon replied, "Oh, sure, honest, yes, honest, that's right … so long as
you win!" With the last words he did three things in quick succession: winked, drove his elbow
hard into Lansdale's arm, and slapped his own knee.
12,13,will you clowns keep your zippers closed? Your propaganda is unseemly, and we'll see just
whose victory will be huge Nov.8,won't we? Why does anyone put any credence in serial liar polls?
Why is policy discussion absent from this election cycle? Its all Trump bashing,wo one iota
of his policies being broadcast?
That is his vote rigging angle, that the MSM is corrupt and is politically assassinating him
daily,not the polls themselves being a major factor in the rigging accusations.
Obomba, the most un-criticised POTUS in American history, is a laughable pos concerned
about his terrible corrupt legacy of death war and division which Trump will reveal, once in.
And only commie morons would oppose that.
Election Fraud within the Outlaw US Empire has a long history. One very intrepid investigator
and expert on this is Brad Friedman who runs the Brad Blog, whose current lead item is about this
very topic. I suggest those interested in learning more take the time to investigate his
site and its many years of accumulated evidence proving Election Fraud a very big problem,
http://bradblog.com/
The Vote 'No Confidence' movement is growing. It's being actively discussed on FB and ZH now.
A bloviating bunko artist vers a grifting crypto neocon is not a 'choice', it's a suicide squad
lootfest it's taking America down.
In Humboldt County California we still use paper ballots. Our polling place also has one electronic
voting machine sitting in a corner for voters who can't use the paper ballots. I have never seen
it being used. There was a transparency program that I think they still do where all ballots were
scanned and the images made available online for the public to double check results. I'm no wiz
with machine vision but I think I could knock together enough code to do my own recount.
I'm not paying much attention but doesn't Trump say the election is rigged ? Obama's setting
up a straw mam by changing the story to election fraud. There may well be fraud in the voting
process but we are unlikely to ever know how much. But as to the election being rigged , that's
so plainly obvious it's painful.
And Germany doesn't allow electronic voting machines. Gotta be a clue there somewhere.
There is ample evidence of election fraud, vote fraud, and various types of 'rigging' or 'organising'
in the US it is just too long to go into in a short post. (See for ex. Adjuvant @ 6, john
@ 18)
Ideally, one would have to divide it into different types. It is also traditional, which some
forget, I only know about that from 'realistic' novels, I recently read Dos Passos' Manhattan
Transfer, and was amazed how little things change (despite horse-drawn carriages, rouge, spitoons,
cigars, sauerkraut, etc.) - see karlof1 @ 25.
Poll Pro-HRC results are not trustworthy. They aren't necessarily outright fabricated (is
easy to do and very hard to detect / prosecute), nor even fraudulently carried out, but 'arranged'
to give the desired result, which might even, in some cases, be perfectly unconscious, just following
SOP. (I could outline 10 major problems / procedures that twist the results.)
Then, the media take it up, and cherry-pick the results, pro HRC. That includes internet
sites like real clear politics, which I noticed recently is biased (paid?) in favor of
HRC.
It is amazing to me, yet very few ppl actually dig into the available info about the polls.
(Maybe 300 ppl in the world?) HRC needs these fakelorum poll results because they will 'rig' the
election as best as they can, they need to point back to them: "see we were winning all the time
Trump deplorables yelling insults who cares" - Pathetic. Also, of course, controlling the polls
while not the same as 'riggin' the election is part of the same MO. (See Podesta e-mails from
Wikileaks.)
This is also the reason for the mad accusations of Putin interference in US elections - if
somebody is doing illegit moves it is Trump's supporter Putin and so the 'bad stuff' is 'foreign
take-over' and not 'us', and btw NOT the Republicans, or Trump circle, which is very telling.
I didn't see the O Keefe, Project Veritas, vids mentioned. Here the first one. There is a second
one up and more coming.
I think things could get pretty ugly on Nov 9 if Trump wins because i don't see Hillary going
quietly into the night and the dems have seeded "putin is rigging" the election idea to contest
the results. Plus the establishment that wants Hillary controls the media and the executive office.
Trump's delegitimizing the election before it takes place is definitely color revolution
stuff - the carrot revolution?
It is an interesting experiment if you can make people vote for a candidate they don't like
by it being the only way to prevent a candidate they dislike even more. You just showed you aren't
able to.
"Hillary Clinton now says her "number one priority" in Syria is the removal of Bashar al-Assad,
putting us on the path of war with Syria and Russia next year.
Any "no-fly zone" over Syria will certainly be followed by the shooting down of both Russian
and U.S. jets, in an unpredictable escalation that could easily spread
Russia will not back down if we start shooting down its aircraft. Is Hillary willing to risk
nuclear war with Russia in order to protect al-Qaeda in Syria?
96% of disclosed campaign contributions from journalists went to the Clinton campaign.
From the MSM: TIME.
Note the sums are shards of chewed peanuts and their shells. MSM are bought, controlled
and are put in a lowly position, and pamper to power, any.… They will go where the money is but
it takes them a long time to figure out who what where why etc. and what they are supposed to
do. They cannot be outed as completely controlled, so have to do some 'moves' to retain credibility,
and their clients/controllers understand that. Encouraging a corrupt 4th Estate has its major
downsides.
Rigged. Right. Let me tell you about rigged. The US system is rigged in a far larger sense
than any Americans realize. It's rigged to blow off the Constitution.
If you want to know how badly rigged, ask any voter when they leave the voting venue: "What
is the name of the elector you just voted for?" You'll get either: 1) a dumb stare; 2) a laugh,
or 3) a "WTF is an elector?"
Under the Constitution, Americans vote for electors. They do not vote for presidents, and there's
a reason for that. It's called "mass stupidity."
The Fondling Fathers were smart enough to know that the people are too stupid to choose their
own leader. So the idea of the Electoral College was that every four years communities vote
for a local person who could be trusted to go to Washington and become part of the committee that
chooses a president and vice-president.
There is not "supposed" to be any campaign, candidates, or polls. The process is "supposed"
to be more akin to the Holy See choosing a pope. The electors were to meet in Washington, debate
the possibilities, come up with short list, go to the top person on the list and ask if they would
be willing to be president (or vice-president, as the case may be), and if they agreed, the deal
was done. If not, go to the second person. Pretty much how the CEO of a large corporation
is chosen.
Having the people of a community vote for the local person who would be the most trustworthy
to deliberate on who should be president is a reasonable objective. I mean, essentially the question
for the voter would be reduced to: "What person in our community would be least likely to be bought
off?" But having a gang-bang of 60 million voting Americans who don't really know shit about the
morons they are voting into office . . . that, on its face, is a sign of mass self-deception and
insanity. It is mass stupidity perpetuating itself.
The circus that the US presidential election has turned into – including the grotesque primaries
– just goes to show how fucking stupid Americans are. The system is an embarrassment to the entire
country. And it is an act of flipping-off the Fondling Fathers and their better judgment every
four years. But worst of all, the present system is virtually certain to eventually produce the
most powerful person in the world who is a complete moron, and who will precipitate a global catastrophe
– economic, or military, or both.
And demand hand counted paper ballots that cannot be rigged by "Russian hackers". It's
called simple score because it is almost the same as other well-known forms of score (and "range")
voting, except it's optimized for hand counted paper ballots (i.e. no machines).
Just got my mail-in ballots from the postman. Voting against all Democrats except, for POTUS.
Take a few days and vote either Jill Stein or Donald Trump.
Need to comb through the propositions carefully. Against big business and self serving
liberals.. BTW, I'm a Californian from the Central Valley. Oh! How I wish there is a proposition.
Should Hussein Obomo II charge for crimes against humanity?
"For any minimally conscious American citizen, it is absolutely evident that Donald Trump
is not only facing the mammoth Clinton political machine, but, also the combined forces of the
viciously dishonest Mainstream Media."
-Boyd D. Cathey, "The Tape, the Conspiracy, and the Death of the Old Politics", Unz Review
"When was the last time the media threw 100% of its support behind one party's presidential
candidate? What does that say about the media?"
Do you feel comfortable with the idea that a handful of TV and print-news executives are
inserting themselves into the process and choosing our leaders for us?"
If Jill Stein needs 5% of the vote in order to be considered a legitimate candidate (or to bring
the Green party up to legitimate third-party status for the 2020 election), then you can rest
assured that no matter how many votes she actually gets, her percentage will never be above 4.99%.
Just like when Obama swept into office in 2008, the powers-that-be made sure the Democrats never
had a filibuster-proof majority. Give 'em just enough to believe that the system works, but never
enough to create a situation where the lack of change can't be explained away by "gridlock". Brilliant
in its malevolence, really.
It looks like ALL of the Neocon war criminals and architects of the mass slaughters in Iraq
(Libya, Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, etc) are standing with Hillary Clinton:
Here's a partial list of neocon war criminals supporting Miss Neocon: Paul Wolfowitz (aka,
the Prince of Darkness), Eliot Cohen, Richard Perle, David Wurmser, Robert Kagan, Max Boot, Bill
Kristol, Dov Zakheim, Douglas Feith, Michael Ledeen, Marc Grossman, David Frum, Michael Chertoff,
John Podhoretz, Elliot Abrams, Alan Dershowitz, etc
All neocons stand with the CrookedC*nt because there hasn't been nearly enough pointless
war, slaughter, dismemberment, death or trauma, it needs to go on FOREVER.
To be blunt. It is not only MSM who are prostitutes of oligarchic ruling elite but all or
most even so called left-leaning or independent media are all under guise of phony "opposition"
or diversity of opinion where there is none.
Actually MOA is one of few, more or less independent, aligning itself with any sane ideology,
a welcome island of order in the ocean of media cacophony and I often disagreed with MOA but I
appreciate its logical consistency and integrity, hard facts based journalism,no matter from what
moral stand MOA writings are coming from. MSM even lacks this basic foundation of a rational
thought and must be dismissed entirely.
But there is much, much more rigging going on, on massive, even global scale. The fraud is
so massive and so visible that blinds people from the truth about it. From the truth of how massively
they are being controlled in their opinions and thoughts.
The freedom of speech and press, democracy and just simple decency are simply not allowed
in these US under penalty of social marginalizing or even death as Assange and Manning are facing.
The entire message of MSM propaganda false flag soldiers is fear.
It may seem shocking for people under spell of overwhelming propaganda, but this government
run by Global oligarchs is dangerous to our physical and mental health and must be eradicated
as a matter of sanitary emergency.
Let's sweep all those political excretions into the sewage pipes where they belong. But first
we have to recognize the scale of their influence and their horrifying daily routine subversion
of social order, gross malfeasance or even horrendous crimes also war crimes covered up by MSM.
Only after we get rid of this abhorrent, brutal regime, cut the chains of enslavement we can
have decent democracy or voting, not before.
John Stuart Mill - "Government shapes our character, values, and intellect. It can affect
us positively or negatively. When political institutions are ill constructed, "the effect is
felt in a thousand ways in lowering the morality and deadening the intelligence and activity
of the people"
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, "I had come to see that everything was radically connected
with politics, and that however one proceeded, no people would be other than the nature of
its government.
And here we are, believing the shit those mofos and feeding us about freedom and democracy
citing bought and sold lies as "scientific research" concocted for one reason alone, to fuck us
up , exploit and discard when not needed.
Here is, in a small part, about how they do it, starting from phony polls that suppose to sway
you one way or another into following supposed projected winner anointed by the establishment.
Polls are routinely skewed, even MSM pundits say use polls they can trust i.e. which give them
results their bosses seek.
Now over hundred top newspapers and media outlets endorsed Hillary so you can safely remove
them from your list of polls you can rely on.
Anyway most polls are rigged even more than elections themselves, mostly by skewing the content
of a poling sample like in the above example. If you poll Dems about Reps that exactly you get
what you seek. But they are more insidious like doubling or tripling polling sample and then pick
an choose what answers they like, or focus sample on the area you know there is overall support
for your thesis or assertion of candidate regardless of official affiliation, and many more down
to raw rigging by fixing numbers or adjustments.
The US Elections themselves are regularity defrauded (read Greg Palast) for decades in
thousands of well-documented different and additional ways to polls such as:
By limiting selection of possible candidates and their access to statewide or national ballot
box via rigged undemocratic caucuses and primaries and other unreasonable requirements, goal-seeking
ad-hoc rules. by eliminating and/or confusing voters about voting at proper physical location
often changed in last moments, forcing into never counted provisional vote by purposely hiding
registered lists, purging made up "felons" from voter lists, requiring expensive or unavailable
or costly to obtain due to extensive travel, identifying documents, threatening citizen (of color)
with deportation, accusing them of voter fraud [baseless challenging that automatically pushes
voter into provisional vote], or strait offering meaningless provisional ballots instead of proper
ballot for people who can't read (English) well, eliminating students and military vote when needed
on phony registration issues, signature, pictures, purposefully misspelled names, mostly non-British
names etc., reducing number of polling places where majority votes for "rouge" candidate, forcing
people to stand in line for hours or preventing people from voting al together.
Selecting remote polling locations with obstructed public access by car or transit, paid parking,
exposed to weather elements, cold, wind and rain in November.
Hacking databases before and after vote, switching votes, adding votes for absent voters, and
switching party affiliations and vote at polling places as well up in the data collating chain,
county, state, filing in court last minute frivolous law suits aimed to block unwanted candidates
or challenging readiness of the polling places in certain neighborhoods deemed politically uncertain,
outrageous voting ON a WORKING DAY (everywhere else voting is on Sunday or a day free of work)
skewing that way votes toward older retired people.
Massive lying propaganda of whom we vote for, a fraudulent ballot supposedly voting for "candidates"
but in fact voting on unnamed electors, party apparatchiks instead, violating basic democratic
principle of transparency of candidates on the ballot and secrecy of a voter, outrageous electorate
college rules design to directly suppress democracy. Requirement of approval of the electoral
vote by congress is an outrageous thing illegal in quasi-democratic western countries due to division
of powers.
Outrageous, voting day propaganda to discourage voting by phony polling and predictions while
everywhere else there is campaigning ban, silence for two to three days before Election Day.
No independent verification of the vote or serious reporting by international observers
about violations, or independent exit polls, and many, many more ways every election is stolen
as anybody who opens eyes can see.
All the above fraud prepared by close group of election criminals on political party payroll,
months/years before election date often without any contribution from ordinary polling workers
who believe that nothing is rigged.
If somebody thinks that they would restrain themselves this time, think again. The regime,
in a form of mostly unsuspecting county registrars are tools of the establishment and will do
everything, everything they can and they can a lot, to defraud those elections and push an establishment
candidate down to our throats, without a thought crossing their comatose minds. "Just doing their
jobs like little Eichmanns of NAZI regime".
One way or another your vote will be stolen or manipulated up and down the ticket at will
and your participation would mean one thing legitimizing this abhorrent regime.
We must reject those rigged elections and demand that establishment must go, all of them GOP,
DNC and that including Hillary before any truly democratic electoral process worth participating
may commence.
"The individual loses his substance by voluntarily bowing to an overpowering and distant
oligarchy, while simultaneously "participating" in sham democracy."
C. Wright Mills,"The Power Elite" (1956)
Any sane person must thus conclude that an act of voting in the current helplessly tainted
and rigged political system is nothing but morally corrupting tool that divides us, conflicts
us, extorts from us an approval for the meaningless political puppets of the calcified, repugnant
oligarchic US regime, in a surrealistic act of utter futility aimed just to break us down,
to break our sense of human dignity, our individual will and self-determination since no true
choice is ever being offered to us and never will.
Idea of political/electoral boycott, unplugging from the system that corrupts us and ALTERNATIVE
POLITICAL PROCESS designed, developed and implemented for benefit of 99% of population is the
only viable idea to express our political views that are absent from official regime candidates'
agendas and from the rigged ballots. Let's not be afraid, it was already successfully done
in the past. It works." Without courage there is only slavery.
Remember this is a person that actually publicly admits he took 6 months off (from what?)
to campaign for Mr Changey Hopey, The drone Bombing Nobel Peace Prize winner, so it's not like
he could ever 5have any political insights worth listening to, now is it?
Grow up.
I took the time off (I'm a software engineer) after the primaries (having supported neither
BO or HRC) because that's who get got. We were coming off 8 years of BushCo which was, in summary...
a horror. The republicans were 100% unrepentant, and McCain was a far louder and steadfast supporter
of Iraq then Hillary... wasn't even close. McCain burried his Abramhoff investigation, sealed
their findings for 50 years. And his running mate was not just bereft of any policy expertise,
she was a loudmouth loon... even FOX canceled her post election show.
I was well aware of BO's questions/limitations. He didn't put his time in as a Senator and
sponsored no meaningful legislation. He played it safe. He had no real policy track record. And
as a Senator he quietly slipped away and hob-nobbed with Bush several times (no other Dem Senator
at the time did this that I was aware). So yeah, Obama was on open question.
I was going to pass on this election, but I've read a lot here about it and started to consider
what as a US voter I might do.
Oddly, I looked to Russia for inspiration. RF believes in international law so greatly
that she strives mightily at every turn to make it the way nations interact. And what we can see
if we choose, is that this effort is paying off. The world is changing because of what Russia
believes in.
I believe in voting. I believe in multiple parties. I believe the game is totally rigged but
sometimes you can win, except that you have to play for this to happen. I believe that you have
to be the thing you want.
I believe in a Green Party and I admire the sanity that comes from Dr. Jill Stein every time
I encounter her position. This is the world I believe in. This is the world I'll vote for and
support, with all tools that comes to hand, forever.
~~
I don't believe in the view that aspiring for betterment is foolish or naive, or the view that
current status cannot change or be changed. Such views fail to acknowledge the physical reality
of a new universe manifesting in each moment, always different in some way from that of the previous
moment. Such views are lost, bewildered, behind the curve, forever.
Term limits are useless. There could never be a Cynthia McKinney or a Dennis Kucinich -- Ever!
Term limited representatives would by definition be track record-free representatives. If you
really would like positive change, you simply need to get strategic hedge simple score voting:
SHSV
Although Clinton Won Massachusetts by 2%, Hand Counted Precincts in Massachusetts Favored
Bernie Sanders by 17%
Mar 06 2016
J.T. Waldron
Massachusetts, one of the participating states for the Super Tuesday election results,
may need further scrutiny to allay concerns over election fraud using electronic voting machines.
68 out of the state's 351 jurisdictions used hand counted ballots and showed a much larger preference
of 17% for Bernie Sanders than the rest of the jurisdictions tabulated by electronic voting machine
vendors ES&S, Diebold and Dominion. Hillary Clinton was declared the winner of Massachusetts by
1.42 %.
In the Dominican Republic's last elections (May 2016) voters forced the Electoral Office to
get rid of the electronic count in favor of paper ballots, which were counted both, by scanner
and by hand, one by one, in front of delegates from each party. This action avoided a credibility
crisis and everything went smooth.
"... I think that Trump is referring to Clinton's use of her private, insecure server for confidential e-mails of which she ordered 30,000 to be deleted and had Obama intervene to stop an FBI investigation. Honest and transparent, I think not. ..."
"... In "normal" circumstances she would have been disqualified as a candidate and possibly be facing criminal proceedings. Let's face it, neither candidate is at all suitable as leader of the western world. ..."
"... The current bedrocks of the capitalist system are at breaking point. Parliamentary democracy and the nation state are crumbling under various pressures. They may be saves but I think we are entering the period when they will be replaced. I have no idea what with though. ..."
"... Remember when U.S. NGOs were "respected" bodies around the world. Now we know they were spies and subverters, now banned from all self respecting countries around the world. ..."
"... Remember how the U.S. went into Iraq for De4mocracy. Now we know it was oil and deliberate mayhem. ..."
"... Ditto Afghanistan, Libya, and their failed attempt to lay waste Syria. ..."
"... Ukraine is just a stand alone shithole created by the U.S., lied about by them, down to the downing of MH17 ..."
"... If you want lies and deceit, look at the U.S ..."
"... Not to be too critical, but most of what you mentioned was perpetrated under a single presidential administration. Cheney was dividing Iraqi oilfields way before the "invasion". Bush was just a puppet. You know, the kind of guy you would like to have a beer with. Just a good ole'boy. ..."
"... Is Hillary trying to stir up her own counter revolution in case she loses too? It seems like a fatally flawed attempt. People barely have the energy to turn out to vote for her, let alone take up arms for her. ..."
"... The DNC rigged the vote to nominate Clinton over Sanders. Why wouldn't they employ the same tricks in the election itself? ..."
"... Any individual with a shred of decency should be extremely disturbed by the actions of Debbie Wasserman Schultz and the DNC. They privately discussed methods of discrediting Sanders based SOLELY on his religious affiliation. ..."
"... Despite having a tonne of shit thrown at him and the msm and big money donors squarely in Clinton's corner, Trump's still standing. Polls released today: LA Times +2 Trump; NBC +6 Clinton; Rasmussen +1 Clinton ..."
The fight over vote rigging in 2016 is a proxy war for a much deeper crisis: the legitimacy of
American democracy
Nearly 90% of Trump supporters agreed with a Rand Corporation survey statement that "people like
me don't have any say about what the government does." The irony here is that Trump voters are historically
some of the most enfranchised, with some of his strongest support coming from white protestant men.
A study done during the primaries also found that Trump backers make an average of $72,000 per year,
compared with a $61,000 average among likely Clinton voters.
... ... ...
Corporate citizens – as defined by Citizens United – now have an easier time getting a hold of
their elected representative than just about any other American. In other words, money talks in Washington,
and Super Pacs have spend just under $795m this election cycle. Because lobbying money courses through
every level of politics, the most successful candidates are the best at making friends in the Fortune
500.
Meanwhile, just
six
in 10 Americans are confident their votes will be accurately cast and counted. And unlike in
systems based on proportional representation, our winner-take-all electoral model creates some of
the highest barriers to entry for political outsiders of any democracy on earth.
Americans' distrust of politics is about more than just elections, though. Congressional approval
ratings have declined steadily
since
2009 , and now sit at just 20% – a high in the last few years. Unions – which used to cudgel
Democrats into representing working people's interests – are at their weakest point in decades, and
lack the sway they once held at the highest levels of government.
Declines in organized labor have been paired with the disappearance of steady and well-paid work,
either succumbed to automation or shipped overseas by free trade agreements. A jobless recovery from
the financial crisis has left many adrift in the economy, while executives from the firms that drove
it got golden parachutes courtesy of the Obama administration and the Federal Reserve.
On the table now are to very different responses to these crises. Using an apocryphal quote from
Frederich Engels, Rosa Luxemburg once
wrote
: "Bourgeois society stands at the crossroads, either transition to socialism or regression into
barbarism."
SmartestRs 2d ago
I think that Trump is referring to Clinton's use of her private, insecure server for confidential
e-mails of which she ordered 30,000 to be deleted and had Obama intervene to stop an FBI investigation.
Honest and transparent, I think not.
In "normal" circumstances she would have been disqualified
as a candidate and possibly be facing criminal proceedings. Let's face it, neither candidate is
at all suitable as leader of the western world.
furiouspurpose
When Mrsfuriouspurpose got a gig as a poll clerk on the EU referendum she offered everyone
who came through the door a pencil to write their cross.
Many brought their own pens and a fair few explained that they were concerned that pencil could
be rubbed out and wanted to make sure – just in case.
It ain't only the yanks who are getting suspicious about how honest our democracy has become.
davidc929 -> furiouspurpose
The current bedrocks of the capitalist system are at breaking point. Parliamentary democracy
and the nation state are crumbling under various pressures. They may be saves but I think we are
entering the period when they will be replaced. I have no idea what with though.
Kholrabi
Remember when U.S. NGOs were "respected" bodies around the world.
Now we know they were spies and subverters, now banned from all self respecting countries around
the world.
Remember how the U.S. went into Iraq for De4mocracy.
Now we know it was oil and deliberate mayhem.
Ditto Afghanistan, Libya, and their failed attempt to lay waste Syria.
Ukraine is just a stand alone shithole created by the U.S., lied about by them, down to the
downing of MH17.
If you want lies and deceit, look at the U.S.
Trump is right in his accusations. Idle chatter is just that, wasteful of time and distracting
idle chatter,
Thomas Hosking -> Kholrabi
Not to be too critical, but most of what you mentioned was perpetrated under a single presidential
administration. Cheney was dividing Iraqi oilfields way before the "invasion". Bush was just a
puppet. You know, the kind of guy you would like to have a beer with. Just a good ole'boy.
DaanSaaf -> Kholrabi
Ukraine is just a stand alone shithole created by the U.S.,
tbf, that was as much the handiwork of the EU as it ever was the US
leadale
For better or for worse, the 2016 presidential campaign was all about him.
Not about his policies. Not about calm analysis of what was wrong and how it could be fixed.
It was always about him. And now, the nation's attention is still focused on him and his peccadillos…rather
than Ms Clinton and her scams, corruptions, and Deep State flimflams.
'Remember, it's a rigged system. It's a rigged election,' said the candidate over the weekend.
Is the election really rigged? Probably not in the way Mr Trump intends listeners to believe.
But the 'system' is so rigged that the election results hardly matter.
A real conservative would shift the debate away from fanny pinching and other ungentlemanly comportment
to how it is rigged. Americans want to know. How come the economy no longer grows as it used to?
How come most Americans are poorer today than they were in 1999? How come we no longer win our
wars?
He would explain to listeners that much of the rigging took place while Hillary and Bill Clinton
were collecting more than $150 million in speaking fees, telling us how to improve the world!
Then, he would help listeners put two and two together - explaining how the fake dollar corrupted
the nation's economy…and its politics, too.
And he would offer real solutions.
As it is, nobody seems to care. Not the stock market. Not the bond market. Not commentators. Not
Hillary. Not Donald. Nobody.
Bill Bonnar - Daily reckoning
Ken Weller -> leadale
Actually, he did address those issues quite frequently, including during the debate. It's the
media that is trying to dictate what the important issues are.
Ken Weller
I recall that in previous elections, notably the 2004 presidential, progressive voices rightly
pointed to possible election rigging. I even remember DNC chair Howard Dean interviewing Bev Harris
of blackboxvoting.org about how this could be achieved. Now that Trump's people are concerned
about the issue, it's suddenly crazy.
Meanwhile, Clinton's camp has put forth there own conspiracy
theory that Russia may somehow rig it for Trump, never mind that that the voting machines are
disconnected from the internet and thus hackers.
Brett Hankinson -> Ken Weller
Is Hillary trying to stir up her own counter revolution in case she loses too? It seems like
a fatally flawed attempt. People barely have the energy to turn out to vote for her, let alone
take up arms for her.
Trump is far more effective and newsworthy because he's inciting violence during the US election
and it actually seems plausible that violence could result. He doesn't even need to win the popular
vote to wreck the place.
Whodeaux Brett Hankinson
It's win/win for Trump and his ilk. Or rather, if he wins then obviously he wins. If he loses
he can just say he won, his fanbois will take over bird sanctuaries left and right, and when FBI
and National Guard inevitably kill some of them he can screech about how Real Mericans® are being
picked on by those nasty Globalist Bankers and the Entitlement Class, those two terms being the
current dog whistles for what the John Birchers used to call Jews and Blacks.
Trump doesn't seem to realize actual people are going to be actually dead before this is all
over. One cannot untoast bread.
MountainMan23
The DNC rigged the vote to nominate Clinton over Sanders. Why wouldn't they employ the
same tricks in the election itself?
Our voting machines & tabulators are insecure - that's a known fact.
So the concern among all voters (not just Trump supporters) is real & justified.
HiramsMaxim MountainMan23
If I were a Sanders supporter I would be furious.
Hell, I'm not a Sanders supporter, and I am still furious. What matters an individual's vote,
if the outcome has already been determined by The Powers That Be?
Todd Owens HiramsMaxim
Any individual with a shred of decency should be extremely disturbed by the actions of
Debbie Wasserman Schultz and the DNC. They privately discussed methods of discrediting Sanders
based SOLELY on his religious affiliation.
"It might may (sic) no difference, but for KY and WVA can we get someone to ask his belief.
Does he believe in a God. He had skated on saying he has a Jewish heritage. I think I read he
is an atheist. This could make several points difference with my peeps. My Southern Baptist peeps
would draw a big difference between a Jew and an atheist," Bradley Marhsall, former CFO of the
DNC.
This is identity politics at its absolute worst.
HiramsMaxim ButtChocolate
Its a little more sophisticated than that.
In the Podesta email dumps, there is plenty of evidence of particular members of the Press
actively colluding with the Clinton campaign, and even submitting articles for review by the campaign
before publishing.
So, he is taking what are, at the very least, journalistic standards lapses, and spins it into
something larger. He takes a little fear, and makes a big story out of it. And, because these
media organisations cannot admit what they are doing, or deny the generally accepted verity of
the Wikileaks dumps, he gets a free shot.
Remember, to all the good progressives out there, Trump is not trying to appeal to you, convince
you, or make you like him. In fact, the more you hate him, the more "ideologically pure" he looks
to his supporters.
Example: Look at The Guardian reporting of the firebombing at the Republican office here in
NC. Any reasonable person would agree that firebombing is wrong. But, TG could not even use that
word. The article they published bent over backwards to minimise the action, and blame it on Trump.
Sure, that plays well to The Guardian readership. But, it just confirms (well, at least it
appears to confirm) the loud cries of media bias that Trump and his supporters rail against. The
irony is that when the same types of things happen domestically, by a Press that thinks it is
"helping" their preferred candidate, it only confirms the worst suspicions of the opposition.
And, it only taked one or two examples to give Trump room to condemn all media.
Trump has one overwhelming skill on display here. He is able to bait the media, and they cannot
resist rising to that bait. He is, for lack of a better term, a World Class Troll.
Harryy
"as his support slips"
Despite having a tonne of shit thrown at him and the msm and big money donors squarely
in Clinton's corner, Trump's still standing. Polls released today: LA Times +2 Trump; NBC +6 Clinton;
Rasmussen +1 Clinton
HiramsMaxim Harryy
It is facinating that the last two weeks of ugliness on both sides has had just about zero
effect on people.
Its as if both sides have already made up their minds, and refuse to pay attention to the Media.
"... The Official Monster Raving Loony Party is a registered political party established in the United Kingdom in 1983 by the musician David Sutch, better known as "Screaming Lord Sutch, 3rd Earl of Harrow" or simply "Screaming Lord Sutch". It is notable for its deliberately bizarre policies and it effectively exists to satirise British politics, and to offer itself as an poignant alternative for protest voters, especially in constituencies where the party holding the seat is unlikely to lose it and everyone else's vote would be quietly wasted. ..."
I watched that yesterday. Funny and a complete take down of Jill Stein. How come a British comedian
knows more about our issues than one of our candidates for the White House? Oh wait - even Jill
Stein knows more than Donald Trump. If it were not for that Constitutional matter, I'd say Oliver
for President.
Fred C. Dobbs -> pgl... , -1
All politics is 'wacky',
the third-party kind is
the wackiest of all.
Maybe the UK does it best.
The Official Monster Raving Loony Party is a registered political party established in
the United Kingdom in 1983 by the musician David Sutch, better known as "Screaming Lord Sutch,
3rd Earl of Harrow" or simply "Screaming Lord Sutch". It is notable for its deliberately bizarre
policies and it effectively exists to satirise British politics, and to offer itself as an poignant
alternative for protest voters, especially in constituencies where the party holding the seat
is unlikely to lose it and everyone else's vote would be quietly wasted.
(Wikipedia)
"... a simple fact (that escapes many participants of this forum, connected to TBTF) the that Hillary is an unrepentant neocon, a warmonger that might well bring another war, possibly even WWIII. ..."
"... One of the systemic dangers of psychopathic females in high political positions is that remaining as reckless as they are, they try to outdo men in hawkishness. ..."
"... Enthusiasm of people in this forum for Hillary is mainly enthusiasm for the ability of TBTF to rip people another four years. ..."
"... The level of passive social protest against neoliberal elite (aka "populism" in neoliberal media terms) scared the hell of Washington establishment. Look at neoliberal shills like Summers, who is now ready to abandon a large part of his Washington consensus dogma in order for neoliberalism to survive. ..."
"... And while open revolt in national security state has no chances, Trump with all his warts is a very dangerous development for "status quo" supporters, that might not go away after the elections. ..."
Trump is winning with people in their 50s and they have a higher chance of voting than millennials
do. That plus voter suppression may hand this to Trump yet. There was an LA Times poll this month
that showed a small Trump lead. An outlier, sure, but the same poll was right about Obama in 2012
when other polls were wrong. Just saying
likbez -> Adamski... , -1
> "Trump is winning with people in their 50s and they have a higher chance of voting than millennials
do."
Yes. Thank you for making this point.
Also people over 50 have more chances to understand and reject all the neoliberal bullshit
MSM are pouring on Americans.
As well as a simple fact (that escapes many participants of this forum, connected to TBTF)
the that Hillary is an unrepentant neocon, a warmonger that might well bring another war, possibly
even WWIII.
One of the systemic dangers of psychopathic females in high political positions is that
remaining as reckless as they are, they try to outdo men in hawkishness.
Enthusiasm of people in this forum for Hillary is mainly enthusiasm for the ability of
TBTF to rip people another four years.
Not that Trump is better, but on warmongering side he is the lesser evil, for sure.
The level of passive social protest against neoliberal elite (aka "populism" in neoliberal
media terms) scared the hell of Washington establishment. Look at neoliberal shills like Summers,
who is now ready to abandon a large part of his Washington consensus dogma in order for neoliberalism
to survive.
And while open revolt in national security state has no chances, Trump with all his warts
is a very dangerous development for "status quo" supporters, that might not go away after the
elections.
That's why they supposedly pump Hillary with drugs each debate :-).
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump added one more accusation against Democratic rival
Hillary Clinton: "inappropriately" getting the debate questions.
Trump's tweet with the latest allegation comes the day after the final presidential debate in
which he refused to commit to the outcome of the Nov. 8 election.
Why didn't Hillary Clinton announce that she was inappropriately given the debate questions -
she secretly used them! Crooked Hillary.
- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 20, 2016
Less than two hours after sending the tweet, the real estate mogul told a rally in Ohio that he
would accept the results of the election - if he wins.
"I would like to promise and pledge . . . that I will totally accept the results of this great
and historic presidential election if I win."
Trump later said in the rally that he would accept a clear result but reserves the right to contest
a questionable outcome.
Trump's comments about the election results during the debate were blasted by politicians on both
sides of the aisle, including Governor Charlie Baker and Libertarian vice presidential candidate
Bill Weld, a former governor of Massachusetts. Weld called the debate remarks "the death knell for
[Trump's] candidacy."
Senator John McCain of Arizona, a top Republican who withdrew his support of Trump earlier this
month, said he conceded defeat "without reluctance" in 2008 when then-Senator Barack Obama won the
presidential election. McCain said the loser has always congratulated the winner, calling the person
"my president."
"That's not just the Republican way or the Democratic way. It's the American way. This election
must not be any different," McCain said in a statement.
Trump and his supporters have been making unsubstantiated claims that the election is rigged,
putting officials on the defense weeks before most voters head to the polls. Civil rights activists
have called some of the accusations a thinly veiled racist attack.
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump added one more accusation against Democratic rival
Hillary Clinton: "inappropriately" getting the debate questions.
Trump's tweet with the latest allegation comes the day after the final presidential debate
in which he refused to commit to the outcome of the Nov. 8 election.
Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
Why didn't Hillary Clinton announce that she was inappropriately given the debate questions
- she secretly used them! Crooked Hillary.
10:55 AM - 20 Oct 2016
Less than two hours after sending the tweet, the real estate mogul told a rally in Ohio that
he would accept the results of the election - if he wins.
"I would like to promise and pledge ... that I will totally accept the results of this great
and historic presidential election if I win."
Fred C. Dobbs said in reply to Fred C. Dobbs...
(But he didn't want the job anyway.)
President? It would be a demotion, says
Donald Trump Jr http://dailym.ai/2eJLQ71
via @MailOnline - Oct 20
Donald Trump Jr said last night moving into the White House would be a 'step down' for his
father.
Trump Jr was being interviewed on Fox News after the third presidential debate in Las Vegas
and was asked how he thought the Republican candidate had performed during the final presidential
debate. ...
"... As I have tirelessly explained, the U.S. economy is not just neoliberal (the code word for
maximizing private gain by any means available, including theft, fraud, embezzlement, political fixing,
price-fixing, and so on)--it is neofeudal , meaning that it is structurally an updated version of Medieval
feudalism in which a top layer of financial-political nobility owns the engines of wealth and governs
the marginalized debt-serfs who toil to pay student loans, auto loans, credit cards, mortgages and taxes--all
of which benefit the financiers and political grifters. ..."
"... The media is in a self-referential frenzy to convince us the decision of the century is between
unrivaled political grifter Hillary Clinton and financier-cowboy Donald Trump. Both belong to the privileged
ruling Elite: both have access to cheap credit, insider information ( information asymmetry ) and political
influence. ..."
"... If you exit the Pentagon, CIA, NSA, etc. at a cushy managerial rank with a fat pension and
lifetime benefits and are hired at a fat salary the next day by a private "defense" contractor--the
famous revolving door between a bloated state and a bloated defense industry--the system works great.
..."
Brimming with hubris and self-importance, the ruling Elite and mainstream media cannot believe
they have lost the consent of the governed.
Every ruling Elite needs the consent of the governed: even autocracies, dictatorships and corporatocracies
ultimately rule with the consent, however grudging, of the governed.
The American ruling Elite has lost the consent of the governed. This reality is being masked by
the mainstream media, mouthpiece of the ruling class, which is ceaselessly promoting two false narratives:
The "great divide" in American politics is between left and right, Democrat/Republican
The ruling Elite has delivered "prosperity" not just to the privileged few but to the unprivileged
many they govern.
Both of these assertions are false. The Great Divide in America is between the ruling Elite and
the governed that the Elite has stripmined. The ruling Elite is privileged and protected, the governed
are unprivileged and unprotected. That's the divide that counts and the divide that is finally becoming
visible to the marginalized, unprivileged class of debt-serfs.
The "prosperity" of the 21st century has flowed solely to the ruling Elite and its army of technocrat
toadies, factotums, flunkies, apparatchiks and apologists. The Elite's army of technocrats and its
media apologists have engineered and promoted an endless spew of ginned-up phony statistics (the
super-low unemployment rate, etc.) to create the illusion of "growth" and "prosperity" that benefit
everyone rather than just the top 5%. The media is 100% committed to promoting these two false narratives
because the jig is up once the bottom 95% wake up to the reality that the ruling Elite has been stripmining
them for decades.
As I have tirelessly explained, the U.S. economy is not just neoliberal (the code word
for maximizing private gain by any means available, including theft, fraud, embezzlement, political
fixing, price-fixing, and so on)--it is neofeudal , meaning that it is structurally an updated
version of Medieval feudalism in which a top layer of financial-political nobility owns the engines
of wealth and governs the marginalized debt-serfs who toil to pay student loans, auto loans, credit
cards, mortgages and taxes--all of which benefit the financiers and political grifters.
The media is in a self-referential frenzy to convince us the decision of the century is between
unrivaled political grifter Hillary Clinton and financier-cowboy Donald Trump. Both belong to the
privileged ruling Elite: both have access to cheap credit, insider information ( information asymmetry
) and political influence.
The cold truth is the ruling Elite has shredded the social contract by skimming the income/wealth
of the unprivileged. The fake-"progressive" pandering apologists of the ruling Elite--Robert Reich,
Paul Krugman and the rest of the Keynesian Cargo Cultists--turn a blind eye to the suppression of
dissent and the looting the bottom 95% because they have cushy, protected positions as tenured faculty
(or equivalent). They cheerlead for more state-funded bread and circuses for the marginalized
rather than demand an end to exploitive privileges of the sort they themselves enjoy.
Consider just three of the unsustainably costly broken systems that enrich the privileged Elite
by stripmining the unprivileged:
healthcare (a.k.a. sickcare because sickness is profitable, prevention is unprofitable),
higher education
Imperial over-reach (the National Security State and its partner the privately owned Military-Industrial
Complex).
While the unprivileged and unprotected watch their healthcare premiums and co-pays soar year after
year, the CEOs of various sickcare cartels skim off tens of millions of dollars annually in pay and
stock options. The system works great if you get a $20 million paycheck. If you get a 30% increase
in monthly premiums for fewer actual healthcare services--the system is broken.
If you're skimming $250,000 as under-assistant dean to the provost for student services (or equivalent)
plus gold-plated benefits, higher education is working great. If you're a student burdened with tens
of thousands of dollars in student loan debt who is receiving a low-quality, essentially worthless
"education" from poorly paid graduate students ("adjuncts") and a handful of online courses that
you could get for free or for a low cost outside the university cartel--the system is broken.
If you exit the Pentagon, CIA, NSA, etc. at a cushy managerial rank with a fat pension and
lifetime benefits and are hired at a fat salary the next day by a private "defense" contractor--the
famous revolving door between a bloated state and a bloated defense industry--the system works great.
If you joined the Armed Forces to escape rural poverty and served at the point of the spear somewhere
in the Imperial Project--your perspective may well be considerably different.
Unfortunately for the ruling Elite and their army of engorged enablers and apologists, they have
already lost the consent of the governed.
They have bamboozled, conned and misled the bottom 95% for decades, but their phony facade of
political legitimacy and "the rising tide raises all boats" has cracked wide open, and the machinery
of oppression, looting and propaganda is now visible to everyone who isn't being paid to cover their
eyes. Brimming with hubris and self-importance, the ruling Elite and mainstream media cannot believe
they have lost the consent of the governed. The disillusioned governed have not fully absorbed this
epochal shift of the tides yet, either. They are aware of their own disillusionment and their own
declining financial security, but they have yet to grasp that they have, beneath the surface of everyday
life, already withdrawn their consent from a self-serving, predatory, parasitic, greedy and ultimately
self-destructive ruling Elite.
"... "Now we have the three [Goldman] transcripts. Everyone can read them, and everyone should. What they show is Clinton's extraordinary understanding of our world - its leaders and their politics, terrorist groups and their vulnerabilities, the interplay of global forces, and the economic well-being of Americans" ..."
"... I think this debate especially was "priced in" - any Trump supporter at this stage has lost the capacity for changing minds, especially as so much of it is anti-Hillary. ..."
"... It is astounding that with all her money and MSM support/collusion HRC is only a few digits ahead in the polls. I still see a slim chance that Trump will win, if his hidden and shy voters go out and some of Hillary's stay home (lazy and complacent). ..."
"... Having said that, the establishment is terrified of a Trump win, and so many of those voting machines don't leave an audit trail… ..."
I can tell what how the press stories will read from the headlines and the writers, so I won't
bother to link to them.
See the NC debate live blog for a rice bowl-free discussion.
"Trump had done well, delivering his best prepared and most substantive performance, but it
wasn't nearly good enough to reshape the race. He came into Las Vegas trailing big time, and surely
leaves the same way" [
New York Post ]. "Absent an unforeseeable black swan event that tips the table in his favor,
Hillary Clinton is headed to the White House." Although I'd bet the terrain is quite different
today from the terrain Clinton imagined back when she was influence peddling at Goldman in 2015.
... ... ..
And then there's this, which does seem to under cut the bizarre "our electoral system is perfection
itself" narrative that Democrat loyalists are pushing:
... ... ...
UPDATE "But the negativity in this campaign has been something else, and the debates have been
very heavy on character attacks. In terms of the overall impact on the health of American democracy,
I think there's one thing that's particularly concerning: These two candidates, whose personal
conduct and character have been impugned over and over, both went through competitive primaries.
There were other candidates. Clinton and Trump both won their nominations, fairly and decisively.
But for people who might tune in sporadically, the conclusion that this is the best we can do
might produce real dismay." [
FiveThirtyEight ]. Yes, it's called a legitimacy crisis.
"The stream posted on his Facebook wasn't anything different than what people saw on CNN or
Fox News or MSNBC, just a livestream of the debate, but more than 170,000 watched it at once.
By the time the broadcast ended, more than 8.7 million had tuned in at some point. Compare that
to the half a million views Time posted for its debate lifestream, or the nearly 900,000 who watched
BuzzFeed News'" [
Independent Journal Review ]. "Welcome to the first broadcast of Trump TV."
War Drums
"Anyone who believes the United States is not fighting enough wars in the Middle East can be
happy this week. We have just plunged into another one. Twice in recent days, cruise missiles
fired from an American destroyer have rained down on Yemen. The Pentagon, a practiced master of
Orwellian language, calls this bombing 'limited self-defense'" [
Boston Globe ]. "American forces were already involved in Yemen's civil war. Since 2002, our
drone attacks have reportedly killed more than 500 Yemenis, including at least 65 civilians. We
are also supplying weapons and intelligence to Saudi Arabia, which has killed thousands of Yemenis
in bombing raids over the last year and a half - including last week's attack on a funeral in
which more than 100 mourners were killed." But I'm sure none of the mourners were women or people
of color. So that's alright, then.
Wikileaks
"Now we have the three [Goldman] transcripts. Everyone can read them, and everyone should.
What they show is Clinton's extraordinary understanding of our world - its leaders and their politics,
terrorist groups and their vulnerabilities, the interplay of global forces, and the economic well-being
of Americans" [
RealClearPolitics ].
This is the line the Moustache of Understanding took. Which is all you need to know, really
Although this writer is a little vague on
just how they are "extraordinary."
"Walmart, Wendy Clark, Target and Apple: More WikiLeaked Clinton Campaign Messaging Secrets"
[
Advertising Age ].
The Trail
"Trump Holds On To 1-Point Lead As Debate Sparks Fly - IBD/TIPP Poll" [
Investors Business Daily ]. Incidentally, IBD sounds like the sort of publication Trump would
read.
There is one corner of Washington where Donald Trump's scorched-earth presidential campaign
is treated as a mere distraction and where bipartisanship reigns. In the rarefied world of
the Washington foreign policy establishment, President Obama's departure from the White House
- and the possible return of a more conventional and hawkish Hillary Clinton - is being met
with quiet relief.
The Republicans and Democrats who make up the foreign policy elite are laying the groundwork
for a more assertive American foreign policy via a flurry of reports shaped by officials who
are likely to play senior roles in a potential Clinton White House. …
This consensus is driven by broad-based backlash against a president who has repeatedly
stressed the dangers of overreach and the limits of American power, especially in the Middle
East. "There's a widespread perception that not being active enough or recognizing the limits
of American power has costs," said Philip Gordon, a senior foreign policy adviser to Obama
until 2015. "So the normal swing is to be more interventionist." …
Smart investors will go long producers of canned food and manufacturers of fallout shelter
materials.
George Saunders strives mightily to have us believe our economic situation has nothing to do
with the attractiveness of The Donald to certain constituencies. But even he has to acknowledge
what people are angry about (emphasis added):
"All along the fertile interstate-highway corridor, our corporations, those new and
powerful nation-states, had set up shop parasitically, so as to skim off the drive-past money
, and what those outposts had to offer was a blur of sugar, bright color, and crassness
that seemed causally related to more serious addictions. Standing in line at the pharmacy in an
Amarillo Walmart superstore, I imagined some kid who had moved only, or mostly, through such bland,
bright spaces, spaces constructed to suit the purposes of distant profit, and it occurred to me
how easy it would be, in that life, to feel powerless, to feel that the local was lame, the abstract
extraneous, to feel that the only valid words were those of materialism ("get" and "rise")-words
that are perfectly embodied by the candidate of the moment.
Something is wrong, the common person feels, correctly: she works too hard and gets too little;
a dulling disconnect exists between her actual day-to-day interests and (1) the way her leaders
act and speak, and (2) the way our mass media mistell or fail entirely to tell her story.
What does she want? Someone to notice her over here, having her troubles. "
Pavel, October 20, 2016 at 4:06 pm
I blissfully ignored the televised "debate" last night though I followed the comments here
at NC and on Twitter for a while. Not sure my blood pressure would survive 90 mins of Hillary's
voice and smug smile or anything about Trump.
It is amusing to note the OUTRAGE that Trump might dare question the election results. Jesus
H Christ the media are just taking us all for amnesiac idiots, aren't they?
I think this debate especially was "priced in" - any Trump supporter at this stage has
lost the capacity for changing minds, especially as so much of it is anti-Hillary.
It is astounding that with all her money and MSM support/collusion HRC is only a few digits
ahead in the polls. I still see a slim chance that Trump will win, if his hidden and shy voters
go out and some of Hillary's stay home (lazy and complacent).
Having said that, the establishment is terrified of a Trump win, and so many of those voting
machines don't leave an audit trail…
Yet another attempt to explain Trump success... and Democratic Party disintegration because Dems
lost working class voters and substantial part of middle class voters.
Notable quotes:
"... I have a great deal of empathy for the Donald Trump voters. ..."
"... The elites have failed the people so thoroughly that tens of millions of people, on any side of any issue, can legitimately say they don't think the system is working for them anymore, if it ever did. ..."
"... There are elements of racism, xenophobia and misogyny in the Trump movement, and there's also all kinds of legitimate of anxieties. ..."
"... The rise of Trump is a judgment on the progressive movement that has adopted a style that doesn't leave much room for a 55-year-old heterosexual white Republican living in a red state to feel that he has any place of honor or dignity in the world progressives are trying to create. We see the disrespect coming from them, but there's a subtle disrespect coming from us, the NPR crowd, that is intolerant of intolerance. Nobody wants to feel as though they don't count. ..."
I also believe that people are fundamentally good, but this election cycle has tried that
hypothesis for me.
I have a great deal of empathy for the Donald Trump voters. When you listen to them talk
about feeling hurt, scared and left behind, they sound like the Black Lives Matter activists.
How so? The elites have failed the people so thoroughly that tens
of millions of people, on any side of any issue, can legitimately say they don't think the system
is working for them anymore, if it ever did. ...
... ... ...
A lot of people are mocking the idea that you can explain the bigotry at a Trump rally
by writing it off as simply a response to economic anxiety.
There are elements of racism, xenophobia and misogyny in the Trump movement, and there's also
all kinds of legitimate of anxieties.
The rise of Trump is a judgment on the progressive movement that has adopted a style that
doesn't leave much room for a 55-year-old heterosexual white Republican living in a red state to
feel that he has any place of honor or dignity in the world progressives are trying to create. We
see the disrespect coming from them, but there's a subtle disrespect coming from us, the NPR crowd,
that is intolerant of intolerance. Nobody wants to feel as though they don't count.
"... Headed by Lenin, Marx's followers discussed finance capital mainly in reference to the drives of imperialism. ..."
"... It was left to Veblen to deal with the rentiers' increasingly dominant yet corrosive role, extracting their wealth by imposing overhead charges on the rest of society. ..."
"... Veblen described how the rentier classes were on the ascendant rather than being reformed, taxed out of existence or socialized. His Theory of Business Enterprise (1904) emphasized the divergence between productive capacity, the book value of business assets and their stock-market price (what today is called the Q ratio of market price to book value). He saw the rising financial overhead as leading toward corporate bankruptcy and liquidation. Industry was becoming financialized, putting financial gains ahead of production. Today's financial managers use profits not to invest but to buy up their company's stock (thus raising the value of their stock options) and pay out as dividends, and even borrow to pay themselves. Hedge funds have become notorious for stripping assets and loading companies down with debt, leaving bankrupt shells in their wake in what George Ackerlof and Paul Romer have characterized as looting. ..."
"... In emphasizing how financial "predation" was hijacking the economy's technological potential, Veblen's vision was as materialist and culturally broad as that of Marxists ..."
Edited excerpt from Michael Hudson and Ahmet Oncu, eds.,
Absentee Ownership and its Discontents: Critical Essays on the legacy of Thorstein Veblen ....................
From Marx to Veblen
Early (and most non-Marxist) socialism aimed to achieve greater equality mainly by taxing away
unearned rentier income and keeping natural resources and monopolies in the public domain. The Marxist
focus on class conflict between industrial employers and workers relegated criticism of rentiers
to a secondary position, leaving that fight to more bourgeois reformers. Financial savings were treated
as an accumulation of industrial profits, not as the autonomous phenomenon that Marx himself emphasized
in Volume 3 of Capital.
Headed by Lenin, Marx's followers discussed finance capital mainly in reference to the drives
of imperialism. The ruin of Persia and Egypt was notorious, and creditors installed collectors in
the customs houses in Europe's former Latin American colonies. The major problem anticipated was
war spurred by commercial rivalries as the world was being carved up. It was left to Veblen to deal
with the rentiers' increasingly dominant yet corrosive role, extracting their wealth by imposing
overhead charges on the rest of society. The campaign for land taxation and even financial reform
faded from popular discussion as socialists and other reformers became increasingly Marxist and focused
on the industrial exploitation of labor.
Veblen described how the rentier classes were on the ascendant rather than being reformed, taxed
out of existence or socialized. His Theory of Business Enterprise (1904) emphasized the divergence
between productive capacity, the book value of business assets and their stock-market price (what
today is called the Q ratio of market price to book value). He saw the rising financial overhead
as leading toward corporate bankruptcy and liquidation. Industry was becoming financialized, putting
financial gains ahead of production. Today's financial managers use profits not to invest but to
buy up their company's stock (thus raising the value of their stock options) and pay out as dividends,
and even borrow to pay themselves. Hedge funds have become notorious for stripping assets and loading
companies down with debt, leaving bankrupt shells in their wake in what George Ackerlof and Paul
Romer have characterized as looting.
In emphasizing how financial "predation" was hijacking the economy's technological potential,
Veblen's vision was as materialist and culturally broad as that of Marxists, and as rejecting of
the status quo. Technological innovation was reducing costs but breeding monopolies as the Finance,
Insurance and Real Estate (FIRE) sectors joined forces to create a financial symbiosis cemented by
political insider dealings – and a trivialization of economic theory as it seeks to avoid dealing
with society's failure to achieve its technological potential. The fruits of rising productivity
were used to finance robber barons who had no better use of their wealth than to reduce great artworks
to the status of ownership trophies and achieve leisure class status by funding business schools
and colleges to promote a self-congratulatory but deceptive portrayal of their wealth-grabbing behavior.
Absentee Ownership and its Discontents: Critical Essays on the legacy of Thorstein Veblen By
Michael Hudson and Ahmet Oncu
From Marx to Veblen
Early (and most non-Marxist) socialism aimed to achieve greater equality mainly by taxing away
unearned rentier income and keeping natural resources and monopolies in the public domain. The
Marxist focus on class conflict between industrial employers and workers relegated criticism of
rentiers to a secondary position, leaving that fight to more bourgeois reformers. Financial savings
were treated as an accumulation of industrial profits, not as the autonomous phenomenon that Marx
himself emphasized in Volume 3 of Capital.
Headed by Lenin, Marx's followers discussed finance capital mainly in reference to the
drives of imperialism. The ruin of Persia and Egypt was notorious, and creditors installed
collectors in the customs houses in Europe's former Latin American colonies. The major problem
anticipated was war spurred by commercial rivalries as the world was being carved up.
It was left to Veblen to deal with the rentiers' increasingly dominant yet corrosive role,
extracting their wealth by imposing overhead charges on the rest of society. The campaign
for land taxation and even financial reform faded from popular discussion as socialists and other
reformers became increasingly Marxist and focused on the industrial exploitation of labor.
Veblen described how the rentier classes were on the ascendant rather than being reformed,
taxed out of existence or socialized. His Theory of Business Enterprise (1904) emphasized the
divergence between productive capacity, the book value of business assets and their stock-market
price (what today is called the Q ratio of market price to book value). He saw the rising financial
overhead as leading toward corporate bankruptcy and liquidation. Industry was becoming financialized,
putting financial gains ahead of production. Today's financial managers use profits not to invest
but to buy up their company's stock (thus raising the value of their stock options) and pay out
as dividends, and even borrow to pay themselves. Hedge funds have become notorious for stripping
assets and loading companies down with debt, leaving bankrupt shells in their wake in what George
Ackerlof and Paul Romer have characterized as looting.
In emphasizing how financial "predation" was hijacking the economy's technological potential,
Veblen's vision was as materialist and culturally broad as that of Marxists , and as rejecting
of the status quo. Technological innovation was reducing costs but breeding monopolies as the
Finance, Insurance and Real Estate (FIRE) sectors joined forces to create a financial symbiosis
cemented by political insider dealings – and a trivialization of economic theory as it seeks to
avoid dealing with society's failure to achieve its technological potential.
The fruits of rising productivity were used to finance robber barons who had no better use
of their wealth than to reduce great artworks to the status of ownership trophies and achieve
leisure class status by funding business schools and colleges to promote a self-congratulatory
but deceptive portrayal of their wealth-grabbing behavior.
Populism on the March Why the West Is in Trouble … Trump is part of a broad populist upsurge
running through the Western world. It can be seen in countries of widely varying circumstances,
from prosperous Sweden to crisis-ridden Greece. In most, populism remains an opposition movement,
although one that is growing in strength; in others, such as Hungary, it is now the reigning ideology.
But almost everywhere, populism has captured the public's attention. What is populism? It means
different things to different groups, but all versions share a suspicion of and hostility toward
elites, mainstream politics, and established institutions. -Foreign Affairs
The "populism versus globalism" meme is gradually yielding the predictable result: "Enlightened"
government needs to take an active role in alleviating the "frustration" felt by those attracted
to "populism."
The next phase of this meme can be seen, among other places, in this extensive article in Foreign
Affairs magazine entitled, "Populism on the March."
Foreign Affairs is the mouthpiece for the the Council on Foreign Relations that provides globalist
instructions and legislation for US industrial and political leadership.
Since DB's focus is on elite memes, we follow the larger one on a regular basis and have predicted
that "populism vs. globalism" constitutes serious propaganda. It may even rise to the level of "global
warming" aka "climate change."
Elite memes are not necessarily false in their entirety but they are at least partially fake.
Populism, for instance, in both Europe and America, has more to do with cultural self-protection
than the mindless "me first" approach the nomenclature suggests.
Populism is really an outgrowth of greater awareness of how elites have targeted middle classes
in order to destroy them as part of globalism's implantation.
Elite, mainstream media won't explain the reality of what's going on. Instead, the mainstream
takes the rightful anger created by elite targeting and characterizes it as a political movement.
Additionally, the explanation for this anger is that certain segments of Western populations are
being "left out" of rising world-wide prosperity.
More:
Immigration is the final frontier of globalization. It is the most intrusive and disruptive
because as a result of it, people are dealing not with objects or abstractions; instead, they
come face-to-face with other human beings, ones who look, sound, and feel different.
And this can give rise to fear, racism, and xenophobia. But not all the reaction is noxious.
It must be recognized that the pace of change can move too fast for society to digest.
The ideas of disruption and creative destruction have been celebrated so much that it is easy
to forget that they look very different to the people being disrupted.
Western societies will have to focus directly on the dangers of too rapid cultural change.
That might involve some limits on the rate of immigration and on the kinds of immigrants who are
permitted to enter.
It should involve much greater efforts and resources devoted to integration and assimilation,
as well as better safety nets. Most Western countries need much stronger retraining programs for
displaced workers, ones more on the scale of the GI Bill: easily available to all, with government,
the private sector, and educational institutions all participating.
We can see here a tired litany of government responses to the initial false premise. So-called
middle classes in the US reportedly have $1,000 in savings and perhaps $100,000 or more in debt.
The same forces that have virtually bankrupted Western middle classes are now somehow supposed to
rectify the ruin.
The article even states that in addition to government activism, an effort must be made to "highlight
realities of immigration so that the public is dealing with facts and not phobias."
How is this to be done? Via"enlightened leadership … that "appeals to their better angels. Eventually,
we will cross this frontier as well."
We've already called "populism versus globalism" a "textbook meme" and indicated that it provides
ample opportunity for the kind of directed history that we can see suggested in this article.
The next step will surely involve legislation to implement these suggestions. We are already seeing
this with "extremists" as reported by The Washington Post:
The White House announced a plan Wednesday to help prevent Americans from falling prey to violent
ideologies of the sort that drove mass killings in New York, San Bernardino, Calif., Chattanooga,
Tenn., and Orlando in the past year. The effort ... seeks to mobilize teams of teachers, mental
health professionals and community leaders to deal with a problem that offers few easy solutions.
Conclusion: The "populism versus globalism" meme has a long way to travel but
implemented fully it has a chance to broadly affect a variety of Western institutions and behaviors.
It provides justification for a signficant array of authoritarian intrusions and justifies this action
on numerous levels.
Globalism is mututally exclusive to popularism ... if anything globalism is growing the popularism.
By more globalist government you mean slavery, removal of voice and right to object to all
the shit you are forced to live because the globalist government forces you into that position
for itself.
The globalist government no longer serves the people it serves itself and all manner of horrors
it does to ensure you know you place but it you protest or worse turn to violence you are called
terrorists.
One mans terrorist is another mans freedom fighter and the only terrorist here is government
as it enforces servitude and slavery.
It is the ranking of money and its unabated influence history is lingering to come clear with.
Globalism means make the dictatorial power of money perfect.
Populism then, no. Not that perfect, and here a is broad range of adoption to consider on how
much its influence should be lamp posted.
You can try it with nationalism, right-wing-ism, genderism should do it well too and the like.
All this efforts can be cast as directed toward the inegalité business the power of money is
generating.
There they are fighting. In nightgowns or in tanks without to lay hands on the master of the
ranks.
The money order.
The fights then only can turn about the question who is allowed to issue it.
The holy cow of the game. The ultimate power of money, finally in your hand.
If the ranking of money is not perceived as what it is, stays untouched of all the shit what
fans can disseminate about the matter, then those with the most money will always stay in power.
And what we can expect of the coming is a clearance up to this question.
What money is allowed to claim.
You'll see there are no border issues to negotiate in dealing with that difficulty nor any
folklore is begged for a stunt on the political theater.
Just common sense about the question why someone is pulling of his clothes because another
is paying for.
i'm not sure that globalists is the best name for what we've got here. i think it is far too kind.
the (foreign policy) wars are started (and intentionally lost) by the likud/mossad zionists
who did 9-11, that seems clear enough with general clark's seven countries in five years revelation.
the (domestic) "economic team" is headed by the too big to jail banksters (some overlap with
above) and crony capitalists generally who are globalists in gang territory only.
Who won or lost last night's debate doesn't really matter. What matters is that Trump wasn't able to score the knock-out
blows required to impact his declining polling numbers in a meaningful way. Meanwhile, of all the points made in last night's
debate, the only one that seems to matter to the mainstream media this morning is that Trump is somehow plotting to overthrow our
democracy by refusing to accept election results on November 8th.
Of course, facts do seem to support Trump's claim that the election is rigged and not just as a result of a biased mainstream
media that refuses to cover Hillary's various scandals. In fact, according to research conducted by the
Pew Research Center in 2012, the capacity for voter fraud in the U.S. is substantial with nearly 2mm dead people found to be
registered voters and nearly 3mm people registered in multiple states.
Approximately 24 million -one of every eight- voter registrations in the United States are
no longer valid or are significantly inaccurate
More than 1.8 million deceased individuals are listed as voters
Approximately 2.75 million people have registrations in more than one state
Add to that the recent Project Veritas videos showing democratic operatives paying people to incite violence at republican rallies
and actually bragging about "bussing" in out-of-state voters to commit massive voter fraud and Trump's claims of "election rigging"
seem hard to deny.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/5IuJGHuIkzY
https://www.youtube.com/embed/hDc8PVCvfKs
After watching those videos, does this tweet really seem all that inaccurate?
Of course there is large scale voter fraud happening on and before election day. Why do Republican leaders deny what is going
on? So naive!
Of course, according to
The
Hill , republicans this morning are jumping at the opportunity to bash their own party's nominee with Lindsey Graham saying that
"Trump is doing the party and our country a great disservice."
Many Republicans were tired of Trump's talk about a rigged election before his remarks on Wednesday night that he would not
commit to accepting the legitimacy of the vote count on Election Day.
Trump said there are "millions of people" who are registered to vote illegally, alleged that the media has "poisoned the minds
of the voters," and pledged to keep the nation in "suspense" over whether he'd concede the race to Clinton.
Trump's critics seized on his remarks after the debate, and Republicans down the ballot will be forced to weigh in
over the coming days.
Several jumped at the chance.
"Mr. Trump is doing the party and our country a great disservice by continuing to suggest the outcome of this election
is out of his hands and 'rigged' against him," said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). "It will not be because the system
is 'rigged' but because he failed as a candidate."
. @realDonaldTrump saying that he might not accept election
results is beyond the pale
Of course, other topics were discussed during the debate with Trump seemingly scoring points during the abortion scuffle, the
supreme court discussion and Hillary's various FBI, email and foundation scandals. That said, we suspect none of it really matters
and is already forgotten.
The GOP nominee ably defended the conservative position against abortion and stayed on the attack against Clinton on her biggest
vulnerabilities, raising questions about the FBI's investigation into her private email server, donations from foreign governments
to the Clinton Foundation and revelations from the WikiLeaks email dumps.
Regardless, as we said in the beginning of this post, none it really matters as the key takeaway from last night was that
"Trump needed a campaign-altering moment, and it didn't happen."
He will enter the final three weeks before Election Day trailing badly and with his support teetering on the
edge of full collapse, stirring Republican fears that they could lose the House majority.
The days of Trump boasting about his polling numbers and his prospects in blue states are long gone.
Trump's attacks against Clinton and the message that turned him into a winner in the GOP primaries won't be enough to get him
back to that place.
So, outside of some new bombshell development from WikiLeaks or wherever, we suspect this one is in the bag.
Trump is right, the election is rigged. Not necessarily as in voting or vote counting fraud, but in more subtle
ways. The MSM is doing it's best to be completely one sided in "reporting" about the candidates. A billionaire supporter is welcome
to support Hillary, but if he is supporting Trump, he will be facing thinly veiled threats: The NYT for example went after Peter
Thiel by writing this:
"In Silicon Valley, technology executives are having to explain why they continue to do business with the billionaire investor
Peter Thiel, who donated $1.25 million to Mr. Trump's campaign.
Mr. Thiel will address the controversy in a speech in Washington this month. But executives with ties to him have had to explain
why they have not cut them.
And they have faced criticism.
"We agree that people shouldn't be fired for their political views, but this isn't a disagreement on tax policy, this is advocating
hatred and violence," wrote Ellen Pao, the head of Project Include, an organization that aims to increase diversity in the tech
industry. Project Include has severed ties with Y Combinator, where Mr. Thiel is a part-time partner, because of his involvement."
The message is: If you support Trump, shut up or face negative consequences to your business and private life.
This guy is die hard neoliberal. That's why he is fond of Washington consensus. He does not understand
that the time is over for Washington consensus in 2008. this is just a delayed reaction :-)
Notable quotes:
"... after years of unusually sluggish and strikingly non-inclusive growth, the consensus is breaking down. Advanced-country citizens are frustrated with an "establishment" – including economic "experts," mainstream political leaders, and dominant multinational companies – which they increasingly blame for their economic travails. ..."
"... Anti-establishment movements and figures have been quick to seize on this frustration, using inflammatory and even combative rhetoric to win support. They do not even have to win elections to disrupt the transmission mechanism between economics and politics. ..."
"... They also included attacks on "international elites" and criticism of Bank of England policies that were instrumental in stabilizing the British economy in the referendum's immediate aftermath – thus giving May's new government time to formulate a coherent Brexit strategy. ..."
"... The risk is that, as bad politics crowds out good economics, popular anger and frustration will rise, making politics even more toxic. ..."
"... At one time, the people's government served as a check on the excesses of economic interests -- now, it is simply owned by them. ..."
"... The defects of the maximalist-globalist view were known for years before the "consensus began to break down". ..."
"... In at least some of these cases, the "transmission" of the consensus involved more than a little coercion and undermining local interests, sovereignty, and democracy. This is an central feature of the "consensus", and it is hard to see how it can by anything but irredeemable. ..."
"... However it is not bad politics crowding out out good economics, for the simple reason that the economic "consensus" itself, in embracing destructive and destabilizing economic policy crowded out the ostensibly centrist politics... ..."
"... The Inclusive Growth has remained only a Slogan and Politicians never ventured into the theme. In the changed version of the World.] essential equal opportunity and World of Social media, perspective and social Political scene is changed. Its more like reverting to mean. ..."
In the 1990s and 2000s, for example, the so-called Washington Consensus dominated policymaking
in much of the world...
... ... ...
But after years of unusually sluggish and strikingly non-inclusive growth, the consensus is
breaking down. Advanced-country citizens are frustrated with an "establishment" – including economic
"experts," mainstream political leaders, and dominant multinational companies – which they increasingly
blame for their economic travails.
Anti-establishment movements and figures have been quick to seize on this frustration, using
inflammatory and even combative rhetoric to win support. They do not even have to win elections to
disrupt the transmission mechanism between economics and politics. The United Kingdom proved
that in June, with its Brexit vote – a decision that directly defied the broad economic consensus
that remaining within the European Union was in Britain's best interest.
... ... ...
... speeches by Prime Minister Theresa May and members of her cabinet revealed an intention to
pursue a "hard Brexit," thereby dismantling trading arrangements that have served the economy well.
They also included attacks on "international elites" and criticism of Bank of England policies
that were instrumental in stabilizing the British economy in the referendum's immediate aftermath
– thus giving May's new government time to formulate a coherent Brexit strategy.
Several other advanced economies are experiencing analogous political developments. In Germany,
a surprisingly strong showing by the far-right Alternative für Deutschland in recent state
elections already appears to be affecting the government's behavior.
In the US, even if Donald Trump's presidential campaign fails to put a Republican back in the
White House (as appears increasingly likely, given that, in the latest twist of this highly unusual
campaign, many Republican leaders have now renounced their party's nominee), his candidacy will likely
leave a lasting impact on American politics. If not managed well, Italy's constitutional referendum
in December – a risky bid by Prime Minister Matteo Renzi to consolidate support – could backfire,
just like Cameron's referendum did, causing political disruption and undermining effective action
to address the country's economic challenges.
... ... ...
The risk is that, as bad politics crowds out good economics, popular anger and frustration
will rise, making politics even more toxic. ...
Mr El-Erian, I know you are a good man, but it seems as though everyone believes we can synthetically
engineer a way out of this never ending hole that financial engineering dug us into in the first
place.
Instead why don't we let this game collapse, you are a good man and you will play a role in
the rebuilding of better system, one that nurtures and guides instead of manipulate and lie.
The moral suasion you mention can only appear by allowing for the self annihilation of this
financial system. This way we can learn from the autopsies and leave speculative theories to third
rate economists
It is sadly true that "the relationship between politics and economics is changing," at least
in the U.S.. At one time, the people's government served as a check on the excesses of economic
interests -- now, it is simply owned by them.
It seems to me that the best we can hope for now is some sort of modest correction in the relationship
after 2020 -- and that the TBTF banks won't deliver another economic disaster in the meantime.
Petey Bee OCT 15, 2016
1. The defects of the maximalist-globalist view were known for years before the "consensus
began to break down".
2. In at least some of these cases, the "transmission" of the consensus involved more than
a little coercion and undermining local interests, sovereignty, and democracy. This is an central
feature of the "consensus", and it is hard to see how it can by anything but irredeemable.
In the concluding paragraph, the author states that the reaction is going to be slow. That's absolutely
correct, the evidence has been pushed higher and higher above the icy water line since 2008.
However it is not bad politics crowding out out good economics, for the simple reason that
the economic "consensus" itself, in embracing destructive and destabilizing economic policy crowded
out the ostensibly centrist politics...
Paul Daley OCT 15, 2016
The Washington consensus collapsed during the Great Recession but the latest "consensus" among
economists regarding "good economics" deserves respect.
atul baride OCT 15, 2016
The Inclusive Growth has remained only a Slogan and Politicians never ventured into the theme.
In the changed version of the World.] essential equal opportunity and World of Social media, perspective
and social Political scene is changed. Its more like reverting to mean.
"One strength of Müller book is that he spends some time parrying bad arguments about populism,
which have flourished in a variety of intellectually useless and actively pernicious think pieces.
He is especially hard on the two tics of liberal commentary heard on America's coasts: psychologizing
populism as a symptom of resentment or the "authoritarian personality," and dismissing populists
as irresponsible rubes who don't understand the tenets of sound economic and social policy.
These criticisms, Müller points out, are really refusals to take political disagreement seriously-which,
after all, is precisely the political sin of antipluralists like Trump. A major problem with the
horrified response to Trump's campaign-however appropriate in other respects-has been its self-serving
imprecision. Whether by sweeping the very different Sanders campaign into the same all-inclusive
condemnation of "irresponsible" and "angry" movements, or by lumping Trump's views on trade policy
(a legitimate argument to make in a democratic contest) with his xenophobia (which should be considered
beyond the pale), the liberal response has often created cartoons out of both left and right populism.
It also misses, in Müller's view, what is so dangerous about populism's discontents."
"... It's coastal urban elites, many of whom went to the same schools, often Ivy league talking about all the others who didn't. It's far from surprising they're so profoundly out of touch and ignorant. ..."
"... Trump enjoys/has enjoyed substantially better support among African-Americans than most Republican candidates. His populism and calls for border controls is at least partially designed to appeal to minorities on economic terms. ..."
"... Clinton meets impartial press to discuss repackaging Hillary over cocktails hosted by Diane Sawyer: http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2016/10/your-moral-and-380.html ..."
@226 It's coastal urban elites, many of whom went to the same schools, often Ivy league talking
about all the others who didn't. It's far from surprising they're so profoundly out of touch and
ignorant.
@227 If you're referring to me, and that's a big if, I can't remember using the term anti-imperialist
ever (not that I've never said it, I just can't imagine why I would). As I've tried to make clear,
I supported Sanders, can't support Hillary for reasons I've made quite clear and regard Trump
as a clue free buffoon. To suggest he's 'lying' suggests he's actually thought through his 'arguments'
when he's almost always riffing. I hope he wins.
@228 Yes. But Trump enjoys/has enjoyed substantially better support among African-Americans
than most Republican candidates. His populism and calls for border controls is at least partially
designed to appeal to minorities on economic terms.
That's what Jones pointed out a long time ago. There's a substantial subset of African-American
voters who feel they've been extremely badly served despite consistently supporting Democrats.
Jones claims that Trump wins if 3/20 succumb to the siren song of Trump's populist boasts.
"... I don't buy the left neoliberal hysteria over Trump as the scariest reactionary dude evah. I think that's just to prevent the dissatisfaction that Trump has tapped into blending with the dissatisfaction Sanders tapped into. ..."
"... And, I tend to think that strategy has been successful in keeping the left v right neoliberal monopoly of power intact. The Republicans may take a hit, but it will only result in a slight shuffling among the seats of power. The left neoliberals will keep the right neoliberal seats warm for them. ymmv ..."
"... This really is another post 9/11 moment for the chattering classes. All their claims of expertise, clear eyed analysis, logic above emotion, has come crashing down around their hysterical, emotion driven response to the current political situation. There is, at this stage, basically zero willingness among these groups to do their Job of explaining the world, all they want to achieve is a combination of political signalling and intense personal satisfaction. ..."
"... The best analyses I've read were a couple of essays from 2015 comparing Trump to Berlusconi. Those interested will need to insert 2015 into the search string to skip past the more breathless 2016 versions. The 2015 essays are largely free of tbe breathless need to stop Trump cold that mar 2016 comparisons. ..."
"... middle-class unhappy with the rapine corruption and self-serving nature of the elites. ..."
"... The problem is that Trump is an entertainer/marketer and his product is him. Van Jones remains the single best pundit on Trump because Jones understands that the elections are about stagecraft, more than politics. ..."
"... the college-educated white new middle class (professionals and managers), is approximately 30 percent of the population, but are overrepresented, at 40 percent, among Trump supporters. Not surprisingly, the median household income of Trump voters is around $70,000 annually. ..."
"... More importantly, the category "non-college educated whites" includes both wage workers and the self-employed - the traditional middle class. The Economist found that "better-paid and better-educated voters have always formed as big a part of Mr. Trump's base as those at the lower end of the scale for income and education." ..."
"... 'I don't know, so I assume' is kind of the defining characteristic of reactions to the Trump Candidacy. Maybe he will, continue with neoliberalism. Or maybe he will go full communism now, or perhaps at least anti-imperialism, as one prolific poster here repeatedly claims. It all depends on which 10% of his statements you believe are not lies, and what you project into the gap left by the rest. ..."
"... But it could equally plausibly lead to a stable regime that would have European political scientists in lively debate as to whether or not it is most accurately called fascist. ..."
"... Clearly, Trump's right-wing opposition to neoliberal trade and tax policies resonates with a minority of older, white workers, including a minority of union members." ..."
"... these sectors have experiencing declining living standards and are fearful about their children's prospects of remaining in the middle class." ..."
"... The developments of late capitalism have to do with the transition of these decisions from the elite capitalist class as such to a group of managers. These managers can not and do not go against the traditional interests of capital as such. But their decisions characteristically favor their class in ways that a traditional class analysis can not fathom, and their ideology appeals to a group variously called "professionals", "technocrats", "the 10%" etc. who more broadly control the levers of power in society. ..."
"... The managerial class operates a world system - the system of trade agreements, monetary agreements, etc. This system keeps the world economy going as it is going through the cooperation of American economists, Eurocrat bureaucratic appointees, Chinese Communist Party higher-ups, important people in the financial industry (whether bankers or at central banks), CEOs of multinationals, and even the leaders of important NGOs. These interactions are observable and not a matter of conspiracy theory. ..."
soru: "Precisely because it is not left neoliberalism versus right neoliberalism, but left
neoliberalism versus something that is:
a: worse b: a predictable consequence of neoliberalism.
I think there is something to the thesis that Trump ripped the scab off the place where Luttwak's
"perfect non-sequitur" had rubbed the skin off the connection between the tax-cut loving Republican
establishment leadership and the Republican electoral base of male reactionary ignoramuses.
But, I don't know what actual policy follows from Trump_vs_deep_state, if not Mike Pence brand right neoliberalism.
A little light flavoring of theocracy on the tax cuts in other words.
I don't buy the left neoliberal hysteria over Trump as the scariest reactionary dude evah.
I think that's just to prevent the dissatisfaction that Trump has tapped into blending with the
dissatisfaction Sanders tapped into.
And, I tend to think that strategy has been successful in keeping the left v right neoliberal
monopoly of power intact. The Republicans may take a hit, but it will only result in a slight
shuffling among the seats of power. The left neoliberals will keep the right neoliberal seats
warm for them. ymmv
" The national polls (though not so much the state polls) were off in 2012. During the closing
month of the campaign, they showed, on average, a 0.3 point Romney lead. The RAND poll [LA Times],
by contrast, showed a 3.8 point Obama lead – which was almost exactly correct."
Sean Trende throws a big bucket of salt on the LA Times poll, before getting to the accuracy
of the poll in 2012.
This really is another post 9/11 moment for the chattering classes. All their claims of expertise,
clear eyed analysis, logic above emotion, has come crashing down around their hysterical, emotion
driven response to the current political situation. There is, at this stage, basically zero willingness
among these groups to do their Job of explaining the world, all they want to achieve is a combination
of political signalling and intense personal satisfaction.
@208 I generally agree. Thanks for the link to the Nation piece. I earlier skimmed this Guardian
piece by JJ which features an extended essay from the reviewed text. John has been beating this
drum for more than a year trying to wear his two hats: partisan Dem and serious social critic.
The first serious undermines the second.
The best analyses I've read were a couple of essays from 2015 comparing Trump to Berlusconi.
Those interested will need to insert 2015 into the search string to skip past the more breathless
2016 versions. The 2015 essays are largely free of tbe breathless need to stop Trump cold that
mar 2016 comparisons.
The Judis essay marries Trump too closely to George Wallace, another populist, but critically
also a professional politician, a Democrat, and a New Dealer.
Judis has a good quote, or two, from Wallace that definitely fit the Tea Party/Silent Majority
profile – rule followers, middle-class unhappy with the rapine corruption and self-serving
nature of the elites.
The problem is that Trump is an entertainer/marketer and his product is him. Van Jones
remains the single best pundit on Trump because Jones understands that the elections are about
stagecraft, more than politics. Both the Nation and the Guardian piece function as much as
thinly disguised GOTV arguments as academic assessments of the Trump phenomena.
What both get right, along with many others, is that removing Trump from the equation removes
nothing from the masses of ordinary folks who a/will not apologize for who they are and in fact
celebrate themselves and their values b/aren't interested in the approval, or the explications
of elites c/are completely determined to burn down this mess irrespective of whether Trump is
elected, or not.
Thanks for the link kidneystones, I'll check.it out. I'm working through Judis' book at the moment
and find larger parts, of it convincing.
Who. Is van Jones? Is it this lad?
…while approximately 55 percent of Trump supporters do not have a bachelor's degree, this
demographic makes up approximately 70 percent of the US population - they are underrepresented
among Trump voters. However, the college-educated white new middle class (professionals
and managers), is approximately 30 percent of the population, but are overrepresented, at 40
percent, among Trump supporters. Not surprisingly, the median household income of Trump voters
is around $70,000 annually.
More importantly, the category "non-college educated whites" includes both wage workers
and the self-employed - the traditional middle class. The Economist found that "better-paid
and better-educated voters have always formed as big a part of Mr. Trump's base as those at
the lower end of the scale for income and education."
A systematic review of Gallup polling data demonstrates, again, that most Trump supporters
are part of the traditional middle class (self-employed) and those sectors of the new middle
class (supervisors) who do not require college degrees. They tend to live in "white enclaves"…
Kidney stones I'll check out the link above when by a laptop.
Personally I don't know how j feel about the managerial class argument (I still have to read
both Hayes and Frank ) but it's becoming quite clear that large parts of the left and right "establishment"
(which is just a shorthand way of saying those with high profile journalistic, political and cultural
positions) are going out of their way to not acknowledge what is right in from of their eyes,
that there are political and economic (as well as racial and cultural) reasons behind the rise
of right wing populism.
> But, I don't know what actual policy follows from Trump_vs_deep_state, if not Mike Pence brand right neoliberalism.
'I don't know, so I assume' is kind of the defining characteristic of reactions to the
Trump Candidacy. Maybe he will, continue with neoliberalism. Or maybe he will go full communism
now, or perhaps at least anti-imperialism, as one prolific poster here repeatedly claims. It all
depends on which 10% of his statements you believe are not lies, and what you project into the
gap left by the rest.
If he was elected, things would be different from what they are, or at least are understood
to be. And things being different, they would continue to be so, taking a different path from
the continuation of a status quo. My personal evidence-free assumption is that this would likely
take the nature of a decade-long crisis that would end with a return to a weakened version of
the pre-Trump regime. A pale echo of the rosy days of Obama, Bush and Clinton.
But it could equally plausibly lead to a stable regime that would have European political
scientists in lively debate as to whether or not it is most accurately called fascist.
For those not wager to read the link, here are the bits engels cut. From the beginning.
"Who are Trump's voters? Despite claims that he has won the "white working class," the vast
majority of Trump's supporters, like those of the Tea Party, are drawn from the traditional
and new middle classes, especially the older, white male and less well-off strata of these
classes. Clearly, Trump's right-wing opposition to neoliberal trade and tax policies resonates
with a minority of older, white workers, including a minority of union members."
And after enclave
"isolated from immigrants and other people of color, have worse health than the average
US resident, and are experiencing low rates of intergenerational mobility. While not directly
affected either by the decline of industry in the Midwest or by immigration, these sectors
have experiencing declining living standards and are fearful about their children's prospects
of remaining in the middle class."
Roman, I already said I broadly agreed with you (is it the case you literally zzzzzzzzzzz)- I'm
delighted that via Luttwak you're groping towards a class analysis of fascism that has been standard
on the left since at least Trotsky…
Ronan(rf): "Personally I don't know how j feel about the managerial class argument"
There are certain decision makers who make all of the important decisions, or who at least
get a tremendously inordinate amount of power over those decisions. If they aren't making a decision
in a positive sense, their power often controls decisions in a negative sense by restricting the
available choices to those that are all acceptable to them.
The developments of late capitalism have to do with the transition of these decisions from
the elite capitalist class as such to a group of managers. These managers can not and do not go
against the traditional interests of capital as such. But their decisions characteristically favor
their class in ways that a traditional class analysis can not fathom, and their ideology appeals
to a group variously called "professionals", "technocrats", "the 10%" etc. who more broadly control
the levers of power in society.
The managerial class operates a world system - the system of trade agreements, monetary
agreements, etc. This system keeps the world economy going as it is going through the cooperation
of American economists, Eurocrat bureaucratic appointees, Chinese Communist Party higher-ups,
important people in the financial industry (whether bankers or at central banks), CEOs of multinationals,
and even the leaders of important NGOs. These interactions are observable and not a matter of
conspiracy theory.
"One strength of Müller book is that he spends some time parrying bad arguments about populism,
which have flourished in a variety of intellectually useless and actively pernicious think
pieces. He is especially hard on the two tics of liberal commentary heard on America's coasts:
psychologizing populism as a symptom of resentment or the "authoritarian personality," and
dismissing populists as irresponsible rubes who don't understand the tenets of sound economic and
social policy.
These criticisms, Müller points out, are really refusals to take political
disagreement seriously-which, after all, is precisely the political sin of antipluralists like
Trump. A major problem with the horrified response to Trump's campaign-however appropriate in
other respects-has been its self-serving imprecision. Whether by sweeping the very different
Sanders campaign into the same all-inclusive condemnation of "irresponsible" and "angry"
movements, or by lumping Trump's views on trade policy (a legitimate argument to make in a
democratic contest) with his xenophobia (which should be considered beyond the pale), the liberal
response has often created cartoons out of both left and right populism. It also misses, in
Müller's view, what is so dangerous about populism's discontents."
"... Hmmm - not sure what you count as evidence - rising household debt, rising insecure employment, rising student debt, falls in real wages, falls in GDP per capita, rising levels of mental illness, rising mortality rates in certain classes/genders. Of course, some of these indicators are better or worse depending on regions within countries and regions in the world. So some people, perhaps people like you, feel like things are OK. ..."
"... Populists raise many questions, some legitimate grievances, some based on extreme ideologies, and some just plain "nuts". They are a symptom of the fact that the government and the Establishment are failing in the jobs entrusted to them. ..."
"... I agree with elements of the definition. For me it's about appealing to the visceral and using the power of protest to make people feel they belong rather than being merely represented. ..."
"... The minute a populist person or group arrives, people in charge of the economy should take note, not carry on regardless. ..."
"... 'Populism' is a term used by the neoliberal elite to describe democracy as seen recently in the Brexit referendum. ..."
"... A very simple way to explain popularism:- A rise against the perceived norms in politics. In the case of the UK , a vote against the smug over confident career Oxbridge politician, who has not a clue of real life, in all Parties! ..."
"... Populism: or as some would call it, thinking outside the left/right political box. ..."
I disagree, as you can list a number of movements that express disaffection with the status quo.
In fact, more or less any movement can be said to follow those lines.
To me, in all its forms, populism has been at its heart an us vs them mentality. It's not about
inclusiveness, but rather exclusiveness and the need to band together as a persecuted moral majority
to repel the imperialists.
For Trump supporters and Brexiters, these imperialists are 'the experts' and immigrants. Scientists,
economists, politicians, doctors - anyone who expects people to listen based on their arguments
based on past experience - and Muslims are the current flavours of the month.
For Sanders supporters and fervent Remainers, their disdain is a mirror image of the above.
It's not experts, but the wealthy, usually attacked in manifestations like 'Wall Street' and 'neoliberalism'
(which has to be the most overused buzzword on The Guardian to date).
Populism is about cultivating a siege mentality and claiming that you can pin all the reasons
your life isn't as great as it could be on one group. Remove that group, or win one over on them,
and things will be fine. The irony for me is that with a few exceptions, most metrics on quality
of life are up, especially compared to 2008 when there really was a terrible recession. Yet people
are being convinced that things are worse than ever, with little to no evidence.
The irony for me is that with a few exceptions, most metrics on quality of life are up,
especially compared to 2008 when there really was a terrible recession. Yet people are being
convinced that things are worse than ever, with little to no evidence.
Hmmm - not sure what you count as evidence - rising household debt, rising insecure employment,
rising student debt, falls in real wages, falls in GDP per capita, rising levels of mental illness,
rising mortality rates in certain classes/genders. Of course, some of these indicators are better
or worse depending on regions within countries and regions in the world. So some people, perhaps
people like you, feel like things are OK.
There is no doubt that 'They' have failed us - and they know it.
That is why we have had the vast proliferation of the 'Security' industries in all their varieties.
'They' know that gross inequality has been created by their behaviour and politics, so 'They'
have to protect their lives and their wealth against the mob - at all costs ( in effect with our
money).
'They' know that the mob is irresistible so the fear of it guides and rules their daily actions.
In other words, Wallace's base was among voters who saw themselves as middle class – the
American equivalent of "the people" – and who believed themselves to be locked in conflict
with those below and above.
Populists raise many questions, some legitimate grievances, some based on extreme ideologies,
and some just plain "nuts". They are a symptom of the fact that the government and the Establishment
are failing in the jobs entrusted to them.
All too often, when given office populists fall out or fall away through their own lack of
realistic solutions to problems they highlight, or because they are often led by demagogues and
egotists - think Le Pen, Trump and Farage. Strip away these charismatic characters and the whole
movement collapses in in-fighting and discord.
Populist movements are disruptive. But they are essentially about protest. Government needs
to take their complaints seriously, move to deal with those complaints that have substance, and
challenge their leaders to be specific about the measures they would take to solve them.
There's an old saying favoured by anarchists - the government always gets in. That is a truism.
But it is what the government does when it gets in that is important. At present government is
struggling, hence the protests.
I agree with elements of the definition. For me it's about appealing to the visceral and using
the power of protest to make people feel they belong rather than being merely represented.
Critical faculties are exchanged for belief, for quasi religious fervour. It doesn't necessarily
rely on defining and attacking the other, more telling people their views are being ignored, and
making them a noble and righteous cause. Populism tends to exchange facts and detail for feelings
and a sense of belonging to a group of like minded travellers.
The minute a populist person or group arrives, people in charge of the economy should take
note, not carry on regardless. EU take note. Austerity causes desperation. Desperation breaks
unity. To continue with austerity is just fanning the flames.
A very simple way to explain popularism:- A rise against the perceived norms in politics.
In the case of the UK , a vote against the smug over confident career Oxbridge politician, who
has not a clue of real life, in all Parties!
"... It's shameful that this country hasn't rejected the first use of nuclear weapons. It's also shameful that instead of working to eliminate nuclear weapons, the U.S. is actually planning to spend nearly a trillion dollars over the next 30 years to upgrade that arsenal. For what possible strategic purpose, one must ask? America's current nuclear deterrent is the most powerful and survivable in the world. No other country comes close. There's no rational reason to invest more money in nuclear weapons, unless you count the jobs and money related to building new nuclear submarines, weaponry, bombs, and all the other infrastructure related to America's nuclear triad of Trident submarines, land-based bombers, and fixed missile silos. ..."
"... Next time, Mr. Trump and Secretary Clinton, let's have some rigor, some honesty, and some wisdom on the issue of nuclear weapons. Not only America deserves it – the world does. ..."
It's shameful that this country hasn't rejected the first use of nuclear weapons. It's also shameful that instead of working
to eliminate nuclear weapons, the U.S. is actually planning to spend nearly a trillion dollars over the next 30 years to upgrade
that arsenal. For what possible strategic purpose, one must ask? America's current nuclear deterrent is the most powerful and survivable
in the world. No other country comes close. There's no rational reason to invest more money in nuclear weapons, unless you count
the jobs and money related to building new nuclear submarines, weaponry, bombs, and all the other infrastructure related to America's
nuclear triad of Trident submarines, land-based bombers, and fixed missile silos.
Neither Trump nor Hillary addressed this
issue. Trump was simply ignorant. Hillary was simply disingenuous. Which candidate was worse? When you're talking about nuclear genocidal
death, it surely does matter. Ignorance is not bliss, nor is a lack of forthrightness and honesty.
Next time, Mr. Trump and Secretary Clinton, let's have some rigor, some honesty, and some wisdom on the issue of nuclear weapons.
Not only America deserves it – the world does.
William J. Astore is a retired lieutenant colonel (USAF). He taught history for fifteen years at military and civilian schools
and blogs at Bracing Views. He can be reached at
[email protected]. Reprinted from Bracing
Views with the author's permission.
In the aftermath of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 – an invasion which many Iraqis believe left their country in the worst condition
it has been since the Mongol invasion of 1258 -- there was much discussion in the media about the Bush Administration's goal for
"nation-building" in that country. Of course, if there ever were such a goal, it was quickly abandoned, and one hardly ever hears
the term "nation-building" discussed as a U.S. foreign policy objective anymore.
The stark truth is that the U.S. really has no
intentions of helping to build strong states in the Middle East or elsewhere. Rather, as we see time and again – e.g., in Yugoslavia,
Sudan, Libya, Yemen, Syria, Somalia, Ukraine – the goal of U.S. foreign policy, whether stated or not, is increasingly and more aggressively
the destruction and balkanization of independent states. However, it is important to recognize that this goal is not new.
In the aftermath of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 – an invasion which many Iraqis believe left their country in the worst condition
it has been since the Mongol invasion of 1258 -- there was much discussion in the media about the Bush Administration's goal for
"nation-building" in that country. Of course, if there ever were such a goal, it was quickly abandoned, and one hardly ever hears
the term "nation-building" discussed as a U.S. foreign policy objective anymore.
The stark truth is that the U.S. really has no
intentions of helping to build strong states in the Middle East or elsewhere. Rather, as we see time and again – e.g., in Yugoslavia,
Sudan, Libya, Yemen, Syria, Somalia, Ukraine – the goal of U.S. foreign policy, whether stated or not, is increasingly and more aggressively
the destruction and balkanization of independent states. However, it is important to recognize that this goal is not new.
"... As General Smedley Butler, twice awarded the Medal of Honor, said: War is a racket . Wars will persist as long as people see them as a "core product," as a business opportunity. In capitalism, the profit motive is often amoral; greed is good, even when it feeds war. Meanwhile, the Pentagon is willing to play along. It always sees "vulnerabilities" and always wants more money. ..."
"... Wars are always profitable for a few, but they are ruining democracy in America. Sure, it's a business opportunity: one that ends in national (and moral) bankruptcy. ..."
A good friend passed along an
article at Forbes from a month ago with the pregnant title, "U.S. Army Fears Major War Likely
Within Five Years - But Lacks The Money To Prepare." Basically, the article argues that war is possible
- even likely - within five years with Russia or North Korea or Iran, or maybe all three, but that
America's army is short of money to prepare for these wars. This despite the fact that America spends
roughly $700 billion each and every year on defense and overseas wars.
Now, the author's agenda is quite clear, as he states at the end of his article: "Several of the
Army's equipment suppliers are contributors to my think tank and/or consulting clients." He's writing
an alarmist article about the probability of future wars at the same time as he's profiting from
the sales of weaponry to the army.
As General Smedley Butler, twice awarded the Medal of Honor, said:
War is a racket
. Wars will persist as long as people see them as a "core product," as a business opportunity.
In capitalism, the profit motive is often amoral; greed is good, even when it feeds war. Meanwhile,
the Pentagon is willing to play along. It always sees "vulnerabilities" and always wants more money.
But back to the Forbes article with its concerns about war(s) in five years with Russia or North
Korea or Iran (or all three). For what vital national interest should America fight against Russia?
North Korea? Iran? A few quick reminders:
#1: Don't get involved in a land war in Asia or with Russia (Charles XII, Napoleon, and Hitler
all learned that lesson the hard way).
#2: North Korea? It's a puppet regime that can't feed its own people. It might prefer war to distract
the people from their parlous existence.
#3: Iran? A regional power, already contained, with a young population that's sympathetic to America,
at least to our culture of relative openness and tolerance. If the US Army thinks tackling Iran would
be relatively easy, just consider all those recent "easy" wars and military interventions in Iraq,
Afghanistan, Libya, Syria
Of course, the business aspect of this is selling the idea the US Army isn't prepared and therefore
needs yet another new generation of expensive high-tech weaponry. It's like convincing high-end consumers
their three-year-old Audi or Lexus is obsolete so they must buy the latest model else lose face.
We see this all the time in the US military. It's a version of planned or
artificial obsolescence . Consider the Air Force. It could easily defeat its enemies with updated
versions of A-10s, F-15s, and F-16s, but instead the Pentagon plans to spend as much as $1.4 trillion
on the shiny new and
under-performing F-35 . The Army has an enormous surplus of tanks and other armored fighting
vehicles, but the call goes forth for a "new generation." No other navy comes close to the US Navy,
yet the call goes out for a new generation of ships.
The Pentagon mantra is always for more and better, which often turns out to be for less and much
more expensive, e.g. the F-35 fighter.
Wars are always profitable for a few, but they are
ruining democracy in America. Sure, it's a business opportunity: one that ends in national (and
moral) bankruptcy.
William J. Astore is a retired lieutenant colonel (USAF). He taught history for fifteen years
at military and civilian schools and blogs at
Bracing Views . He can be reached at [email protected]. Reprinted
from Bracing Views with the author's permission.
"... I said from the very beginning of Sanders campaign, that an old, lefty, New York Jew is going to have a really tough time connecting with older, black voters in the south. ..."
"... I don't think most Americans realize just how conservative southern blacks really are, particularly the ones old enough to remember the bad old days of segregation and before. ..."
"... the social climate in the south would reward and penalize behaviors by both whites and blacks in a manner very different from cultures found in the north and the west. ..."
"... Radical personalities and those who are quick to embrace new ideas don't fare very well in those parts of the country. Slow, steady, quite and modest is your best bet for survival. ..."
"... Almost like Clinton's "slow incremental change" campaign theme. ..."
I really liked Charles Blow's insightful comment about two Black Americas and the great migration.
I am white but I like to think that I know a little about Black America. I've travelled and lived
all over the US now, but I grew up in the eighties in a small, racially divided southern town.
I attended a public school that was 60% black and every black teacher of mine in elementary school
was formerly employed by the "separate but equal" black school system prior to desegregation.
I didn't realize how close I was to the bad ole' segregated south growing up, but it boggles my
mind and certain things make more sense to me now looking back. I was raised by my working mother
and two different black nannies. They were surrogate moms to me. I would play with their nieces,
nephews and grand-children at their house sometimes and other times at my parents. I even attended
church with them on a couple of different occasions. I left the south after graduating college
but I didn't forget the lessons of my youth. I said from the very beginning of Sanders campaign,
that an old, lefty, New York Jew is going to have a really tough time connecting with older, black
voters in the south.
I don't think most Americans realize just how conservative southern blacks really are,
particularly the ones old enough to remember the bad old days of segregation and before.
The cultural DNA of the diaspora blacks of the north and the blacks that stayed behind is very
different. Besides the attitudes and personality types that may have been more likely to migrate
north or west, it's important to remember that the social climate in the south would reward
and penalize behaviors by both whites and blacks in a manner very different from cultures found
in the north and the west.
There are still plenty of strong pockets of racism today outside of the south, particularly
in the northeast, appalachia, and the midwest but nowhere I've visited can compare to racism found
in the deep southern states of the Gulf and Mississippi delta region.
Radical personalities and those who are quick to embrace new ideas don't fare very well
in those parts of the country. Slow, steady, quite and modest is your best bet for survival.
Almost like Clinton's "slow incremental change" campaign theme. Clinton keeps running
up the delegate score with the support of southern black grannies like the ones who raised me,
but she is running out of deep south. Meanwhile Sanders is forging new coalitions and crushing
the under-forty vote, so even if he can't win the DNC's rigged primary this year the future looks
bright for leaders that want to pick up Sanders mantle in the near future.
Besides the attitudes and personality types that may have been more likely to migrate north
or west, it's important to remember that the social climate in the south would reward and penalize
behaviors by both whites and blacks in a manner very different from cultures found in the north
and the west.
Very true & excellent point. I grew up in small town Alabama & permanently moved away in January
1990. It is a very pro-establishment place, where, at least back then, people who were willing
to be noticeably different had to be very exceptional in some way or willing & able to fend for
themselves, otherwise they would be ostracized or bullied. Birmingham & Tuscaloosa were better,
at least in pockets, but outside of the university system you were still expected to behave in
a very conservative manner. Going home to visit over the years & seeing giant billboards–in cities!–saying
things like "Go to church or go to Hell" (that is an exact quote; I shall never forget it; horribly
wrongheaded and asinine even from a fundamentalist Christian perspective) or "praise be the glory
of the fetus, may those who harm it suffer eternal torment" (not an exact quote but pretty much
an exact sentiment on a large # of signs) did not make me change my thoughts a whole hella lot,
or–and this is kinda funny in light of my current politics–talking with a group of business owners
in an airport who suddenly turned their backs on me & excluded me from conversation when they
were trashing Hillary and I said "I like Hillary" & after a shocked silence one of them said "You
need to listen to Rush Limbaugh son, learn some things" followed by "I've heard Rush. Not really
a fan." That ended that conversation abruptly. Among other things.
And I have (or rather had, kinda lost touch) friends from Alabama involved in state & national
democratic politics, and whatever their private inclinations they were just as conservative as
the Republicans (among whom I had an equal # of friends) on most things in public, and kept very
quiet about issues where they were not with the growing conservative majority there (it should
be noted that this is a HORRIBLE long term strategy, if you have actual principles in opposition
to the spreading & solidifying right-wing belief system). I had nonetheless expected better from
the South, and am still disappointed/horrified at the voting there, but this reminder does explain
a lot. With a lot of help from the DNC & MSM, they were convinced Bernie would not win, and might
even lose by an amount they would find embarrassing, & knowingly fighting a lost cause is (or
was) generally derided back there, and no one wants to be an object of derision. Also, a lot of
Southerners just don't like people from the Northeast. End stop. I for some reason thought that
would have changed by now, and/or that Bernie was sufficiently atypical for this to be a non-factor
anyway. But maybe not. Plus it may be people still consider Hillary a Southerner from her time
in Arkansas, and she's getting the "one of us" vote.
but she is running out of deep south.
Indeed. Temperaments out west are very, very different. =)
"... For much of the last century the illusion of social progress sold through the New Deal, the Great Society and more recently through capitalist enterprise 'freed' from the bind of social accountability, ..."
"... The Clinton's special gift to the people -- citizens, workers; the human condition as conceived through a filter of manufactured wants to serve the interests of an intellectually, morally and spiritually bankrupt 'leadership' class, lies in the social truths revealed by their actions. ..."
"... Hillary Clinton versus Donald Trump, poses the greater-evilism of an ossified political class against the facts of its own creation now in dire need of resolution- wars to end wars, environmental crisis to end environmental crises, economic predation to end economic predation and manufactured social misery to end social misery. Hillary Clinton's roster of donors is the neoliberal innovation on Richard Nixon's enemies list- government as a shakedown racket where friend or foe and policies promoted or buried, are determined by 'donation' status rather than personal animus. ..."
"... That is most ways conservative Republican Richard Nixon's actual policies were far Left of those of contemporary Democrats, including Mrs. Clinton, is testament to the ideological mobility of political pragmatism freed from principle. ..."
"... That Hillary Clinton is the candidate of officialdom links her service to Wall Street to America's wars of choice to dedicated environmental irresolution as the candidate who 'gets things done.' ..."
"... As historical analog, the West has seen recurrent episodes of economic imperialism backed by state power; in the parlance, neoliberal globalization, over the last several centuries. ..."
"... Left unstated in the competitive lesser-evilism of Party politics is the incapacity for political resolution in any relevant dimension. Donald Trump is 'dangerous' only by overlooking how dangerous the American political leadership has been for the last one and one-half centuries. So the question becomes: dangerous to whom? Without the most murderous military in the world, public institutions like the IMF dedicated to economic subjugation and predatory corporations that wield the 'free-choices' of mandated consumption, how dangerous would any politicians really be? And with them, how not-dangerous have liberal Democrats actually been? Candidates for political office are but manifestations of class interests put forward as systemic intent. ..."
"... The liberals and progressives in the managerial class who support the status quo and are acting as enforcers to elect Hillary Clinton are but one recession away from being tossed overboard by those they serve within the existing economic order. ..."
into political power. The structure of economic distribution seen through Foundation 'contributors;'
oil and gas magnates, pharmaceutical and technology entrepreneurs of public largesse, the murder-for-hire
industry (military) and various and sundry managers of social decline, makes evident the dissociation
of social production from those that produced it.
For much of the last century the illusion of social progress sold through the New Deal, the
Great Society and more recently through capitalist enterprise 'freed' from the bind of social accountability,
if not exactly from the need for regular and robust public support, served to hold at bay the perpetual
tomorrow of lives lived for the theorized greater good of accumulated self-interest. The Clinton's
special gift to the people -- citizens, workers; the human condition as conceived through a filter
of manufactured wants to serve the interests of an intellectually, morally and spiritually bankrupt
'leadership' class, lies in the social truths revealed by their actions.
Being three or more decades in the making, the current political season was never about the candidates
except inasmuch as they embody the grotesquely disfigured and depraved condition of the body politic.
The 'consumer choice' politics of Democrat versus Republican, Hillary Clinton versus Donald Trump,
poses the greater-evilism of an ossified political class against the facts of its own creation now
in dire need of resolution- wars to end wars, environmental crisis to end environmental crises, economic
predation to end economic predation and manufactured social misery to end social misery. Hillary
Clinton's roster of donors is the neoliberal innovation on Richard Nixon's enemies list- government
as a shakedown racket where friend or foe and policies promoted or buried, are determined by 'donation'
status rather than personal animus.
That is most ways conservative Republican Richard Nixon's actual policies were far Left of
those of contemporary Democrats, including Mrs. Clinton, is testament to the ideological mobility
of political pragmatism freed from principle. The absurd misdirection that we, the people, are
driving this migration is belied by the economic power that correlates 1:1 with the policies put
forward and enacted by 'the people's representatives', by the answers that actual human beings give
to pollsters when asked and by the ever more conspicuous hold that economic power has over political
considerations as evidenced by the roster of pleaders and opportunists granted official sees by the
political class in Washington.
To state the obvious, dysfunctional ideology- principles that don't 'work' in the sense of promoting
broadly conceived public wellbeing, should be dispensable. But this very formulation takes at face
value the implausible conceits of unfettered intentions mediated through functional political representation
that are so well disproved by entities like the Clinton Foundation. Political 'pragmatism' as it
is put forward by national Democrats quite closely resembles the principled opposition of Conservative
Republicans through unified service to the economic powers-that-be. That Hillary Clinton is the
candidate of officialdom links her service to Wall Street to America's wars of choice to dedicated
environmental irresolution as the candidate who 'gets things done.'
As historical analog, the West has seen recurrent episodes of economic imperialism backed
by state power; in the parlance, neoliberal globalization, over the last several centuries.
The result, in addition to making connected insiders rich as they wield social power over less existentially
alienated peoples, has been the not-so-great wars, devastations, impositions and crimes-against-humanity
that were the regular occurrences of the twentieth century. The 'innovation' of corporatized militarization
to this proud tradition is as old as Western imperialism in its conception and as new as nuclear
and robotic weapons, mass surveillance and apparently unstoppable environmental devastation in its
facts.
Left unstated in the competitive lesser-evilism of Party politics is the incapacity for political
resolution in any relevant dimension. Donald Trump is 'dangerous' only by overlooking how dangerous
the American political leadership has been for the last one and one-half centuries. So the question
becomes: dangerous to whom? Without the most murderous military in the world, public institutions
like the IMF dedicated to economic subjugation and predatory corporations that wield the 'free-choices'
of mandated consumption, how dangerous would any politicians really be? And with them, how not-dangerous
have liberal Democrats actually been? Candidates for political office are but manifestations of class
interests put forward as systemic intent.
The complaint that the Greens- Jill Stein and Ajamu Baraka, don't have an effective political
program approximates the claim that existing political and economic arrangements are open to challenge
through the electoral process when the process exists to assure that effective challenges don't arise.
The Democrats could have precluded the likelihood of a revolutionary movement, Left or Right, for
the next half-century by electing Bernie Sanders and then undermining him to 'prove' that challenges
to prevailing political economy don't work. The lack of imagination in running 'dirty Hillary' is
testament to how large- and fragile, the perceived stakes are. But as how unviable Hillary Clinton
and Donald Trump are as political leaders becomes apparent- think George W. Bush had he run for office
after the economic collapse of 2009 and without the cover of '9/11,' the political possibilities
begin to open up.
The liberals and progressives in the managerial class who support the status quo and are acting
as enforcers to elect Hillary Clinton are but one recession away from being tossed overboard by those
they serve within the existing economic order. The premise that the ruling class will always
need dedicated servants grants coherent logic and aggregated self-interest that history has disproven
time and again. A crude metaphor would be the unintended consequences of capitalist production now
aggregating to environmental crisis.
Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are both such conspicuously corrupt tools of an intellectually
and spiritually bankrupt social order that granting tactical brilliance to their ascendance, or even
pragmatism given the point in history and available choices, seems wildly generous. For those looking
for a political moment, one is on the way.
"... Let's compare donations from people who work at Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo, Citigroup and Goldman Sachs to Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. Hillary Clinton, has received $495,503.60 from people who work on Wall Street Bernie Sanders, has received only $17,107.72. Hillary Clinton may have Wall Street, ..."
"... The false promise of meritocracy was most disappointing. It basically said that meritocracy is hard to do, but never evaluates whether it is the right thing to do. Hint - it isn't enough. We need to worry about (relative) equality of outcome not just (relative) equality of opportunity. An equal chance to starve is still an equal chance. ..."
"... Making economies games is how you continued rigged distribution apparatus. Question all "rules"! ..."
When it comes to Wall Street buying our democracy, you just need to follow the money. Let's
compare donations from people who work at Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Wells
Fargo, Citigroup and Goldman Sachs to Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. Hillary Clinton, has
received $495,503.60 from people who work on Wall Street Bernie Sanders, has received only $17,107.72.
Hillary Clinton may have Wall Street, But Bernie has YOU! Bernie has received more than 1.5
million contributions from folks like you, at an average of $30 each.
To be fair, don't you think we should count donations for this election cycle for Clinton?
Y'know,
she was the Senator from New York.
pgl -> EMichael,
Some people think anyone from New York is in bed with Wall Street. Trust me on this one - not
everyone here in Brooklyn is in Jamie Dimon's hip pocket. Of course those alleged liberals JohnH
uses as his sources (e.g. William Cohan) are in Jamie Dimon's hip pocket.
EMichael -> pgl,
I hate things like this. No honesty whatsoever. This cycle.
The total for Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan and Bank of America
is $326,000.
That leaves Wells Fargo, Citigroup and Goldman Sachs to contribute $169,000.
EMichael -> RGC,
I stand corrected, somewhat.
Let me know how much comes from those organizations PACs.
reason said,
The false promise of meritocracy was most disappointing. It basically said that meritocracy
is hard to do, but never evaluates whether it is the right thing to do. Hint - it isn't enough.
We need to worry about (relative) equality of outcome not just (relative) equality of opportunity.
An equal chance to starve is still an equal chance.
ilsm -> reason,
Making economies games is how you continued rigged distribution apparatus. Question all
"rules"!
"... Meanwhile, the United States and Russia have embarked on massive programs to modernize their nuclear triads - thereby undermining existing nuclear weapons treaties. "The clock ticks now at just three minutes to midnight because international leaders are failing to perform their most important duty-ensuring and preserving the health and vitality of human civilization." ..."
"Unchecked climate change, global nuclear weapons modernizations, and outsized nuclear weapons
arsenals pose extraordinary and undeniable threats to the continued existence of humanity, and
world leaders have failed to act with the speed or on the scale required to protect citizens from
potential catastrophe. These failures of political leadership endanger every person on Earth."
Despite some modestly positive developments in the climate change arena, current efforts are
entirely insufficient to prevent a catastrophic warming of Earth.
Meanwhile, the United States and Russia have embarked on massive programs to modernize their
nuclear triads - thereby undermining existing nuclear weapons treaties. "The clock ticks now at
just three minutes to midnight because international leaders are failing to perform their most
important duty-ensuring and preserving the health and vitality of human civilization."
What appears to have happened here is this: Vladimir Putin has
exploited both the fight against ISIS and Iran's need to preserve the
regional balance of power on the way to enhancing Russia's influence over
Mid-East affairs which in turn helps to ensure that Gazprom's interests
are protected going forward.
Thanks to the
awkward position the US has gotten itself in by covertly allying itself
with various Sunni extremist groups, Washington is for all intents and
purposes powerless to stop Putin lest the public should suddenly get wise
to the fact that combating Russia's resurgence and preventing Iran from
expanding its interests are more important than fighting terror.
In short, Washington gambled on a dangerous game of geopolitical chess, lost, and now faces
two rather terrifyingly disastrous outcomes: 1) China establishing a presence in the Mid-East in
concert with Russia and Iran, and 2) seeing Iraq effectively ceded to the Quds Force and
ultimately, to the Russian army.
"... A political society endures when it seeks, as a vocation, to satisfy common needs by stimulating the growth of all its members, especially those in situations of greater vulnerability or risk. ..."
"... All of us are quite aware of, and deeply worried by, the disturbing social and political situation of the world today. Our world is increasingly a place of violent conflict, hatred and brutal atrocities, committed even in the name of God and of religion. ..."
"... We are asked to summon the courage and the intelligence to resolve today's many geopolitical and economic crises. Even in the developed world, the effects of unjust structures and actions are all too apparent. ..."
"... If politics must truly be at the service of the human person, it follows that it cannot be a slave to the economy and finance. ..."
"... At the risk of oversimplifying, we might say that we live in a culture which pressures young people not to start a family, because they lack possibilities for the future. Yet this same culture presents others with so many options that they too are dissuaded from starting a family ..."
Each son or daughter of a given country has a mission, a personal and social responsibility. Your
own responsibility as members of Congress is to enable this country, by your legislative activity,
to grow as a nation. You are the face of its people, their representatives. You are called to defend
and preserve the dignity of your fellow citizens in the tireless and demanding pursuit of the common
good, for this is the chief aim of all politics. A political society endures when it seeks, as
a vocation, to satisfy common needs by stimulating the growth of all its members, especially those
in situations of greater vulnerability or risk. Legislative activity is always based on care
for the people. To this you have been invited, called and convened by those who elected you.
... ... ...
All of us are quite aware of, and deeply worried by, the disturbing social and political situation
of the world today. Our world is increasingly a place of violent conflict, hatred and brutal atrocities,
committed even in the name of God and of religion. We know that no religion is immune from forms
of individual delusion or ideological extremism. This means that we must be especially attentive
to every type of fundamentalism, whether religious or of any other kind. A delicate balance is required
to combat violence perpetrated in the name of a religion, an ideology or an economic system, while
also safeguarding religious freedom, intellectual freedom and individual freedoms. But there is another
temptation which we must especially guard against: the simplistic reductionism which sees only good
or evil; or, if you will, the righteous and sinners. The contemporary world, with its open wounds
which affect so many of our brothers and sisters, demands that we confront every form of polarization
which would divide it into these two camps. We know that in the attempt to be freed of the enemy
without, we can be tempted to feed the enemy within. To imitate the hatred and violence of tyrants
and murderers is the best way to take their place. That is something which you, as a people, reject.
...We are asked to summon the courage and the intelligence to resolve today's many geopolitical
and economic crises. Even in the developed world, the effects of unjust structures and actions are
all too apparent. Our efforts must aim at restoring hope, righting wrongs, maintaining commitments
and thus promoting the well-being of individuals and of peoples. We must move forward together, as
one, in a renewed spirit of fraternity and solidarity, cooperating generously for the common good.
The challenges facing us today call for a renewal of that spirit of cooperation, which has accomplished
so much good throughout the history of the United States. The complexity, the gravity and the urgency
of these challenges demand that we pool our resources and talents, and resolve to support one another,
with respect for our differences and our convictions of conscience.
In this land, the various religious denominations have greatly contributed to building and strengthening
society. It is important that today, as in the past, the voice of faith continue to be heard, for
it is a voice of fraternity and love, which tries to bring out the best in each person and in each
society. Such cooperation is a powerful resource in the battle to eliminate new global forms of slavery,
born of grave injustices which can be overcome only through new policies and new forms of social
consensus.
...If politics must truly be at the service of the human person, it follows that it cannot
be a slave to the economy and finance. Politics is, instead, an expression of our compelling
need to live as one, in order to build as one the greatest common good: that of a community which
sacrifices particular interests in order to share, in justice and peace, its goods, its interests,
its social life. I do not underestimate the difficulty that this involves, but I encourage you in
this effort.
... ... ...
The fight against poverty and hunger must be fought constantly and on many fronts, especially
in its causes. I know that many Americans today, as in the past, are working to deal with this problem.
It goes without saying that part of this great effort is the creation and distribution of wealth.
The right use of natural resources, the proper application of technology and the harnessing of the
spirit of enterprise are essential elements of an economy which seeks to be modern, inclusive and
sustainable. "Business is a noble vocation, directed to producing wealth and improving the world.
It can be a fruitful source of prosperity for the area in which it operates, especially if it sees
the creation of jobs as an essential part of its service to the common good" (Laudato Si', 129).
This common good also includes the earth, a central theme of the encyclical which I recently wrote
in order to "enter into dialogue with all people about our common home" (ibid., 3). "We need a conversation
which includes everyone, since the environmental challenge we are undergoing, and its human roots,
concern and affect us all" (ibid., 14).
In Laudato Si', I call for a courageous and responsible effort to "redirect our steps" (ibid.,
61), and to avert the most serious effects of the environmental deterioration caused by human activity.
I am convinced that we can make a difference and I have no doubt that the United States – and this
Congress – have an important role to play. Now is the time for courageous actions and strategies,
aimed at implementing a "culture of care" (ibid., 231) and "an integrated approach to combating poverty,
restoring dignity to the excluded, and at the same time protecting nature" (ibid., 139). "We have
the freedom needed to limit and direct technology" (ibid., 112); "to devise intelligent ways of .
. . developing and limiting our power" (ibid., 78); and to put technology "at the service of another
type of progress, one which is healthier, more human, more social, more integral" (ibid., 112). In
this regard, I am confident that America's outstanding academic and research institutions can make
a vital contribution in the years ahead.
... ... ...
...At the risk of oversimplifying, we might say that we live in a culture which pressures
young people not to start a family, because they lack possibilities for the future. Yet this same
culture presents others with so many options that they too are dissuaded from starting a family.
"... Note the adjective " unfettered ". Anything that is not sanctioned by the rule of law is not good for anyone. The challenge today is extractive capitalism. Some of this can be addressed by tax policy. Bankruptcy law needs to be changed to hold liable those executives who take out excessive amounts of funds from an enterprize. Personal property needs need better protection. Existing environmental laws need to be enforced. ..."
"... My understanding is that Pope Francis (I am not Catholic) has spoken about the inherent unfairness of "unrestricted" capitalism. He has not denounced capitalism. His words are painstaking, accurately stated & precise. ..."
"... I like his moves, promoting climate change, making a point in visiting the poorest countries on Earth, and naming Capitalists as members of a greedy system, not capable of taking on the role of providing goods and services to the Needy, and of course, the Pontiff heaps religious obscenities upon the War Mongers, mainly in the West. I am going to give my Bible another chance, here's hoping . ..."
"... He seems to be pointing out a few realities. Which, as others have pointed out is causing much wriggling by those who have complete faith by the dollar in the sky. ..."
"... "The US government gives the Vatican nothing...". Not quite. The US Government gives the Church tax-exemption. ..."
"... Of course all the corporate politicians both Republican and Democrat are going to oppose the Pope. Forget the politicians and let's see how the American people react. I expect the Pope will be warmly received as a man of empathy and humanity who shows concern for the poor. I hope that when he addresses congress he does not pull any of his punches. ..."
I do not mean to misquote him. Pope Francis is a good man, but before he lectures the US on
capitalism, he needs to remember that the Vatican bank has been embroiled in their own banking
scandals. I was raised Catholic. I do not have a good impression of the men who run the church.
They spend a lot of time asking for money, and I always wonder if they are spending it hiring
lawyers for pedophile priests. I like the Pope though. He seems better that the rest of the lot.
I think the tax exemptions for religions should be stopped. Religions spend too much time discriminating
against certain segments of society. I think they are wolves in sheep's clothing.
RoachAmerican 13 Jul 2015 20:19
Note the adjective " unfettered ". Anything that is not sanctioned by the rule of law is
not good for anyone. The challenge today is extractive capitalism. Some of this can be addressed
by tax policy. Bankruptcy law needs to be changed to hold liable those executives who take out
excessive amounts of funds from an enterprize. Personal property needs need better protection.
Existing environmental laws need to be enforced.
William Brown 13 Jul 2015 20:05
I imagine The Pope will say something about an 'eye of a needle'
brianboru1014 13 Jul 2015 19:52
Wall Street via the New York Times and the WS Journal is well on the way to denigrating this
man. Even though most Americans support him, these publications will do everything to belittle
him.
The US government gives "only" tax exempt status. On the other-hand, citizens of the US very
likely raise more money for the Catholic Church than the citizens of any other country.
Ken Barnes -> LivinVirginia 13 Jul 2015 19:30
My understanding is that Pope Francis (I am not Catholic) has spoken about the inherent
unfairness of "unrestricted" capitalism. He has not denounced capitalism. His words are painstaking,
accurately stated & precise. It helps no one in a discussion to change what another has said
& then attempt to debate the misquote.
Greenshoots -> goatrider 13 Jul 2015 19:29
And a shedload of other "purposes" as well:
The exempt purposes set forth in section 501(c)(3) are charitable, religious, educational,
scientific, literary, testing for public safety, fostering national or international amateur sports
competition, and preventing cruelty to children or animals. The term charitable is used in its
generally accepted legal sense and includes relief of the poor, the distressed, or the underprivileged;
advancement of religion; advancement of education or science; erecting or maintaining public buildings,
monuments, or works; lessening the burdens of government; lessening neighborhood tensions; eliminating
prejudice and discrimination; defending human and civil rights secured by law; and combating community
deterioration and juvenile delinquency.
Richard Martin 13 Jul 2015 19:20
Francis really follows in the footsteps of the First Fisherman, radicalised in God's format
.
I like his moves, promoting climate change, making a point in visiting the poorest countries
on Earth, and naming Capitalists as members of a greedy system, not capable of taking on the role
of providing goods and services to the Needy, and of course, the Pontiff heaps religious obscenities
upon the War Mongers, mainly in the West. I am going to give my Bible another chance, here's hoping
.
John Fahy 13 Jul 2015 19:16
He seems to be pointing out a few realities. Which, as others have pointed out is causing
much wriggling by those who have complete faith by the dollar in the sky.
goatrider -> LivinVirginia 13 Jul 2015 19:01
As it does every other religion----
TerryMcGee -> Magali Luna 13 Jul 2015 19:00
Up until this pope, I would have agreed with you. But this pope is different. In one step,
he has taken the papacy from being a major part of the problem to a major force for good. We can't
expect him to fix all the problems in the church and its doctrines - that's not the work of one
generation. But if he can play a major part in fixing the two massive world problems he has focussed
on - climate change and rampant capitalism - he will have done enough for one lifetime.
And I get the impression that he's only warming up....
LivinVirginia -> goatrider 13 Jul 2015 18:34
"The US government gives the Vatican nothing...". Not quite. The US Government gives the Church tax-exemption.
David Dougherty 13 Jul 2015 18:13
Of course all the corporate politicians both Republican and Democrat are going to oppose
the Pope. Forget the politicians and let's see how the American people react. I expect the Pope
will be warmly received as a man of empathy and humanity who shows concern for the poor. I hope
that when he addresses congress he does not pull any of his punches.
Cooper2345 13 Jul 2015 17:59
I like the gift that Morales gave to the Pope, the crucifix over the hammer and sickle. It
shows the victory of Christianity over Soviet communism that one of Francis' predecessors helped
to shepherd. It's a great reminder of a wonderful triumph and reason to be thankful for the genius
of St. John Paul II.
"... By Bill Black, the author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One and an associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Jointly published with http://neweconomicperspectives.org " rel="nofollow">New Economic Perspectives ..."
"... New York Times ..."
"... New York Times ..."
"... laissez faire. ..."
"... The Gospel According to St. Lloyd Blankfein ..."
By Bill Black, the author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One and an associate
professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Jointly published with
http://neweconomicperspectives.org" rel="nofollow">New Economic Perspectives
A New York Times
article entitled "Championing Environment, Francis Takes Aim at Global Capitalism" quotes a conventional
Harvard economist, Robert N. Stavins. Stavins is enraged by Pope Francis' position on the environment
because the Pope is "opposed to the world economic order." The rage, unintentionally, reveals why
conventional economics is the most dangerous ideology pretending to be a "science."
Stavins' attacks on the Pope quickly became personal and dismissive. This is odd, for Pope Francis'
positions on the environment are the same as Stavins' most important positions. Stavins' natural
response to the Pope's views on the environment – had Stavin not been an economist – would have been
along the lines of "Pope Francis is right, and we urgently need to make his vision a reality."
Stavins' fundamental position is that there is an urgent need for a "radical restructuring" of
the markets to prevent them from causing a global catastrophe. That is Pope Francis' fundamental
position. But Stavins ends up mocking and trying to discredit the Pope.
I was struck by the similarity of Stavins response to Pope Francis to the rich man's response
to Jesus. The episode is reported in Matthew, Mark, and Luke in similar terms. I'll use Matthew's
version (KJAV), which begins at 19:16 with the verse:
And, behold, one came and said unto him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may
have eternal life?
Jesus responds:
And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God: but
if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.
The young rich man wants to know which commandments he needs to follow to gain eternal life.
He saith unto him, Which? Jesus said, Thou shalt do no murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery,
Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness,
Honour thy father and thy mother: and, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
The young man saith unto him, All these things have I kept from my youth up: what lack I yet?
The young, wealthy man is enthused. The Rabbi that he believes has the secret of eternal life
has agreed to personally answer his question as to how to obtain it. He passes the requirements the
Rabbi lists, indeed, he has met those requirements since he was a child.
But then Jesus lowers the boom in response to the young man's question on what he "lacks."
Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor,
and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me.
We need to "review the bidding" at this juncture. The young man is wealthy. He believes that Jesus
knows the secret to obtaining eternal life. His quest was to discover – and comply – with the requirement
to achieve eternal life. The Rabbi has told him the secret – and then gone well beyond the young
man's greatest hopes by offering to make him a disciple. The door to eternal life is within the young
man's power to open. All he needs to do is give all that he owns to the poor. The Rabbi goes further
and offers to make the young man his disciple. In exchange, the young man will secure "treasure in
heaven" – eternal life and a place of particular honor for his sacrifice and his faith in Jesus.
Jesus' answer – the answer the young man thought he wished to receive more than anything in the
world – the secret of eternal life, causes the young man great distress.
But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful: for he had great possessions.
The young man rejects eternal life because he cannot bear the thought of giving his "great possessions"
to "the poor." Notice that the young man is not evil. He keeps the commandments. He is eager to do
a "good thing" to gain eternal life. He has "great possessions" and is eager to trade a generous
portion of his wealth as a good deed to achieve eternal life. In essence, he is seeking to purchase
an indulgence from Jesus.
But Jesus' response causes the young, wealthy man to realize that he must make a choice. He must
decide which he loves more – eternal life or his great possessions. He is "sorrowful" for Jesus'
response causes him to realize that he loves having his great possessions for his remaining span
of life on earth more than eternal life itself.
Jesus offers him not only the means to open the door to eternal life but the honor of joining
him as a disciple. The young man is forced by Jesus' offer to realize that his wealth has so fundamentally
changed him that he will voluntarily give up his entry into eternal life. He is not simply "sorrowful"
that he will not enter heaven – he is "sorrowful" to realize that heaven is open to him – but he
will refuse to enter it because of his greed. His wealth has become a golden trap of his own creation
that will damn him. The golden bars of his cell are invisible and he can remove them at any time
and enter heaven, but the young man realizes that his greed for his "great possessions" has become
so powerful that his self-created jail cell has become inescapable. It is only when Jesus opens the
door to heaven that the young man realizes for the first time in his life how completely his great
possessions have corrupted and doomed him. He knows he is committing the suicide of his soul – and
that he is powerless to change because he has been taught to value his own worth as a person by the
extent of his great possessions.
Jesus then makes his famous saying that captures the corrupting effects of great wealth.
Then said Jesus unto his disciples, Verily I say unto you, That a rich man shall hardly enter
into the kingdom of heaven.
And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than
for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.
The remainder of the passage is of great importance to Luther's doctrine of "justification by
faith alone" and leads to Jesus' famous discussion of why "the last shall be first," (in which his
anti-market views are made even more explicit) but the portions I have quoted are adequate to my
purpose.
Pope Francis' positions on the environment and climate are the greatest boon that Stavin has received
in decades. The Pope, like Stavins, tells us that climate change is a disaster that requires urgent
governmental action to fix. Stavins could receive no more joyous news. Instead of being joyous, however,
Stavins is sorrowful. Indeed, unlike the wealthy man who simply leaves after hearing the Rabbi's
views, Stavins rages at and heaps scorn on the prelate, Pope Francis. Stavins' email to the New
York Times about the Pope's position on climate change contains this double ideological smear.
The approach by the pope, an Argentine who is the first pontiff from the developing world,
is similar to that of a "small set of socialist Latin American countries that are opposed to the
world economic order, fearful of free markets, and have been utterly dismissive and uncooperative
in the international climate negotiations," Dr. Stavins said.
Stavins' work explicitly states that the "free markets" he worships are causing "mass extinction"
and a range of other disasters. Stavins' work explicitly states that the same "free markets" are
incapable of change – they cause incentives so perverse that they are literally suicidal – and the
markets are incapable of reform even when they are committing suicide by laissez faire.
That French term is what Stavins uses to describe our current markets. Pope Francis agrees with each
of these points.
Pope Francis says, as did Jesus, that this means that we must not worship "free markets," that
we must think first of the poor, and that justice and fairness should be our guides to proper conduct.
Stavins, like the wealthy young man, is forced to make a choice. He chooses "great possessions."
Unlike the wealthy young man, however, Stavins is enraged rather than "sorrowful" and Stavins lashes
out at the religious leader. He is appalled that an Argentine was made Pope, for Pope Francis holds
views "that are opposed to the world economic order [and] fearful of free markets." Well, yes. A
very large portion of the world's people oppose "the Washington Consensus" and want a very different
"world economic order." Most of the world's top religious leaders are strong critics of the "world
economic order."
As to being "fearful of free markets," Stavins' own work shows that his use of the word "free"
in that phrase is not simply meaningless, but false. Stavins explains that the people, animals, and
plants that are the imminent victims of "mass extinction" have no ability in the "markets" to protect
themselves from mass murder. They are "free" only to become extinct, which makes a mockery of the
word "free."
Similarly, Stavins' work shows that any sentient species would be "fearful" of markets that Stavins
proclaims are literally suicidal and incapable of self-reform. Stavins writes that only urgent government
intervention that forces a "radical restructuring" of the markets can save our planet from "mass
extinction." When I read that I believed that he was "fearful of free markets."
We have all had the experience of seeing the "free markets" blow up the global economy as recently
as 2008. We saw there, as well, that only massive government intervention could save the markets
from a global meltdown. Broad aspects of the financial markets became dominated by our three epidemics
of "accounting control fraud."
Stavins is appalled that a religious leader could oppose a system based on the pursuit and glorification
of "great possessions." He is appalled that a religious leader is living out the Church's mission
to provide a "preferential option for the poor." Stavins hates the Church's mission because it is
"socialist" – and therefore so obviously awful that it does not require refutation by Stavins. This
cavalier dismissal of religious beliefs held by most humans is revealing coming from a field that
proudly boasts the twin lies that it is a "positive" "science." Theoclassical economists embrace
an ideology that is antithetical to nearly every major religion.
Stavins, therefore, refuses to enter the door that Pope Francis has opened. Stavins worships a
system based on the desire to accumulate "great possessions" – even though he knows that the markets
pose an existential threat to most species on this planet and even though he knows that his dogmas
increasingly aid the worst, most fraudulent members of our society to become wealthy through forms
of "looting" (Akerlof and Romer 1993) that make other people poorer. The result is that Stavins denounces
Pope Francis rather than embracing him as his most valuable ally.
Conclusion: Greed and Markets Kill: Suicide by Laissez Faire
The old truths remain. The worship of "great possessions" wreaks such damage on our humanity that
we come to love them more than life itself and act in a suicidal fashion toward our species and as
mass destroyers of other species. Jesus' insight was that this self-corruption is so common, so subtle,
and so powerful that "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich
man to enter into the kingdom of God." Today, he would probably use "economist" rather than "camel."
Theoclassical economists are the high priests of this celebration of greed that Stavins admits
poses the greatest threat to life on our planet. When Pope Francis posed a choice to Stavins, he
chose to maintain his dogmatic belief in a system that he admits is suicidal and incapable of self-reform.
The reason that the mythical and mystical "free markets" that Stavins worships are suicidal and incapable
of self-reform even when they are producing "mass extinction" is that the markets are a system based
on greed and the desire to obtain "great possessions" even if the result is to damn us and life on
our planet.
Adam Smith propounded the paradox that greed could lead the butcher and baker (in a village where
everyone could judge reputation and quality) to reliably produce goods of high quality at the lowest
price. The butcher and baker, therefore, would act (regardless of their actual motivations) as if
they cared about their customers. Smith observed that the customer of small village merchant's products
would find the merchant's self-interest a more reliable assurance of high quality than the merchant's
altruism.
But Stavins makes clear in his writing that this is not how markets function in the context of
"external" costs to the environment. In the modern context, the energy markets routinely function
in a manner that Stavins rightly depicts as leading to mass murder. Stavins so loves the worship
of the quest for "great possessions" that he is eager to try to discredit Pope Francis as a leader
in the effort to prevent "mass extinction" (Stavins' term) – suicide by laissez faire.
(No, I am not now and never was or will be a Catholic.)
The Pope's recent comments stirred an old memory from when I was a child, for some reason.
Growing up in England in the 1980's, it didn't escape even my childish notice that the series
"Dr. Who" was often a vehicle for what would now been deemed outrageously left wing thinking and
ideas.
One such episode was
The Pirate Planet. The plot's premise was that a race had created a mechanism for consuming
entire planets at a time, extracting mineral wealth from the doomed planet being destroyed in
the process and using energy and resources for the benefit of a tiny ruling elite with the remnants
being offered as trinkets for the masses.
A small subset of the evil race was subliminally aware of what was happening. One of the lines
spoken by a character really stuck in my mind, when he said after the reality of their existence
was explained to him "so people die to make us rich?"
At the time, it was intended I think more as an allegory on the exploitation of South African
gold miners under apartheid than as a general critique of capitalism by the prevailing socialist
thinking in Britain in that era (it seems impossible now for me to believe how left wing Britain
was in the late 1970s and even into the very early 1980s, but that is indeed the case; it feels
like it was a completely different country. Perhaps it was ). No wonder the Thatcher government
aggressively targeted the BBC (who produced the show), seeing it, probably rightly, as a hotbed
of Trotskyite ideology.
But the point the show was trying to make is as valid now as it was then and is the same point
the Pope Francis is making. A great deal of our material wealth and affluence is built on others'
suffering. It is wrong. And the system which both perpetrates the suffering and the people who
benefit from it needs to change. Us turkeys are going to have to vote for Christmas.
Nice post, Clive. But I thought Brits ate goose at Christmas, and Americans eat turkey at Thanksgiving
;-)
Yes, where have all the leftists gone? Is Cornel West the only one "left" in America? Forty
years ago I was moving to the Right, in reaction to the Left. The Cold War was still on, patriotism
et al.
The current paradigm is insane so nature will not allow it to continue much longer. G-d not
so much. The US today is qualitatively different than it was in the 70s.
Trotsky was one of the first people to understand Hitler. Stalin not so much. Our current crop
of elder pundits of Neoliberalism originally were Jewish trotskyites back in the 60s. Neoliberalism
was perhaps pragmatic back then, but has outlived its usefulness.
The overweening arrogance of the Thatcherites and the neoclassical ideologues that are in evidence
at Harvard is their insistence that what they peddle is not a set of values, but a "science",
and that their set of values is the only set of values even worth considering (TINA). The Pope's
job is to remind us all of another possible set of values and organizing principles. No one said
you have to believe in them. But they have a right to be on the table when we collectively chose
what kind of world we want to live in.
"All he needs to do is give all that he owns to the poor." Bill Black
No. He is to sell all he owns but Jesus does not say that he is to then give away ALL the money.
The rich guy's problem is his possessions, not money. Note that Matthew, another rich guy, did
not give away all his money yet he was a disciple of Jesus.
As for "free markets", what is free market about government-subsidized/privileged banks?
something didn't read right about this piece to me. hard to put my finger on it, but it came
across as a bit hypocritical and a lot bitter. apart from that, the style is eclectic and the
thoughts are scrambled all over the place. more a rant than a coherent argument.
It all began when I arrived. After travelling some 48 hours from South Africa to Southern
California, carrying films and books for the conference, I was not even met at the airport.
So I took a taxi. But nobody met me at the place where I was supposed to stay. I stood on the
street for more than one hour.
in this passage he sounds like he suffers from affluenza. in those poor but righteous third
world countries, he is treated like a rockstar. in the rotten US, he is dismayed at the lack of
attention. although no doubt he has a point, it smacks a bit of entitlement.
not vltchek's best work, but then again, he did admit to writing most of it on the plane.
it seems impossible now for me to believe how left wing Britain was in the late 1970s
and even into the very early 1980s, but that is indeed the case; it feels like it was a completely
different country.
True. And greed, as described by Bill Black. has no limits.
"Theoclassical economists are the high priests of this celebration of greed that Stavins
admits poses the greatest threat to life on our planet. When Pope Francis posed a choice to
Stavins, he chose to maintain his dogmatic belief in a system that he admits is suicidal and
incapable of self-reform. The reason that the mythical and mystical "free markets" that Stavins
worships are suicidal and incapable of self-reform even when they are producing "mass extinction"
is that the markets are a system based on greed and the desire to obtain "great possessions"
even if the result is to damn us and life on our planet."
This is an extremely important point. We cannot combat neoliberal ideology as if it were simply
a set of rational assumptions, albeit flowing from flawed premises. No, it is a religious
dogma of greed, set up to combat all of the more communitarian and gentle schools of
religious thought– including the Christianity of Pope Francis, or the environmentalism of St.
Francis, the patron saint of ecologists.
Good to see that someone else pulls out the "rich young man" bit occasionally. Not many Christians
I've talked to seem to be aware of it, much less of the implications. Good on ya'.
fundamentalists like to take things in the bible literally, but they know that jesus
didn't mean it when he said that "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle,
than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God"
Maybe he didn't realize that his possessions owned him, but the rich young man knew that *something*
was wrong. For all his virtue and good works, he could feel things weren't right inside himself.
Pope Francis probably hasn't read The Gospel According to St. Lloyd Blankfein. If
he had read it, he would know that investment bankers are doing God's work.
"... Senior Catholic figures in the US and UK have said the Pope's central message is: what sort of world do we want to leave for future generations? ..."
"... Kurtz deflected criticism from Republican president contenders such as Jeb Bush that the Pope was straying from the pulpit into political terrain. "I don't think he is presenting a blue print for saying this is exactly a step by step recipe," Kurtz said. "He is providing a framework and a moral call as a true moral leader to say take seriously the urgency of this matter." ..."
The Pope
has warned of an "unprecedented destruction of ecosystems" and "serious consequences for all
of us" if humanity fails to act on climate change, in his encyclical on the environment, published
by the Vatican on Thursday.
Senior Catholic figures in the US and UK
have said the Pope's central message is: what sort of world do we want to leave for future
generations?
The UN secretary general, the World Bank president, plus the heads of the UN climate talks
and the UN environment programme have all welcomed the encyclical, along with scores of charities
and faith groups.
Church leaders will brief members of Congress on the encyclical on Thursday, and the White
House on Friday on the encyclical. "It is our marching orders for advocacy,"
said Joseph Kurtz, the president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishop
Cardinal Peter Turkson, the pope's top official on social and justice issues, flatly rejected
arguments by some conservative politicians in the US that the pope ought to stay out of science.
"Saying that a pope shouldn't deal with science sounds strange since science is a public domain.
It is a subject matter that anyone can get in to," Turkson said at a press conference on Thursday.
The pontiff's upcoming document is being hailed as a major intervention in the climate change
debate – but what exactly is an encyclical?
In an apparent reference to comments by Republican presidential contender Jeb Bush, who said
he did not take economic advice from the pope, Turkson said that politicians had the right to
disregard Francis's statement, but said it was wrong to do so based on the fact that the pope
was not a scientist.
"For some time now it has been the attempt of the whole world to kind of try to de-emphasise
the artificial split between religion and public life as if religion plays no role," he said.
Then, quoting an earlier pope, he said the best position was to "encourage dialogue between faith
and reason".
The secretary-general welcomes the papal encyclical released today by His Holiness
Pope Francis which
highlights that climate change is one of the principal challenges facing humanity, and that it
is a moral issue requiring respectful dialogue with all parts of society. The secretary-general
notes the encyclical's findings that there is "a very solid scientific consensus" showing significant
warming of the climate system and that most global warming in recent decades is "mainly a result
of human activity".
Ban called on governments to "place the global common good above national interests and to adopt
an ambitious, universal climate agreement" at the UN climate summit in Paris this December.
There are shades of the Pope's own language there. In the encyclical, he says: "International
[climate] negotiations cannot make significant progress due to positions taken by countries which
place their national interests above the global common good".
US church leaders said they saw the message as an urgent call for dialogue
and action – one they intend to amplify on social media and in the pulpit.
"It is our marching orders for advocacy," Joseph Kurtz, the president of the US Conference of
Catholic Bishops and the Archbishop of Louisville. "It really brings about a new urgency for us." Church leaders will brief members of Congress on Thursday, and the White House tomorrow on the
encyclical.
Kurtz deflected
criticism from Republican president contenders such as Jeb Bush that the Pope was straying from
the pulpit into political terrain. "I don't think he is presenting a blue print for saying this is exactly a step by step recipe,"
Kurtz said. "He is providing a framework and a moral call as a true moral leader to say take seriously
the urgency of this matter."
Here's a selection of some more US faith group reaction: Most Reverend Stephen E. Blaire, Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Stockton:
This document written for all people of good will challenges institutions and individuals to
preserve and respect creation as a gift from God to be used for the benefit of all.
Rabbi Marvin Goodman, Rabbi in Residence, Jewish Community Federation and Endowment Fund, San
Francisco:
I'm inspired and grateful for the Pope's high profile leadership and commitment to environmental
justice.
Imam Taha Hassane, Islamic Center of San Diego:
Local and National Muslim Leadership support policies that both halt environmental degradation
and repair that which has already occurred. We stand with any leader, secular or spiritual,
who is willing to speak out against this issue.
Cardinal Vincent Nichols in the UK has echoed
US Archbishop Joseph Edward Kurtz in his view of what the Pope's central message is: what sort
of world do we want to leave for future generations to inherit? The Press Association reports:
Speaking at Our Lady & St Joseph's Catholic Primary School, in Poplar, east London, against the
backdrop of the skyscrapers of Canary Wharf, Cardinal Vincent Nichols said one of the key messages
of the document was asking "what kind of world we want to leave to those who come afterwards".
The pope's message challenged the idea that infinite material progress was possible, with more
goods and more consumption, that "we have to have the latest phone", said the cardinal, who is
head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales.
The US House of Representatives'
Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition says – in an apparent reference to climate denial
on the US right – that "the political will of many is still askew" when it comes to tackling global
warming. It hopes the Pope's encyclical might change that:
For those unmoved by the science of climate change, we hope that Pope Francis' encyclical demonstrates
the virtue and moral imperative for action. Today's announcement further aligns the scientific
and moral case for climate action, yet the political will of many is still askew. The time to
act on climate is now, and failure to do so will further damage the planet, its people, and our
principles.
Pope Francis's guidance as a pastor and a teacher shines a light on the moral obligation we all
share to address the climate crisis that transcends borders and politics. This Encyclical underscores
the need for climate action not just to protect our environment, but to protect humankind and
the most vulnerable communities among us. The vision laid out in these teachings serves as inspiration
to everyone across the world who seeks a more just, compassionate, and healthy future.
In case you don't have enough time to read the 100+ page encyclical itself (the length varies depending
on the language and font size of the versions kicking around),
Some more reaction from UK charities on how governments meeting in Paris later this year should listen
to the Pope.
Adriano Campolina, chief executive of ActionAid International, said:
The Pope's message highlights the important links between climate change, poverty and overconsumption.
They are part of the same problem and any lasting solution to climate change must tackle these
fundamental issues.
The powerful truth in Pope Francis' message reaches far beyond the Catholic
Church or climate campaigners. Action on climate requires both environmental and social justice.
As negotiators work on a climate deal for Paris, our leaders must show the same moral and political
courage that Pope Francis has.
Christian conservation group A Rocha said: "national governments should follow the Pope's example
and take 'meaningful action' on climate change".
One of the most senior figures in the US Catholic church, Joseph Edward Kurtz, Archbishop of Louisville,
has been speaking at a US press conference. He said that that perhaps the central message of the
encyclical is: what kind of world do we want to leave to those who come after us?
Here are some
highlights from Kurtz:
It's really a very beautiful and very extensive treatment of what Pope Francis has called our
common home.
...
The Pope over and over again says that care for the things of this Earth is necessarily bound
with care for one another and especially those who are poor. He calls it an interdependency.
...
He speaks on very indivudal choices as well as the public sphere
...
Over and over again he talks about the world as a gift
...
He uses a phrase he's used very often: to reject a throwaway culture.
...
He talks about very specific things, about slums in which people are forced to live, the lack
of clean water, about the consumerism mentality.
And that perhaps this is the centre of his message: what kind of world do we want to leave
to those who come after us?
...
Our pope is speaking with a very much pastor's voice and with a deep respect for the role of
science.
Three essential areas that our Catholic community is being called to being involved in:
1) to advocate, a local, national and global level, to advocate for the common good. We know
that faith if done well, actually enriches public life. And we know that technology tells us what
we can do, but we need moral voices that tell us what we should do
2) [the video cut out at this point so I'm afraid I missed his second point]
3) The use of our resources, in whole we build buildings, should honour the Earth
Here's the Pope himself on that issue of what we leave future generations:
Leaving an inhabitable planet to future generations is, first and foremost, up to us. The issue
is one which dramatically affects us, for it has to do with the ultimate meaning of our earthly
sojourn.
We may well be leaving to coming generations debris, desolation and filth. The pace
of consumption, waste and environmental change has so stretched the planet's capacity that our
contemporary lifestyle, unsustainable as it is, can only precipitate catastrophes, such as those
which even now periodically occur in different areas of the world. The effects of the present
imbalance can only be reduced by our decisive action, here and now.
Summary
The Pope
has warned of an "unprecedented destruction of ecosystems" and "serious consequences for all
of us" if humanity fails to act on climate change, in his encyclical on the environment, published
by the Vatican on Thursday
The
pontiff said that the world should phase out coal in favour of gas, while renewable energy
technology scales up
The heads of the
UN climate talks and the
UN environment programme have said the Pope's intervention should act as a "clarion call"
for governments meeting in a bid to work out a climate change deal at a summit in Paris later
this year
Today's release of Pope Francis' first encyclical should serve as a stark reminder to all of us
of the intrinsic link between climate change and poverty. We know the scientific, business and
economic case for action to combat climate change and I welcome the pope's emphasis on our moral
obligation to act.
He added:
The pope's encyclical comes at a pivotal moment in the lead up to December's Paris meeting on
climate change.
The World Council of Churches welcomes Pope Francis' encyclical which catalyses what churches
and ecumenical organizations have been doing for decades on caring for the earth and climate justice
issues. By affirming human induced climate change and its impacts on the poorest and most vulnerable
communities, the Encyclical is an important call to urgently act as individuals, citizens and
also at the international level to effectively respond to the climate crisis.
Dr. Steven Timmermans, executive director of the Christian Reformed Church in North America, said:
We affirm Pope Francis' moral framing of the threats posed by climate change. We have too many
brothers and sisters around the world living on the edge of poverty whose livelihoods are threatened-and
too many little ones in our congregations set to inherit a dangerously broken world-to believe
otherwise. For too long the church has been silent about the moral travesty of climate change.
Today, the Pope has said, 'Enough is enough,' and the Christian Reformed Church welcomes his voice.
Sister Pat McDermott, president of the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas, said:
We welcome Pope Francis' critique of the current, dominant economic model that prioritizes the
market, profit and unharnessed consumption and regards Earth as a resource to be exploited.
Rev. Mitch Hescox, president of the US-based Evangelical Environmental Network, which lobbies American
politicians on environmental issues, welcomed the Pope's encyclical. He
said:
It's time to make hope happen by fuelling the unstoppable clean energy transition, stopping the
ideological battles, and working together.
Creating a new energy economy that benefits all and addresses climate change is not about a
political party but living as a disciple of Jesus Christ. We urge all people of good will, especially
fellow Christian conservatives to read and study these timely words from Pope Francis.
The New York Times' Justin Gillis says (fairly, in my opinion) that the Pope is more cautious on
the science behind climate change than many scientists.
...amid all his soaring rhetoric, did the pope get the science right?
The short answer from
climate and environmental scientists is that he did, at least to the degree possible in a religious
document meant for a broad audience. If anything, they say, he may have bent over backward to
offer a cautious interpretation of the scientific facts.
For example, a substantial body of published science says that human emissions have caused
all the global warming that has occurred over the past century. Yet in his letter, Francis does
not go quite that far, citing volcanoes, the sun and other factors that can influence the climate
before he concludes that "most global warming in recent decades is due to the great concentration
of greenhouse gases" released mainly by human activity.
The world's most authoritative body on climate science, the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change, found in
its landmark report last year that global warming is "unequivocal" and humanity's role in causing
it is "clear".
In some places, cooperatives are being developed to exploit renewable sources of energy which
ensure local self-sufficiency and even the sale of surplus energy. This simple example shows that,
while the existing world order proves powerless to assume its responsibilities, local individuals
and groups can make a real difference.
Bob Perciasepe of US thinktank Center for Climate and Energy Solutions,
has blogged on the unique role the Pope can play in the climate change arena and how he might
influence American minds:
Scientists, environmentalists, politicians, business executives, and military leaders have all
raised concerns for years about the real risks of climate change. But few individuals are as influential
as the pope. By calling on people to act on their conscience, Pope Francis provides a powerful
counterpoint to what has become a largely ideologically-driven debate, especially here in the
United States.
The publication of the Pope's encyclical is of enormous significance. He has shown great wisdom
and leadership. Pope Francis is surely absolutely right that climate change raises vital moral
and ethical issues. It is poor people around the world who are most vulnerable to the impacts
of climate change, such as an intensification of extreme weather events. And the decisions that
we make about managing the risks of climate change matter not only for us, but also for our children,
grandchildren and future generations.
He added:
Moral leadership on climate change from the Pope is particularly important because of the failure
of many heads of state and government around the world to show political leadership.
And here's what the Pope himself says about world leaders' failure to act on climate change and
environmental problems:
Many of those who possess more resources and economic or political power seem mostly to be concerned
with masking the problems or concealing their symptoms, simply making efforts to reduce some of
the negative impacts of climate change.
The pope's effort to sever the link between population growth and environmental deterioration
should not, however, detract from the importance of what else he has to say. This is the first encyclical
to be devoted entirely to environmental issues, though it is certainly not the first time a pope
has spoken out on the destruction of the environment.
As the encyclical notes, Paul VI first raised the issue as long ago as 1971, describing it as
a "tragic consequence" of uncontrolled human activity. Saint John Paul II and his successor, Benedict
XVI, inveighed against mankind's ill-treatment of nature – or as they viewed it, creation.
Far more explicitly than his predecessors, however, Francis heaps the blame on to the part of
humanity that is rich. He accepts that the poorer nations should "acknowledge the scandalous level
of consumption in some privileged sectors of their population and combat corruption more effectively."
They ought also to develop less pollutant sources of energy.
The Pope suggests that you can't care about nature and support abortion, which the Catholic church
strongly opposes:
Since everything is interrelated, concern for the protection of nature is also incompatible with
the justification of abortion. How can we genuinely teach the importance of concern for other
vulnerable beings, however troublesome or inconvenient they may be, if we fail to protect a human
embryo, even when its presence is uncomfortable and creates difficulties?
The other elephant in the room is birth control and overpopulation, though the Pope seems to have
anticipated criticism on that. He takes the line,
supported by many environmentalists, that consumption is the problem, not overpopulation. The
encyclical says:
To blame population growth instead of extreme and selective consumerism on the part of some, is
one way of refusing to face the issues.
The head of the UN's environment programme, Achim Steiner, has echoed
the UN's climate chief in saying today's text should be a clarion call for action.
This encyclical is a clarion call that resonates not only with Catholics, but with all of the
Earth's peoples. Science and religion are aligned on this matter: The time to act is now.
We
(UNEP) share Pope Francis' view that our response to environmental degradation and climate change
cannot only be defined by science, technology or economics, but is also a moral imperative. We
must not overlook that the world's poorest and most vulnerable suffer most from the changes we
are seeing. Humanity's environmental stewardship of the planet must recognise the interests of
both current and future generations.
Each year sees the disappearance of thousands of plant and animal species which we will never
know, which our children will never see, because they have been lost for ever. The great majority
become extinct for reasons related to human activity.
...
a sober look at our world shows that the degree of human intervention, often in the service
of business interests and consumerism, is actually making our earth less rich and beautiful, ever
more limited and grey, even as technological advances and consumer goods continue to abound limitlessly.
We seem to think that we can substitute an irreplaceable and irretrievable beauty with something
which we have created ourselves.
On GM
It is difficult to make a general judgement about genetic modification (GM) ... The risks involved
are not always due to the techniques used, but rather to their improper or excessive application
... This is a complex environmental issue
On water quality
One particularly serious problem is the quality of water available to the poor. Every day, unsafe
water results in many deaths and the spread of water-related diseases, including those caused
by microorganisms and chemical substances.
On fossil fuels
We know that technology based on the use of highly polluting fossil fuels – especially coal, but
also oil and, to a lesser degree, gas – needs to be progressively replaced without delay. Until
greater progress is made in developing widely accessible sources of renewable energy, it is legitimate
to choose the lesser of two evils or to find short-term solutions.
At the Vatican press conference, Peter Turkson, a Ghanian cardinal of the Catholic church, says US
climate sceptics are entitled to their view.
"The other big thing about Republicans and presidential figures saying they will not listen to
the Pope is that is their freedom, their freedom of choice," he said, in an apparent reference to
Jeb Bush (see
11:21).
He said "it's easy to say because the Pope is not a scientist he shouldn't talk about science",
and said "I would not attach much credibility" to those criticisms.
The pontiff included a personal handwritten note in his communication. It ended with a plea for help:
"United in the lord, and please do not forget to pray for me."
One recurring motif throughout the encyclical is a general scepticism or outright hostility to
technological solutions to environmental challenges, and to the role that big business should play
in tackling climate change.
For example:
Technology, which, linked to business interests, is presented as the only way of solving these
problems, in fact proves incapable of seeing the mysterious network of relations between things
and so sometimes solves one problem only to create others
...
To seek only a technical remedy to each environmental problem which comes up is to separate
what is in reality interconnected and to mask the true and deepest problems of the global system.
He doesn't like carbon trading either. In this passage he seems to be referring to the only current
global carbon trading scheme, the
CDM:
The strategy of buying and selling "carbon credits" can lead to a new form of speculation which
would not help reduce the emission of polluting gases worldwide. This system seems to provide
a quick and easy solution under the guise of a certain commitment to the environment, but in no
way does it allow for the radical change which present circumstances require. Rather, it may simply
become a ploy which permits maintaining the excessive consumption of some countries and sectors.
And some sections sound like they could have been ghostwritten by Guardian columnist George Monbiot:
Is it realistic to hope that those who are obsessed with maximizing profits will stop to reflect
on the environmental damage which they will leave behind for future generations?
The Pope isn't just concerned about climate change. He has some very colourful turns of phrase about
other environmental problems, such as pollution and waste:
The earth, our home, is beginning to look more and more like an immense pile of filth. In many
parts of the planet, the elderly lament that once beautiful landscapes are now covered with rubbish.
The Pope makes reference to the huge body of work by national science academies and international
bodies such as the IPCC on climate science:
A very solid scientific consensus indicates that we are presently witnessing a disturbing warming
of the climatic system.
He warns of serious consequences if we don't act on climate change:
If present trends continue, this century may well witness extraordinary climate change and an
unprecedented destruction of ecosystems, with serious consequences for all of us.
As many studies have already pointed out, the Pope notes that the world's poor are expected to
suffer most from global warming:
It [climate change] represents one of the principal challenges facing humanity in our day. Its
worst impact will probably be felt by developing countries in coming decades. Many of the poor
live in areas particularly affected by phenomena related to warming, and their means of subsistence
are largely dependent on natural reserves and ecosystemic services such as agriculture, fishing
and forestry.
The message brought an outpouring of support from environmental groups, climate scientists, and
leaders of all religions, eager to counter a series of pre-emptive attacks on the Pope from conservatives.
The response was a first glimpse of a vast and highly organised mobilisation effort around the
letter visit, and a papal visit to the US in September.
The Pope will get an another chance to exhort leaders to act – this time in person – when he addresses
both houses of Congress.
With that high profile visit in mind, campaigners argued the Pope's intervention had re-set the
parameters of the discussion surrounding climate change, from narrow political agenda to broader
morality. The Pope's message was above religion, they said.
"The Pope's message applies to all of us," said Rhea Suh, president of the Natural Resources Defense
Council. "He is imploring people of good will everywhere to honour our moral obligation to protect
future generations from the dangers of further climate chaos by embracing our ethical duty to act,"
she said.
Cafod, the Catholic charity went so far as to suggest that that was the Pope's design all along.
"The Pope has deliberately released the encyclical in a year of key UN moments that will affect
humanity," said Neil Thomas, director of advocacy. "He is reading the signs of his times and telling
us that the human and environmental costs of our current way of life are simply too high."
Ray Bradley, the climate scientist, said: "He has no political agenda. He speaks from the heart
(not the Heartland) with unimpeachable moral authority. Who else can address this issue without the
taint of politics? Moreover, Pope Francis has a particular responsibility to those without a voice
at the centres of power in affluent countries.
But the Pope's message is expected to resonate most strongly among the environmental campaigners
operating within the Church.
For activist priests and nuns, who have lobbied oil companies and called on their own parishes
to divest, the encyclical puts the Vatican's stamp of approval on years of effort, often at the sidelines.
That on its own has galvanised campaigners, said Sister Joan Brown, a Franciscan in New Mexico
who has worked on climate change for more than 20 years.
"I've never seen anything like this in the faith community or otherwise," she said.
The pope's message set off a flood of new activity that has been more than a year in the planning.
In deference to the Pope, mainstream environmental groups will be operating in the background.
"We've been asking environmental groups to hold back on this...so that the message isn't one that
would maybe cause more polarisation, rather than less," Sister Joan said.
But the Catholic church – and activist wings among other religious communities – are jumping in
to try and amplify thePope's message and build momentum for action on climate.
The archbishop's office in Atlanta signed up scientists and engineers to help parishes, and parishioners,
reduce their carbon footprint. The Bishop of Des Moines is planning to hold a press conference at
a wind farm.
The Evangelical Environmental Network also came out strongly behind the Pope.
More than 300 rabbis signed on to a letter calling on Jewish institutions and individuals to divest
from "carbon Pharaohs" or coal-based electric power, and buy wind power instead.
As Pope Francis reaffirms, climate change is an all-encompassing threat: it is a threat to our
security, our health, and our sources of fresh water and food ... I applaud the Pope for his strong
moral and ethical leadership. We need more of such inspired leadership. Will we see it at the
climate summit in Paris?
The Pope is right – climate change is a problem for all of humanity that is hitting the world's
poorest hardest. His words could and should add real urgency to efforts to protect people and
planet. World leaders meeting at the UN climate talks in Paris later this year should be in no
doubt that the world expects them to put aside short-term national interest and move us all closer
to a safer and more prosperous future.
Andrew Steer, president and chief executive of the US-based World Resources Institute:
The pope's message brings moral clarity that the world's leaders must come together to address
this urgent human challenge. This message adds to the global drumbeat of support for urgent climate
action. Top scientists, economists, business leaders and the pope can't all be wrong.
The encyclical is unimpressed by those who deny the science of climate change:
regrettably, many efforts to seek concrete solutions to the environmental crisis have proved ineffective,
not only because of powerful opposition but also because of a more general lack of interest. Obstructionist
attitudes, even on the part of believers, can range from denial of the problem to indifference,
nonchalant resignation or blind confidence in technical solutions.
The pushback from Republican and the rest of the US right, where climate scepticism is a badge
of honour, has already begun. Jeb Bush, the Republican presidential candidate,
said yesterday: "I hope I'm not going to get castigated for saying this by my priest back home,
but I don't get economic policy from my bishops or my cardinal or my pope."
And as our US environment correspondent Suzanne Goldenberg found out last week at a gathering
of US climate sceptics, the Pope's encyclical is at the top of their list of concerns.
Suzanne Goldenberg visits the Heartland Institute's conference in Washington, an annual gathering
of climate sceptics, to hear what delegates – including US senator James Inhofe and blogger Marc
Morano – think about the Pope's encyclical on the environment and climate change
Christiana Figueres, the UN's climate chief, says the Pope's intervention should act as a "clarion
call" for a strong deal at Paris:
Pope Francis' encyclical underscores the moral imperative for urgent action on climate change
to lift the planet's most vulnerable populations, protect development, and spur responsible growth.
This clarion call should guide the world towards a strong and durable universal climate agreement
in Paris at the end of this year. Coupled with the economic imperative, the moral imperative leaves
no doubt that we must act on climate change now.
Christiana Figueres. Photograph: Martin Godwin/Martin Godwin
But the Pope isn't very impressed by more than 20 years of UN climate talks. He says the annual
summits have produced "regrettably few" advances on efforts to cut carbon emissions and rein in global
warming. The encyclical says:
It is remarkable how weak international political responses have been. The failure of global summits
on the environment make it plain that our politics are subject to technology and finance. There
are too many special interests, and economic interests easily end up trumping the common good
and manipulating information so that their own plans will not be affected.
John Schellnhuber, Angela Merkel's climate adviser and a leading climate change scientist, is punning
his way through a presentation at the encyclical's launch, "praying" his Powerpoint will work.
Of the encyclical, he said:
it is very unique in the sense that it brings together two strong powers in the world, namely
faith and moral and on the other reason and ingenuity. It's an environmental crisis but also a
social crisis. These two things together pose an enormouse challenge. Only if these two things
work together, faith and reason, can we overcome it
A spokesman for the Vatican told a packed press conference in the Vatican audience hall this morning
that in his 25 years there he has worked there, he has never seen as much prolonged, global and intense
anticipation for a single document, AP reports.
The press conference is being live-streamed on YouTube:
The more-than-100 page text is wide-ranging,
majoring on climate change, but also touching on pollution, biodiversity loss, the oceans, man's
modern relationship with nature, the dangers of relying on the markets and technology, and overconsumption.
The more than 190 countries involved in the international climate change will be keenly watching
the text too – it could have a big impact on the talks ahead of a
major summit in Paris later this year.
"... "Humanity is called to recognize the need for changes of lifestyle, production and consumption, in order to combat this warming or at least the human causes which produce or aggravate it," he adds. ..."
Pope Blames Markets for Environment's Ills. Pontiff condemns global warming as outgrowth of global consumerism. Pope Francis said human activity is the cause of climate change, which threatens the poor and
future generations.
ROME- Pope Francis in his much-awaited encyclical on the environment offered a broad and uncompromising
indictment of the global market economy, accusing it of plundering the Earth at the expense of the
poor and of future generations.
In passionate language, the pontiff attributed global warming to human activity, blamed special
interests for holding back policy responses and said the global North owes the South "an ecological
debt."
The 183-page document, which Pope Francis addresses to "every person living on this planet," includes
pointed critiques of globalization and consumerism, which he says lead to environmental degradation.
"The Earth, our home, is beginning to look more and more like an immense pile of filth," he writes.
The encyclical's severe language stirred immediate controversy, signaling the weight the pontiff's
stance could have on the pitched debate over how to respond to climate change.
"Economic powers continue to justify the current global system where priority tends to be given
to speculation and the pursuit of financial gain," he writes. "As a result, whatever is fragile,
like the environment, is defenseless before the interests of the deified market, which become the
only rule."
The Vatican published the document, titled "Laudato Si" ("Be praised"), on Thursday. The official
release came three days after the online publication of a leaked version by an Italian magazine.
The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, had described the leaked Italian text as a
draft, but the final document, published in eight languages, differed only in minor ways, while the
pope's main points were identical. An encyclical is considered one of the most authoritative forms
of papal writing.
In the encyclical, Pope Francis wades into the debate over the cause of global warming, lending
high-profile support to those who attribute it to human activity.
A "very solid scientific consensus indicates that we are presently witnessing a disturbing warming
of the climactic system," contributing to a "constant rise in the sea level" and an "increase of
extreme weather events," he writes.
"Humanity is called to recognize the need for changes of lifestyle, production and consumption,
in order to combat this warming or at least the human causes which produce or aggravate it," he
adds.
While acknowledging natural causes for climate change, including volcanic activity and the solar
cycle, Pope Francis writes that a "number of scientific studies indicate that most global warming
in recent decades is due to the great concentration of greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, methane,
nitrogen oxides and others) released mainly as a result of human activity."
The pontiff goes on to argue that there is "an urgent need" for policies to drastically cut the
emission of carbon dioxide and other gases and promote the switch to renewable sources of energy.
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'Laudato Si' in Full
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On Global Warming, Pope Francis Is Clear but U.S. Catholics are Divided
Scientists Back Pope Francis on Global Warming
The Last but not LeastTechnology is dominated by
two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand ~Archibald Putt.
Ph.D
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